SHARK CONSERVATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
Take a two-week trip that you will never forget as a volunteer with sharks on a beautiful stretch of South Africa's coastline. Head out to sea to witness one of the world's most powerful (and most misunderstood) creatures on this inspiring project, enjoying watching them from both above and below water.
The DAY-BY-DAY schedule
Day 1: Arrive in Cape Town on a Sunday. You will be collected from the airport and spend your first night in a guest house in the city centre.
Day 2: You will be collected bright and early from the guest house and taken down to the project. The drive takes about 90 minutes. You will receive a welcome and head out to sea to witness your first sharks!
Day 3+: Most days you will be out on the boat with the sharks, depending on weather. Help out with the full range of tasks on the boats, and in conservation initiatives on land too.
Last day: On the final day of your project you will be taken back to Cape Town for your onward travel.
The price is £829, including the voluntary work programme with accommodations, airport transfers, one night in a guest house in Cape Town, breakfasts daily and lunches when on the boats. Your trip can be extended at a cost of £375 per week.
It is an amazing experience! Some volunteers planned to stay for 4 weeks, extended to 6 weeks and still didn't want to come home. If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help, we're very happy to help.
Call us at 01273 823 700.
Email us at rosy@responsibletravel.com.
In our magazine's document room, from the June 1920 issue, I discovered a piece, What Editors Do, by Hazel Miller. What she talks about caught my eye: The first World War and its ending just two years before.
“During 1917 and 1918, when the World War was going, there was a huge demand for war material,” Miller writes. “Most magazines were carrying practically nothing but war stories. When the War ended in November, 1918, some editors still had a goodly supply of war fiction and articles—for which they had paid real money—on their hands, which most people by now are fed up with.”
Her words have stuck with me for the past 12 months as we've weighed which COVID-19 stories to run and which to hold. I'm writing these words with thick snow outside my window, but they will reach you in the green of spring. Will you be vaccinated(接种疫苗) and tired of reading about COVID-19 then?
We say writing is an art, and publishing is a business, but I worry we forget that publishing is also a gamble(赌博), Except for the immediate publication, everyone in the industry—agents, acquiring editors, magazine and journal editors, etc.—are betting on a story's success in a future we cannot see. As is the nature of fortune telling, we are not so sure we will not occasionally lose: The 1920 editors sitting on a store of war stories no one wants, for example.
With so many factors outside your control, and so much uncertainty in the industry, isn't it better to have stories written from the heart that you are truly enthusiastic about rather than some to please an ever-changing publishing market?
My future reader, it's my hope that this issue finds you this spring doing just that: Writing the stories you need to tell—and the ones that will delight your own future readers for years to come.
Driving to the east from city center of Yinchuan, capital city in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, millions of midnight blue solar panels would suddenly come into view on the slopes of gullies, like a blue ocean.
All that sunlight absorbed by the more than 2 million photovoltaic (PV) panels is converted into electricity that flows into the grid, creating the world's largest PV power plant and powers cities across the country. Under the panels are also planted goji, which with the solar park together turned the once deserted land into an “oasis” and helped locals to lead better lives. Then in 2016, to make full use of the land, over the goji plantation, Huawei Smart PV supported the Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group in building a solar power system, which can also conserve energy and reduce emissions.
Through the efforts, the vegetation coverage has now increased from 30 percent to 85 percent, which has also significantly improved the regional climate. At the end of December last year, compared with traditional coal power station, the solar farm is estimated to reduce emissions of CO2 by 2.047 million tons, equal to planting around 89 million trees.
The average annual power generation income is expected to be more than 100 million yuan, benefiting more than 26,000 poor households in 349 low-income villages. By the end of 2020, the per capita disposable income of farmers in Hongde village has already reached 10,686 yuan.
Aside from the economic benefit, solar PV power generation is also one of the top 10 targeted poverty alleviation projects in China. Since 2014, the country has made relevant plans, strengthened power grid building and operation services, and promoted various solar photovoltaic poverty alleviation projects funded by the government and carried out by enterprises.
“Poverty alleviation is just a first step, we are highly motivated now, and after five years, you will see an even better picture,” a local resident told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The vaccine (疫苗) news continues to seem very encouraging. Britain started its mass vaccination effort and the U.S. isn't far behind.
But there is still one dark cloud hanging over the vaccines that many people don't yet understand.
The vaccines will be much less effective at preventing death and illness in 2021 if they are introduced into a population where the coronavirus is still severe—as is now the case in the U.S.
A vaccine is like a fire hose (消防龙头). A vaccine that's 95 percent effective, as Moderna's and Pfizer's versions appear to be, is a powerful fire hose. But the size of a fire is still a bigger determinant of how much destruction occurs.
At the current level of infection in the U.S. (about 200,000 confirmed new infections per day), a vaccine that is 95 percent effective—distributed at the expected pace—would still leave a terrible toll (伤亡人数) in the six months after it was introduced. Almost 10 million or so Americans would catch the virus, and more than 160,000 would die.
This is far worse than the toll in a different situation where the vaccine was only 50 percent effective but the U.S. had reduced the infection rate to its level in early September (about 35,000 new daily cases). In that case, the death toll in the next six months would be kept to about 60,000.
It's worth pausing for a moment on this comparison. If the U.S. had maintained its infection rate from September and Moderna and Pfizer had announced this fall that their vaccines were only 50 percent effective, a lot of people would have panicked.
But the reality we have is actually worse.
How could this be? No vaccine can get rid of a pandemic immediately, just as .no fire hose can put out a forest fire. While the vaccine is being distributed, the virus continues to do damage.
There is one positive way to look at this: Measures that reduce the virus's spread—like mask-wearing, social distancing and rapid-result testing—can still have great consequences. They can save more than 100,000 lives in coming months.
Helping people is the backbone of a healthy society. This statement is true and the following are some of the major benefits of assisting other people.
Researchers have done lots of work to prove that helping others does have a great effect on a person's happiness. Even though we usually feel the urge to compete with other people, taking time to assist others can be very beneficial to us. The key to internal joy and happiness is simply helping those in need.
Build trust. When people see that you have genuine intentions of assisting them, it is likely they are going to be very grateful. Helping people is also a good way to create and develop trusty relationship, particularly if you never expect anything to be given to you in return.
Improve the community. The mentality of helping people is increasing in popularity since more people have realized that we do not need to fight for survival. A rising number of individuals now assist others without asking for anything back. This has resulted in the change in attitude and people are now more giving, more willing and also much readier to offer assistance.
Helping other people is important as it helps to connect many people together.
The end result is an inspired community in general.
|
A. Increase happiness. B. Improve mental health. C. This improves the whole community and changes the atmosphere. D. It is believed that helping others is basically helping yourself. E. As a result, they see you as a caring person and begin to trust you. F. If you often help others, you will become a more responsible person. G. Those who offer help and get help come together and inspire one another. |
NASA physicist and mathematician Katherine Johnson passed away on February 24, 2020. The 101-year-old African American woman was a1figure, who played a significant part in the early successes of the U.S.2program.
Her story was barely3to the public until 2016, when a movie called Hidden Figures was4. It follows the lives of Johnson and two other great African American women.
With5but a pencil and a slide rule, Johnson6the exact flight paths for the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon in 1969.
“We're7by the passing of celebrated mathematician Katherine Johnson. Today, we8her 101 years of life and9her legacy of excellence that10racial and social barriers,” NASA posted on social media.
Johnson11high school at the age of 10 and graduated at 14. The following year she entered West Virginia State College. By her junior year, she had taken every math course the school had to offer. She finished college in 1937 with a double12in French and mathematics. In 1939, Johnson and two other13students became the first three African American students selected for a graduate program at West Virginia University, an 14school in Morgantown. Then she had her15at NASA, from 1953 to 1986.
Why so many middle school friendships don't last We spent hours on the phone, giggled about others, experimented with makeup and sat at the same cafeteria table every day. I made two (good) friends in middle school and for the two years that followed, I had a lot of fun with them as we (spend) adolescence together. And then the fun came to a sudden stop.
Sometime around the start of high school, I had a quarrel with one of my best friends, the other one and I just drifted apart. The friendships broke up relatively quickly. In the end, things turned out OK. I found new friends and life went on, but it's been mystery to me as to why both of my old, dear friends fell away.
According to a scientific study, the differences between friends are bad their friendships, (cause) conflict, differences interfere with cooperative activities and shared pleasures.
When I think about it, I realize there were plenty of (difference) between my old friends and me. As we grew (old) ,those differences—academic, social, etc. —became more obvious. Maybe had I known (exact) how common they were in the teen years, I might have felt less (depress) about the whole thing back then. So if you experience friend loss, it's not your fault. It's just science.
1）举办“研学报道”征文比赛的目的；
2）参赛的具体要求及说明：
①文章篇幅500字，报道我校今年“研学”情况；
②将稿件投给校英语报，截止日期2021年9月30日（星期四）；
③学校外教任大赛评委；
3）获奖者将颁予证书（certificate），以资鼓励。
注意：1）词数80左右；
2）可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
As Lia Bentley walked home from school on a cold October afternoon, she saw symmetry (对称) all around her: in the faces of people and the clothes they wore, in the buildings she passed and in the cars that went by. the birds in the sky were symmetrical, even the autumn leaves that covered the sidewalk.
All the month, Lia's class had been studying different forms of symmetry, and Lia was very interested. Mr. Ferris, their science teacher, had given them their final task: to find the most beautiful example of symmetry and give a report to the class on it.
Lia looked at the task in her notebook. The most beautiful example of symmetry, she thought. What on earth could that be? Halfway through the school year, she'd been given a microscope (显微镜) for her birthday. Now she realized that she could use it to study symmetry. She set up what she called “laboratory” in the small wooden house. The microscope stood on a table. She hoped to find an example of symmetry that would stand out from all the others. Lia spent hours on the examination of cells and drops of pond water full of strange symmetrical life. Although she was surprised by what she saw, it troubled her that none of it was truly beautiful. Lia stayed in the wooden house until her father called her inside. “Come on, Lia. It's getting cold out. The weather forecast says it's going to snow.”
Lia suddenly felt sad. Snow meant winter was on its way. The cold weather would mean fewer things to look at under the microscope. Snow would often cover the area like a blanket, hiding everything from sight.
“Come inside!” her father called again.
“Be there in a minute, Dad!” Lia called back.
Just then, the door of the wooden house was blown open by s short strong wind. As she turned her head against the wind, she caught sight of a single snowflake (雪花) that had blown into the wooden house and onto the stage (载物台) of her microscope.
注意：
1）续写词数应在150左右；
2）请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
Lia looked through the microscope, and to her surprise, she saw the most beautiful example of symmetry she could ever have imagined.
Suddenly, Lia had an idea –– she ran to her house and picked up her camera.
