Cruising (乘船游览) the Rhine; a family trip
Create family memories during our popular Rhine River cruise!
Days 1& 2 — Leave for Zurich, Switzerland
Depart from the US on a flight to Zurich and transfer to Basel to get on MS Amadeus Queens, where each adult and child will receive a special Welcome Package with general information about the cruise. The travel director will be on board to offer suggestions on independent activities. Then the ship will depart from Basel for Strasbourg and the passengers will gather for a welcome party and dinner on the ship.
Day 3 — Strasbourg
Choice 1— Strasbourg Panoramic Tour
This tour shows the most important city of France's Alsace Region and the capital of the European Union. After the tour, you can enjoy a guided walk through Strasbourg's historic center and visit Notre Dame Cathedral.
Choice 2 — Culinary Strasbourg
It offers insight into the city's culinary heritage. Strasbourg is famous for its cooking throughout France. In "Winstubs", small wine bars, typical of Strasbourg, traditional dishes can be enjoyed.
Day 4 — Speyer/Heidelberg
Choice 1—Technic Museum in Speyer
Explore inside an original huge plane and study the inner workings of a sea rescue boat. You'll find the largest space flight exhibition in Europe, showing the Russian spacecraft Buran, a real moonstone, spacesuits as well as classic cars, fire trucks, motorcycles, and other exhibits.
Choice 2 — Heidelberg Castle and Town
Explore historic Heidelberg and visit the red-walled castle. See beautiful views of the Neckar Valley and the city below.
Choice 3 — Hike Heidelberg's Philosopher's Way
Hike the famous "Philosopher's Way" for impressive views of Heidelberg Castle and the old town. Take a rest in Philosopher's Garden while enjoying the view along with snacks and drinks.
My sister Alice and I have been trying to get people to stop dropping cigarette (香烟) butts (烟头) for seven years. One day, we were walking in our hometown and saw hundreds of cigarette butts on the ground. They made the town look so ugly that we decided to start a group to make people stop dropping butts. We called it "No Butts About It".
At first, we drew pictures with "The Earth is not your ashtray (烟灰缸)" written on them. We put the pictures around our hometown—in parks, by beaches, and along roads. We wanted to make people understand that dropping butts hurts the environment. Most smokers don't think that dropping butts hurts the Earth. But it does, and all rubbish does!
Later, we wrote to companies and asked them for money to help us. We used the money to buy ashtrays to give to smokers. We wanted smokers to carry the ashtrays with them so they didn't have to drop butts.
At the moment, we are trying to get cigarette companies to put an ashtray in each pack of cigarettes. Some companies want to do it. Many people have started to join our group since it began. Today there are 45 other "No Butts About It" groups in America.
Now there even groups in England, Australia, and India! Many newspapers have written about my sister and me over the last seven years. And we have won many prizes for what we do. But we are not interested in prizes. We just want to make the Earth a better and cleaner place for animals, plants and people.
One day, it will be.
A NASA-funded study used satellite to search for penguin poops (粪便) in Antarctica: funny at first sight though
it resulted in unique insights on the Adelie penguin's diet and its future as the climate changes. The findings published recently unlocked the secrets about the species that can provide an early-warning of threats to Antarctica's delicate ecosystem.
Researchers from Stony Brook University used satellite images to see if the Adelie penguin's diet has been changing in response to Antarctica's changing climate. Adelie penguin population has dropped greatly in some areas even as the global population increases. The satellite images cannot show the penguins individually, but their presence can be detected by the stain (污渍) left on the ice by their waste, called guano.
Male and female penguins take turns incubating (孵化) in the nest. The guano builds up in the same areas occupied by the nests. Heather Lynch, associate professor at Stony Brook, along with his team, used the area of the colony as defined by the guano stain to work back to the number of pairs. A global survey for Adelie penguins turned up 3.8 million breeding pairs. Also, the satellite data can detect the color of the penguin guano, ranging from white to pink to dark red. White guano is from eating mostly fish; pink and red would be from eating mostly krill (磷虾). The team found that while the Adelie penguin's diet did show changes from year to year, no consistent pattern was obvious.
"This was a big surprise, since the abundance and distribution of Adelie penguins has changed dramatically over the last 40 years and scientists had assumed that a change in diet might have played a role," said Casey Young flesh, a graduate student from the university. However, continued changes in the physical environment and a growing krill fishery in the region are likely to have an influence on penguin prey (猎物) and penguin population itself. "Tools like this will be important for the management of the Antarctic ecosystem, which is often considered among the most primitive areas in the world," said Young flesh.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has to recall hundreds of foods every year. Like cookie snack packs with pieces of blue plastic hiding inside, dressing and sauce containing salmonella (沙门氏菌) or various jams containing with lead (铅).
It can take a few months before a recall is issued. But now researchers have come up with a method that might fast-track that process, leading to early detection and, ultimately, faster recalls. The AI system relies on the fact that people increasingly buy foods and spices online. And people tend to write reviews of products they buy online, which are like bread crumbs (包屑) to food-safety officials sniffing (嗅) out dangerous products.
The researchers linked FDA food recalls from 2012 to 2014 to amazon reviews of those same products. They then trained machine-learning algorithms (算法) to distinguish between reviews for recalled items and reviews for items that had not been flagged. And the trained algorithms were able to predict FDA recalls three quarters of the time. They also identified another 20, 000 reviews for possibly unsafe foods, most of which had never been recalled. The results are published in Journal of the American Medical In formatics Association.
The World Health Organization estimates that 600 million people worldwide get sick annually from polluted food, and more than 400,000 people die from it. "Sohaving tools that enable us to detect this a lot faster and hopefully investigate and do recalls faster will be useful not just in the U. S. but in other countries around the world as well." Study author Elaine Nsoesie of Boston University. She did add one warning even recalled products can still get five-star reviews. So stars alone don't tell the whole sickening story. The proof unfortunately, may still be in the pudding.
Can't Resist Junk Food? Study Suggests You Try This Simple Trick
You're tired and hungry. Then you catch a whiff of something delicious, probably fried and almost certainly fattening. It is fried chicken! A new research says that exposing to the smell of junk food for at least two minutes can actually help you make healthier food choices.
Let's take a closer look at this process. Have you ever noticed that whatever appetizing treat catches your nose's attention tends to be most appealing just after you first smell it? What will happen if you're standing in line after a couple of minutes? And recent science says that this is actually the right moment to walk away.
The results of a series of experiments, including field studies at a supermarket and at a middle school cafeteria, show that extended exposure (of more than two minutes) to junk food smell (e. g,cookie smell) leads to lower purchases of unhealthy foods compared with healthy smell (e.g.strawberry smell).That is why long exposure to junk food smell can be as satisfactory as actually having it in your mouth, which in turn decreases the desire for consumption of junk food.
When the exposure to smell of healthy food were examined, food choices were not profoundly influenced. The reason for this is that healthy food are not connected with reward in our brain and therefore have little influence on what we desire.
So next time you're feeling you don't have the will power to resist that French fries, it might be as simple as sitting there and smelling all that sweetness for just a minute or two.
A. But wait a minute before you order.
B. It's a response that has been researched.
C
Get the satisfaction with none of the calories.
D. It isn't quite as irresistible as it was just moments ago.
E. However, it's not the same case with smell of healthy food.
F. It's the same as actually eating it because your desire to eat it is satisfied.
G. The brain doesn't necessarily distinguish between a pleasurable smell or taste.
The little country schoolhouse was heated by a coal stove. An eight-year-old boy named Glenn had the job of using kerosene to start the fire and warm the room before his teacher and his classmates arrived. One cold morning someone 1 filled the kerosene container with gasoline, and disaster 2. The class and teacher arrived to find the schoolhouse burned in flames. 3 on realizing that Glenn was inside, they rushed in and managed to drag the 4 boy out of the flaming building. He had major burns over the lower half of his body and was taken to a nearby hospital.
From his bed, the dreadfully burned, semi-conscious boy heard the doctor talking to his mother. Her son would surely die. 5 the boy didn't want to die. He would 6. Somehow, to the 7 of the physician, he did survive. Unfortunately, Glenn had no motor 8. One sunny day his mother wheeled him out into the yard to get fresh air. Instead of sitting there, he threw himself 9 the chair. Glenn 10 himself across the grass, dragging his legs behind him. He worked his way to the white fence. With great 11, he raised himself up on the fence. He started to do this every day 12 he wore a smooth path all around the yard beside the fence. There was 13 he wanted more than to develop life in those legs.
Glenn's iron persistence and determination 14. He did develop the ability first to stand up, then to walk with help, then to walk by himself and then to run. He eventually received the 15 "Kansas Flyer".
When someone has (deep) hurt you, it can be very difficult to let go of your anger. But forgiveness is possible and it can be surprisingly (benefit) to your physical and mental health. So far, studies (show) that people who forgive others can have more energy, better appetite and better sleep." People who forgive show (little) anger and more hopefulness," says Dr. Frederic Luskin, who wrote the book Forgive for Good." So it can help reduce the tiredness out of the immune system and allow people (feel) more energetic. "
So when someone has hurt you, cool down first. Take a couple of breaths and think of something gives you pleasure: a beautiful scene in nature, or someone you love. Don't wait for an (apologize), which will be disturbing." Many times the person who hurt you may never think of apologizing," says Dr. Luskin." They may have wanted to hurt you they just don't see things in the same way. So if you wait for people to say sorry, you could be waiting for a very long time. "
Next, keep in mind that forgiveness does not necessarily mean (accept) the action of the person who upsets you. Instead, learn to look for the love, beauty and kindness around you, which can lead to positive psychology. Finally, try to see things the other person's point of view.
注意：1.词数：120左右；2.开头结尾已给出，可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
Dear friends,
As we can see, the environment around us is getting worse and worse.
……
Thank you!
The Students' Union
