With over 70% of the country blanketed in forest, Bhutan is rich in outdoor activities and charming villages that showcase a distinctive culture found nowhere else on the Earth. Here are our picks for the best places to add to your Bhutan traveling list.
Paro
Less than 10 minutes away from the airport, the historic riverside town of Paro is known for the National Museum, Rinpung Dzong and symbolic Tiger's Nest Monastery. Wander along Paro's streets and the Paro Weekend Market to explore shops and stands offering handmade souvenirs. When you've worked up an appetite, step into any restaurant for fresh, handmade momo dumplings.
Thimphu
In Bhutan's capital city, spend the day creating your own stamps at the Bhutan Postal Museum, touring the massive Thimphu's museums and watching policemen manually direct traffic（there are no traffic lights in the entire city）. When the sun sets below the mountains, enjoy yourself at bars like Grey Area, a popular art bar with live music where you can shout "tashi delek!", a Xizang's expression for good luck and health.
Punakha
Beloved for riverside farms where cows eat among rice and pepper fields, Punakha is home to what is its most beautiful temple, which sits along the Punakha River. Punakha's low altitude means it tends to be hotter and sunnier than nearby towns and districts, which means you'll need to take precautions to avoid sunburn.
Khoma
Fashion lovers can expect to visit behind the curtain in Bhutan's textile center, Khoma. In the eastern district of Lhuentse, this village is home to roughly 1,000 residents—and few cars. Khoma's artisans spend their days weaving delicate patterns and designs on traditional Bhutanese looms（织布机）, creating colors from the area's minerals and plants.
Ms. McIntyre, 38, worked as a publisher. She suffered brain cancer and her health got worse despite some medical treatment. But she realized that in a way, she was luckier than some other people. She had insurance to help pay for her medical care. But Ms. McIntyre and her husband, Mr. Gregory, knew that many people with cancer face tough decisions because of the costs of medical care and wind up owing far more than they can pay.
Though her health was failing, Ms. McIntyre decided to help pay off the medical debts of as many people as she possibly could. The couple began donating money to a group called RIP Medical Debt, which is committed to working to pay off the unpaid medical debts of others. The group can pay off medical bills for about 100 times less money than they cost. In other words, for every 100donated, the group can pay off 10,000 in unpaid medical bills.
Unfortunately, Ms. McIntyre passed away before long. Mr. Gregory posted a message for Ms. McIntyre on her social media accounts. "If you're reading this, I have passed away," the post began. Then the post explained, "To celebrate my life, I've arranged to buy up others' medical debts and then destroy the debts."
The couple had set up a page on a website to raise money for this purpose. They had hoped to raise about $20,000. Nevertheless, Ms. McIntyre's last post attracted a lot of attention. The donations on her web page quickly passed the total goal. In less than a week, the site had raised 10 times more than expected and the donations are still coming in. By November 22, 2023, Ms. McIntyre's web page had raised over $627,000, or enough money to pay off about $60million in medical debts.
Mr. Gregory planned a special event in December to celebrate Ms. McIntyre's life and to announce how many millions of dollars of medical debts her efforts had paid for.
Can you name a famous elephant? Babar, perhaps? Or Dumbo? Though these names may be memorable to humans, they sound nothing like the names elephants give each other. "If you're an elephant, your name is something more like a low, rumbling sound（隆隆的声音）," scientists say. Researchers have found that African elephants emit sounds in response to individuals in their social group, and the receivers respond accordingly.
Researchers recorded 527 elephant calls in northern Kenya and 98 calls in southern Kenya. They then distinguished which members were separated from the herd at the time of each call, or which members were close to the herd. Researchers correctly identified the receivers of 20.3% of the 625 recorded calls. This marks a step forward in understanding how these highly intelligent animals communicate.
"There's a contact rumble, an anti-predator rumble and a greeting rumble. If you look at a spectrogram（声谱图）with your eyes, they all look almost exactly the same," said Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell, an elephant biologist at Harvard Medical School. "That's why artificial intelligence（AI）has been exciting. It allows us to really figure out what the elephants are saying."
As it turned out, the calls were distinct to the receivers. Even calls from different callers to the same receiver were similar. The pattern was less obvious than it was between a single caller and his or her receiver. This may be because rumbles encode（把……编码）multiple messages at the same time, so the AI system in computer model may not have been able to pick out the "name" used in each call. "It just highlights the complexity of what's going on. And we're not skilled enough in these measurements to figure out what's going on," said Caitlin.
However, the research shows how elephants are navigating through a large landscape and can still keep in touch with specific individuals. It allows them to spread out much further and still have very close tabs on individuals, not just the group.
As a saying goes, you're only as old as you feel, but what if different parts of your body aged at different speeds? It turns out they do. The study about the age of our bodies shows that different tissues（组织）inside us are effectively different ages. In 2012, Professor Steve Horvath at the University of California, Los Angeles, looked at something new—DNA methylation（甲基化）, a naturally occurring process in which DNA is chemically changed over time.
Horvath analyzed the DNA in 8,000 tissue samples from different parts of the body in different people to study these markers. What he found was striking—the amount of methylation in cells from most parts of the body was a good predictor of the person's age. But there were inconsistencies. Breast tissue, for instance, ages rapidly, whereas muscle ages slowly. The rates of ageing are also different in men and women. "There are many medical implications, from cancer to premature ageing diseases," says Horvath. It has already been established that tissue that looks significantly older could be cancerous. Horvath's study found that cancerous tissue has a biological age on average 36 years older than a subject's actual age.
Could this knowledge help us live longer? "If the markers relate to a process that causes ageing, then it would be theoretically possible to slow down ageing by carefully targeting DNA methylation," says Horvath. But before scientists got to work on dealing with methylation, they first needed to establish whether these changes were the cause of ageing or just a byproduct of another process. Now, a 2023 study from the University of Michigan has backed up Professor Horvath's findings, which means they can safely make further studies of methylation.
"Our main aim was to see whether biological age acceleration measured from DNA methylation was predictive of health outcomes and death," said research associate professor Jessica Faul. "It turned out that it is largely the case. You can use certain DNA methylation markers to predict age and age-related outcomes quite well."
People are always living with technology nowadays. Here comes a smart home, which is controlled by the touch of a button. This acts like a remote control to activate household systems and monitor inside temperatures. If done successfully, a smart home system will be integrated so seamlessly that a household will appear to run itself.
Home automation is designed to introduce efficiency to a home. An efficient smart home uses sensors to prevent over-watering of outdoor gardens and control room temperatures, all of which can reduce expenses. In addition to cost savings, home automation often provides a sense of security to homeowners.
Families with children or elderly adults in the home may be reassured by some safeguards in smart home security, like fire alarms that alert the appropriate agencies in the event of a problem. Lighting activation runs on times, which can be a life saver if an oven is left on when someone leaves the home.
Home automation is not just for safety, however. With a centralized control unit, a person does not have to leave the couch to turn down the blinds or even order groceries, which can be automated.
Such a home becomes dependent on technology for routine tasks. If something goes wrong with the central automation unit, it is not just one appliance at risk as malfunctions can disrupt systems that are vital to running a home. As a result, for all people, a home can become a place of technical faults that repeatedly require repair.
A. A smart home doesn't apply to all family members.
B. It achieves this by saving homeowners time and money.
C. There are some drawbacks with an automated home system.
D. It can also provide convenience for people living in the home.
E. Home automation depends on furniture and home temperatures.
F. Besides protecting people, it also offers security for expensive items inside a residence.
G. Through home automation, an entire house can be connected via a smart controller.
One morning on their walk to school, 9-year-old Khloe Thompson and her mother passed a woman living on the street. Troubled at the thought of people living without a home, Khloe felt an 1 to help.
At the time, she and her great grandmother worked together several days per week to craft colorful bags, which 2 an idea: Filling up her beautiful homemade bags with 3 for homeless persons who had fallen on 4 times. Khloe hopes to improve their lives, with all they needed to make their 5 from the streets to stable housing.
Khloe's great grandmother was 6 the idea of handing out their bags to help others, and she agreed to 7 the cost for the fillings that went into the first batch of bags. After the success of their first bag deliveries, they wanted to find a way to continue their 8 project. They created a GoFundMe page and posted it on social media to attract potential 9 . The overwhelming 10 to campaign motivated Khloe and her family to launch their own non-profit foundation, Khloe Kares, in 2015. Khloe Kares has given away more than 5,000 Kare Bags which are 11 of a few months' supply of basic care items. The organization has 12 out to help many other communities.
Now Khloe 13 works to motivate other kids to become 14 within their communities. She wants other kids to know that their actions matter. "Your age doesn't determine your15 ," Khloe said.
A city's name can often indicate its status in a nation's history. Nanjing, meaning "southern capital city" literally in Chinese, could claim such an influential （identify）in history.
The city, now capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, was once （global）considered to have urban history of 2,500 years, a new archaeological research rewrites that. It was founded more than 3,100 years ago when an ancient city named Changgan was recently excavated（发掘）.
"（date）from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, archaeologists found that the city's walls were protected by trenches（战壕）, is a universally acknowledged indicator of a defensive system （adopt）by ancient cities," says Chen Dahai, head of the archaeological excavation team. "In the history of the ancient system, trenches （appear）before the walls were constructed. They were built around the living area （prevent）floods and defend against enemies," he added.
The latest archaeological findings may reshape the city's history, with （it）appearance tracing back to more than 3,100 years ago. Wang Wei, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Archaeology Department, recognizes the discovery a remarkable archaeological finding in tracing the Nanjing's origins.
注意：1.写作词数应为80左右；2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
A Speech Contest About "Health and Sport" |
Daniel's mother, Debbie Ashworth struggled to raise her two kids. As the older child at home, Daniel was a good help to his mother, cleaning the room and caring for his younger brother, Tony.
On a cold winter morning, Debbie asked the kids to go to the supermarket for some groceries. A toy panda on the she If caught Tony's eyes. It was so adorable that he could hardly tear himself away from it. Knowing that they couldn't afford it, Daniel told his brother to put it back. But Tony really wanted it and was unwilling to leave. "Please, I can wait until Mom's salary came in on June 15th," Tony said. Daniel hesitated for a while, then took out a pen and wrote a note, which read, "Please keep the toy panda for my little brother until June 15th, when my mother gets her salary to pay for it. Thanks." Placing the note on top of the box, they left the supermarket relieved.
One of the staff spotted the note, who then showed it to the manager. The note melted everyone there and they decided to do something thoughtfully. They put away the toy panda so that it wouldn't be purchased by other shoppers. After that, they tried their best to search for the two boys, but in vain. There was no other clue（线索）on the note to identify them. It appeared that they had no alternative but to wait until June 15th, which was about half a month away.
The big day finally arrived. Unexpectedly, the two boys didn't show up. "Maybe they have forgotten all about the toy," one clerk whispered. "Impossible. A toy animal might not mean much to an adult. But for a child, it could mean the world," the manager said. "We must come up with a way to contact them." They decided to turn to the Internet by posting the note and their phone number online, hoping it could bring a surprise.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
The post eventually attracted the attention of Debbie. …… "I lost my job last month," Debbie sighed（叹气）. |
