Top attractions

    Amsterdam is most famous for its artistic heritage. This tradition is proudly on display in the Rijksmuseum (translates as State Museum). Once you've taken in all that has to offer, artists, history fans, and families shouldn't pass up the chance to visit the Van Gogh Museum —containing around 700 paintings and drawings by Vincent and his contemporaries (同时代的人), including Gauguin, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

    Amsterdam is also home to the Anne Frank Museum, where Anne hid with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. On a lighter note, taking a canal cruise through its extensive waterways is a rewarding way to see the Dutch capital.

    Art lovers get their kicks at:

    ♦♦ The Van Gogh Museum Rijksmuseum Museum het Rembrandthuis

    Food and drink

    Cheese lovers love Amsterdam. You can find an excuse to eat cheese at any time of the day here. Gouda is Holland's favorite, developing a more intense flavor the longer it's aged. Find a selection at the markets，try a cheeseboard at dinner time, or just order cubes with mustard for dipping to accompany a drink.

When you're hungry for non-cheese food groups, you'll find Michel in-starred restaurants, vegetarian, and organic restaurants that accompany an array of global cuisine. For old-fashioned and modern Dutch food, try these Amsterdam restaurants: Moeders, Haesje Claes, Loetje, Greetje, and De Silveren Spiegel.

Don't leave without tasting:

    ♦♦ Patat (hot chips with toppings) Stroopwafel (waffle cookie) Chocomel (chocolate milk)

    Amsterdam Fast Facts

    Approximate flight times:

    ♦♦NYC/Newark 7 hours 20 minutes Philadelphia 8 hours Boston 7 hours

    ♦♦Miami 9 hours 45 minutes Los Angeles 10 hours 15 minutes

    Entry requirements: Passport must be valid for at least 3 months beyond your planned departure from the Schengen area and have 2 blank pages for entry stamp.

Do you believe that things are connected for no scientific reason at all? For example, do you avoid saying the word "four" to avoid bad luck? If so, you have a superstition (迷信). And you're not alone — all kinds of people have them.

For example, Portugal's soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo always steps onto the pitch (球场) with his right foot first, according to The Telegraph. And sports players are not alone in having superstitions. A visitor once asked the Nobel Prize winning scientist Niels Bohr whether he really believed that the horseshoe he'd hung at his country home was lucky. "Of course not," the Danish physicist said. "But I understand it's lucky whether you believe in it or not."

One recent study found that even scientists at MIT and other top US schools tended to look for a meaning in natural events, similar to the connection between stepping on the pitch and playing soccer well, according to The Atlantic. When the researchers gave the scientists little time to answer questions, they were twice as likely to agree with statements such as "Trees produce oxygen so that animals can breathe" as they were when they had more time to think about their reply.

It seems that fear can make people think differently in this way, too. In a British study, students imagined meeting a "witch" who said she would cast (施魔法) an evil spell(符咒) on them. About half said a scientist should not be worried about the spell. Yet each of them said that, personally, they wouldn't let the witch do it to them.

So why are so many of us superstitious? Well, it seems to be our way of dealing with the unknown. "Many people quite simply just want to believe," Brian Cronk, a professor of psychology at Missouri Western State University, said in a 2008 interview. "The human brain is always trying to work out why things happen, and when the reason is not clear, we tend to make up some pretty bizarre (古怪的) explanations."

    And these explanations aren't completely unhelpful. In fact, superstitions can sometimes work and bring real luck, according to psychologists at the University of Cologne in Germany in the May 2010 issue of the journal Psychological Science. They found that believing in something can improve performance on a task like an exam.

    So, what about you? What superstitions do you follow to keep you safe and successful?

    Bryan Laubscher, one of the world's leading astrophysicists, who study the physics and chemistry of the stars, planets, etc, is developing an invention called the Mars Elevator. To form a picture of this, you may want to imagine the story of Jack and the Beanstalk (《杰克与魔豆》). This is the story of a boy who grew a beanstalk that reached the heavens. Jack climbed the stalk and entered another world. The space elevator is similar but of course much more high-tech and better yet, it is real!

    Astrophysicists are designing a steel-like cable (缆绳) that will be connected to a platform (平台) in the ocean. This cable is designed to be pulled up into space, where it will then be connected to a space station. People will be able to travel up and down this elevator by the year 2020. There will be a number of space elevators so that both tourists and businesses can travel into space. To get there, space tourists will simply travel to the nearest ocean elevator entrance. The trip up into space will take about a week. When they arrive, space tourists will be inside a space station and will be able to stay there. There are other alternatives, too. Astronomers think it will be easy to travel from the space station to the moon, where space tourists can stay in a moon hotel — which is now being designed.

    The future looks bright for space tourists. It also looks bright for industry and scientists. Mining companies will travel to space to mine elements (元素) that are rare on Earth. Energy scientists will travel to space to set up space solar panels, which will collect a huge amount of energy from the sun and shoot it back to Earth where we can use it to heat our homes and meet our energy needs.

    It feels like every time my mother and I start to have a conversation, it turns into an argument. We talk about something as simple as dinner plans and suddenly, my mother will push the conversation into World War 3. She'll talk about my lack of bright future because I don't plan to be a doctor. And much to her disappointment, I don't want to do any job related to science, either. In fact, when I was pushed to say that I planned to major (主修) in English and communications, she nearly had a heart attack.

"Why can't you be like my co-worker's son?" she bemoans all the time. Her coworker's son received a four-year scholarship and is now earning 70,000 dollars a year as an engineer. I don't know what to answer except that I simply can't be like Mr. Perfect as I've called the unnamed co-worker's son. I can't be like him. I am the type of the person who loves to help out in the community, write until the sun goes down, and most of all, wants to achieve a career because I love it, not because of a fame or salary.

    I understand why my mother is worried about my future major. I've seen my mother struggle to raise me on her small salary and work long hours. She leaves the house around 6:30 am and usually comes home around 5 pm or even 6 pm. However, I want her to know that by becoming a doctor, it doesn't mean I'll be successful. I'd rather follow my dreams and create my own future.

    An experimental cleanup device called RemoveDEBRIS has successfully cast a net around a dummy (仿真的) satellite, imitating a technique that could one day collect spaceborne garbage.

    The test, which was carried out this week, is widely believed to be the first successful demonstration of space cleanup technology, experts told CNN. And it symbolizes an early step toward solving what has already been a critical issue: junk in space.

    Millions of pieces of junk are turning around in orbit the result of 50 years of space travel and few regulations to keep space clean. At orbital speeds, even a small bit of paint crashing with a satellite can cause critical damage.

    Various companies have plans to send thousands of new satellites into low-Earth orbit, already the most crowded area.

    The RemoveDEBRIS experiment is run by a company and researchers led by the U. K.'s Surrey Space Center and includes Airbus, Airbus-owned Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and France's ArianeGroup.

    Guglielmo Aglietti, the director of Surrey Space Center, said that an operational version of the RemoveDEBRlS technology would cast a net that remains fastened to the main satellite so the debris can be dragged out of orbit. It could target large pieces of junk, including dead satellites up to 10 meters long.

    The RemoveDEBRIS satellite will conduct a few more experiments in the coming months, including testing navigation features that could help guide the satellite to a specific piece of debris.

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said the success of this week's experiment was exciting, but he cautioned against "over- publicizing" it.

    There are still enormous barriers to clear before operational cleanup tasks are underway, he said, and the most discouraging is figuring out how to fund such projects.

    Aglietti, the Surrey professor who helped lead the RemoveDEBRIS project, said "The challenge will lie in persuading the relevant authorities to sponsor these tasks." Aglietti said he hopes RemoveDEBRIS will conduct a few cleanup tasks per year, targeting the largest pieces of junk in the most crowded orbits.

    "Don't tell anyone". We hear these words when someone tells a secret to us. But it can be hard to keep a secret. We often tend to "spill the beans", even if we regret it later.

    According to Asim Shah, professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, US, keeping a secret may well" become a burden". This is because people often have an "obsessive (强迫性的) and anxious urge to share it with someone".

    An earlier study, led by Anita E. Kelly, a scientist at the University of Notre Dame, US, suggested that keeping a secret could cause stress. People entrusted with secrets can suffer from depression, anxiety, and body aches, reported the Daily Mail.

    But with secrets so often getting out, why do people share them at all? Shah explained that people often feel that it will help them keep a person as a friend. Another reason people share secrets is guilt over keeping it from someone close to them. A sense of distrust can develop when people who are close do not share it with each other." Keeping or sharing secrets often puts people in a position of either gaining or losing the trust of someone." according to Shah.

    He added that talkative people could let secrets slip out. But this doesn't mean that it is a good idea only to share secrets with quiet people. A quiet person may be someone who keeps everything inside. To tell such a person a secret may cause them stress, and make them talk about the secret.

    Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret, you'd better put yourself in their position. Think about how you would feel to be told that you mustn't give the information away. Shah also recommended that if you accidentally give up someone's secret you should come clean about it. Let the person know that their secret isn't so secret anymore.