Peter Thiel,the billionaire co-founder of PayPal,plans to live to be 120.Compared with some other tech billionaires,he doesn't seem particularly ambitious.Dmitry Itskov,the “godfather” of the Russian Internet,says his goal is to live to 10.000;and Sergey Brin,co-founder of Google,hopes to someday "cure death.

    They aren't being ridiculous.Their search is based on real science that could fundamentally change what we know about life and about death.It's hard to believe,though,since the human search for immortality is both ancient and filled with disastrous failures.Around 200 B.C.,the first emperor of China,Qin Shi Huang,accidentally killed himself trying to live forever;he poisoned himself by eating mercury（水银）pills.Centuries later, the search for eternal life wasn't much safer: In J492,Pope Innocent VIII died after blood transfusions from three healthy boys whose youth he believed he could absorb.

    But historical examples haven't discouraged some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley.Thiel,for example,has given $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation.Aubrey de Grey,Methuselah's co-founder,says SENS,the nonprofit's main research is devoted to finding drugs that cure several types of age-related damage:"Loss of cells, excessive（过多的）cell division,inadequate cell death,garbage inside the cell,garbage outside the cell,...The idea is that the human body,being a machine,has a structure that determines all aspects of its function,so if we can restore that structure—at the molecular（分子的）and cellular（细胞的）level—then we will restore function too,so we will have comprehensively renewed the body."

    But SENS,which has an annual operating budget of $5 million,is small,compared with the Brin-led Project Calico,Google's attempt to “cure death,”which is planning to pump billions into a partnership with medicine giant AbbVie.Google is secretive,but it's said to be building a drug to copy a gene associated with exceptional life span.

    Then there's the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research,started by Paul F.Glenn in 1965.Since 2007,the foundation has distributed annual "Glenn Awards,"$60,000 to independent researchers doing promising work on aging.The Glenn Foundation also works closely with the Ellison Medical Foundation,a far younger institution (founded in 1997).Ellison's passion project gives out hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to scholars seeking research on aging.Their decision to fund independent research may be paying off.Research projects funded by Ellison and Glenn appear to be developing into a testable means to stave off old age—for lab mice.The question is: Can those lab results be repeated in humans?

    Welcome to Orlando! It has a host of attractions and activities. Ready to join the party and plan a visit to O-Town? Just print out our list that suits your style.

    Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure

    The addition of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was among the list of must-visits for theme park enthusiasts. Each of the park's “islands” — Toon Lagoon, Jurassic Park, and The Lost Continent — has unique appeal in the form of rides and interactive attractions. (407-363-8000)

    Gatorland

    It bills itself as “Orlando's best half-day attraction”, for in a city people are limited by their time and money. Catch Gatorland's animals and handler(驯化) shows in the afternoon. There's a nighttime run as well, including the Gator Night Shine and various activities. Gatorland ranks as a comparative theme-park bargain. (407-855-5496)

    Aquatica

    One of the city's most unique water parks, Aquatica is a fantastical world of twisting, turning rides and sparkling white sand beaches. And if you enjoy a side of terror with your water-park fun, be sure to check out Ihu's Breakaway Falls. This towering slide is an eight-story mind-bender of a plummet(垂直落下) that is not for the weak heart. The less exciting will still find plenty of fun splashing from one giant wave pool to another or drifting down the lazy river through a world of unusual fish. You can also watch the black-and-white Commerson's dolphins underwater. (407-351-3600)

    Warbird Adventures

    Few attractions are more hands-on historic than Warbird Adventures, which offers thrill-seekers the opportunity to fly like the hero aces of World War II in the North American T-6 Texan. Flights range from 15 minutes to an hour. A visit to the nearby Kissimmee Air Museum is a wonderful way to round out the experience. (407-870-7366)

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项 （A 、B 、C  和 D ）中，选出最佳选项。

    In 1841, a book was published which astonished the world. It was called “Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan”. The author John Loud Stephens had just returned from a long, difficult and dangerous journey through the thick rain forest of southern Mexico and Guatemala. He had once been there with Frederick Catherwood, an architect and artist, to search for the remains of a lost civilization known as the Mayas(玛雅). Very little was known about the Mayas at that time, but Catherwood's drawing in the book showed incredible cities with temples, pyramids and other buildings as impressive as those of their northern neighbors, the Aztecs. These cities, however, were deserted. The inhabitants(居民) had disappeared almost a thousand years before.

    Since that time, far more has been learned about this remarkable civilization. The Mayas had a highly-developed system of government and of agriculture, as well as an incredibly accurate system of measuring time. They were also wonderful engineers capable of moving huge blocks stone long distances and cutting them to accurate shapes and sizes.

    And yet although the Mayas knew about the wheel, they never used it. Neither did they use metals other than copper. What is ever more surprising is that they suddenly abandoned many of their cities and built new ones in the jungle. Some time around AD 900, Mayan civilization collapsed(崩溃). By the year 1200, their last great capital, Chichen Itza, was deserted.

    Who were these strange people and the even stranger gods they worshipped? What brought about their sudden and mysterious collapse? Some writers have tried to prove that the Mayas had contact with visitors from space and even that they themselves came from another planet. Some people believe that their civilization came to an end because the Mayas never developed a proper resistance to local germs and diseases. All we really know is that when the first Europeans appeared off their coast in 1517, this great and mysterious culture was only a memory.

    We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices (装置)well after they go out of style. That's bad news for the environment—and our wallets—as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

    To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life—from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s.Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992.Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997.And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

    As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones.“The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids' room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house,” said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007.We're not just keeping these old devices—we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (排放)more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

    So what's the solution (解决方案)?The team's data only went up to 2007,but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

Science camps for kids

    Destination Science Young Inventors

    Curious minds want to know and build. Experiment & discover the technology behind controls that operate inventions: touch, sound and motion sensors. Take home a robot dog that barks, eats, and sits at your command. Invent flipping friction racers, magnetic quiz games, 3D water-powered polymers and more.

Price

    Early bird price ends

    Mar 15, 2019

    Schmahl Science Physics of Motion(运动)

    The physics of motion is all about forces. Forces need to act upon an object to get it moving, or to change its motion. In the tradition of Da Vinci, Galileo and Newton, students will explore forces as they build gliders and airplanes, design submarines, build rockets, learn about light, make roller coasters and build bridges.

Price

    Early bird price ends

    Mar 15, 2019

    Mad Science

    Junior Mad Scientists explore the kingdom of the Chemical and Physical world in this crazy week of non-stop action! Kids explore our wonder lab and find eggs that don't break, ice that doesn't melt, and discover how to freeze time! Our young chemists perform impressive hands-on experiments.

Price

    Early bird price ends

    Mar 12, 2019

We cannot argue with reality. We cannot argue with science. Therefore, we simply cannot argue with the fact that there are no straight lines in the universe.

Let's start with science. The science of a straight line falls under the subject of physics. It might seem like a complicated topic, but the theory behind it is pretty simple. If you start rowing in a boat from one place and keep sailing, the concept of the curved（弯曲的） Earth will take you in a circle and you will end up where you started. The brain forms the concept of a straight line to simplify what you see in nature. Consider it a tool for the mind to recognize reality.

The concept of straight lines was controversial and heavily influenced the politics and society of Europe from the 15th century to the 17th century. Greek thinkers and scholars like Aristotle in the 5th century already proved that the Earth was a globe, but many Europeans at that time did not believe in this idea! However, some Europeans during the Age of Exploration denied this belief. Just as the famous Italian scientist Galileo Galilei was persecuted（迫害） for advocating a heliocentric （日心的） model of the solar system, many thinkers like Giordano Bruno were shamed for believing that the Earth was round.

Well, my friends, let's move on to life. The concept of nothing going in a straight line can be associated with life as much as it relates to science and architecture. Whenever you do something, it never turns out to play out exactly as planned. I especially know that as a thirteen-year-old! Life is a rough road—every time you go forward, it is followed by two steps back or to the side. Just like how science explains it, life is a curvy path full of unexpected twists, turns, and adventures that nobody can ever predict.