Queensland is one of the most amazing states in Australia. It has some of the most beautiful natural scenery on the planet, with the Great Barrier Reef, rainforests and impressive beaches.

The Great Barrier Reef

    It is one of the world's largest natural features. It stretches more that 2,300 km along the north eastern coast of Australia from the northern tip of Queensland to just north of Bundaberg. The things that most surprise visitors to the reef are the colors.

Without doubt, the best way to see the Great Barrier Reef is by diving. If you have a little extra money and you are feeling a bit lazy, you can fly over the reef in a plane.

Fraser Island

    Another area of natural beauty is Fraser Island. This is the world's largest sand island. It's best visited from Hervey Bay on the mainland, where there are a number of places offering trips around the island. To fully appreciate Fraser Island you should go for three or four days. Attractions include some beautiful fresh-water lakes, particularly Lake Wabby and Lake Mckenzie. You can walk around these on white sands untouched by human footprints. Indian Head also has some beautiful views. Braver travelers can go and watch sharks circling the water hundreds of meters below.

The Whitsunday Islands

    It would be a pity to travel around Queensland without taking a trip around the Whitsunday Islands. They were named by Captain Cook in 1770, after the day on which he arrived. Here are some of the great things you can do there.

●Cruise around them on a relaxing trip.

●Take a sailing course.

●Look at the aboriginal (土著的) paintings in caves on Hook Island.

●Have fun in the water doing lots of water sports.

    So, will you be going to Queensland?

    A new concept vehicle, Pod was introduced by Toyota and Sony at the Tokyo motor show. The car is intended as a four-wheeled friend. It aims to provide affection, sympathy and encouragement. Like a dog welcoming its master, the car sits up, wags its tail and acknowledges its owner's presence using hydraulics(液压装置) and a multi-colored LED display panel(引擎) across the front.

    While on the road, the car constantly monitors the driver's mood with pulse and sweat sensors on the joystick(操纵杆). Cameras focused on the eyes keep watch for any sigh of drowsiness. If a driver appears to be losing his or her cool, Pod will display warnings, play soft music and blow cold air at the face. Drivers are shaken awake with loud music and a shaking chair.

    To improve driving skills, pod compares acceleration, braking and steering with the best performance recorded by professionals. It uses this comparison to score drivers, offer advice and rank all Pod owners. Toyota claims that the car will eventually be able to learn its owner's likes and dislikes by monitoring passenger conversations. If the car hears a favorite song being discussed, it will download the track from the Internet and play it without being asked. It will also recommend restaurants that might suit the driver's taste and take photographs of passengers when they sound particularly happy.

    In keep with the moodiness that is the car's main selling point, Pod expresses a form of road anger. If a driver brakes or swerves(转向) suddenly, the LED panel shows an angry red and the tail rises at the back.

    Anger is one of the car's ten “emotional states”. Another is sadness — a blue front with tear-shaped lights seemingly dropping from headlights — which appears after a flat tire or when gas is low.

    “We wanted to show that the cars can be cheerful and entertaining,” said Yasunori Sakamoto, part of the Toyota design team. Mr Sakamoto said Toyota has no plans to put Pod on the market. Sad, really.

    Global GDP in 2030 will be 14% higher as a result of AI (Artificial Intelligence), thanks to improving labor productivity and increasing consumer demand, says a report.

    The report could increase the enthusiasm of economic policymakers and the public, and show the power of technology in changing not only people's daily lives, but also economic activities. However, history tells us that, while technological advancements have brought us benefits, they have also led to great social disorders, by changing the production and labor structures, and forcing many workers to either adapt to the changes or lose their jobs. In the 18th century, for instance, skilled workers rose up to resist the Industrial Revolution, destroying machinery in the early 19th century. We may not see similar protests today, but history should serve as a warning against the application of AI technology.

    While we may gain a lot of benefits from AI, we must work out plans to reduce its negative effect on society, especially for workers. AI can raise productivity and expand GDP, but it can also make non-adaptive workers jobless. In India, some technology personnel have already felt the negative effect of information technology. As technology industries across the world seek increasing support from automation（自动操作）, robotics and big data analysis, some technology workers have already lost their jobs.

    In their 2013 research study, Michael Osborne and Carl Frey from Oxford University estimated 47% of the jobs in the United States are “at risk” of being automated in the next 20 years. They said jobs in transportation and office and administrative support are at high risk of being automated. And Kaifu Lee recently said that robots could take away about 50% of all jobs from humans in the next decade.

    Those estimates may sound sensational and the impact of technological advancements may not be that serious, as they will also create jobs in new industries. However, policymakers should consider how to better embrace the technological wave to bring benefits while taking action to minimize its negative effects. The government therefore needs to work together with business leaders and social organizations, to promote training programs for potentially helpless workers, in order to make them more capable of adapting to the structural changes in industries and job markets in the future.

    Before we came to Canada in 1951, when I was three, my parents and I spent a year at refugee camp (难民营) in Austria. We had escaped from what was then called Czechoslovakia. My parents had already lost their livelihood once to the Nazi. Mummy was freed from the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen and spent the years after the war trying to find her family, only to discover she was the only survivor. She met my father in a small town outside Prague. They married and had me in 1948. When we arrived in Montreal, everything we owned was contained in an army trunk and a couple of army blankets. Mummy bought an old sewing machine and some inexpensive materials and using patterns in magazines, taught herself to sew. Her hands were always going, making something. She learned English by singing along to the hit song as she worked.

    For me, high school was a lonely time. My mother worried that I'd never come out of my shell so she signed me up for classes at the Montreal Children's Theatre. That's where I found my voice with her strong faith in me, Mummy had opened a door. Although she was an educated woman, I never heard my mother said “This is what I gave up for you.” She was always there for my younger brother and me. When I sat in the kitchen with her, I felt safe. When she made soup or sewed a ballet costume for me, it was all a gift, a labor of love. She wanted to make us happy. For a long time, I had a picture hanging in the kitchen saying “Put your heart into it.” I grew up with that phrase. Mummy taught that lesson by example, and it has become my own work ethic(职业道德).

    The UK's largest coffee seller, Costa Coffee, has promised to recycle half a billion coffee cups a year by 2020 to deal with plastic waste. The move, which means recycling the same number of cups it puts onto the market, would account for a big percentage out of the 2.5 billion takeaway cups thrown away across the country every year.

    Though marked as recyclable, most of paper coffee cups end up on landfill(垃圾场) or being burned due to the plastic lining(涂层) used to make them waterproof. By paying waste collectors to take coffee cups to certain places, Costa hopes to increase the rate at which cups are recycled. Finally, all a customer will need to do to make sure their cup avoids landfill is throw it into a standard recycling bin.

    Started following the Environmental Audit Committee's report recommending ministers take action to deal with coffee cup waste, the campaign has pushed for action from governments and businesses and promoted possible solutions. Starbucks has promised ￡7m to develop a "fully recyclable cup" following pressure from campaigners, while Waitrose, a supermarket, has planned to stop using disposable(一次性的) coffee cups from its stores by autumn.

    The company has entered into a partnership with five national waste collectors – Veolia, Biffa, Suez, Grundon and First Mile – that between them cover public spaces across the UK including hospitals, universities and transport hubs. The coffee company is also working with paper factories to make sure their products are recycled effectively. James Cropper, for example, has plans to upgrade 500 million cups a year to create plastic-free packaging. By building more partnerships with waste contractors in every area, Costa means to hit its half a billion mark within two years.

    With one report showing the number of takeaway drink cups thrown away in the UK is set to rise by a third by 2030, and the government recently failing to tax some coffee to discourage cup use, it falls to businesses to act on the huge amount of waste from their products.

    Commenting on the announcement, Environment Minister Therese Coffey said: "Congratulations to Costa on taking this significant step to help coffee lovers do the right thing and increase recycling. We all have a responsibility to our environment and this is a significant step by a British business which should increase the number of disposable coffee cups we recycle in this country." "We want to help companies become plastic free and through our 25 Year Environment Plan we are putting in place the aims to encourage all of us to play our part in ending the pollution of plastic waste in our natural environment."

    Forest Schools originated in Sweden in the 1950s and spread to other countries, particularly Denmark where they have become an important part of the Danish early years program.

    In a typical Danish Forest School, young children from 3 years are taken into the forest for 4 hours each day of the week. They take no toys with them, but instead use only what the forest provides (and their imaginations) to develop their games. There is a primitive hut in the forest, which is used in extreme weather. Activities are child-led and fun, such as finding small animals or stomping in puddles. Because of high adult to child ratios, children can safely try out activities which are often considered too dangerous, such as climbing trees or lighting fires, and by dressing the children in good protective clothing, they are able to play freely. By setting children small manageable tasks at which they are unlikely to fail, and giving genuine praise, children's independence and confidence grow.

    A Swedish scientific study found that children in the Forest School are more balanced and socially capable, have fewer sick days, are more able to concentrate and have better co-ordination than the city nursery children. The primary reason appeared to be the greater opportunities to play in nature, so that children play for longer at a time, tending not to disturb each other as much as children in the city nursery. The study observed that where children were interrupted, they became irritable, their stress level rose, and their ability to concentrate fell.

    The study also showed that the Forest School children had 25 % fewer sick days than the city children. One reason for this is that the air is nearly always better outside than indoors. Outside a child is not so exposed to virus and bacteria and not so likely to be infected by other children. Another reason may be that, since stress has been shown to have a negative effect on the immune system, high stress levels may be weakening the city children. The Forest School children, on the other hand, are in a pleasant, natural, fun and less stressful environment.