If you've been to Europe a few times already, chances are that you've hit all the big destinations: London, Paris, Rome,Berlin.On your next trip you can either visit those same cities a second time,or instead you can take a chance and walk the streets of some cities that are a little bit smaller,a little bit less famous,but still full of European grace and charm.Here are four European cities to visit that you probably haven't been to yet.

    Besancon,France

    This hidden French city has had a long reputation for being a well-kept secret.It can be at once sleepy with few tourists but abundant galleries,restaurants,and a wonderful Beaux Arts museum whose collection is second only to the Louvre.The city is wound by the River Doubs and also touts (吹捧) its own UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Citadel,home to several small museums and a zoo.

    Seville,Spain

    For the tourist who is already tired of Barcelona and Madrid,Seville offers a different take (意见) on Spain. Located on the Southern coast,it keeps beautiful signs of the long period of Moorish rule,nowhere more than in the Alcázar palace building,just one of the city's UNESCO World Heritage Sites.Seville has over a dozen museums, tropical parkland,and probably the best tapas (餐前小吃) culture in all of Spain.

    Ghent,Belgium

    Ghent is a city that looks like it should be the setting for a fairy tale. All of the typical Belgium features abound here-waffles and beer.Every year from Saturday before July 21,Ghent hosts a ten-day festival.This music and theater festival draws almost 2 million visitors,as the city streets transform into performance spaces for performers,buskers (街头艺人) and musicians.

    Palermo,Italy

    Palermo is the capital city of Sicily,the southern island off the coast of mainland Italy.The city has an ancient history,and the various cultures that have controlled the island through the years have all left their marks on it. You can see winding street markets,antique (古玩) fairs,and open air nightclubs here.

    Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 7, 9, 6. Read them loud. Now look away and spend 20 seconds memorizing them in order before saying them out loud again. If you speak English, you have about a 50% chance of remembering those perfectly. If you are Chinese, though, you're almost certain to get it right every time. Why is that? Because we most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within a two-second period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.

    That example comes from Stanislas Dahaene's book The Number Sense. As Dahaene explains: Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be spoken out in less than one-quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is “si” and 7 “qi”). Their English pronunciations are longer. The memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in length.

    It turns out that there is also a big difference in how number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, so one might expect that we would also say oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, and fiveteen.  But we don't. We use a different form: eleven, twelve, thirteen and fifteen. For numbers above 20, we put the “decade” first and the unit number second (twenty-one, twenty-two), while for the teens, we do it the other way around (fourteen, seventeen, eighteen). The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is two-tens-four and so on.

    That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children. Four-year-old Chinese children can count, on average, to 40. American children at that age can count only to 15. By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian friends in the most fundamental of math skills.

    The regularity of their number system also means that Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to change the words to numbers (37+22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation(等式) is right there, in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: it's five-tens-nine.

When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have a built-in advantage. For years, students from China, South Korea, and Japan — outperformed their Western classmates at mathematics, and the typical assumption is that it has something to do with a kind of Asian talent for math. The differences between the number systems in the East and the West suggest something very different — that being good at math may also be rooted in a group's culture.

    A rainforest is an area covered by tall trees with the total high rainfall spreading quite equally through the year and the temperature rarely dipping below 16℃. Rainforests have a great effect on the world environment because they can take in heat from the sun and adjust the climate. Without the forest cover，these areas would reflect more heat into the atmosphere, warming the rest of the world. Losing the rainforests may also influence wind and rainfall patterns，potentially causing certain natural disasters all over the world.

    In the past hundred years，humans have begun destroying rainforests in search of three major resources（资源）: land for crops，wood for paper and other products，land for raising farm animals. This action affects the environment as a whole. For example，a lot of carbon dioxide（二氧化碳）in the air comes from burning the rainforests. People obviously have a need for the resources we gain from cutting trees but we will suffer much more than we will benefit.

    There are two main reasons for this. Firstly，when people cut down trees，generally they can only use the land for a year or two. Secondly，cutting large sections of rainforests may provide a good supply of wood right now，but in the long run it actually reduces the world's wood supply.

    Rainforests are often called the world's drug store. More than 25％ of the medicines we use today come from plants in rainforests. However，fewer than 1％of rainforest plants have been examined for their medical value. It is extremely likely that our best chance to cure diseases lies somewhere in the world's shrinking (萎缩的) rainforests.

    If you've been diagnosed with high blood pressure, you might be worried about taking medication to bring your numbers down. Chronic（慢性的） stress may contribute to high blood pressure. More research is needed to determine the effects of chronic stress on blood pressure. Occasional stress also can contribute to high blood pressure if you react to stress by eating unhealthy food, drinking alcohol or smoking.

    Take some time to think about what causes you to feel stressed, such as work, family, finances or illness. Once you know what's causing your stress, consider how you can rid or reduce stress. If you can't rid all of your stressors, you can at least handle them in a healthier way. Try to:

    Change your expectations. For example, plan your day and focus on your strengths. Avoid trying to do too much and learn to say no. Understand there are some things you can't change or control, but you can focus on how you react to them.

    Focus on issues you can control and make plans to solve them. If you are having an issue at work, try talking to your manager. If you are having a conflict with your kids or spouse, take steps to resolve it.

    Avoid stress triggers（诱因）. Try to avoid triggers when you can. For example, if rush-hour traffic on the way to work causes stress, try leaving earlier in the morning, or take public transportation. Avoid people who cause you stress if possible.

    Make time to relax and to do activities you enjoy. Take time each day to sit quietly and breathe deeply. Make time for enjoyable activities or hobbies in your schedule, such as taking a walk, cooking or volunteering.

    Practice gratitude. Expressing gratitude to others can help reduce your stress.

    If you successfully control your blood pressure with reducing stress, you might avoid, delay or reduce the need for medication.

    Many people in high school cannot wait to go to college and leave their hometown behind. Questions arise, though, when it comes to all of the decisions involved in choosing a college.

    One of the first considerations may be finance. State and public colleges are often the least expensive. Often, though, the better colleges are private and more expensive. It is sad when gifted students cannot attend a college of their choice just for financial reasons.

    Another major factor is location. Whether the college is in a small town or large city can have a major impact on its activities. A water lover probably will be more comfortable spending four years near an ocean or a lake. Those who cannot tolerate heat will probably be more comfortable at a northern college. Distance from home may also come into consideration. If family is a top priority, that person should stay close to home; on the other hand, if independence is desired, a campus farther from home would be more appropriate.

    School size also plays a major role in the decision process. If you want to get to know your teachers, a small college is suitable. For those of you who consider yourself a “people person” and want a wide range of activities, a large college is more fitting. Your area of interest is another factor to consider in the decision-making process if you want to get the most from your education. The whole point of college is to learn what is of interest to you.

    Crucially(至关重要地), one must take into consideration the colleges by which you can realistically be accepted. An Ivy League school for an average student would probably not be a good match. Similarly, an average school for an above-average student would not work well. The college should provide enough of a challenge for the student to work hard. Although there may not be the perfect college out there, there probably will be one that is close. Those who cannot find a suitable college are probably not looking hard enough.

    Despite what so many people would love to believe, NASA hasn't discovered any evidence of past or present intelligent life on Mars. So, when the Curiosity rover (好奇号探测器）found something suspicious on the Red Planet's surface, they were not only surprised but also a little bit worried.

    The thin fragment (碎片）was suspicious enough to guarantee its own name, with NASA's Curiosity rover team calling it the “Pettegrove Point Foreign Object Debris,” named for the location where it was discovered. With no idea what it was or where it came from, the rover s handlers began to worry that it might actually be a piece of the rover itself, suggesting some unseen damage or other issue with the robot. Thankfully, those concerns seem to have been unfounded.

    In a new update from NASA the object has now been identified as a natural piece of rock rather than a piece of any man-made craft or vehicle. The team analyzed the bizarre object with a tool called the ChemCam RMI. The instrument uses a laser (激光器）t0 sniff out the makeup of anything it's pointed at, and the results for this particular piece of debris revealed that it's actually just a very thin piece of rock.

    NASA describes the inspection： The planning day began with an interesting result from the previous plan's ChemCam RMI analysis of a target that was referred to as “Pette Point Foreign Object Debris” （PPFOD),and speculated to be a piece of spacecraft debris fact was found to be a very thin flake of rock, so we can all rest easy tonight-Curi0sity n0t begun to shed its skin!

    How this particularly thin sliver of rock got to where it is—and why it seems to be a different colour than the surrounding sand and debris-remains unexplained, but at least the rover falling apart.