Time:2017-01-24     From:kekenet.com        Editor: clover

    The head of China's largest online seller Alibaba does not think China and the United States will have a trade war despite comments from the Trump administration.

    Jack Ma is the chairman of the Alibaba Group. At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, he said, "China and (the) U.S. will never have a trade war. Give Trump some time. He's open-minded, he's listening."

    The Chinese billionaire said he would do all he could to prevent trade relations between the countries from getting worse.

    Last week, Ma met with Trump at the Trump Tower in New York City. The Chinese billionaire is said to have discussed a plan to permit one million small U.S. businesses to sell goods on Alibaba's online shopping platform.

    During the campaign and after winning the presidential election, Trump strongly criticized the Chinese government's support for its businesses. He blamed unfair trade policies for taking away U.S. jobs. And he said that China unfairly controls the exchange value of its currency, the yuan.

    Trump also has threatened to place import taxes on goods from China and other countries in response to their trade policies.

    According to the South China Morning Post, Ma said, "American international companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization." He added that the U.S. should not blame the loss of jobs and companies on globalization.

    However, a new study by an American business group says many U.S. businesses feel unwelcome in China. The companies say the cost of doing business in China is increasing. They add that rules and regulations are unclear or not enforced in a consistent way.

    The American Chamber of Commerce in China led the study, which looked at responses from 462 companies.

    William Zarit is chairman of the chamber. He says trade policies in China make it difficult for American companies. He says, "we feel that over the last few years that we've been taken advantage of to some extent, with our open market and the lack of open areas in the Chinese market."

    Another major concern for U.S. companies in China is fake products. Fake products are copies of the originals that cost businesses with the legal right to sell them millions of dollars each year.

    Ma defended Alibaba's efforts to fight fake products on its shopping platform. He said his company is doing all it can to fight the problem.

    "Fighting against fake products is a war against human greediness," Ma said.

    I'm Mario Ritter.

    Since 2008, hunters have illegally killed more than 3000 rhinos in South Africa. The International Union for Conservation of Nature warns that rhinos may die out by 2026. People who hunt and kill illegally are called poachers. The most effective way to watch for and prevent illegal hunting is from the air. However, piloted flights are too costly. Fortunately, some Spanish college students have invented a drone (无人机) that can observe more places than a plane.

    Arnau Garcia is an aeronautical (航空学的) engineering student at the Polytechnic Institute of Catalonia, in Spain. He says observers from the air have trouble finding poachers when they hide under the trees. Mr. Garcia and other students have worked with the drone manufacturer HEMAV to help find the hidden poachers. They make it by using the thermal camera, which is especially sensitive to body heat. Even when the poachers keep still, it can also keep track of them.

    The drone can fly in the wind up to 55 kilometers per hour. It has an autopilot system, so it memorizes the flight path. The drone also has a microphone, a video camera and a GPS system. These permit it to report accurately where a picture is taken. After each flight, the drone can bring back detailed information about where rhinos are found, the conditions of water and plants in the area, and the positions of suspected poachers.

    Experts say the drone can fly as far as 70 kilometers from the base. It means that it could quickly observe large areas for poachers. However, the same search operation would take days for human observers. Thanks to the drone, many poachers have been caught and the number of rhinos is on the increase. In addition, HEMAV has received an increasing number of orders for the drone. Even South African national park officials attempt to fill the air with drones.

    A middle-aged man with a long beard was caught by the police for bad behavior and property damage. The man, Bill Wild, checked into a hotel last night, telling the clerk he would pay cash in advance and would be staying for four nights. He then asked her where the nearest store was and she told him it was John-Johns.

    Wild went to the store and bought three gallons of honey and four gallons of chocolate syrup (糖浆). The cashier asked him why he wanted these things and he replied, "I'm trying to become a sweeter person." The cashier smiled at the joke. Wild drove back to the hotel. He opened all bottles and poured them into the bathtub. He added warm water to the mix. He tuned the radio to an opera music station, took off his clothes, jumped into the tub, and started singing loudly with the music.

    Fifteen minutes later, the neighbor phoned the clerk complaining about the noise. The clerk knocked on Wild's door, but he just kept singing. She phoned his room, but he didn't answer. Then she called the police, who arrived quickly. They broke into the room. The floor was covered in water and the bathtub was full of chocolate and honey. "He seemed so nice and friendly. Who'd have thought he was a bathtub-singing nut?" said the clerk. The police said this was the third time that Wild had been arrested for this kind of behavior.

    Crown shyness(树冠羞避) is a mysterious natural phenomenon in which the crowns of some tree species do not touch each other, but get separated by a gap clearly visible from ground level. The effect usually occurs between trees of the same species, but has also been observed between trees of different species.

    There are many theories going around, most of which make sense, but no one has been able to prove without the shadow of a doubt why some trees avoid touching each other.

    In his 1955 book Growth Habits of the Eucalypts, Australian forester M.R. Jacobs writes that the growing tips of the trees are sensitive to abrasion(擦伤), which results in crown shyness phenomenon. This theory was also supported by Dr. Miguel Franco. Some experiments have shown that if trees displaying crown shyness are artificially prevented from swinging in the wind and touching each other, they gradually fill up the gaps between them.

    But while the above theory is arguably the most widespread, it's certainly not the only one. Some scientists have suggested that crown shyness is a mechanism to stop the spreading of leaf-eating insects. These pests have been known to work together and create structures that extend up to 10 cm off of tree branches in order to reach other plants, so the gaps are the trees' natural defense method.

    One Malaysian scholar studied many trees, but found no traces of abrasions, despite their clear crown shyness. Instead, he suggests that the growing tips of the trees were sensitive to light levels and stopped growing when they got too close to other trees. Plants are able to sense how close they are to other plants and in order to get more light, they give off some chemical element to stop other trees from growing too close.

    Whatever the reason, one thing is for sure: plants are more intelligent than people used to think.

    On a recent trip to the island of Newfoundland, Canada, my husband asked our talkative cab driver what made him most proud to be a native.

    "Our generosity and hospitality (好客)" he replied in a strong local accent. "If your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, someone will stop to help. People here are kind like that." His answer rang in my mind during that ride with my husband and teenage kids, as we headed out to explore on the first day of our vacation.

    Little did I know we were about to experience some of that remarkable Newfoundland kindness for ourselves. We met Alma that same morning at the start of a long hike. Our teenagers hurried ahead, and as we walked behind, admiring the scenery, two women in sunglasses and summer hiking equipment stopped. They'd heard us discussing different routes, and then asked if we'd like suggestions. They looked to be in their 40s, and were both enthusiastic to share their local expertise.

    We listened eagerly, taking mental notes, until one of the women asked, "You have a car, right?" I explained that there were no cars available during our week on the island, so we had to rely on cabs instead.

    "Oh no," she said, "you need a car." And then, as casually as if offering a piece of chewing gum (口香糖), she said, "Take mine!" My husband and I just smiled in disbelief, dumbfounded.

    "Why not?" she insisted. "You need a car to get to know all these places."

    "But you don't even know us," I said.

    "That doesn't matter," she continued with absolute determination.

    Surprised, I looked over at her friend, who shrugged and said, "That's Alma."

    Forty minutes of talking later, my family climbed into Alma's car. We spent the rest of our vacation discovering different areas of this beautiful island. But it wasn't the groups of whales we saw, or the vast areas of woodland, that made this place so memorable. Instead, it was the act of kindness from a complete stranger that made us realize how special Newfoundland really was.

    Next year, there's no doubt where we'll be taking our summer vacation. Who knows what act of kindness we'll meet then?

    Duolingo — iOS/Android

    Have you ever wanted to learn another foreign language? You might say: "English is hard enough  I don't want to go through that again."

    Relax — learning a foreign language doesn't always mean you have to sit in class and take endless exams. An app named Duolingo has been designed to help you memorize new words and grammar in creative ways, such as online lessons, games and interesting exercises.

    Named "the best language-learning app" by The Wall Street Journal, Duolingo currently offers 30 languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish.

    Headspace: Meditation & Sleep— iOS

    With homework to finish tests to prepare, it can seem like you don't have a moment to relax and gather your thoughts. What's to be done?

    Meditation(冥想)may help, and here's an app to get you started. Headspace teaches you to face some of the toughest problems of everyday life. It has courses on work and productivity, personal growth and how to deal with troubling emotions like anger and fear. There are also courses designed specifically for kids and students about dealing with distraction and homesickness.

    And, if that isn't enough, Headspace can help us with the biggest single cause of stress and anxiety: lack of sleep. The combination of the app's calming voices and relaxing music will help you get a good night's rest, ready to face the challenge of the next day with optimism and energy.

    Gentle Wakeup — Sleep & Alarm Clock with Sunrise — iOS/Android

    Every device(仪器)has an alarm function these days. But what does this app have to offer?

    The makers of Gentle Wakeup believe people can wake up w ell. The key is that the app wakes with light rather than sound. It offers a better move out of sleep through a "Sunrise" — a light slowly, gradually becomes brighter, just as the sun does. But the sunrise is only half of the waking process: The light grows for 20 minutes before you are eased out of your sleep by the natural early morning sounds of birdsongs. The makers believe users of the app will never wake up in the same w ay again: "Start getting awake by light and you will never w ant to wake up by sounds again".

    Forest: Stay focused — iOS/Android

    Though phones make life more convenient, many people feel that they are addictive. Forest is a clever intervention(干预)designed to make people understand that there's more to life than phones.

    Here's how it works: you plant a seed in the app and the longer you stay away from the phone, the more it grows. From a seed, it becomes a tree and then a forest at last. The makers say, the "sense of responsibility and achievement will encourage you to stay away from your phone and focus on what's important in life". And Forest has received some good review s from users, who say that's exactly what it does: "It's a phone game that gives you time rather than taking it away."