Winter sports tend to be more dangerous than summer sports — they take place mostly outside at the mercy of ice or snow, involving (牵涉) metal edges, extreme speeds and crashes. Skeleton (俯视冰梭), however, stands apart as one of the most difficult and least accessible of all the winter sports. Adam Edelman, Israel's first Olympic skeleton athlete, would like to change that.

    Edelman was the 10th athlete named to the 2018 Israeli Olympic Team. Qualifying for the Olympics in any sport is impressive. But it's more impressive if you qualify for the Olympics after only four years in the sport — and without a coach.

    Edelman was first introduced to skeleton watching the game on television in late 2013. Sports have always been a part of his life. He grew up playing football and was a goalkeeper on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology football team. Ready for a new challenge, he set his sights on the Olympics.

Without a coach, Edelman learned to drive by watching endless hours of YouTube videos and taking more runs than anybody else on the track. “When everybody else would take three runs per day, I would take six to eight.” he recalled.

    Succeeding in skeleton takes a large amount of athletic ability and technical skill, but there's one more element (因素) required, one that can't be taught. “These tracks but built in the middle of nowhere, and it's gray and cold. You haven't seen your family in seven months and you really just want to give up. To continue, it takes tenacity.” Edelman said.

    Edelman is already looking beyond Pyeongchang. The 2022 Olympics could be in his future, but whether he continues to compete or not, he promises to stay in Israeli sports as long as possible-as instructor or as a coach.

    Australia was first used as an island prison by Britain to solve their problem of having a fast growing prison population. These early settlers were those who were sent from all over Great Britain, including Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. Later events, such as the gold rush, caused several waves of immigration (移居) from Europe, Asia and other parts of the world. It is commonly thought that Australians are offspring (后代) of those criminals (罪犯)! In fact, only a part of Australians are those criminals' offspring. Also, in those days, people could be put into prison or sent to Australia for small crimes, like stealing a loaf of bread. Today Australia is home to the largest Greek and Italian communities in the world, outside Greece and Italy. This has helped the Australian accent develop.

    Australian English was created by the first generation of children born in the new area. Since they talked with people who have different accents, they began to speak a distinct dialect of English that was to become the language of the nation. These differences were first noted by late arrivals in the early 1800s, and the language sounds like Cockney English, spoken by the working­class in London.

    Soon, words from native languages were to become part of the Australian English. Here are some words you may consider them to be Standard English. In fact, they are from native Australian languages!

    The names of many places and animals, including Canberra (the Australian capital, meaning "meeting place" in a local language).

    Hard yakka — meaning "hard work", coming from the language of the Brisbane area.

    Cooee — a call used traditionally by native Australians to attract attention, because the sound can travel long distances.

    Bung — meaning "dead", but also used to mean broken or useless, for example, "He has a bung eye".

    A society that lives by the plastic fork may very well die from it. That's how things are looking. Anyway, for a world so used to disposable(一次性的) habits, any hope for a solution(解决方案) also increasingly seems to be buried.

    Sure, there have been some hopeful ideas. Boyan Slat, the Dutch inventor developed a plan for Covering the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Not long after it started, Slat's system experienced "material fatigue(疲劳)"-likely the result of being strained(使受到压力) by all that trash-and the task was delayed.

    All the while, the plastic increases. Its growth is very fast, according to Linda Wang, a professor of chemical engineering at Purdue University. She says, "We'll have more plastic than fish by 2050." Yet Wang, along with other researchers at Purdue, may have a solution not only to this plastic problem, but also to the growing need for clean energy.  Her team has developed a system that turns waste, a durable, lightweight material that accounts for about a quarter of all plastic waste, into a highly pure form of gasoline.

    Publishing their findings in the journal Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, the scientists' state that instead of making plastic go away, they can break it down and reuse it, using chemistry to destroy what chemistry brought to the world when plastic was developed back in 1907.

    The process uses "supercritical" water-heated to around 450 degrees Celsius (842 degrees Fahrenheit),beyond the key point at which distinct liquid and vapor phases(气液态) exist-to boil plastic waste into an oil, the researchers explain. It takes a couple of hours for the supercritical water to complete the transformation, but the result is a kind of oil that can be used as gasoline or fuel. It can also be turned into other products.

    The researchers have only made the transformation in a laboratory setting so far, but they suggest turning the process to a commercial scale(规模) may not be far off. And considering the 300 million tons of plastic into the environment every year, that day can't come soon enough. But it will come in time.

Immersive Van Gogh

From the creators of the blockbuster show in Paris seen by over two million visitors and still wowing crowds in Toronto, the west coast premiere (首场) of the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit will bring the art of Vincent to life in Los Angeles.

Immersive art is not just a technical way to represent video and audio in huge spaces. The word immersive indicates a deep commitment of intentions which connect images and sounds in a way that the audience is able to experience a different way of the art.

True to its name, this exhibition transforms the iconic (偶像的) paintings of Vincent van Gogh into moving, wall-filling projections. "Immersive Van Gogh" promises half-a-million cubic feet of projections that pull from some of the post-impressionist's most recognizable pieces, including The Bedroom, Sunflowers and, yes, The Starry Night.

You will experience art like never before—lose yourself in entrancing, moving images that highlight brushstrokes, detail, and color—truly illuminating (照亮) the mind of the genius.

LOCATION

The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit is located at a secret place situated in the heart of Los Angeles. To be announced before the exhibit opens, existing ticket holders will receive an email with the place name and location once it is made public.

TICKET PRICES

Tickets are available online at www.vangoghla.com.

GIFT SHOP

Stop by our Exhibit Gift Shop to take the magic of Van Gogh home with you! From clothing and jewelry to home décor, children's books, and so much more, you will find unique and thoughtful souvenirs at the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit. Also be sure to check out at our online store!

Experience the organic landscapes of Van Gogh's imagination, and journey through his brilliance and madness in a completely new and unforgettable way.

I was asked by a reader recently why so many animals seem to have pink ears，when their bodies are all different colours? The truth is that most animals actually don't have pink ears. Let us explain.

Near the equator (赤道), where the climate is hot, animals are likely to have darker skin, including on their ears. Think of the African elephant, which has quite dark ears. In colder climates, skin colour is usually lighter and often pink.

Why is skin colour different in different climates? Skin pigmentation, which is what gives skin its colour, can protect against sunburn and skin cancer. When animals live in colder parts of the world, they don't need it as much to survive. Light-coloured skin also helps animals stay warmer because it reduces heat loss, which is useful if you're in a colder climate.

For most animals, the colour of their fur or other body covering has generally developed as camouflage. That allows animals to mix into the background and avoid being eaten, or for predators (捕食者) to remain hidden during hunting. One example is the sandy-coloured coat of the desert fennec fox, which uses camouflage for both hunting and hiding.

By the way, in many animals, ears come in many different shapes and sizes. For example, in bats, the serval (a type of African wildcat) and the fennec fox, the ears are large compared to their body size—this helps them hear better because it allows them to sense more sound waves. Naked mole-rats have tiny ears because they need to dig a lot. Big ears would get in the way. The other downside of big ears is that you can lose a lot of body heat. That's why animals that live in really cold places, like the Arctic fox, have quite small ears.