I was never very neat, while my roommate Kate was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place, but mine always hid somewhere. She even labeled(贴标签) everything. I always looked for everything. Over time, Kate got neater and I got messier. She would push my dirty clothing over, and I would lay my books on her tidy desk. We both got tired of each other.

    War broke out one evening. Kate came into the room. Soon, I heard her screaming, “Take your shoes away! Why under my bed!” Deafened, I saw my shoes flying at me. I jumped to my feet and started yelling. She yelled back louder.

    The room was filled with anger. We could not have stayed together for a single minute without a phone call. Kate answered it. From her end of the conversation, I could tell right away her grandma was seriously ill. When she hung up, she quickly crawled(爬) under her covers, weeping. Obviously, that was something she should not go through alone. All of a sudden, a warm feeling of sympathy rose up in my heart,

    Slowly, I collected the pencils, took back the books, made my bed, cleaned the socks and swept the floor, even on her side. I got so into my work that I even didn't noticed Kate had sat up. She was watching, her tears dried and her expression one of disbelief. Then, she reached out her hands to grasp mine. I looked up into her eyes. She smiled at me. “Thanks.”

    Kate and I stayed roommates for the rest of the year. We didn't always agree, but we learned the key to living together: giving in, cleaning up and holding on.

    As a gesture of friendship，Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo，Japan gave Washington, D.C a gift of more than 3,000 Japanese cherry trees on March 17,1912.Every spring, the cherry trees in Washington，D.C. take bloom(开花)，beginning one of the country's loveliest celebrations, the National Cherry Blossom Festival (March 17-April 15). Book your trip now to see this vibrant display of pink and white in this city full of history!

    Washington, D.C. Cherry Blossom In-Depth Tour

    Priee: $45/person

    Available: Mar.25-Apr.15

    Duration: 1 Day

    Highlights: Visit Washington， D.C.; experience the peak period of cherry blossom(April 8-12)

    Itinerary: Guests will start to celebrate the National Cherry Blossom Festival and discover the beauty of cherry blossoms. Next,we will begin our sightseeing city tour including Lincoln Memorial, White House, US Capitol, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, Washington Monument and International Spy Museum. Then visit the next tourist spot, the Jefferson Memorial. It's the best location to view the cherry blossoms. Finally, guests may board a Potomac River cruise to see the city from the water. Then tour ends.

    Price Includes: Ground Transportation

    Admission Fees:

    Note: If you would like to join in the optional activities, please pay the fee in cash to the tour guide. You cannot buy the tickets on your own or use City Pass. The tour guide will arrange the tickets for the group.

    Robots and humans will soon be living in harmony(和睦).A singing robot is being taught to create jazz with a human in a project.

    Antonio Chella from Italy is working with a Telenoid robot. To start with, the Telenoid will be trained to follow the movements and simple sounds made by a human singer, and to connect music with different emotional states. Chella then plans to see if the robot can use these connections to create music.

    Intelligence is often regarded as the ability to find connections between the existing things. But Chella suggests that a conscious(有意识的) creature should be able to go a step further and introduce new connections that result in the creation of something new.

    Some jazz musicians say that they should have a mental library of musical phrases so that they are able to combine them in new ways. More importantly, however, this combination happens in a state that is similar in a sense to dreaming. Chella wants to copy these states in a machine.

    “This work raises interesting questions about the link between consciousness and music making,” says Philippe Pasquier, a musician and computer scientist. But he is skeptical about whether a robot musician needs a physical body.

    Pasquier argues that the robots are faced with two challenges(挑战). Software that can copy Bach has already been developed. But interpretation（演绎）includes human's different tastes and judgments. “What made the Beatles famous was not so much their works, but the fact that the interpretations of the works were wonderful,” he says.

    It is not yet clear how a robot would go about interpreting music in a new way. But by copying humans and then learning to sing, Chella's robot could provide clues.

    What seems to be important is that human composers often listen to lots of music made by others. So Chella's robot had better listen to those jazz standards first.

    It's a real case of fish out of water. Blennies (鲇鱼) in the South Pacific Ocean are gradually relocating to land to escape their predators (捕食者), in an example of evolution in action.

    Fish first began crawling onto dry land about 400 million years ago, kicking off an evolutionary chain of events that led to humans. But their reasons for exiting the sea have been uncertain.

    To look for clues, Terry Ord at the University of New South Wales in Australia has been studying several species of blennies at Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands.

    At low tide, blennies are commonly found swimming in rock pools around the edges of the island. But when high tide moves in, they climb up to dry land and move around the rocks until the tide retreats.

    The researchers found that this is most likely to avoid predators that swim in with the rising tide – mainly bigger fish like lionfish.

    To test what would happen if blennies did not have an escape plan, they made blenny models and sank them in the sea. The mimics ended up with wounds, bite marks and chunks-missing.

    Of course, there are still dangers for blennies on land, like the occasional bird attack, but the predation risk on land is a third that of underwater.

    What's more, moving onto land has additional benefits for blennies. Holes in the rocks provide sheltered nests for laying eggs, and they can maintain their diet of bacteria.

    In fact, several species of blenny fish at Rarotonga have already made the full transition to land-dwelling (陆生的) species. They continue to breathe with their gills, but have developed stronger tail fins and jump from rock to rock.

    Ord believes that many evolutionary processes have been driven by the need to escape predators. “It is often assumed that animals move homes to find new sources of food, but in many cases, escaping predators is a stronger motivation.” he says.

    Here are some best sellers of 2018 at Amazon.

    The car

    Fourteen-year-old Terry's parents never pay him much attention. So when they both disappear after one of their all-too-frequent arguments, Terry isn't exactly eager for them to come home. On his own, he fixes an abandoned car. Though he doesn't know much about driving, he gets behind the wheel and heads west, with the intention of visiting an uncle in Oregon. It's an exciting and sometimes dangerous journey. Along the way, he learns a lot about people, about America——and most importantly, about himself.

    The Running Dream

    Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident.

    As she struggles to cope with her prosthesis(义肢)and many other difficulties, Jessica develops a close relationship with Rosa, a girl who has a cancer and sees right into Jessica's heart.

    With the support of family, friends, a coach, and her teammates, Jessica is able to run again. But that's not enough for her now. She doesn't just want to cross finish lines herself—she wants to take Rosa with her.

    Have a New Teenager by Friday

    Do you know this person?

    His bedroom looks like a garbage dump.

    She changes clothes three times before breakfast.

    It seems that he／she never agrees with you.

    Congratulations! You have a teenager in your home. But you needn't feel helpless. In fact, you're just five days away from your teenager asking.“ What can I do to help?” Internationally recognized family expert Dr. Kevin Leman will help you get real results—really fast.

    Boy Robot

    Seventeen-year-old Isaak discovers the truth about his origin: a government—made human. But a deadly military force is trying to kill him. He and the other Robots can only find protection from the Underground—a secret network of Robots and humans working together to ensure a coexistent future. Isaak must decide whether to hold on to his humanity and face possible death or to embrace his true nature in order to survive.

    If you are interested in any of the books, click here for further information:

    https://www.amazon.com/.

A Different Kind of Spring Break

    For many American university students, the week-long spring break holiday means an endless part on a sunny beach in Florida or Mexico. In Panama City Beach, Florida, a city with a permanent population of approximately 36,000, more than half a million university students arrive during the month of March to play and party, making it the number one spring break destination in the United States.

    A week-long drinking binge is not for everyone, however, and a growing number of American university students have found a way to make spring break matter. For them, joining or leading a group of volunteers to travel locally or internationally and work to address problems such as poverty, homelessness, or environmental damage makes spring break a unique learning experience that university students can feel good at.

    During one spring break week, students at James Madison University in Virginia participated in 15 "alternative spring break" trips to nearby states, three others to more distant parts of the United States, and five international trips. One group of JMU students traveled to Bogalusa, Louisiana, to help rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Another group traveled to Mississippi to organize creative activities for children living in a homeless shelter. One group of students did go to Florida, but not to lie on the sand. They performed exhausting physical labor such as maintaining roving invasive plant species that threaten the native Florida ecosystem.

    Students who participate in alternative spring break projects find them very rewarding. While most university students have to get their degrees before they can start helping people, student volunteers are able to help people now. On the other hand, the accommodations are far from glamorous. Students often sleep on the floor of a school or church, or spend the week camping in tents. But students only pay around $250 for meals and transportation, which is much less than some of their peers spend to travel to more traditional spring break hot spot.