Evening Workshops

    Optional evening workshops will be held at small restaurants or other meeting places near the conference hotel. Meals and other costs are not included but are also optional. Locations will be announced at the conference site. Workshops are very loosely organized and most represent discussions that have been held at Society for Economic Botany (SEB) meetings over a series of years.

    Workshop 1: Student Network

    Date: Wednesday evening, Feb. 5^th

    Chairs: Hugo de Boer and Arika Virapongse Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

    Description: Student members of the SEB hold a networking mixer each year in order to meet each other and to become familiar with a variety of educational programs and faculty advisors(大学指导老师). Faculty members who are part of training programs are encouraged to join the mixer to meet and talk with students.
     Workshop 2: Botanical Film Making
    Date : Wednesday evening, Feb. 5^th Chair : David Strauch

    Sponsor : University of Hawaii

    Description : Digit al film making is a particularly useful tool of linking cultural information to recognizable plants. This workshop is aimed towards increasing the quality of material recorded by giving participants greater control over the medium. We will cover technical aspects (e.g. camera settings, audio), technical aspects (framing, lighting, focus), and some ways of presenting the material. Experienced filmmakers are encouraged to attend, and participants are welcome to bring their own camera equipment.

    Workshop 3: Collections for Botany

    — Collections Development and Management Date: Friday evening, Feb. 7^th

    Chair: Jan Salick

    Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

    Description: SEB is a network of researchers who have been developing standards for the development of collections of artifacts, plant samples and related materials. Participants discuss successes, problems, and funding sources for solving management issues.

    Ever since it was created 30 years ago, The Simpsons, the longest running prime-time (黄金时段) TV show in the country, has become part of US life. So when TV critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked the 100 greatest comedies and dramas broadcast in the US, it came as no surprise that The Simpsons was their top choice.

    This was the show that changed the very concept (概念) of cartoons in Western society. Before it appeared, cartoons were considered a way to learn and have fun, not serious adult entertainment. The Simpsons changed this. The genius (过人之处) of the show is that it has something to offer both adults and children.

    It's a hugely entertaining program that's also full of satire (讽刺) and clever humor. A remark by Chitra Ramaswamy in The Guardian gave a sense of the esteem (敬重) in which The Simpsons is held: “Nothing before or since has matched its capacity to be at once so profoundly (深刻地) clever and so unbelievably stupid.”

    The show's creator Matt Groening, and the brilliant team that work with him, make fun of the US government, social customs, and of course, the idea of family life. But unlike classic US prime-time TV characters, the Simpsons are a dysfunctional (功能失调的) family.

    Bart, the boy, is always in trouble – both at home and at school. That may be in part because of his paternal (父亲的) example. Homer Simpson, perhaps the most iconic character, is a beer-swilling (喝着啤酒的), overweight slob (懒汉) who is normally found in front of the TV. And Marge, Homer's wife and the mother of the family, spends most of her time cooking, cleaning or trying to fix the messes that Bart and Homer make.

    The smartest member of the family is daughter Lisa, who excels (表现卓越) at school but is no goody-goody (讨好卖乖的人): Lisa never misses an opportunity to challenge authority. The youngest member of the family is baby Maggie, who will likely be as much a trouble as her brother and sister when she grows up – if she ever grows up, that is.

    But although the Simpsons are a problem family, viewers are always on their side. One of the reasons the show has remained so popular all these years is that the characters are so likeable. Millions of us identify with (同情) them. They are a working class family struggling to make ends meet. They aren't perfect, but then, who is? And after 30 years, this is still what strikes a chord (引起共鸣) with millions of viewers worldwide.

    Several years ago, Masaru Ibuka, chairman of Sony, was at a company planning a meeting. Suddenly he had a brilliant idea. He stopped the meeting and asked everyone present what would happen if Sony removed the recording function and speaker and sold headphones with a tape player instead. Almost everyone thought he was crazy. Still, Ibuka kept thinking about his idea and worked at improving it. The result, of course, turned out to be the wildly successful Sony Walkman.

    Good ideas often start with a seemingly silly question. Bill Bowerman was making breakfast one day. As he stood there making waffles (华夫饼干)for his son, he wondered what would happen if he poured rubber into his waffle iron. Later, he tried it and the result looked something like the bottom of most sports shoes we see today. Still, when he took this idea to several existing shoe companies, he was laughed at. In fact, every single company turned him down. Though rather discouraged, Bowerman insisted and went on to form his own company, making NIKE athletic shoes.

    Sometimes good ideas grow out of frustration .When Fred Smith was a student at Yale University, he had some paperwork that he needed to have delivered across the country the next day. Smith was amazed to find out that overnight delivery was impossible. He sat for a long while, lost in thought. Why couldn't there be a reliable overnight mail delivery service? He decided to design one. Smith did just that and turned his design into a class project.  His business professor gave him only a C for his efforts. However, Smith was not through. He improved the idea in that class project and finally turned it into one of the first and most successful overnight mail service in the world — FedEx.

    We know that each of these ideas led to a very successful product or service that has changed the way many of us live. The best questions are usually open-ended and are often silly, Children aren't afraid to ask such questions, but adults frequently are. Think how different the world might be if people never asked "silly" questions!

    The surface of Venus（金星）has never seemed very hospitable. Temperatures change around 470℃（900℉）, the result of a runway greenhouse effect，and the pressure of its atmosphere, thick with carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, is some 90 times that of Earth's. Lead（铅）would flow like water on Venus, and water cannot have existed in liquid form for perhaps a billion years.

    Now NASA'S Magellan spacecraft seems to have found one more horror in the nasty landscape: active volcanoes. Last week the space agency released the first detailed map of Venus and the most dramatic images ever made of its surface. The picture offer the best evidence to date that a planet once assumed dead is actually a lively pot of geological change.

    The most amazing image is of Venus's second tallest mountain, Maat Mons, which rises 8km（5 miles）. Most of the planet's many peaks, including 9.5-km-（6-mile-） high Maxwell Montes, look bright in the radar pictures Magellan takes from its orbit above the permanent could cover. That means they are strong reflectors of radar waves. But Maat Mons is dark; like the Stealth bomber, it absorbs much of the radar falling on it.

    This interesting fact, say project scientists, is a strong hint that the mountains has recently been covered with lava. Rock that sits on the surface of mountaintops appears to weather quickly in the hot，chemically reactive atmosphere, creating a soil that is rich in iron sulfide（硫化铁）• It is this mineral, the scientists believe, that can easily be seen on radar. If Maat Mons doesn't have any, it has probably been resurfaced, perhaps within the past few years.

    Such resurfacing has undoubtedly taken place in Venus lowlands: earlier images of the planet showed vast areas that are remarkably free of craters（火山坑）.That would be easy to explain on a Planet like Earth, where cratering from meteor strikes is erased by steady erosion. But while there is some evidence of wind erosion on Venus, the best explanation for the lack of cratering is periodic lava flow. Magellan has found direct evidence of such flows, including domelike upwellings and hardened streamed of rock trailing down the sides of Venusian peaks. There are also signs of other geologic activities, including dramatic faulting and several distinct incidents of mountain building. But the evidence can't indicate whether they really occurred millions of years ago. The case for active Venusian volcanoes is not yet proved, but Magellan, which is now well into its second complete survey of the planet's surface, may eventually settle the issue.

    Want a wonderful travel in London? Don't miss the following!

    The Guards Museum

    The Guards Museum was created as an educational tool for the newest intake of the Guards and includes exhibits of uniform for the five Roval regiments (团) dating from the Civil War, with details of the nature and origin of their ceremonial duties right up to their contemporary role. To anyone interested in these world-famous soldiers this London tourist attraction is a must-see.

    Telephone: 020 7414 3428

    Toy theatre

    Toy theatre (or paper theatre) was most popular in the 1800s, and consists of paper theatres, some with an extraordinary level of detail, allowing children to stage their own productions at home, usually with cut-out sheets of figures for the scenery, props (道具) and various characters in the play.

    Telephone: 020-7967-1066

    Charles Dickens Museum

    The Charles Dickens Museum, an author's house museum at Doughty Street, is a celebration of one of the greatest novelists in British history. The museum exhibits over 100, 000 items from personal items to artworks (艺术品) from some of his books. It is said that Dickens wrote 3 of his most famous stories while living here, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and The Pickwick Papers. The building is the writer's only surviving London house and we can get to know what life in the household would have been like.

    Telephone: 020-7405-2127

    Foundling Museum

    The Foundling Museum was originally one of the first houses in London for abandoned children and housed over 27, 000 children before its closure (关闭). Since then this London attraction has transformed (转化) itself into one special London museum with a large collection of artworks and social history relating to the children taken in and the terrible social problems that led to children being abandoned by their parents.

    Telephone: 020-7841-3600

In 2019, Thierry Henry, a bus driver, found there was a rise in bike thefts in his city, Reykjavik. Rather than 1 that the bike was gone forever, he decided to take matters into his own hands and started to track down the bikes and return them to their 2 owners. 

The 44-year-old has helped return hundreds of stolen bikes in the past 4 years. His social media account has over 14, 500 members and helps people track down more than just lost bikes. His page 3 to people who have lost tools, cars and other items of high value. On top of his noble act, Henry has helped the bike 4 to reform in the process. 

5 , Henry would deal with the thieves with anger. However, over time, he realized that most of the thefts were driven out of poverty and other issues. He went from feeling 6 towards the thieves, to developing empathy （同理心） for their situations. It was very tough at first. But Henry decided to try to 7 them and just talk to them. 

From this moment onward, he reached out to the thieves, offering help and guidance. After the change in his 8 , Henry found that the bike thieves began to often hand back the bikes to him. Amazingly, some former thieves that Henry helped now 9 him in looking for the stolen bikes. 

"It's like a 10 that has got bigger and bigger, ". says Henry. "It's not only me. Many times, someone spots a bike hidden in a bush and takes a picture. Then someone else comments, 'hey, that's my bike'. "

Thanks to Henry, everyone's looking out.