Mr. Jackson was tired of living in his old house in the countryside and wanted to sell it and buy a better one. He tried to sell it for a long time, but was not successful, so at last he decided to go to an estate agent（房产经纪人）.

    The agent advertised the house straight away, and a few days later, the owner saw a very beautiful photograph of his house, with a wonderful description of his garden in an expensive magazine.

    Having read the advertisement through, the house owner hurried to phone the estate agent, saying, “I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, but I've decided not to sell my house after all.” “Why?” the agent asked in a surprised voice. “Because from the advertisement in that magazine I can see it's just the kind of house I've wanted to live in all my life.”

    In the 1960s, while studying the volcanic history of Yellowstone National Park, Bob Christiansen became puzzled about something that, oddly, had not troubled anyone before: he couldn't find the park's volcano. It had been known for a long time that Yellowstone was volcanic in nature—that's what accounted for all its hot springs and other steamy features. But Christiansen couldn't find the Yellowstone volcano anywhere.

    Most of us, when we talk about volcanoes, think of the classic cone (圆锥体) shapes of a Fuji or Kilimanjaro, which are created when erupting magma (岩浆) piles up. These can form remarkably quickly. In 1943, a Mexican farmer was surprised to see smoke rising from a small part of his land. In one week he was the confused owner of a cone five hundred feet high. Within two years it had topped out at almost fourteen hundred feet and was more than half a mile across. Altogether there are some ten thousand of these volcanoes on Earth, all but a few hundred of them extinct. There is, however, a second les known type of volcano that doesn't involve mountain building. These are volcanoes so explosive that they burst open in a single big crack, leaving behind a vast hole, the caldera. Yellowstone obviously was of this second type, but Christiansen couldn't find the caldera anywhere.

    Just at this time NASA decided to test some new high-altitude cameras by taking photographs of Yellowstone. A thoughtful official passed on some of the copies to the park authorities on the assumption that they might make a nice blow-up for one of the visitors' centers. As soon as Christiansen saw the photos, he realized why he had failed to spot the caldera; almost the whole park-2.2 million acres—was caldera. The explosion had left a hole more than forty miles across—much too huge to be seen from anywhere at ground level. At some time in the past Yellowstone must have blown up with a violence far beyond the scale of anything known to humans.

    From composer, musician, and philanthropist (慈善家) Peter Buffett comes a warm, wise, and inspirational book that asks, "Which will you choose: the path of least resistance or the path of potentially greatest satisfaction?"

    You may think that with a last name like this, Buffett has enjoyed a life of endless privilege. But the son of billionaire investor Warrant Buffet says that the only real inheritance handed down from his parents is a philosophy: Build your own path in life. It is a principle that has allowed him to follow his own passions, establish his own identity, and achieve his own successes.

    In Life Is What You Made It, Buffett expounds on the strong set of values given to him by his trusting and broadminded mother, his hardworking and talented father, and the many life teachers he has met along the way.

    Today's society, Buffett assumes, has begun to replace a work ethic (准则), which enjoys what you do, with a wealth ethic, which honors the reward instead of the process. We confuse privilege with material wealth, character with external (外在的) recognition. Yet, by focusing more on substance and less on reward, we can open doors of opportunity and work hard toward a greater sense of achievement. In clear and brief terms, Buffett tells us a great truth: Life is random, neither fair nor unfair.

    From there it becomes easy to recognize the equal dignity and value of every human life—our circumstances may vary but our essence does not. We see that our journey in life rarely follows a straight line but is often met with false starts, crises, and mistakes. How we push through and insist on those challenging moments is where we begin to create the life of our dreams—from discovering our vocations (使命感) to giving back to others.

    Personal and instructive, Life Is What You Make It is about challenging your circumstances, taking control of your fate, and living your life to the fullest.

    In 2009 a new flu virus was discovered. Combining elements of the viruses that cause bird flu and swine flu, this new virus, named H1N1, spread quickly. Within weeks, public health agencies around the world feared a terrible pandemic (流行病) was under way. Some commentators warned of an outbreak on the scale of the 1918 Spanish flu. Worse, no vaccine(疫苗) was readily available. The only hope public health authorities had was to slow its spread. But to do that, they needed to know where it already was.

    In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) required that doctors inform them of new flu cases. Yet the picture of the pandemic that showed up was always a week or two out of date. People might feel sick for days but wait before consulting a doctor. Relaying the information back to the central organizations took time, and the CDC only figured out the numbers once a week. With a rapidly spreading disease, a two-week lag is an eternity. This delay completely blinded public health agencies at the most urgent moments.

    Few weeks before the H1N1 virus made headlines, engineers at the Internet giant Google published a paper in Nature. It got experts' attention but was overlooked. The authors explained how Google could "predict" the spread of the winter flu, not just nationally, but down to specific regions and even states. Since Google receives more than three billion search queries every day and saves them all, it had plenty of data to work with.

    Google took the 50 million most common search terms that Americans type and compared the list with CDC data on the spread of seasonal flu between 2003 and 2008. The idea was to identify areas affected by the flu virus by what people searched for on the Internet. Others had tried to do this with Internet search terms, but no one else had as much data-processing power, as Google.

    While the Googles guessed that the searches might be aimed at getting flu information—typing phrases like "medicine for cough and fever"—that wasn't the point: they didn't know, and they designed a system that didn't care. All their system did was look for correlations(相关性) between the frequency of certain search queries and the spread of the flu over time and space. In total, they processed 450 million different mathematical models in order to test the search terms, comparing their predictions against actual flu cases from the CDC in 2007 and 2008. And their software found a combination of 45 search terms that had a strong correlation between their prediction and the official figures nationwide. Like the CDC, they could tell where the flu had spread, but unlike the CDC they could tell it in near real time, not a week or two after the fact.

    Thus, when the H1N1 crisis struck in 2009, Google's system proved to be a more useful and timely indicator than government statistics with their natural reporting lags. Public health officials were armed with valuable information.

    Strikingly, Google's method is built on "big data"—the ability of society to handle information in new ways to produce useful insights or goods and services of significant value. However,   ▲  . For example, in 2012 it identified a sudden rise in flu cases, but overstated the amount, perhaps because of too much media attention about the flu. Yet what is clear is that the next time a pandemic comes around, the world will have a better tool to predict and thus prevent its spread.

Monster Zoo

    Monster Zoo is one of the largest zoos in the world, covering more than 15 km squares. It is home to more than 50 species of rare and native animals. The zoo is located 70 km from the city New South Australia.

    Monster zoo was founded in 1983 as a breeding area (繁殖区). Officially open to the public in October 1993, Monster Zoo is now home to more than 500 animals.

    Opening Hours

    Monster zoo is open daily from 9: 30 am to 5: 00 pm with last entry at 3: 00 pm. The zoo is open every day of the year, including Christmas Day and all public holidays. The exception to this is if the forecast temperature for Monster Zoo is 40 degrees or above, it will be closed.

    To get the most out of your visit we recommend setting aside a minimum of four to five hours to fully enjoy the Monster zoo.

    Tickets

    Child (4­14 years old) : AU $ 28. 50

    Adult (15 years old and over) : AU $ 51. 75

    Family / Mini Group: AU $ 132. 75

    Meet the Keeper

    Monster zoo offers various daily zoo keeper talks and animal feeds that give guests the chance to interact (互动) with our friendly workers and learn about the zoo's unique residents.

    Looking for a more unique animal experience? Consider booking a Behind the Scenes Animal Experience to come face to face with some of our special animal residents.

    Café

    Ketabi Café is open from 9: 30 am to 5: 00 pm daily and offers a variety of tasty treats, small snacks and hot meals.

    Picnics

    For those who prefer to bring their own meals, special picnic areas are available close to the Visitor Center. Please note that due to fire risk, the zoo does not allow for the use of BBQs.

    A 3-year-old boy who was lost in the woods for two days is now safe at home with his family. But Casey Hathaway told his rescuers that he was not alone in the rainy, freezing cold woods. He said he was with a friend — a bear.

    The child went missing on January 22. He was playing with friends at his grandmother's house in the southern state of North Carolina. When the other children returned home but Casey did not, the family searched the area for almost an hour before calling the police. Police formed a search and rescue team to look for the young boy in the nearby woods. But two days went by and still — no Casey.

    Then on January 24, someone called the police saying he heard a child crying in the woods. Police followed up on the information and found Casey at about 9:30 that night. They pulled him out of some briar. He was in good health. Casey told the rescuers that he had hung out with a black bear for two days, a bear he called his "friend".

    Sheriff Chip Hughes spoke with reporters from several news agencies. He said Casey did not say how he was able to survive in the woods for three days in the cold, rainy weather. However, the sheriff said, "He did say he had a friend in the woods that was a bear that was with him."

    Hundreds of people helped in the search and rescue efforts, including some 600 volunteers, federal police and members of the military. Officer Hughes told reporters that at no point did he think Casey had been kidnapped.

    His mother Brittany Hathaway talked with reporters from a local news agency and thanked everyone who joined the search for her son. "We just want to tell everybody that we're very thankful that you took the time out to search for Casey and prayed for him, and he's good," said his mother. "He is good, he is up and talking. He's already asked to watch Netflix. So, he's good …"