Time flies, but the tracks of time remain in books and museums. This is what made a recent tragedy in Brazil even more terrible.

    On Sept.2, a big fire ripped through the National Museum of Brazil. "Two hundred years of work, research and knowledge were lost," Brazilian President Michel Temer wrote on Twitter after the fire. "It's a sad day for all Brazilians."

    Most of the 20 million pieces of history are believed to have been destroyed. Only as little as 10 percent of the collection may have survived, Time reported. Among all the items, there were Egyptian mummies, the bones of uniquely Brazilian creatures such as the long－necked dinosaur Maxakalisaurus, and an 11,500－year－old skull called Luzia, which was considered one of South America's oldest human fossils.

    Besides these, Brazil's indigenous(本土的，土著的) knowledge also suffered. The museum housed world－famous collections of indigenous objects, as well as many audio recordings of local languages from all over Brazil. Some of these recordings, now lost, were of languages that are no longer spoken.

    "The tragedy this Sunday is a sort of national suicide, a crime against our past and future generations," Bernard Mello Franco, one of Brazil's best－known columnists, wrote on the O Globo newspaper site.

    The cause of the fire is still unknown, as BBC News reported on Sept. 3. After the fire burned out, crowds protested outside the museum to show their anger at the loss of the irreplaceable items of historical value.

    According to Emilio Bruna, an ecologist at the University of Florida, museums are living, breathing stores of who we are and where we've come from, and the world around us.

    Just as underwater grass floats on the surface if it loses its roots, a nation is lost without its memories. The fire at the National Museum of Brazil teaches the world an important lesson: We should never neglect history.

    A bicycle may be seen by most people as just another vehicle (交通工具), but for many Londoners, cycling is a way of life. According to an official UK government survey in 2017, about 570,000 bike journeys are made every day in London. In fact, almost half of the vehicles that pass over London Bridge each day are bikes.

    London introduced a public bike-sharing system in 2010. “There can be no doubt that our trusty bicycles have changed the way people get around our great city,” Johnson told the Guardian in 2015.

    In London, bikes are used for more than just taking short trips to and from the subway. No matter where you want to go in the city, taking a bike is usually the quickest and easiest choice.

    And it's not just shared bikes that the government is encouraging people to ride. In many companies across the UK, the UK government's Cycle to Work scheme (骑行倡议) allows employees to buy a brand new bike without having to pay any tax (税). This means that it's common to see many people cycling to and from work, and some employers even provide workplace showers and lockers (储物柜) for their workers. More importantly, a cycle-friendly boss may let you off for being late if you rode a bike to work.

    Not only is it great for the environment and our body, cycling is also good for the mind. According to National Geographic Magazine, “Bike riding can improve people's happiness.”

    You may probably meet most of the powerful graduation speakers, here who are well-known people in their fields. I think the schools couldn't have picked better speakers than them, because they set good examples, deeply inspiring us in our daily life.

    1) Steve Jobs, Stanford University:

    "Remembering you're going to die, and the best way I know is to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice... "

    2) Oprah Winfrey, Stanford University:

    "I consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school... And the secret I've learned to get ahead is being open to the lessons from the grandest universe of all. Don't react against a bad situation. And the solution will arise from the challenge. So don't give up easily, acting with responsibility... "

    3) Bono, University of Pennsylvania:

    "For four years you've been buying, trading, and selling everything you've got in this market-place of ideas. Your pockets are full, even if your parents' are empty, and now you've got to figure out what to spend it on... The world is more flexible than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape... "

    4) Michael Dell, University of Texas at Austin:

    "Now it's time for you to move on to what's next and obtain your desire. But you must not let anything prevent you from taking those first steps. Don't spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity, or sometimes you'll miss the right opportunity. Recognize that there will be failures and obstacles. But you will learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others."

    Each applicant to Harvard College is considered with great care. We consider each applicant to Harvard College as a whole person, and put enormous care into evaluating every application. We hope you will explore the information in this section to understand what we look for in our admissions process.

    How to Apply

    Submit your application through the Common Application, the Coalition Application, or the Universal College Application. Each is treated equally by the Admissions Committee. Complete and submit your materials as soon as possible to ensure full and timely consideration of your application. View our Application Tips for step-by-step information.

    When to Apply

    What We Look For

    We seek promising students who will contribute to the Harvard community during their college years, and to society throughout their lives. While academic accomplishment is the basic requirement, the Admission Committee considers many other factors—strong personal qualities, special talents or excellences of all kinds, perspectives formed by unusual personal circumstances, and the ability to take advantage of available resources and opportunities.

    We outline everything you need to apply to Harvard.

    Click https: //college.harvard.edu/admissions/apply to get detailed requirements.

    LaVonn was helping out in her dad's store when a little boy, about five or six years old, came in. He was wearing a brown and oversized coat with dirty, old clothes beneath it. His shoes were broken, and only one had lace (鞋带). The boy looked around the store, picked up several items, examined them one by one and then carefully put them back on the shelf.

    LaVonn's dad walked over to the child and asked if he could help. The little boy said, "I'm looking for a gift for my brother." After 20 minutes, the child picked up a toy airplane. He held it carefully in his hands as if it were made of glass and carried it to LaVonn's father.

    "How much is this?" he asked. "My brother loves airplanes." LaVonn's dad answered, "How much money do you have?" The little boy reached into his coat and pulled out some small change (零钱). He spread his money out on the table and began to count. "I have twenty-seven cents," he answered. Her dad picked up the coins and said, "The airplane costs exactly twenty-seven cents! Wait here and I'll pack it up for you."

    The little boy walked out of the store with the gift and a smile of total satisfaction on his face. LaVonn made her way back to the shelf and she found the plane was priced at $11.98.She never mentioned it to her father. Her father didn't say anything more about it either, but she realized later, "My best gift that Christmas was seeing my dad's love in action."

Nick Torrance, a junior in high school, suffers from muscular dystrophy, and attends school in a specialized wheelchair. The muscle disease prevents him from accomplishing many everyday tasks, such as carrying his books and putting things away in his locker. So he had a fellow student assigned to help him. But Amy Smith, the school's occupational therapist, thought that being able to do something simple like opening his locker on his own would be empowering.

Amy initially thought they would be able to buy a device to help. But searching online turned up nothing that could meet their needs—everything needed a keycode or some other physical action, things her disabled student couldn't do. After the outside search for a method came up short, she looked within the school itself for an answer. Amy turned to the school's robotics instructor.

The instructor, in turn, suggested that two of his most capable students take on the project: Micah Stuhldreher and Wyatt Smrcka. They took first place in a national robotics competition, so they were a natural choice to tackle the locker door problem with a robotics solution. Micah and Wyatt wasted no time getting down to work and for an hour each school day, the boys brainstormed, built, and rebuilt various versions of the device until they landed on the perfect solution one year later.

Like in any device development, it took a lot of trial and error for Micah and Wyatt to make something that would work for their target audience. For example, they initially built a locker-opening button, but Nick wasn't strong enough to push it, so they replaced it with a sensor.

Now, between classes Nick steers his electric wheelchair to his locker and waves his hand over a sensor on the arm of the wheelchair. A few seconds later, the locker door swings open. Another wave closes the door. Nick can make it with ease—it may be a small thing, but it gives him a sense of independence.