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Find Which Direction Is South

    Do you have a good sense of direction? If not, please take with you a compass. But if you forget to take a compass, you can still find your way. 

    It's never a wise idea to believe that the family member who was good at the job of map-reading knows where the family is. You can tell by the troubled look on their faces that nothing on the ground seems to match the map. Never mind. The sun is shining and it's still morning. If you don't know the exact time, you can still find out where south is, but you'll need to be patient. 

    ①Find a straight stick and put it in the ground in a place where you can mark its shadow(a dark shape on a surface that is made when something stands between a light and the surface). 

    ②Try to position the stick as vertically(垂直)as you can. You can check this by making a simple plumb line(铅锤线). You haven't got one? OK, use a thread(线) from your clothes with a button(纽扣) tied at the end to act as a weight.

    ③Mark the end of the shadow cast(投射) by the stick.

    ④Wait about half an hour and mark the end of the shadow again.

    ⑤Keep doing this until you have made several marks. 

    ⑥The mark nearest the stick will represent the shortest shadow, which is cast at midday, when the sun is highest in the sky and pointing to the exact south. 

    ⑦Pick a point in the distance along the line between the shortest shadow and the stick.

    ⑧That point is south of where you are. 

    ⑨Now you can turn the map, like you did before, and find which way you should be travelling. 

    Do you and your friends ever talk about your dreams with each other? If you do, you might have noticed something interesting – some of your friends seldom remember their dreams, but some can always describe their dreams so clearly that it seems like they're describing things that really happened to them. What makes those people different?

    The answer is simple. There are two different types of dreamers – low dream recallers（回忆者）and high dream recallers.

    Low dream recallers usually remember their dreams only twice a month. But high dream recallers are able to remember them about five mornings a week. And a new study suggests that activity in a certain part of the brain could have something to do with it, reported The Huffington Post.

    Perrine Ruby, a French researcher at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, studied 41 people (21 high dream recallers and 20 low dream recallers) and recorded their brain activity.

    She found that a part of the brain called the temporo-parietal junction (颞顶联合区) was more active in high dream recallers than in low dream recallers – both when they were sleeping and awake.

    This brain area collects and processes（编程）information from the outside world. This means that high dream recallers know more about what's happening around them. For example, when they are awake, they respond (对……有反应) more strongly to hearing their own names, and when they are sleeping, they are woken more easily by sounds and movements.

    By closely studying people's brain activities, Ruby found that high dream recallers have twice as much “wakefulness time” during sleep as low dream recallers do. And it is during these short times of wakefulness that the brain remembers dreams.

    “The sleeping brain is not able to remember new information,” Ruby told The Washington Post. “It needs to wake up to be able to do that.”

    This is not hard to understand. Just try to think of your own sleeping experiences. If you are worried during the night, you are more likely to remember your dreams, but if you sleep well, you will remember little in the morning, and this is because “you never get a chance to remember”, Robert Stickgold, a Harvard Medical School researcher, told The Washington Post.

    Have you ever heard someone use the phrase"once in a blue moon"？People use this expression to describe something that they do not do very often．For example，someone might say that he tries to avoid eating sweets because they are unhealthy，but will eat chocolate"once in a blue moon"．Or someone who does not usually like to go to the beach might say"I visit the shore once in a blue moon．"While many people use this phrase，not everyone knows the meaning behind it．

    The first thing to know is that the moon itself is never really blue．This is just an expression．In fact，the phrase"blue moon"has to do with the shape of the moon，not the color．

    As the moon travels around the earth，it appears to change shape．We connect names with certain shapes of the moon．For example，when we can see a small part of the moon，it is called a crescent moon．A crescent is a shape that looks like the tip of a fingernail（指甲尖）．When we cannot see the moon at all，it is called a new moon．When we can see the whole moon，it is called a full moon．Usually，there is only one full moon every month．Sometimes，however，there are two full moons in one month．When this happens，the second full moon is called"a blue moon"．

    Over the next 20years，there will only be 15blue moons．So you can seldom see a blue moon． This fact has led people to use the expression"once in a blue moon"to describe things they don't often do in their lives．

    A zero-waste life is a lifestyle that hardly creates any rubbish. So, a zero-waste store is about providing a kind of everyday and pleasant-looking zero-waste products to help people start on a zero-waste life journey.

    "Zero waste" or "danshari" was first suggested by a French woman called Bea Johnson. Her idea is: live a life and try not to create any rubbish; use different kinds of ways to save the environment such as stopping the use of one-off objects; giving unwanted things to others or giving them away to organizations like the Red Cross.

    Yu Yuan, 27, is deeply interested in this idea. She and her boyfriend have lived in Beijing for many years. And earlier she used to buy things without thinking about them carefully until she saw a video about "zero waste", in which a family of four placed the rubbish they produced every year in a jar (罐). After watching the video, Yu wanted to experience this zero-waste lifestyle with her boyfriend.

    A zero-waste life follows the 6R rule-Refuse Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle and Rot. Over August-October when Yu followed the rule of zero waste 6R, she and her boyfriend Joe Harvey both produced only two cans of rubbish.

    Now, the couple have opened a small shop in Beijing, where they use wood products to take the place of plastic ones and cloth bags printed with environmentally friendly logos. Most products sold in the store can be reused. The store also has second-hand books and CDs/DVDs with, ideas to make the best of the used things.

    "Those who once experienced the non-waste lifestyle have slowly changed their ideas," says Ya, "The zero-waste lifestyle is not for ascetics (苦行僧). It is just around us at our finger-tips." Yu expects some of her friends to join her on the road to zero waste.

    We all cry for water when we are thirsty. But do you know, in very hot, dry weather, plants also make very low sounds as if they are crying for help?

    You see, in a plant's stem there are several hundred "water pipes" that bring water from soil all the way up to the leaves. When the ground turns dry, it becomes harder and harder for plants to do this.

    In very hot days, plants have to get any water that they can get.

    Scientists Robot Winter has found out that when plants can get no water, their "water pipes" snap(发出声音). When that happens, the whole plant vibrates(颤动) a little.

    Robot knows that healthy, well-watered plants are quiet. He also knows that dry plants are many insects' favorites and they often attack(袭击) them. How do the insects know which are healthy plants and which are not? Robot thinks that the insects may hear the plants "crying" and they may come to kill them.