Night of the Living Zoo

    When: October 30th, 2016, 18:30-22:00

    Where: Lower Zoo

    Cost:

    Tickets now are on sale to FONZ (Friends of the National Zoo) members only! Not a member? Join now to get tickets at the member rate. FONZ members may purchase up to six tickets at the member price. Non-member tickets go on sale September 25th.

    General Admission: Includes live music, performance artists -including fortune tellers, fire breathers, as well as access to animal exhibits after hours, and interesting outdoor games. Also, all guests will receive free bottled water.

$ 20 FONZ members; $ 30 non-members.

    VIP Tickets: Include access to the VIP area, animal performances and private games, etc.

    $ 55 FONZ members; $ 80 non-members

    Details:

    It's back. Prepare to witness dangerous acts and amazing sights at the Zoo's annual Halloween event, Night of the Living Zoo. With live music, performance artists, and games, it's a special night of fun that you won't want to miss.

    FONZ encourages you to take public transportation and drink responsibly.

    Metro (地铁): The Zoo's Connecticut Avenue entrance is between the Red Line's Cleveland Park and Woodley Park Metro stops.

    Uber is Night of the Living Zoo's transportation partner this year! New to Uber? Sign up for $ 20 off your first ride (new users only).

    Parking: Parking at the event will be $ 22.

    Blind people usually possess one advantage over other people who can see. Their sense of hearing is far more acute. Bats, whose sight is poor, use a sound location system to help them avoid blocks in the dark. They send out pulses of sound waves, pitched at 50,000 cycles per second, far above the limits of the human ear, which can hear sounds up to frequencies of about 20,000 cycles per second. As the echoes bounce back off obstacles such as trees and walls, the bats are able to take proper action.

    The first steps to help blind people to see with sound are based on exactly the same principle. The sound is given off by an ultrasonic (超声的) torch, whose shape is different from a normal electric torch. It is double-barreled. It works in a similar way to a sonar (声呐) unit on a warship or submarine. The unit's transmitter sends out pulses of ultrasonic waves at the same frequency as the bat and the receiver picks up the returning echoes. Because these are still above the frequency at which the human ear can pick them up. The echoes are filtered (过滤) through circuits that turn them into “bleeps” which can be clearly heard before passing them into headphones.

    This means that a person holding the torch can point it ahead of him and scan the area for obstacles over a range of about 25 feet. If there are no return echoes coming through the headphones, then there is nothing in the way. If echoes do come back, then the closer the obstruction the faster the succession of bleeps and the deeper the pitch of each bleep. With practice, the torch could help a blind person to lead a more normal life.

    At present, the experimental ultrasonic torch requires a shoulder bag to carry the batteries, cables for the power supplies and earphones, as well as the torch itself. Fortunately, reducing the size of the electronic equipment is progressing and it should not be long before the whole set-up can be reproduced in a form small enough to fit into a pair of glasses. The wearer would face in the direction he wanted to check, and lift or lower his head just as a sighted person would.

    To see the world is one thing; to have someone to share it with is another. Indeed, travel becomes more interesting when you have a travel partner. A travel partner can be a close friend, a family member, a pal you've met online, or a business friend.

    You can have someone to talk to.

    Traveling alone is fun, but wouldn't you feel lonely？Having a travel partner can remove the feeling of loneliness. This is especially true if you can get a travel companion who is very familiar with the place you're traveling to. You don't have to ask any information from the locals, and you can increase the time you spend in the country.

    __________________________

    One of the major headaches in traveling is the costs involved. You can't simply ignore the rising price of hotels or plane tickets. You should also think about your daily needs, such as your food. Of course, you can't simply go back without bringing any souvenirs (纪念品) to your friends and family. All these can ruin your budget. However, when you have a travel friend, you can have someone to share the expenses with.

    You can meet a good friend.

    Having a travel mate is a good way of meeting a new friend or even a lifelong partner. You can never count the number of couples who actually found their way into each other's heart while traveling together in another country.

    You can have someone to watch out for you.

    When you're in a foreign land, you'll never be really safe. You don't know the rules as well as the culture of the people. A travel mate will be perfect to remind you of your duties in the country and to watch your back just in case you get lost.So why don't you find a travel companion now?

    Let's find out how...

    A study based on data gathered by a NASA sensor has revealed China and India, the world's two most populous countries, are primarily responsible for making the Earth greener over the past two decades.

    The study, published on Feb 11 in the journal Natural Sustainability, has found that since 2000 the Earth's green leaf area has increased by over 5 million square kilometers. That's an area equivalent to the total of the Amazon rainforests. "China and India account for one-third of the greening, considering the general idea of land degradation (退化) in populous countries from overexploitation," said Chen Chi from Boston University, lead author of the study.

    The effect mainly comes from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries, NASA said in a statement. China is the source of a quarter of the planet's increase in forest area, despite having only 6.6 percent of the world's vegetated (固定植被的)area, according to the study. Forest conservation and expansion programs account for 42 percent of the increase, and another 32 percent come from intensive agriculture of food crops, NASA said. While raising their green leaf areas, China and India have also greatly increased their food production through" multiple cropping" practices, where a field is replanted and crops are harvested several time each year. "Production of grains, vegetable, fruits and more have increased by about 35 to 40 percent since 2000 to feed their large population," NASA said.

    Over the past decades, China has made great efforts to green the land. In 1978, the central government launched a national-level forestation project-the Three North Shelterbelt Forest Program. By the end of 2017, the forest coverage rate among the regions in the project reached 13.57 percent, compared to 5.05 percent 40 years ago. In a greening project, Kubuqi Desert, seventh largest in the country, has seen one-third of its area covered by vegetation during the past three decades thanks to forestation efforts.

The theatre in Shakespeare's time was much different than it is today. Authors wrote plays for the masses, especially those who couldn't read or write.

The theatre changed a lot during Shakespeare's lifetime. The authorities didn't like it and didn't allow acting in the city itself: They thought it had a bad influence on people and kept them from going to church. Queen Elizabeth, on the other hand, loved acting and helped the theatre become popular.

The theatre in Shakespeare's time was full of life. People did not sit all the time and it was not quiet during the performance. The audience could walk around, eat and drink during the play.

Theaters were open arenas or playhouses that had room for up to three thousand people. There was almost no scenery because the dialogue was the most important part of the play. Colourful and well­designed costumes were very important and told the people about the status of a character. Women never performed in plays, 80 young boys played female characters. The performances took place in the afternoon because it was too dark at night.

There was no stage crew as there is today. Actors had do everything themselves—from making costumes to setting the stage. Plays were organized by acting companies. They performed about 6 different plays each week because they needed money to survive. They had almost no time to rehearse (排练).

The companies in Shakespeare's time had a rank system. The company belonged to shareholders and managers. They were responsible for everything and got most of the money when the company was successful. Sometimes they even owned their own buildings. Actors worked for the managers arid after some time became a permanent member of the company. Apprentices (学徒) were young boys and were allowed to act in unimportant role. They also played females characters in play.