Tayka Hotel de Sal

Where: Tahua, Bolivia

How much: About $ 95 a night

Why it's cool: You've stayed at hotels made of brick or wood, but salt? That's something few can claim. Tayka Hotel de Sal is made totally ofsalt—including the beds (though you'll sleep on regular mattresses andblankets). The hotel sits on the Salar de Uyuni, a prehistoric dried-up lakewhich is the world's biggest salt flat. Builders use the salt from the 4,633-square-mile flat to make the bricks, and glue them together with a paste(糊) of wet salt that hardens when it dries. When rain starts to dissolve (溶解) the hotel, the owners just mix up more salt paste to strengthen the bricks.

Green Magic Nature Resort

Where: Vythiri, India

How much: About $ 240 a night

Why it's cool: Taking a pulley(滑轮)—operated lift 86 feet to your treetop room is just the start of your adventure. As you look out of your open window, there is no glass! You watch monkeys and birds inthe rain forest canopy(罩篷). Later you might test your fear of heights by crossing the handmade rope bridge to themain part of the hotel, or just sit on your bamboo bed and read. You don't evenhave to come down for breakfast—the hotel will send it up on the pulley-drawn“elevator”.

Dog Bark Park Inn B&B

Where: Cottonwood, Idaho

How much: $ 92 a night

Why it's cool: This doghouse isn't just for the family pet. SweetWilly is a 30-foot-tall dog with guest rooms in his belly. Climb the wooden stairs beside his hind leg to enter the door in his side. You can relax in the main bedroom, go up a few steps of the loft(阁楼) in Willy's head, or hang out inside his nose. Although you have a full private bathroom in your quarters, there is also a toilet in the 12-foot-tall fire hydrant(消防栓) outside.

Gamirasu Cave Hotel

Where: Ayvali, Turkey

How much: Between $ 130 and $ 450 a night

Why it's cool: Experience what it was like 5,000 years ago, when people lived in these mountain caves formed by volcanic ash. But your stay will be much more modern. Bathrooms and electricity provide what you expect from a modern hotel, and the white volcanic ash, called tufa, keeps the rooms cool insummer. (Don't worry— there is heat in winter.)

    Alibaba started taking the lead in China, simply enough, by connecting big Chinese, manufacturers(制造商)with big buyers across the world. Its business-to-business site, Alibaba.com allowed business to buy almost everything. Alibaba's advantage wasn't hard to identify: size.

    Alibaba is just big, even by Chinese standards. Its marketplaces attract 231 million active buyers, 8 million sellers, 11.3 billion orders a year—and Alibaba is just the middleman. It encourages people to use its markets—not charging small sellers a percentage of the sale.

    If you want a quick look into the influence of Alibaba on daily Chinese life, take my experience. I moved to Beijing almost a year ago and quickly got tired of visiting small stores across the crowded, polluted city of 20 million people in search of new electronics, bathroom furnishings. “You're looking for what exactly? Why not try it? ” my Chinese teacher asked me one day. With that, my wonderful new relationship with Alibaba began.

    Alibaba's original business-to-business model now is secondary to consumer buying. Chinese retail（零售）buying makes up 80% of Alibaba's profit, and leading that group is Taobao, with 800 million items for sale and the most unbelievable selection of things you'll ever find. TMall.com is Alibaba's other big site, where you can find brand name goods from Nike and Unilever near the lowest prices.

What I have a hard time explaining to friends and family back in the U. S. is how China has gone beyond traditional shopping—big-box retailers(零售商)especially—in favor of online purchases on Taobao and a few other sites. In smaller towns than Beijing, where big retailers have not yet traveled, shopping online is shopping, and shopping is Taobao.

    I have a list of some of my recent purchases on Taobao for a sense of how extensive(广泛的) the marketplace is. Almost everything arrived a day or two after ordering with free shipping. I'm not even a big buyer, because I need friends to help me search the Chinese-language site. When I was searching my purchase history on my Chinese teacher's iPad, which helps me buy goods, I looked through with great difficulty about 10 of her purchases for every one of mine.

    Self-driving vehicles will rely on cameras, sensors and artificial intelligence（AI）to recognize and respond to road and traffic conditions, but sensing is the most effective for objects and movement in the neighborhood of the vehicle. Not everything important in a car's environment will be caught by the vehicle's camera. Another vehicle approaching at high speed on a collision （碰撞）track might not be visible until it's too late. This is why vehicle-to-vehicle communication is undergoing rapid development. Our research shows that cars will need to be able to chat and cooperate on the road, although the technical challenges are considerable.

    Applications for vehicle-to-vehicle communication range from vehicles driving together in a row, to safety messages about nearby emergency vehicles. Vehicles could alert each other to avoid collisions or share notices about passers-by and bicycles.

    From as far as several hundred metres away, vehicles could exchange messages with one another or receive information from roadside units（RSUs）about nearby incidents or dangerous road conditions through 4G network A high level of A1 seems required for such vehicles, not only to self-drive from A to B, but also to react intelligently to messages received. Vehicles will need to plan, reason, strategize and adapt in the light of information received in real time and to carry out cooperative behaviours. For example, a group of autonomous vehicles might avoid a route together because of potential risks, or a vehicle could decide to drop someone off earlier due to messages received, a foreseen crowding ahead.

    Further applications of vehicle-to-vehicle communication are still being researched, including how to perform cooperative behaviour.

    Electric devices can seem like a “third party” in some relationships because some partners spent more time on them than with each other.

    When Amanda Gao, a 26-year-old white collar worker in Beijing, went to a hotpot restaurant with her boyfriend on Friday night several weeks ago, she expected that they would have a good time together. To her disappointment, however, it did not turn out that later. As soon as they were led to their seats and she began to order dishes, he buried himself in his mobile phone.

    “It seemed that his phone was making its way between us. A date that should have belonged to us turned into one where my boyfriend dated a third party and I felt left out.” Gao said. Some people, like her, have found electronics have been sabotaging(破坏) their romantic relationships.

    A study, published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture, in April, 2017, questioned nearly 200 college aged adults who were in committed(真诚的) relationships to report on their and their partner's smartphone dependency. The results showed people who were more dependent on their phones were less sure about their relationships, and people considered their partners excessively(过度地) dependent on their devices were less satisfied in their relationship.

    Lin Yuan, a relationship advisor in Beijing, noted that as more and more electronics come out and spice up people's lives, they are at the same time becoming a third party in relationships, especially for young people.

    Lin said she knew of some people who suggest that electronics should be kept out of bedrooms, which she considered challenging and hard to be put into practice for most couples. She recommended that if people are feeling neglected in their relationship, they need to respectfully let their partners know their feeling. “Communication is always the best and the most efficient way.” she said.

    If you're showering every day, you're probably over doing it. In fact, showering too often can actually hurt your body in the long run.

    As Time's public health column explains, daily showers are common due to social norms more than any proper health need. We connect being freshly showered with being attractive and pleasing, so we tend to showering often to feel better.

    But what's the ideal shower frequency? In terms of your health — not how you look or smell — probably once or twice a week, assistant professor of dermatology at George Washington University, Dr. C. Brandon Mitchell says. “Your body is naturally a well-oiled machine,” he says. “A daily shower isn't necessary.”

    Of course, your situation may vary. If you have a job like car maintenance or construction, you'll obviously have a visible layer of dirt you'll need to wash off every single day. Similarly, if you work out every day, you may not have any health risks by washing every day, but you'll still be smelly. If you feel like you need to take daily showers for aesthetic（审美的）reasons, at least make most of them light showers. “I tell patients who shower daily not to soap their whole bodies,” Mitchell says. Hit your pits, butt and groin, which are the areas that produce strong smells. The rest of your body doesn't need much soaping, he says.

    Too much time spent under the hot water can dry out your skin, cause cracks（裂纹）that can lead to infections or germs getting into your skin, and take away the natural oils on your skin that help keep it healthy. So, even if you're aiming to be your most presentable, be sure to keep it moderate to avoid hurting your skin in the long run.

    Have you grasped the information taught by your teacher in class? Have you understood what you saw on the screen? Maybe everyone has their own learning style.

    Generally speaking, we gather information with our minds and bodies in different ways, such as seeing, hearing and doing. Then our brains deals with that information, organizing it and connecting it to things we are already aware .In other words, our brains will deal with the information in different ways. Sometimes we think in pictures or words. Sometimes we remember details or the big pictures.

    For different people, their learning styles are different too. One person may find it hard to make out the information in written forms but easy to know it immediately in an oral description. However, another person might find difficulties with the picture but the written message.

    Now scientists say there exist seven basic learning styles.

    Linguistic: These people learn through listening, reading, speaking and writing.

    Logical: These people learn with formula (公式) and principles (原理).

    Visual: These people learn by seeing what they are studying.

    Musical: These people learn well when information is presented through music.

    Kinesthetic: These people learn from movement and physical activities.

    Intrapersonal: These people learn best by linking new information directly with their own experiences.

    Interpersonal: These people learn well by working with others.

    Therefore, if you know what learning style is your strength, you can balance your weakness, and get a more successful learning experience.