Fikiri Kiponda's path from accountant to marine (海洋的) conservationist was sparked by a chance encounter.    After securing his dream job, Kiponda decided he wanted more. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for until he ran across some turtle hatchlings.

    He didn't know it was turtle. Fortunately enough he got the right person to ask and he got motivated. That person was Nkindi, a staff member at the Watamu Conservation project who later invited him to volunteer on the project. He later left his accounting job and fully devoted himself into the world of sea turtles. Now，he runs and spends his time nursing critically endangered sea turtles back to health.

    Sea turtles have been around for nearly 110 million years and are now considered highly endangered. Their preservation rests on activities of conservationists such as Kiponda as these turtles face numerous threats and signs of their extinction in the next 50 years.

    Local fishermen traditionally catch them to supplement their own low catch rates and sell them for their oil. As changes are made to accommodate more hotels for tourists, there is less available beach land for turtle nesting.

    Kiponda's passion has now spread to his community, changing their attitude towards sea life preservation with his “by-catch release programme.”

    Through this program, fishermen are now paid for returning turtles accidentally caught in their fishing nets. The healthy ones are tagged and released into the marine park while he takes care of sick and injured turtles back to health.

    Before the launch of pioneering spirit like this, turtles caught by fishermen were used for their meat and their oil extracted (提炼) for its medicinal properties.

    “Releasing the turtle back into the ocean is a very good feeling, like, you feel like you've done something concrete and I guess everybody would love to do that...so I guess it's unique work.”

    What's your favorite type of music? Most people may prefer rock and roll, pop or jazz. These types are most publicized by television and the radio. Country music now would seem to mistakenly belong to the category of rock or pop. Publicity of this category started to drop only after the year 2000; however, it did have its peak years just before falling down.

    What people may not know is that this type of music inspired(促成) rock and roll especially with one of the most important figures in music history-Elvis Presley-who is known as the 6/King of Rock and Roll". Elvis used to be very famous at a radio program which broadcast country music back in the late 1940- s.  Country music is influenced by jazz and blues. Rock music is also influenced by jazz and blues so that they may even seem similar.

    Nowadays, country music is closely related to pop music due to artists' preference and popular demand. Starting from the 1980's it slowly divided itself into New and Old Country Music. Legends like Johnny Cash began to slip away because the new understanding of country music actually contains pop and his music just doesn't fit the category. Fortunately, country music is still heavily promoted through websites and reviews.

    Certain types of music nowadays are linked with different age groups. Classical for the people in the mid 19th century, pop in the 1920's, and then there's country music.

    All these types continue to grow and modernize while still appealing to certain age groups. More modern country music compositions tend to become different in their own ways which makes it even harder to identify them as country music while they, again, remain appealing only to certain age groups. Active promoters of country music videos, however, seem to appeal to a large number of age groups especially those active in Australia, for as long as country music isn't mixed with other types, it will eventually regain its charm as music for all ages.

    Everyone looks forward to progress, whether in one's personal life or in the general society. Progress indicates a person's ability to change the way he is living at the moment. Progress must lead a better way of doing things. All these, however, remain true only in so far as people want to accept technology and move forward by finding new and more efficient ways of doing things.

    However, at the back of the minds of many people, especially those who missed the “good old days”, efficiency comes with a price. When communication becomes efficient, people are able to contact one another no matter where they are and at whatever time they wish to. The click of a button allows people miles apart to talk or to see each other without even leaving their homes. With the communication gadgets, such as mobile phones and ipads, people often do not take the effect to visit one another personally. A personal visit carries with it the additional feature of having to be in the person's presence for as long as the visit lasts. We cannot unnecessarily excuse ourselves or turn the other person off.

    With efficiency also comes mass production. Such is the nature of factories and the success of industrialization today. Factories have improved efficiency. Unskillful tasks are left to machines and products are better made and produced with greater accuracy than any human hand could ever have done. However, with the improvements in efficiency also comes the loss of the personal touch when making these products. For example, many handcrafts are now produced in a factory. Although this means that supply is better able to increase demand, now that the supply is quick and efficient, the demand might fall because mass production lowers the quality of the handicraft and it is difficult to find unique designs on each item.

    Nevertheless, we must not commit the mistake of analyzing progress only from one point of view. In fact, progress has allowed tradition to keep up. It is only with progress and the invention of new technology that many old products can be brought back to their old state. New technology is required for old products to stay old.

    It is people's attitude towards progress that causes the type of influence that technology has on society. Technology is flexible. There is no fixed way of making use of it. Everything depends on people's attitude. The worst effects of progress will fall on those who are unable to think again about their attitudes and views of society. When we accept progress and adapt it to suit our needs, a new “past” is created.

    Need a fall fix? Try one from these great places.

    ⒈Mackinac Island, Michigan

    The only way to reach this famed car-free island is by boat and ferry, and once visitors arrive, they are attracted by the history, scenery and fall colors. "It's a throwback to years past, a little town, and there's a big state park as well," Blackwell says. "You're allowed to have boats all around the island."

    ⒉Tellico Lake, Tennessee

    With nearly 400 miles of shoreline, this waterway flowing out of the Great Smoky Mountains is largely unexploited, well-protected in its natural state. Fall visitors find a range of colors reflecting in the clean waters, says Blackwell, who vacationed in the area with his family as a child. "The thick forest there just allows you to see more greenery and wildlife."

    ⒊Dillon Reservoir, Colorado

    With an hour from Denver, this lake is home to what claims to be the nation's highest sailing club, at an altitude of more than 9,000 feet. Marinas in the towns of Dillon and Frisco make it easy to get out on the water and to see the bright yellows and golds of fall leaves. "People are surprised that there's boating in Colorado, and you can see the mountains just before the snowball," Blackwell says.

    ⒋Lake Monroe, Indiana

    The state's largest lake is surrounded by more than 13,000 acres of protected forest and three recreation areas, making it an ideal place to see fall colors, particularly from oaks and the tulip poplar, the state tree. " It's a gem (宝石) in southern Indiana," says Blackwell, who grew up in the area. "There are lots of different activities: canoeing, kayaking and fishing."

Parties and social gatherings no longer excite us the same way they once did. This is not due to a lack of desire to socialize, but the smartphone.

At parties, people focus more on their smartphones than on their drinks. According to a recent study from International Data Corporation，over half of all Americans have a smartphone and reach it the moment they wake up, keeping it in hand all day. In addition, too many people are using smartphones while driving and as a result, they get into car crashes. 34 percent of teens admit to text while driving, and they confirm that texting messages are the major interruption while driving. People's attachment (依恋) to their smartphones is unbelievably becoming more important than the lives of themselves and others.

Just as drivers dismiss the importance of focusing while on the road, many people also fail to recognize the significance of human interaction. When with their friends, some people pointlessly (无谓地) check or send messages in the presence of their friends., which means that their friends are less important. In addition, relying on our smartphones to make friends does not give us the same advantages as making new friends in the real world. Face-to-face conversations will give us the chance to improve our communication skills in the long run.

As many people risk their lives and the lives of people around them just to send a text or mindlessly check their messages, smartphones are in many ways more dangerous to people. The technology shows the achievement weaken the value of communication. Not only is the smartphone affecting our desire to interact face to face, but it is also lowering people's ability to communicate.

A group of small, waggling (扭动) robots that communicate by flashing lights can make collective decisions. This is similar to the process bees use to reach an agreement on where to build their nest.

"We believe that in the near future there are going to be simple robots that will do jobs that we don't want to do, and it will be very important that they make decisions on their own," says Carmen Miguel at the University of Barcelona in Spain. She and her team tested how copying bees might help with that.

When bees go house-hunting, they communicate their preferred locations through a "waggle dance". The more a bee recommends one location, the longer and harder it waggles. Eventually other bees join them, and they reach an agreement when a majority are waggling together. Researchers previously translated this behavior into a mathematical model, and Miguel and her colleagues used it to program decision-making rules into small robots called kilobots.

Each kilobot with three thin legs had an infrared-light emitter (红外线发射器) and receiver, and a colored LED light. Within a group, kilobots could move around, turn clockwise or anticlockwise and use infrared signals to exchange information.

Ezequiel Ferrero at the University of Barcelona says that across all the experiments, kilobots reached an agreement within about half an hour, even when they didn't have many immediate neighbors to communicate with. He says that getting the right combination of how long they spend transmitting their message and how much they walk around allowed them to make a collective decision in the end.