For years, people have wondered whether there's life on other planets. Scientists may now be closer than ever to answering that question.

    Using powerful telescopes, a team of astronomers in South America discovered a new planet, called Proxima b. It circles a star named Proxima Centauri, in the same way Earth circles the sun. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our solar system.

    Scientists believe the new planet has a rocky surface and is similar in size to Earth. More important, they've determined that the distance between Proxima b and its “sun” gives the planet a similar temperature to Earth's.This means it could have liquid water. The presence of water on a planet makes it possible for life to exist there. Scientists refer to planets like Proxima b as “Goldilocks planets” because they are not too hot or too cold, but just right to possibly support life.

    Astronomers have found other Goldilocks planets in the past, but none are as close to Earth as Proxima b. Still, the new planet is 4.2 light years from Earth—that is about 25 trillion miles away.

    Despite the long distance, astronomers hope to get a much better look at our new-found neighbor one day. But they'll need to wait until more advanced telescopes are developed. They may also send a robotic spacecraft to investigate the planet.

    It was five years since I had become a mother, and I felt like I had slowly been losing more and more of myself. I looked in the mirror one morning and saw a tired, crazy woman, and I just wanted to cry. And just like that my new journey into becoming a “do less” mom began. I remember the first time I tried it. I had rushed to get my kids from school after work, arriving home completely shattered(散架了).

    I made myself a lovely cup of hot tea and headed to the sofa, I lay down and closed my eyes. At this point, all three of my kids stopped speaking and just stared. My eldest broke the silence and asked, “What are you doing mommy?” I replied: “I'm resting.” It took the kids a few more minutes to realize I wasn't going anywhere and they did eventually leave me alone. They even figured out that they should probably take their coats off. I did not cook dinner that night--we ordered in. I did not put on a wash; instead, I told the kids they had better not get their clothes dirty during dinner because they are wearing them again tomorrow. We skipped the bath and watched a movie all on the sofa.

    To my amazement--no one died. The house did not fall apart. The kids were happy and fed but most importantly, when I looked into the mirror that night, I could see that woman I remember. The fun, silly woman who truly thinks she is still 25 years old, who loves ice cream and traveling and music and drinking wine. And I went to bed a bit happier that night knowing that although the road is still long, I am finally on the right track.

    Here are three best destinations for you to discover in 2018 if you ho heart-stopping adventure, a close-up look at history or the perfect meal.

    Los Cabos, Mexico

    Located at the tip of the Baja Peninsula, the two small colonial(殖民地的) towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo have become the hottest vacation destinations in Mexico in recent years. With wide, original beaches, lively nightclubs, natural resorts, and a farm-to-table food scene, the oasis(乐园)of Los Cabos is drawing tourists in record numbers. As a result, the hotel scene is booming, with a lot of new developments and repairs completed this year.

Zambia

    Until now, Zambia has had little recognition as one of Africa's great safari(狩猎远征) destinations. Yet experts know it as the birthplace of the walking safari. In South Luangwa National Park, visitors can expect to see more animals than baobab trees, while Liuwa Plain National Park is the setting for the world's second-largest wildebeest(角马) migration, when tens of thousands of the creatures head across the plain from neighboring Angola.

Brussels, Belgium

    Visitors may want to return to the Belgian capital in 2018 to visit two cutting-edge museums. The Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art opened to show contemporary art from around the world. There's also the Citroen Cultural Centre, which will launch its first exhibition in May. The JAM Hotel with exposed brickwork and concrete beams housed in a former art school, is the perfect place for culture-lovers to stay. don't leave town without experiencing beer culture at youthful breweries(啤酒厂) like Brasserie de la Senne or Brussels Beer Project.

    In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, "No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me."

    The city planner decided to build an underground drainage （排水） system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.

    An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12feet.

    This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?

    That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10jackscrews.At Pullman's signal each man tured his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening.

    Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.

    Some things should just be common knowledge by now. The Earth isn't flat. Nope, your hair and nails don't grow after you die. The holes at the top of Bic biro pens are there so that, if you swallow one accidentally, you can still breathe and won't choke to death. It's debatable whether that last one there is common knowledge or not. A quick Google search of the fact, rewritten as a question, shows articles addressing this point going back several years, with the latest (re)appearing just this week over on ScienceAlert. We suppose it's one of those things that come up from time to time, like what would happen if you attack Yellowstone with a nuclear weapon (not much, as it turns out).

    If you jump over to Bic's website, under their FAQs (frequently asked questions), it quite clearly states: "The reason that some BIC® pens have a hole in their cap is to prevent the cap from completely obstructing the airway if accidentally breathed in. This is requested by the international safety standards ISO11540, except for in cases where the cap is considered too large to be a choking risk."

    That's rather lovely of them. In appreciation of their want to not kill off their more clumsy customers, we thought we'd share a few more random facts about Bic that are probably going to come up in a pub quiz one day. Did you know, for example, that each Bic ballpoint pen can produce at least 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) of ink before it begins to run out? In fact, in 2018, 7,250 kilometers (4,505 miles) of writing tests on such pens were carried out on ballpoint pens, gel pens(中性笔), and rollers to make sure they worked to the highest standard.

    The best part of the Bic site, however, is this rather curious fact: "100 percent of pen balls are made through a highly-controlled process." As opposed to a highly uncontrolled process, involving explosions and bouncy castles and total chaos, we suppose.

    Hi, I'm Neil Harbisso. I come from a place where the sky is always grey, where flowers are always grey, and where television is still in black and white.

    I actually come from a world where color doesn't exist. I was born with achromatopsia. I was born completely color-blind. So I've never seen color, and don't know what it looks like. But since the age of 21, I can hear color thanks to a magic electronic eye called "eyeborg": a color sensor between my eyes connected to a chip(芯片) installed at the back of my head that transforms color frequencies into sound frequencies that I hear through my bone.

    I've had the electronic eye permanently attached to my head and I've been listening to colors nonstop since 2004. So I find it completely normal now to hear colors all the time.

    Since I started to hear color, my life has changed significantly. Art galleries have become concert halls. I can hear a Picasso. And supermarkets have become like night clubs. I love how they sound.

    My sense of beauty has changed. Someone might look very beautiful but sound terrible, and someone might sound very harmonious but look awful. So I find it really exciting to create sound portraits(画像) of people. Instead of drawing the shape of someone's face I write down the different notes I hear when I look at them, and then I send them an mp3 of their face. Each face sounds different. I can even give face concerts now, concerts where I play the audience's faces. The good thing about doing this is that if the concert doesn't sound good, it's their fault.

    I also found out that things I thought were colorless are not colorless at all. Cities are not grey. Lisbon is yellow turquoise(宝石绿); London is very golden red…and humans are not black and white. Human skins range from light shades of orange to very dark shades of orange. We are all orange.

    If we extend our senses, we will consequently extend our knowledge.