Tulips(郁金香) are the national flower of Iran and Turkey. The European name for the flower is a misuse of the Persian word for turban(头巾), a mistake probably arising in the common Turkish custom of wearing flowers in the folds of the turban. Alternatively, the misuse may have arisen because this eastern flower, when not yet in full bloom, looks like a turban. In Persia, to give a red tulip was to declare your love for someone. The black center of the red tulip was said to represent the lover's heart, burned to a coal by love's passion.

    Originally growing in the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey), tulips were imported into Holland in the sixteenth century. When Carolus Clusius wrote the first major book on tulips in 1592, they became so popular that the tulips in his garden were stolen from time to time. As the Dutch Golden Age grew, so did this colorful flower. They were commonly seen in paintings and at festivals. In the mid-seventeenth century, tulips even created the first economics bubble（泡沫经济）, known as “Tulip Mania”. At that time, tulips were so expensive that they were used as money until the market for them crashed.

    Today, Holland is still known for its tulips and other flowers, often sincerely called “the flower shop of the world.” Tulips are planted in great fields of beautiful color, and transform the landscape into a sea of different colors. Tulip festivals are held throughout the country in spring. However, the most well-known tulip festival is organized in the Noordoostpolder, a province in the central Netherlands, each year. Held in the middle of the tulip fields, this flower festival runs from late April to early May. The Dutch people took their love of tulips abroad when they settled, and tulips and tulip festivals are now found in New York and Michigan, where the connection to their Dutch roots is still very strong.

The practice of students endlessly copying letters and sentences from a blackboard is a thing of the past. With the coming of new technologies like computers and smartphone, writing by hand has become something of nostalgic (怀旧的)skill. However, while today's educators are using more and more technology in their teaching, many believe basic handwriting skills are still necessary for students to be successful—both in school and in life.

    Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, says it's important to continue teaching handwriting and help children acquire the skill of writing by hand.

Berninger and her colleagues conducted a study that looked at the ability of students to complete various writing tasks—both on a computer and by hand. The study, published in 2009, found that when writing with a pen and paper, participants wrote longer essays and more complete sentences and had a faster word production rate.

    In a more recent study, Berninger looked at what role spelling plays in a student's writing skills and found that how well children spell is tied to know well they can write. “Spelling makes some of the thinking parts of the brain active which helps us access our vocabulary, word meaning and concepts. It is allowing our written language to connect with ideas.” Berninger said.

    Spelling helps students translate ideas into words in their mind first and then to transcribe(转换) “those words in the mind written symbols on paper or keyboard and screen,” the study said. Seeing the words in the “mind's eye” helps children not only to turn their ideas into words, says Berninger, but also to spot(发现) spelling mistakes when they write the words down and to correct then over time.

     “In our computer age, some people believe that we don't have to teach spelling because we have spell checks,” she said. “But until a child has a functional spelling ability of about a fifth grade level, they won't have the knowledge to choose the correct spelling among the options given by the computer.”

    Hollywood's only Chinese-American superhero has stirred up heated debate on social media after she spoke out against discrimination in American show business.

    Chloe Bennet, a Chinese-American actress who stars in Marvel's trending TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., explained on social media why she changed her last name from Wong to Bennet, arguing that Hollywood is “racist” and wouldn't cast her with a last name that made them “uncomfortable.”

    “Changing my last name doesn't change the fact that my BLOOD is half Chinese, that I lived in China, speak Mandarin, or that I was culturally raised both American and Chinese,” replied Bennet.

    Bennet's remarks come after Ed Skrein stepped down from his role as Major Ben Daimion in the upcoming Hellboy movie for fear that his participation would be “whitewashing” a character of Asian descent(后裔).

    Racial barriers have been an essential problem in Hollywood. According to research conducted by the University of Southern California in 2015, nearly three-quarters of all characters in the top 100 films of 2014 were white, while only 5.3 percent of Asian artists can share the same privilege. In another report released in 2017, only 3.4 percent of over 1,000 surveyed films had an Asian director.

    “Asian artists can hardly stand out in Hollywood. Most roles starred by Asians are fixed and stereotyped, as if all Asians are good at math and martial arts. There is an invisible discrimination lurking(潜伏) in show business, as the difference of your skin color may bring disparity in your income and opportunities,” said Alex She, a New York-based Chinese-American photographer and movie maker.

    Bennet's experience has led to heated debate on both Chinese and foreign social media.

    Like many other people, I love my smart phone, which keeps me connected with the larger world that can go anywhere with me. I also love my laptop，because it holds all of my writing and thoughts. In spite of this love of technology, I know that there are times when I need to move away from these devices and truly communicate with others.

    On occasion, I teach a course called History Matters for a group of higher education managers. My goals for the class include a full discussion of historical themes and ideas. Because I want students to thoroughly study the materials and exchange their ideas with each other in the classroom, I have a rule —no laptop, iPads, phones, etc. When students were told my rule in advance of the class, some of them were not happy.

Most students assume that my reasons for this rule include unpleasant experiences in the past with students misusing technology. There's a bit of truth to that. Some students assume that I am anti-technology. There's no truth in that at all. I love technology and try to keep up with it, so I can relate to my students.

    The real reason why I ask students to leave technology at the door is that I think there are very few places in which we can have deep conversions and truly engage complex ideas. Interruptions by technology often break concentration and allow for too much dependence on outside information for ideas. I want students to dig deep within themselves for inspiration and ideas. I want them to push each other to think differently and make connections between the course materials and the class discussion.

I've been teaching my history class in this way for many years and the evaluations reflect student satisfaction with the environment that I create. Students realize that with deep conversation and challenge, they learn at a level that helps them keep the course materials beyond the classroom.

I'm not saying that I won't ever change my mind about technology use in my history class, but until I hear a really good reason for the change, I'm sticking to my plan. A few hours of technology-free dialogue is just too sweet to give up.

    If you were an exchanged student in New York City, one day your math teacher gave you following questions as your homework, please write down your answers.

    Ⅰ.A company sold a product for α dollars in 1990. The price of the product would increase by 2.5% every year.

    Ⅱ.A man needs to make 3 curtains. The cloth which is used to make curtains sells for $8.00 per meter and can be purchased only by the full（完整的） meter. The length of cloth required for each curtain is 1.6 meters.

    Ⅲ.A pet store sells only dogs and cats. In March, the store sold twice as many dogs as cats. In April, the store sold twice the number of dogs that it sold in March, and three times the number of cats that it sold in March.

    Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy (星系).The black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

    The announcement was made in Washington, Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo. Details have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

    Prof Heino Falckc, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who suggested the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87. "What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System," he said. "It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe."

    The image shows an intensely bright "ring of fire", as Prof Falckc describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by very heated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined - which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth. The edge of the dark circle at the center is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull (万有引 力）,not even light can escape.

    "It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we get from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again." said Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London -who is part of the EHT cooperation.

    Chinese scientists were involved in the observation through a telescope in Hawaii. They were also highly involved in follow-up data processing and theoretical analysis, said Shen Zhiqiang, head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanhai Astronomical Observatory and a member of the EHT international team.

    Shanghai and Taipei were selected as two of the cities to hold news conferences, together with Washington, Brussels, Santiago and Tokyo, a recognition of China's contribution.

    "In the fields of astronomy, radio astronomy, and space astrophysics, China has made a significant contribution to this global project," Falcke said.