Fighting racial stereotypes（模式化）on US campuses often begins by putting students of different ethnic backgrounds together — under one dormitory roof.

    Sam Boakye was a freshman at Ohio State University and the only black student on his floor. He was determined to get good grades — in part to make sure his white roommate had no basis for negative racial views. "You're pushed to do better, to challenge the stereotype that black people are not that smart," he told the New York Times.

    Several recent studies have found that having a roommate of a different race can reduce prejudice(偏见), diversify(使多样化) friendships and even promote students' academic performance. In a study by Ohio State psychology professor Russell Fazio, black freshmen who came to college with high test scores earned better grades if they had a white roommate—even if the roommate's test scores were low. Another study on student interaction by Duke University suggests that freshmen with roommates of a different race were the most likely to diversif“y their friendships. Just having diversity in classrooms doesn't do anything to increase interracial friendships," said Claudia Buchman, an author of the Duke study. “But living together with a different-race roommate does lead to more interracial friendships."

    There are, however, some problems with such room assignments. Fazio's study found that three times as many randomly(随机地) assigned interracial roommates weren't living together at the end of the semester, compared with white roommates. Interracial roommates also spent less time together, had fewer joint activities and were less involved with each other's friends than white pairs.

    As for Boakye, this is not the case. "A lot of white students come without much exposure（暴露）to diversity, so when their first interaction with a black guy isn't bad, they will make more black friends. I think I made a good impression on my freshman roommate. I saw him this year, and he said, "Hey dude, you're not the only black friend I have. That felt good."

    On a snowy and windy afternoon, Ann, a ten-year-old girl, went out to play. She was walking along the sands when she was blown into a ditch (壕沟) by the seashore. She was frightened and tried her best to climb out. But the ditch was too deep and she was too weak to get out of it. So Ann cried at the top of her voice for help. But what she could hear over the snow ditch was nothing but the terrible noise of the wind. Nobody came to her and nobody knew where she was. She struggled again and again. Her face was struck by the strong wind, snow and sand, and was almost frozen. Her hands were stiff. She also felt that she was worn out. She started to cry hopelessly. Just at the moment Ann saw a black dog appearing through the heavy snow. It was Victor, her true friend. He was glad to see the sign of life. And the dog set out to work as soon as he got to Ann. He cleaned away the snow around her with his own paws and hind legs, and then reached out his big strong fur head to Ann. The little girl closed her arms round Victor's neck. The dog backed away slowly, pulling her out of the ditch little by little.

    Successfully, Ann got out of the ditch at last. Then she struggled to her feet. With great difficulty, led by her true friend Victor, she was rescued. Victor, the black dog, was given a gold medal and was honoured as Brave Hero Dog of America.

    Maybe it has been the influence of the current scene: the type among urban biking. Apparently, urban biking requires entirely different bikes than suburban hiking does and therefore a Bike Design Project started where five design studios across five cities had to come up with a perfect urban bike. The winning bike will be manufactured for a limited run of 100 hikes and will be in stores next year. Industry, a Portland-based studio, came up with a very interesting bike: one that uses bluetooth and handlebars (车把手) that tell you when to stop or turn.

    Industry worked together with Ti Cycles to create a bike with a 3D printed titanium frame (钛框架). The hike is called Solid and can be connected to a smartphone APP: My Bike. This APP alarms a user when a light needs replacement and if something gets wrong with one's brakes. There is also software called Discover My City, which has a series of routes through Portland's most trendy neighborhoods, with suggestions about where to eat and shop.

    Nevertheless, the idea with cycling is that you need to focus on the road and not on your smartphone. This bike therefore uses integrated feedback on handlebars. Those handlebars tell a user when to turn, as they will buzz when a turn appears. As you are getting closer, they will buzz more frequently. And then there is the possibility to control your light via built-in sensors and change gears by pressing an electronic button.

    Although the bicycle looks highly interesting and can be seen as a piece of art for the designing world, we don't know if we would like our bike to have an automatic buzz when we are approaching a turn. On the other side, it could add some extra safety to traffic in general. Whether you like the bike or not, you have to admit the Portland-based studio brings the concept of urban biking to a whole new level.

    Since English biologist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, scientists have vastly improved their knowledge of natural history. However, a lot of information is still of the speculation, and scientists can still only make educated guesses at certain things.

    One subject that they guess about is why some 400 million years ago, animals in the sea developed limbs (肢) that allowed them to move onto and live on land.

    Recently, an idea that occurred to the US paleontologist (古生物学家) Alfred Romer a century ago became a hot topic once again.

    Romer thought that tidal (潮汐的) pools might have led to fish gaining limbs. Sea animals would have been forced into these pools by strong tides. Then, they would have been made either to adapt to their new environment close to land or die. The fittest among them grew to accomplish the transition (过渡) from sea to land.

    Romer called these earliest four-footed animals “tetrapods”. Science has always thought that this was a credible theory, but only recently has there been strong enough evidence to support it.

    Hannah Byrne is an oceanographer (海洋学家) at Uppsala University in Sweden. She announced at the 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Oregon, US, that by using computer software, her team had managed to link Homer's theory to places where fossil deposits (沉积物) of the earliest tetrapods were found.

    According to the magazine Science, in 2014, Steven Balbus, a scientist at the University of Oxford in the UK, calculated that 400 million years ago, when the move from land to sea was achieved, tides were stronger than they are today. This is because the planet was 10 percent closer to the moon than it is now.

    The creatures stranded in the pools would have been under the pressure of “survival of the fittest”, explained Mattias Green, an ocean scientist at the UK's University of Bangor. As he told Science, “After a few days in these pools, you become food or you run out of food... the fish that had large limbs had an advantage because they could flip (翻转) themselves back in the water.”

    As is often the case, however, there are others who find the theory less convincing. Cambridge University's paleontologist Jennifer Clark, speaking to Nature magazine, seemed unconvinced. “It's only one of many ideas for the origin of land-based tetrapods, any or all of which may have been a part of the answer,” she said.

    If you are the kind of tourist who likes to visit places with outstanding landscapes and multicultural cities, then Asia is the place to go. Take a cruise(巡游)to Asia and you will not be disappointed.

    The Finest Asian Cruise Explorations

    Tourists who want to visit several Asian countries understand that cruising there is the best alternative. You can decide to take a two-week cruise, starting from Sri Lanka to Thailand. There's also a three-week cruise that starts off in China all the way to Japan. A most popular voyage is one that starts from Hong Kong to Singapore.

    The Best Time to Travel

    When touring Asia, it's best to understand that different cruise lines have different travelling timelines. You can be caught in the rain during your tour(October to December in Malaysia and December to February in Indonesia). Most cruises take place from December to the end of March.

    Booking Cruise-ship Tours

    Given that you'll probably be taking long flights to get to South Asia and the Far East, the budget will be large, especially if you are visiting as a family. In addition, many people tour this region, so it would be best if you book early when the prices are more appealing.

    Activities

    There are so many ports in Asia and this might bring a challenge if you want to get somewhere in time. Make sure you plan your day-trips in advance and follow the cruise line tours to avoid missing the boats. Apart from visiting the cities, you could also go to Borneo, Indonesia to see the orangutans(猩猩). You can also hop across several islands from Bali, appreciate the colorful floats as well as the cherry blossoms in Japan and visit the floating fish farms in Vietnam.

Is forgiveness against our human nature? To answer our question, we need to ask a further question: What is the essence of our humanity? For the sake of simplicity, people consider two distinctly different views of humanity. The first view involves dominance and power. In an early paper on the psychology of forgiveness, Droll (1984) made the interesting claim that humans' essential nature is more aggressive than forgiving allows. Those who forgive are against their basic nature, much to their harm. In his opinion, forgivers are compromising their well-being as they offer mercy to others, who might then take advantage of them.

The second view involves the theme of cooperation, mutual respect, and even love as the basis of who we are as humans. Researchers find that to fully grow as human beings, we need both to receive love from and offer love to others. Without love, our connections with a wide range of individuals in our lives can fall apart. Even common sense strongly suggests that the will to power over others does not make for harmonious interactions. For example, how well has slavery worked as a mode of social harmony?

From this second viewpoint of who we are as humans, forgiveness plays a key role in the biological and psychological integrity of both individuals and communities because one of the outcomes of forgiveness, shown through scientific studies, is the decreasing of hatred and the restoration of harmony. Forgiveness can break the cycle of anger. At least to the extent the people from whom you are estranged accept your love and forgiveness and are prepared to make the required adjustments. Forgiveness can heal relationships and reconnect people.

As an important note, when we take a Classical philosophical perspective, that of Aristotle, we see the distinction between potentiality and actuality. We are not necessarily born with the capacity to forgive, but instead with the potential to learn about it and to grow in our ability to forgive. The actuality of forgiving, its actual appropriation in conflict situations, develops with practice.