Americans drove more miles in 2015 than any year since the U.S. government started keeping records 45 years ago. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDT) recently reported that Americans drove a record of 3.148 trillion miles last year. In case you are wondering, that is enough to take 337 round trips from Earth to Pluto.

    There are a number of reasons why Americans are driving more miles. The social experts agree that the first is the price of gas, which has dropped to the level of the year 2004 in the past year. The American Automobile Association (AAA) said that the average price of gas was just $1.71 a gallon. That could be the lowest price since 2004.

    P.J. Sriraj, a director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Chicago, notes that the lower cost to fill up a car is just one reason. Another reason is that more Americans are back to work after the 2008 economic recession, and they drive to their jobs.

    Besides, more Americans have to travel a long distance every day between home and the office. There are a lot of Americans who must travel more than 45 miles per day for their jobs. And as for many, there is not enough public transportation.

    Because of the heavy traffic, roads are becoming more and more crowded. While modern cars are more fuel-efficient, the improvement is not enough to offset more cars on the road. “There is no doubt that driving more will make the air dirtier,” said P.J. Sriraj. And many Americans showed a great concern in a recent survey.

    I could feel the judging eyes of my family burning a hole into the back of my head as I picked up my phone. All of a sudden, the chattering in the living room died and all I could hear was the sound of the turkey sizzling (发出嘶嘶声) in the oven.

    “Look at her! She's been on her phone all day long! It's all your fault! Children will never respect elders if they are not taught how to behave! ” my grandmother shouted.

    I was very shocked and angry! I opened my mouth to say something, but words failed me and I just sat down quietly on the chair like a mouse in its trap. I thought “Here we go again.” I truly love my family and I would do anything for them. I also know that they would do anything for me as well. However, there are moments that make me feel that they are just stuck with me. They all agree on one thing: technology is wrecking me.

    If I am going to be treated like a child or completely ignored, I will most likely not enjoy your company, and I feel that this applies to (适用于) the majority of the people. So I sometimes simply shut myself in my room and listened to the voices coming from the living room, thinking: They all grew up in a world so different that it amazes me how they have actually gotten this far. They did not have phones or any type of advanced technology, which is both good and bad. Bad because they had almost no type of fast communication, and good because they were forced to interact (互动) with one another, which is something today's society is lacking in. However, maybe if they made an effort to be aware of how things work nowadays, they would not be so against everything.

    Ocean Dome

    Leave it to Japan to create the largest indoor theme park on the beach. The beauty of it is that it can be enjoyed no matter how warm or cold is outside. You can see power from waves, a volcano that erupts every hour. The dome clear sky ceiling makes you think you are enjoying hot weather even in winter.

    Nitendo Amusement Park

    Like it's not strange enough to be a grown up addicted to Nintendo games, here comes a park ready to let you experience exactly the same games live. It may sound cool and it may be safe. But surely spending time in such a place can only show that you have a funny taste in experiencing gaming.

    Alien Apex Resort

    Located in Roswell, a known spot for alien related events, this one is the place for the fans of alien life to enjoy themselves. One can get abducted(绑架) here, enjoy seeking help and have fun. Strange enough is that anybody would want to……

    Suoi Tien Park

    Buddhist theme park, this one comes with Bible like story, heaven and hell, a lot of real thrills and of course some unusual fun including bats, crocodiles and crazy rides. It is a cool experience for crazy fans and it can really be something you would like to visit as a young person

    Digger Land

    Seeing the hard work of the digging machines can be actually full of education for kids. This park has everything any amusement park would have but dirt is dominant(最突出的). You can be sure your kids will enjoy getting dirty by doing crazy things involving digging with excavators(挖掘机) or operating heavy machines.

    Green tree ants are important builders in the rainforest. They're like the worker bees of the ant world. The native forest of Thala Beach Nature Reserve is the natural home of these insects.

    They climb all over the tree that contains their nest and protect it from enemies with great fierceness. The ants are often in the fruiting trees of Tropical North Queensland. When an animal tries to help themselves to some tasty fruit, they find themselves attacked by a powerful, frightening army of green tree ants! Their bite is not very painful but many ants attacking at the same time can be extremely uncomfortable.

    The nests are large and constructed by sticking the leaves at the end of branches together to create a home looking roughly like a globe. Most of the nest construction and weaving is conducted at night. A mature colony of green tree ants can hold as many as 100,000 to 500,000 workers and may include as many as 12 trees and contain as any as 150 nests. Green tree ant colonies have one queen and a colony can live up to eight years.

    However, the ants are so busy that they fail to spot a dishonest figure. There is a spider called the Salticid spider, or the jumping spider, as they are sometimes referred to, which has excellent eyesight and is only active during daylight, weaving a protective covering of silk to spend the night in. Interestingly, the Salticid spider does not look like a green tree ant. Instead, it chemically copies green tree ants' smell. Effectively pretending to be an ant, it goes into the green tree ants' nest, enters the nursery and feasts on their babies. Green tree ants don't have good eyesight and smell everything with their antennae (two long thin parts on an ant's head). Therefore, the ants think the spider is another ant and ignore its presence within the nest.

    Next time, as you wander around Thala's native forest, keep an eye out for these busy little creatures. Look up into the trees and you'll likely spot their nests.

    Teenagers around the world can be happy with the news that the brain will ignore parents' order when they use their smart phones. A new scientific study from the University College London has shown that humans may temporarily go deaf when they're focusing on something visual (视觉的) at the same time.

    The researchers played the normal-volume sounds in the background. And 13 volunteers experienced inattentional deafness as their visual tasks became increasingly difficult. "We found that when volunteers were performing the difficult visual task, they were unable to hear sounds that they would normally hear," Maria Chait said in a statement. "The brain scans showed that people didn't filter out the sounds on purpose. They were not actually hearing them in the first place."

    The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that the centre of sights and the center of sounds share limited resources. Inattentional deafness is a common everyday experience and the study explains why, according to UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience Professor Nili Lavie.

    If you try to talk to someone focusing on a book, game, or television program and don't receive a response, they aren't necessarily ignoring you. They simply might not hear you at all. This could also explain why you might not hear your bus or train stop being announced if you're lost in your phone, book or newspaper. However, some loud sounds will still be able to break through.

    Some situations could become possibly dangerous when the quieter ones go unheard. As you can imagine, in the operating room, when a doctor concentrates on his work, he might not hear the equipment beeping. It also applies to drivers who center on complex directions. Fortunately, experts have given us some useful tips on preventing such situations.

"One of the reasons I find this topic very interesting is because my mom was a smoker when I was younger." says Lindson-Hawley, who studies tobacco and health at the University of Oxford.

By studying about 700 adult smokers, she found out that her mom quit the right way—by stopping abruptly and completely.

In her study, participants were randomly assigned to two groups. One had to quit abruptly on a given day, going from about a pack a day to zero. The other cut down gradually over the course of two weeks. People in both groups used nicotine(尼古丁) patches before they quit, in addition to a second form of nicotine replacement, like gum or spray. They also had talk therapy with a nurse before and after quit day.

Six months out, more people who had quit abruptly had stuck with it—more than one-fifth of them, compared to about one-seventh in the other group. Although these numbers appear low, it is much higher than if people try without support.

And the quit rates were particularly convincing given that before the study started, most of the people had said they'd rather cut down gradually before quitting. "If you're training for a marathon. you wouldn't expect to turn up and just be able to run it. And I think people see that for smoking as well. They think, "Well, if I gradually reduce, it's like practice." "says Lindson-Hawley. But that wasn't the case. Instead of giving people practice, the gradual reduction likely gave them cravings(瘾) and withdrawal symptoms before they even reached quit day, which could be why fewer people in that group actually made it to that point. "Regardless of your stated preference, if you're ready to quit. quitting abruptly is more effective." says Dr. Gabriela Ferreira."When you can quote a specific number like a fifth of the patients were able to quit, that's convincing. It gives them the encouragement, I think, to really go for it."Ferreira says.

People rarely manage to quit the first time they try. But at least, she says, they can maximize the odds of success.