A Pacific Science Center Guide

◆Visit Pacific Science Center's Store

    Don't forget to stop by Pacific Science Center's Store while you are here to pick up a wonderful science activity or souvenir to remember your visit. The store is located(位于) upstairs in Building 3 right next to the Laster Dome.

◆Hungry

    Our exhibits will feed your mind， but what about your body? Our café offers a complete menu of lunch and snack options, in addition to seasonal specials. The café is located upstairs in Building 1 and is open daily until one hour Pacific Science Center closes.

◆Rental Information

    Lockers are available to store any belongings during your visit. The lockers are located in Building 1 near the Information Desk and in Building 3. Pushchairs and wheelchairs are available to rent at the Information Desk and Denny Way entrance. ID required.

◆Support Pacific Science Center

    Since 1962 Pacific Science Center has been inspiring a passion(热情) for discovery and lifelong @ in science, math and technology. Today Pacific Science Center serves more than 1.3 million people a year and brings inquiry-based science education to classrooms and community events all over Washington State. It's an amazing accomplishment and one we connect achieve without generous support from individuals, corporations, and other social organizations. Visit pacificsciencecenter.org to find various ways you can support Pacific Science Center.

    Sometimes you'll hear people say that you can't love others until you love yourself. Sometimes you'll hear people say that you can't expect someone else to love you until you love yourself. Either way, you've got to love yourself first and this can be tricky(狡猾的). Sure we all know that we're the apple of our parents' eyes, and that our Grandmas think we're great talents(天才) and our Uncle Roberts think that we will go to the Olympics. But sometimes it's a lot harder to think such nice thoughts about ourselves. If you find that believing in yourself is a challenge, it is time you build a positive self-image and learn to love yourself.

    Self-image is your own mind's picture of yourself. This image includes the way you look, the way you act, the way you talk and the way you think. Interestingly, our self-images are often quite different from the images others hold about us. Unfortunately, most of these images are more negative than they should be. Thus changing the way you think about yourself is the key to changing your self-image and your whole world.

    The best way to defeat a passive self-image is to step back and decide to stress your successes. That is, make a list if you need to, but write down all of the great things you do every day. Don't allow doubts to occur in it.

    It very well might be that you are experiencing a negative self-image because you can't move past one flaw or weakness that you see about yourself. Well, roll up your sleeves and make a change of it as your primary task. If you think you're silly because you aren't good at math, find a tutor. If you think you're weak because you can't run a mile, get to the track and practice. If you think you're dull because you don't wear the latest trends, buy a few new clothes. But remember, although you think it is so, it doesn't mean it's true.

    The best way to get rid of a negative self-image is to realize that your image is far from objective(客观的), and to actively convince(客观的) yourself of your positive qualities. Changing the way you think and working on those you need to improve will go a long way towards promoting(提升) a positive self-image. When you can pat(拍) yourself on the back, you'll know you're well on your way. Good luck!

    Michelin inspectors, the super secret spies of the restaurant industry, are the anonymous (匿名的) keepers of the famous Michelin star rating. They've been writing anonymous reports of restaurants for over 100 years.

    “We say it's a little like the CIA,” said inspector “M” with a laugh. She asked that her identity not be revealed. “My whole life is staying under the radar, staying away from cameras, using fake names, trying to steal in and out of restaurants quietly.”

    Along with their boss, Jean Luc Naret, the director of the Michelin Guide, about 90 inspectors around the world decide which restaurants will win the cooking equivalent (等价物) of an Oscar, the Nobel Prize and Megamillions jackpot (百万彩票) all at once. The Michelin Guide covers 23 countries, and out of the 45,000 rated restaurants, less than 100 have the top rating — only nine American restaurants carry three stars.

    If the name “Michelin” brings the tires on your car to mind, you're not too far off. The Michelin rating began in France in 1900 as a marketing trick. The Michelin brothers thought their customers would bum more rubber if given a list of hotels and restaurants to explore.

    Inspector “M” admitted being an inspector leads to a lonely dining life. “Most of the time we dine alone,” she said. “It gives us the ability to really focus on the food and the atmosphere and capture the entire experience.” To cover their tracks, “M” said sometimes two inspectors will dine together and write two separate papers. It's better than saying “table for one”, right?

    “When you're really, really into food and very crazy about food, everything else that's going on around you isn't so important,” she said.

    Birds' feathers are some of the most strikingly variable animal characteristics that can be observed by the eyes. The patterns that we see in birds' feathers are made up of combinations of scales, bars, and spots.

    We already know why birds have colored feathers. Generally, the color of feathers may protect a bird from being noticed by the enemy in the environment, or it can make a bird more appealing to potential mates by helping them to stand out. These aspects are well known. A greater mystery has been how the patterns are created.

    Dr. Ismael Galván and his team studied the color of feathers to see what types of colors were present in birds' complex feather patterns. The study shows they mainly consist of two types of colors: melanin（黑色素）, which produce a range of black, grey, brown, and orange color, and carotenoids（类胡萝卜色素）, which are used to create brighter colors.

    Birds cannot produce carotenoids on their own. For feathers with bright colors, birds must consume food items that contain these paints, and the carotenoids circulate through the blood and to the feather. Melanin, on the other hand, is produced by special cells in the birds' bodies.

    The team found that about 32% if the species studied have complex color patterns, with the vast majority of these complex patterns produced by melanin rather than carotenoids. If the birds were artists, they would use carotenoids as a broad brush to produce color patches, with melanin as a detail paint brush to produce more complex designs.

    But a few birds are exceptions to this rule: Three bird families do have complex patterns without melanin.

    Scientists have found evidence of a link between social and economic status and childhood attention deficit disorder(ADHD)(注意力缺陷多动障碍)in the UK. A team led by the University of Exeter Medical School analysed data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a database of more than 19, 500 UK children born between 2000 and 2002 .The study was published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

    Findings showed that more children with ADHD came from families below the poverty line than the UK population as a whole, with average family incomes for households whose study child was affected by ADHD at £324 per week, compared to £391 for those whose child was not. The study found the odds (机会)of parents in social housing having a child with ADHD was roughly three times greater than for those who owned their own homes.

    The team also found that the odds of younger mothers having a child with ADHD were significantly higher than for other mothers. Mothers with no qualifications were more than twice as likely to have a child with ADHD than those with degrees, and lone (孤独的)parents were more likely to have a child with ADHD diagnosis than households with two live-in parents.

    Information was gathered from surveys when the cohort children were nine months old, and at the ages of three, five, seven and eleven.

    Dr Ginny, of the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the study, said, "There is a genetic element to ADHD, but this study provides strong evidence that ADHD is also associated with a disadvantaged social and economic background. Some people believe that ADHD in children causes disadvantage to the economic situation of their family, but we found no evidence to support that theory. It's important to discover more about the causes of this disorder so that we can look towards prevention, and so that we can target treatment and support effectively. "

    Researchers at the University of York in England published their findings on facial recognition that, on average, people can remember as many as 5,000 faces.

    There have been many studies recently on facial recognition technology. But the authors of this study say theirs is the first time that scientists have been able to put a number to the abilities of humans to recognize faces. Rob Jenkins, leader of the research, said the researchers' study centered on "the number of faces people actually know." and were not able to discover whether there is a "limit on how many faces the brain can handle."

    Jenkins said the ability to tell individual people apart is "clearly important." In today's modern world of big cities, we meet and deal with thousands of people. The study suggests our facial recognition abilities help us to deal with the many different faces we see on the screens, as well as those we know. The results of the study give a baseline for comparing the "facial vocabulary" of humans with facial recognition software.

    Today, facial recognition technology is used in many ways, including by law enforcement agencies to prevent crime and violence. Governments use it to keep secret areas secure and, in extreme cases, control populations. Some governments use the software to watch people and find out where they go and what they do. Even Facebook uses facial recognition. For example, when you name a friend, Facebook technology may recognize the person's face from a different picture you had shared before.

    For the human study, people spent one hour writing down as many faces from their personal lives as possible. At first, they found it easy to come up with many faces. But by the end of the hour, they found it harder to think of new ones. Their change in speed let the researchers estimate when they would have run out of faces completely. 1,000 to 10,000 faces remembered. People who took part in the study were also shown thousands of photographs of famous people. Researchers asked them which ones they recognized. To make sure they knew these people, researchers required them to recognize two different photos of each famous person. The results showed that the participants knew between 1,000 and 10,000 faces.

    How do they explain such a wide range? Jenkins said one explanation may be that some people have a natural ability for remembering faces. "There are differences in how much attention people pay to faces and how well they process the information." Also it could be because of different social environments. Some people may have grown up in more populated places. So, they may have had more social contact throughout their lives.

    Researchers think age may be an interesting area for further research. “It would be interesting to see whether there is a peak age for the number of faces we know”, Jenkins said. He said it is possible that we gather more faces throughout our lifetime. But, he added, there also may be an age at which we start to find it harder to remember all of those faces.