The all-new Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium, situated in the heart of Melbourne's CBD, is one of Victoria's leading visitor attractions and an unforgettable outing for the whole family. Having 12 amazing zones of discovery, Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium is the very place that you cannot miss when you visit the city.

* Opening Times

     Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium is open from 9:30 am until 6:00 pm every day of the year, including public holidays. Last admission is at 5:00 pm, one hour before closing.

* Location ( 位置)

     Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium is located on the corner of Flinders Street and King Street, Melbourne. It is siyuated on the Yarra River, opposite Crown Entertainment Complex.

* Getting to Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium

     Train

     The Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium train stop is located on the free City Circle Tram route (公交线路) and also routes 70 and 75. City Circle trams run every 10 minutes in both directions.

     Shuttle Bus

     The Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium is a free bus service, stopping at key tourist attractions in and around the City. Running daily, every 15 minutes from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

      Car Parking

      While there is no public car parking at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium, there are several public car parking lots available only a short walk away.

* Wheelchair Access

      Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium provides people in wheelchairs with full access to all 12 zones. Each floor also has wheelchair accessible toilets.

* Terms

      Tickets will be emailed to you immediately after purchase or you can download and print your ticket once payment has been accepted. Please print out all tickets purchased and present at the front entrance of Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium. No ticket, no entry!

    A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

    “It's extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.

    They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it's connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

    While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers' fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.

    Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

    One talented father created the tag “Dadfact” in an effort to persuade his child into eating their sandwiches using information that might not be completely reliable.

Flying is fine if you want to save time, but nothing beats the railway for a relaxing and down-to-earth journey. The Zhengzhou—Xuzhou and Xi'an—Fuzhou high-speed railways put into operation in September mark a connection of high-speed railways in China's eastern and middle-western regions, and they have brought out some of the country's best landscapes and cuisines.

    Here are four signature dishes(招牌菜) that you shouldn't miss as you travel along the railways.

Yangrou Paomo, Xi'an

    If one dish could represent Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi, locals would tell you without doubt that it's Yangrou Paomo. It is a bowl of lamb soup served with hard flour “bread”, which is broken up and added to the soup. The soup is topped with slices of mutton, scallion(葱) and coriander(香菜). Then it is usually eaten with picked sweet garlic.

Soup Dumpling, Kaifeng

    A popular snack in Kaifeng, Henan, the dish is made up of three things: skin, meat and soup. The skin is made from flour, while the filling is usually pork. And just as its name suggests, the soup dumplings are filled with tasty soup. But how does the steaming hot soup get into the dumplings? It's actually been cooled and cut into cubes, which fit easily into the dough(面团). Along with the pork, the cubes become liquid soup once they're steamed.

Smelly Mandarin Fish, Huangshan

    Despite its name, Smelly Mandarin Fish(臭鳜鱼) is known for its good taste. A lot of travelers who visit Huangshan in Anhui want to taste it because they have heard of its reputation. Once the skin has been removed, the fresh is preserved in salty water for six to seven days, then fried and cooked in soy sauce. Although salting gives the fish its special smell, the original tender flesh is preserved well and given a delicious and unique taste.

Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, Fuzhou

    The dish has enjoyed an over 100-year-long worldwide reputation since it was invented in Fuzhou, Fujian in the late Qing Dynasty(1644-1911). Fotiaoqiang, or Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, got its interesting name from a poem a customer wrote. The poem said the dish was so delicious that upon smelling it, monks in the neighboring temple would jump over the wall to come and get some. Buddha Jumps Over the Wall is made up of many ingredients, including sea cucumber(海参), chicken, pork and mushroom. Because of these ingredients, it tastes extremely delicious while being highly nutritious at the same time.

    Reading can be a social activity. Think of the people who belong to book groups. They choose books to read and then meet to discuss them. Now the website BookCrossing.com turns the page on the traditional idea of a book group.

    Members go on the site and register the books they own and would like to share. BookCrossing provides an identification number to stick inside the book. Then the person leaves it in a public place, hoping that the book will have an adventure, traveling far and wide with each new reader who finds it.

    Bruce Pederson, the managing director of BookCrossing, says, “The two things that change your life are the people you meet and books you read. BookCrossing combines both.”

    Members leave books on park benches and buses, in train stations and coffee shops. Whoever finds their book will go to the site and record where they found it.

    People who find a book can also leave a journal entry describing what they thought of it. E-mails are then sent to the BookCrossers to keep them updated about where their books have been found. Bruce Peterson says the idea is for people not to be selfish by keeping a book to gather dust on a shelf at home.

    BookCrossing is part of a trend among people who want to get back to the “real” and not the virtual(虚拟). The site now has more than one million members in more than one hundred thirty-five countries.

    Reports tell us that Americans work more and vacation less than people in other major industrial countries. Still, millions of Americans do try to get away from home for a week or two in the summer months. Some might even have the time and money to spend longer on vacation.

    For example, many retired Americans can be found driving around the United States in big recreational vehicles, known as R. V.'s. These serve as a home away from home. In fact, it might even be their only home as they see the country.

    Some American families get in their cars and drive to historic places like Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. There, they can experience what life was like for early Americans. If that is not exciting enough, also in Williamsburg is a water park and an amusement park with rides.

    Other Americans visit national parks like Yellowstone or Yosemite out in the West. They want to spend time with nature. Or they take their vacation by a lake or the ocean. They might swim or fish. But many just want to sit and enjoy the feeling of doing nothing, except maybe read a book.

    Some families fly to other countries on vacation. Or they go on a cruise ship (大型游轮) and stop in different ports. Cruise ships are like floating cities.

    But not everyone goes someplace special on vacation. This might be the only time for people to work on things like home improvement projects. And while they do that, they might think of all the fun their friends are having.

    Google is consistently rated the best place to work. So you need a degree from Harvard to in the door, right?

    Not really, according to Laszlo Bock, Google's Head of People Operations. When the company was small, Google cared a lot about getting kids from Harvard, Stanford, MIT and many other Ivy League schools.  But Bock said it was the "wrong" hiring strategy.  Experience has taught him there are exceptional kids at many other places, from state schools in California to New York.

    "What we find is the best people from places like that are just as good, if not better, as anybody you can get from any Ivy League school, "said Bock, who just authored a book titled "Work Rules!"

    Every year, 2 million people apply to get a job at Google.  Bock himself has seen some 25, 000 résumés.

    So what else does Google not care about:

    Grades: Google's data shows that grades predict performance for the first two years of a career, but do not matter after that.

    Brain-teasers: Gone are interview questions such as: Why are manhole covers（井盖)round? or How many golf balls can fit in a school bus? "Our research tells us those questions are a waste of time, "Bock said "They're a really coachable skill. The more you practice, you get better at it. "

    Here's what Google does care about:

    Problem solvers: Your cognitive ability(认知能力), or how well you solve problems.

    Leaders: The idea is not whether you were president of the student body or vice president of the bank, but rather:" When you see a problem do you step in, help solve it, "and then critically, "Are you willing to step out and let somebody else take over, and make room for somebody else? Are you willing to give up power?"

    Googleyness: That's what Google calls its cultural fit. It's not "Are you like us?" Bock said. "We actually look for people who are different, because diversity gives us great ideas."

    "What's most important is that people are intellectually humble, willing to admit when they're wrong, and care about the environment around them… because we want people who think like owners not employees, "Bock said.

    The least important thing? Knowing how to do the job.

    "We figure if you get the first three right you'll figure it out most of the time."