The International School for Earth Studies

    It's a private，interdisciplinary institution specializing in earth-based studies．The Programs encourage students to explore the seeds of greatness，with a view to developing tomorrow's environmentally sensitive spokespersons and leaders. The principle goal is to help students develop responsibility inspired through appreciation and love for natural places and the greater environment．

    Program Location（s）：Newfoundland，Canada

    Phone：819—647—3226

    Email：info＠earthstudies.ca

    Expedition Education Institute

    Do you want to be an ecological leader，to become deeply rooted in the natural world and in your own power to make change and create a better，more resilient world？

Organized as the equivalent （等价物）to a semester abroad，Expedition Education Institute offers a unique opportunity for gap year participants to be personally transformed and academically challenged and supported to become better and more self-directed life-long learners．

    Program Location（s）：USA

    Phone：207—322—2973

    Email：Info＠expedition educatlon.org

    The Experiment in International Living

    It provides summer abroad programs for high school students who want to connect deeply and engage meaningfully with the richness and complexities of another country. Programs are designed to equip participants not only with essential cultural skills and，in many cases，language skills，but also with a deeper awareness of and sensitivity to critical global issues shaping the diverse communities and regions we visit.

Program Location（s）：Europe，the Americas，Africa，south of the Sahara

Phone：800—345—2929

Email：experiment＠worldlearning.org

Visitoz

    It's the Only organization in Australia that guarantees jobs for young people coming to our country on a Work and Holiday Visa. For young Americans this is a huge chance to get away from home and stand on their own two feet to make their own decisions．

Program Location（s）：Australia

Phone：4168—6106

Email：info＠visitoz.org

    Last night's meteor(流星) shower left many people in Emerald Valley dissatisfied. They gathered in the suburbs of the city with heavy telescopes，expecting to watch the brightly burning meteors passing through the sky. However, what they found was a sky so brightened by the city's lights that it darkened the light of the meteors passing overhead.

    “My family was so frustrated，” admitted town resident Duane Cosby, “We wanted to make this an unforgettable family outing，but it turned out to be a huge disappointment.”

    Astronomers—scientists who study stars and planets—have been complaining about this problem for many years. They say that light pollution prevents them from seeing objects in the sky that they could see quite easily in the past. They call on people and the government to take measures to fight against it.

    Besides professional and amateur(业余的) star observers, there is yet a population that suffers even more from light pollution. This population consists of birds，bats, frogs, and snakes etc. For example, outdoor lighting severely affects migrating(迁徙的)birds. According to the International Dark­Sky Association, “100 million birds a year throughout North America die in crashes with lighted buildings and towers. ”

    Countless animals injuries and deaths result from the use of artificial lighting. Clearly, people enjoy the benefits of lighting their evenings, but some scientists think it can be harmful to humans, too. They worry that exposure to light while sleeping can increase people's chances of getting cancer.

    Emerald Valley is only one community that is becoming aware of the negative effects of light pollution. For years, Flagstaff, Arizona has enforced lighting rules in its city in order to help astronomers with their observations. Similar efforts have been made worldwide, and a movement is underway to remind us to turn off lights when we are not using them, so that other creatures can share the night.

    Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci ... the art world has never lacked talent. And now, a new painter is ready to join the list although this one isn't even human.

    Next month, auction house Christie's Prints and Multiples will make history by offering the first piece of art created by artificial intelligence (AI) for sale. The painting is a portrait of a man called Edmond De Bela- my, and is expected to be sold for up to $10,000.

    The work, which features a man with a mysterious look on his face, was created by software developed by the French art group Obvious. Laugero-Lasserre, an art collector, called the work "grotesque and amazing at the same time". This isn't the first example of Al-produced artwork, as AI has already been used to write poems and compose .songs. However, many people doubt whether it should be called art at all.

According to Russian writer Leo Tolstroy (1828 -1910), art is about creating emotion (情感). It's "a means of …joining people together in the same feelings' he once said.

So, if the emotion behind art is what makes it, the ability to create and use tools is what makes human Icings different from other species. And as a tool itself, the AI technology used to create the portrait is the result of a lot of effort made by several designers. Together, they "fed" the AI a huge collection of paintings from the 14th to the 18th centuries, until it was able to work out how to make similar paintings of its own.

    The introduction of AI art could be the beginning of a new artistic movement. However, not everyone is ready to welcome these high-tech artists just yet.

    "The human mind is what's behind the AI technology. And the human mind is not a cold, hard fact," said Oscar Schwartz, a professor of AI. "Rather, it in something that's created with our opinions and something that changes over

    Most dog owners believe their dogs experience guilt, but animal behaviorists say the "guilty look" of a dog is simply a reaction to you and that dogs lack the ability to feel shame.

    Alexandra Horowitz, a psychology professor and principal investigator at the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab at Columbia University once carried out a study on dog "guilt". She videotaped 14 dogs in a series of trials and observed how they reacted when their owners left the room after instructing them not to eat a treat. When the owner was gone, Horowitz gave some of the dogs the forbidden treat. Then she would tell the owners whether their dogs had eaten the treat or had behaved. However, Horowitz wasn't always honest with them.

    Horowitz found that the dogs' "guilty looks" had little to do with whether they'd eaten the treat or not. In fact, dogs that hadn't eaten it but were scolded by misinformed owners tended to exhibit the most elements of the "guilty look".

Horowitz says this shows that the dogs' body language is actually a response to their owner's behavior—not an experience of shame for a misdeed. Why then, do dogs look so ashamed when we scold them?

Maybe that look of guilt is the result of a learned association. When you scold your dog for chewing up a pair of slippers, he quickly learns that if he lowers his head and tucks his tail, the undesirable response—raised voice and angry expression—is more likely to disappear.

    While elephants born without tusks (长牙)are not unheard of，they normally form just 2 to 6 percent of the population. However, that is not the case at Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, where an astonishing 33 percent of female elephants born after the country's civil war ended in 1992 are tuskless. While that may appear to be just a coincidence, Joyce Poole, an elephant behavior expert, has another theory. The researcher thinks we may be witnessing unnatural evolution of the species due to the constant hunting of elephants for valuable ivory.

    Poole says before the country's 15-year-long civil war, the 100,000-acre park was home to over 4,000 elephants. However, by the time the conflict ended in 1992, about 90 percent of them had been killed for ivory to help finance weapons (武器)and meat to feed the soldiers. Of the less than 200 survivors, over 50 percent of adult females had no tusks. Therefore, it is not surprising that the park's tuskless elephant population has grown greatly.

    This is not the first time researchers have observed a great change in the population of elephants. At Zambia's South Luangwa National Park and Lupande Game Management Area， areas which were heavily hunted in the 1970s and 1980s, 35% of elephants 25 years or older and 13% of those younger than 25 are now without tusks. A 2008 study published found that the number of tuskless females at the Ruaha National Park in Tanzania went from 10.5 percent in 1969 to almost 40 percent in 1989, largely due to illegal hunting for ivory.

    The recent ban on ivory in both the US and China should help get rid of, or at least reduce, elephant hunting. However, scientists are not sure how long it will take for elephants with a higher rate of tuskless females, to change the trend.

    On a steamy July day in Bayonet Point, Florida, Gene Work and his brother-in-law, Mark Rouco, were renewing Gene's lawn. It had grown brown and patchy in the heat, and the homeowners' association had threatened to heavily fine him if the situation wasn't improved. The new sod (草皮) was sitting in the driveway on four pallets, but the job was slow-going. Gene, then 40, wasn't feeling right. He went inside to take a break and collapsed on the couch, clutching his chest. His wife, Melissa Work, called 911 quickly.

    Even though he was staring down death. Gene had one thing on his mind: that lawn. If the sod wasn't put down that day, it would die. "While he was having his heart attack, literally in and out of consciousness, he kept begging me to have it put down because he didn't want it to go to waste," Melissa wrote in a Facebook post.

    Soon Pasco County Fire Rescue arrived and took Gene and Melissa to the hospital, leaving Rouco behind to tackle the yard. Within an hour, he had managed to remove the old grass. He was about to lay the new sod, which he feared would take him well into the night, when two emergency vehicles appeared. Seven men--the same ones who had treated his brother--got out. Gene had told them how badly he'd wanted to get the sod down, so they had returned to help. The job was done in under two hours.

    Meanwhile, Gene had surgery to insert stents (支架) in his heart, alleviating a potentially deadly blockage. He's home now, fully recovered--and enjoying his beautiful lawn.

    The Works are still amazed that those EMTs (Emergency medical technician) went above and beyond their job description. "These men," Melissa told tampabay.com, "saved Gene's life, and then came back to save his grass. That's just so awesome."