Terrafugia Inc. said Monday that its new flying car has completed its first flight, bringing the company closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The vehicle — named the Transition — has two seats, four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car. The Transition, which flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes last month, can reach around 70 miles per hour on the road and 115 in the air. It flies using a 23-gallon tank of gas and burns 5 gallons per hour in the air. On the ground, it gets 35 miles per gallon.

    Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit（定金） to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show. But don't expect it to show up in too many driveways. It's expected to cost as much as $279,000. And it won't help if you're stuck in traffic. The car needs a runway.

    Inventors have been trying to make flying cars since the 1930s, according to Robert Mann, an airline industry expert. But Mann thinks Terrafugia has come closer than anyone to making the flying car a reality. The government has already permitted the company to use special materials to make it easier for the vehicle to fly. The Transition is now going through crash tests to make sure it meets federal safety standards.

    Mann said Terrafugia was helped by the Federal Aviation Administration's (联邦航空管理局) decision five years ago to create a separate set of standards for light sport aircraft, which are lower than those for pilots of larger planes. Terrafugia says an owner would need to pass a test and complete 20 hours of flying time to be able to fly the Transition, a requirement pilots would find relatively easy to meet.

    The city of Amsterdam is one of the best preserved in all of Europe. When visiting this remarkable city, you tend to forget your troubles just for a moment. With this travel guide, you will be able to discover the real Amsterdam.

    Best Time to Visit Amsterdam

    To see the tulip(郁金香)flowers you can visit from mid-April to early May. For the New Year's celebration, there're a lot of parties going on then. However, if you want to enjoy a quieter and more relaxing Amsterdam, visit from October to March.

Getting Around Amsterdam

    You can rent a bike to go wherever you want to go. Public transportation is also convenient. You can get a chip card for about$9.

    What You Should Know Before Visiting Amsterdam

    Plan ahead since most of the attractions are usually busy and be careful with your wallets as the city is well-known for pickpockets. Also be cautious when you are buying something in the markets.

    The Best of Amsterdam

    Rijksmuseum

    This museum is one of the finest in the world. Make sure you arrive before 10 am to avoid big crowds.

    Vondelpark

    If you are looking forward to relaxing and enjoying some peace and quiet, make a trip to this top choice park in the city.

    Van Gogh Museum

    The Van Gogh Museum is very fascinating; you will definitely be moved as you see Vincent van Gogh's life and how he developed through art.

    A'DAM Tower

    If you want to get the inspiring views of Amsterdam, take the lift to the top of this tower. You can also climb aboard the giant four-person swing for some fun rides.

    Women may have good reason to drink coffee as much as they like. According to recent research, women who drank three or more cups of coffee a day were 30 percent less likely to have memory decline at age 65 than whose who drank one cup or less daily. And the benefit increased with age. Women over age 80 who drank three or more cups of coffee a day were about 70 percent less likely to have memory decline than those who drank one cup or less, the researchers said.

    Caffeinated tea had the same effect in the women, the study found, although more was needed to get the same caffeine boost. "Count roughly two cups of tea for a cup of coffee," said study leader Karen Ritchie of INSERM, the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research.

    But the researchers didn't find a similarly protective effect in men, although other studies have found a benefit to males.

    How might caffeine help ward off cognitive decline? "It is a cognitive stimulant." said Ritchie. "It also helps to reduce levels of the protein called beta amyloid in the brain" she said, "whose accumulation is responsible for Alzheimer's disease but which also occurs in normal aging."

    Ritchie said she wasn't sure why men in the study didn't benefit from caffeine. "Our hypothesis is that either women metabolize caffeine differently than men, or there may be an interaction of the caffeine with the sex hormones," she said.

    The French study confirms previous research, said William Scott, professor of medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who has researched caffeine's beneficial effects against Parkinson's disease, also a neurodegenerative disorder.

    As for caffeine only protecting women, Scott noted that just 2,800 of the 7,000 study participants were men, and the results might have differed if more men were included.

    A study published in February in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition looked at 676 healthy men and found that regular coffee drinkers had a lower rate of cognitive decline over a 10-year follow-up than those who didn't drink coffee. Those who drank three cups daily had the least signs of decline.

    Both Scott and Ritchie agreed that more study is needed. Ritchie's research will next look at the relationship between caffeine and Alzheimer's.

    Here's the story of my growth over the past year. If anyone is inspired (激励) by this, that's wonderful.

    I'd been stuck as this under-confident, fat and just frightened girl for years and years and years. Since I was a little girl, I'd been stuck like this, and I had lived a life where I'd be afraid of everything. But then it all started changing. Something clicked, and in over a period of 6 months I finally managed to stick to one of my diets, bringing me from overweight straight down to underweight. This proved (证明) that I could change myself.

    One single time, I heard about a public speaking thing going on at my university, and for the first time, I managed to keep up the courage to go there. For the first time I was able to share my story, and able to do it in front of so many people possibly judging (评判) me, and suddenly all the fears about speaking publicly started vanishing. I never felt more confident.

    This taught me I could get rid (去除) of my fears  It was from that point on that my road to change went from a rocky mess to a full-on empty highway.

    Using the fact that I could change, and that I could get rid of my fears, I started working on them one by one. My fear of talking to strangers ,my fear of asking simple questions, my fear of hanging out with people, my fear of being myself... All of them were gone. And I still continue to progress to this day. I've never stopped.

Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago?

In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015. Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census's measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic wellbeing, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.

While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.

The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U.S. and France in 2005.

In 2005, as the authors observe: real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as the U.S., making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U.S. Because of these differences, comparing France's consumption with the U.S.'s overstates the gap in economic welfare.

Similar calculations can be used to compare the U.S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97 % of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%. The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy's performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U.S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U.S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.

Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multi-dimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated—for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates.

Sharifkhuja has loved Chinese movies and culture since childhood. His father is also a huge fan of China. Before his {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(graduate)from high school, Sharifkhuja's father suggested that he learn Chinese and go to China in the future.Having studied Chinese for two years in Tajikistan, Sharifkhuja finally came to China {#blank#}2{#/blank#} ( pursue) his dream.

After five years in China, Chinese language and calligraphy {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(become) a part of his life. In his first calligraphy class，Sharifkhuja said that writing with brushes was {#blank#}4{#/blank#}amazing experience, which could help him feel the spirits of Chinese culture. Besides，{#blank#}5{#/blank#} he enjoys most is traditional Chinese music. Sharifkhuja is willing to share his experience in China with his family and friends and introduce Tajik culture to his Chinese pals.

{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(stay) in China for many years, he hopes to work in the embassy(大使馆) {#blank#}7{#/blank#} a cultural bridge between the two countries. Meanwhile, he also {#blank#}8{#/blank#} ( plan) to return home as a Chinese teacher because {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(employ) the skills he acquired in China to improve the education of his motherland is one of his dreams.

However, no matter what Sharifkhuja chooses, his future will be {#blank#}10{#/blank#}( close ) related to Chinese.