Welcome to the Old Royal Naval College (ORNC), one of London's most famous landmarks. It is open daily and is a wonderful place to visit — whether you have an hour or a day.

    The buildings and grounds of the ORNC were originally designed as a refuge(避难所)for old and injured sailors in the 1690s. Later the site became a training college for officers in the Royal Navy. Today they are free to visit and host an exciting range of events all year round.

Painted Hall

    View the impressive Painted Hall, known as the greatest piece of decorative painting in England. Sir James Thornhill spent 19 years painting it celebrating the royal family and maritime(海上的) power. Discover more interesting history through our daily talks and family activities.

Chapel(小教堂)

    Redecorated by James“Athenian”Stuart after a fire in 1779, the Chapel reflects Stuart's Greek influences, and is still an active place to show respect and love for God. Besides, it is a perfect place for concerts and recitals(演奏会).

Discover Greenwich

    Explore over 500 years of history and architecture at the Discover Greenwich Visitor Centre. There is an impressive central model of Maritime Greenwich World Heritage (遗产)Site.

Opening times

    Painted Hall, Chapel and Discover Greenwich Visitor Centre open from 10:00 to 17:00, Mon to Sun. (Chapel opens at 12:00 on Sun following service).

Grounds open daily 08:00-18:00.

    NEW YORK—Australian mining enterpriser Clive Palmer on Tuesday unveiled(公布) blueprints (蓝本) for Titanic Ⅱ, a modern copy of the doomed ocean liner, although he didn't call the ship unsinkable any more.

    The ship will largely recreate the design and decoration of the fabled original, with some modifications to keep it in line with current safety rules and shipbuilding practices, and the addition of some modern comforts such as air conditioning, Palmer said at a press conference in New York.

    The three passenger classes, however, will be prevented from mingling(混杂), as in 1912, Palmer said. “I'm not too superstitious(迷信的). ”Palmer said when asked whether recreating a ship best-known for sinking was tempting fate.

    White Star Line, the operator of the original ship, had said the Titanic was designed to be unsinkable. About 1, 500 people died on Titanic's maiden voyage in 1912 from Southampton to New York after the ship collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

    Palmer, who created the company Blue Star Line last year, refused to make a similar boast.

    “Anything will sink if you put a hole in it,”Palmer said. “I think it would be very cavalier(漫不经心的) to say it.”

    Unlike the original, TitanicⅡ will have more than enough space in its lifeboats for every person on board and will have additional escape staircases. Markku Kanerva, sales director at Deltamarin, the Finnish company designing the ship, said it would be “the safest cruise ship in the world”.

    Palmer refused to answer questions about the project's cost. Although the Titanic was the world's largest ship in her time, she would be smaller than many of today's modern cruise ships.

    “It's not about the money, ”Palmer said. “I've got enough money for it. I think that's all that matters.”

    Forbes estimated Palmer's net worth to be $795 million in 2012. He describes himself as a billionaire.

    TitanicⅡ will be built by Chinese state-owned CSC Jinling Shipyard, which has already built four ore carriers for Palmer's mining business, he said. The contract to build TitanicⅡ has not yet been signed, Palmer said.

You might think people all over the United States have Wi-Fi—wireless Internet service—and mobile phones. But there is no such service in Green Bank, West Virginia, a tiny town four hours from the U.S. capital, Washington D.C. Fewer than 150 people live in Green Bank, which has two churches, an elementary school and a public library. It is also home to the largest radio telescope in the world.

    There is a ban on Wi-Fi in Green Bank, along with anything else that can create electromagnetic(电磁的)waves. Officials say the waves could disturb the signals the telescope receives.

For many Americans, a visit to Green Bank is a little like returning to the 1950s. To get there, you must read road signs—because there is no GPS service in the town. People can connect with the Internet through telephones, but wireless service is not allowed.

    The observatory(天文台)is one of the largest employers in the area. The federal National Science Foundation(NSF) spends about ＄8.2 million a year to operate the observatory, telescope and educational center.

    Jonah Bauserman is a technician. If he supposes there is signal that is not allowed in the zone, he drives to the house where the signal is coming from and checks it. But once a week, when the device is cleaned, some banned devices are allowed near it.

    People in the town respect the work of the scientists. And they say they are happy to live without Wi-Fi and mobile phones. "You know, instead of sitting here on our phones and other devices we're out fishing and hunting and going to each other's houses." Everyone knows each other and communication is almost always face-to-face.

    Think plants are just boring green things that you use for food and decoration? Think again! Plants are able to do some pretty awesome things that you're probably totally unaware of.

    Researchers have discovered that plants have the ability to communicate with an underground network made up of fungus (真菌) , which serves the plants in many ways. Tomato plants use the fungus web to warn each other of their own unhealthy conditions. Trees connected through the fungus network could move nutrients (养分) to and from each other. It is believed that larger trees move nutrients to smaller ones to help them to survive.

    Not only that, but they can also damage unwelcome plants by spreading poisonous chemicals through the fungus. It sounds like the plant world had the Internet before we did.

    Some plants have a rather impressive line of defense against being eaten. When sensing they are being swallowed, they give off a chemical into the air that attracts the insect's natural enemy. The enemy attacks the bug, thus saving the plants. This is basically the plant kingdom version of getting your older brother to beat up that kid who steals your lunch money.

    You might be aware that humans and animals have an internal clock. But did you know that plants also have this clock? This means they can prepare for certain times of day just like we do. Is it because they can react to light at sunrise? In a study, scientists found that plants use the sugars they produce to keep time, which help to regulate the genes responsible for the plant's own internal clock. So, in a sense, wake up with petunias (矮牵牛) is just as valid as ―wake up with the chickens.

    Nature is full of surprises. So for those of you who didn't know the wonders of plants, now you do.

    The Earth is facing a climate crisis, but it's also getting greener and leafier. According to new research, the rise is largely due to China and India.

    A study by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), based on extensive satellite photographs and published in the journal Nature Sustainability, has revealed that the two countries with the world's biggest populations are also responsible for the largest increase in greenness.

    Since 2000, the planet's green leaf area has increased by 5 percent, or over 2 million square miles. That's an area equivalent to the sum total of the Amazon rainforests, NASA says. But researchers stressed that the new greenery does not neutralize deforestation and its negative impacts on ecosystems elsewhere.

    A third of the leaf increase is thanks to China and India, due to the implementation of major tree-planting projects alongside a vast increase in agriculture.

    Using the data from a NASA sensor, researchers discovered that China is the source of a quarter of the increase in green leaf area, despite possessing only 6.6 percent of the world's vegetated area (植被区). Forests account for 42 percent of that increase, while croplands make up a further 32 percent. China's increase in forest area is the result of forest preservation and expansion programs, NASA said, established to fight against the impacts of climate change, air pollution and soil erosion (水土流失). India has contributed a further 6.8 percent rise in green leaf area, with 82 percent from croplands and 4.4 percent from forests.

    Rama Nemani, a co-author of the study and a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center, said in a statement, "When the greening of the Earth was first observed, we thought it was due to a warmer, wetter climate and fertilization from the added carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to more leaf growth in northern forests, for instance." "Now, with the data that lets us understand the phenomenon at really small scales, we see that humans are also contributing," Nemani said. "This will help scientists make better predictions about the behavior of different Earth systems, which will help countries make better decisions about how and when to take action."

    Thomas Pugh, a professor at the University of Birmingham's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the NASA report expands scientists' understanding of the causes behind global greening. But he also cautioned that a direct line cannot be drawn between an increase in global greening and a decrease in negative impacts of climate change.

    Technological change is everywhere and affects every aspect of life, mostly for the better. However, social changes brought about by new technology are often mistaken for a change in attitudes.

    An example at hand is the involvement of parents in the lives of their children who are attending college. Surveys (调查) on this topic suggests that parents today continue to be "very" or "somewhat" overly-protective even after their children move into college dormitories. The same surveys also indicate that the rate of parental involvement is greater today than it was a generation ago. This is usually interpreted as a sign that today's parents are trying to manage their children's lives past the point where this behavior is appropriate.

    However, greater parental involvement does not necessarily indicate that parents are failing to let go of their "adult" children.

    In the context (背景) of this discussion, it seems valuable to first find out the cause of change in the case of parents' involvement with their grown children. If parents of earlier generations had wanted to be in touch with their college-age children frequently, would this have been possible? Probably not. On the other hand, does the possibility of frequent communication today mean that the urge to do so wasn't present a generation ago? Many studies show that older parents - today's grandparents - would have called their children more often if the means and cost of doing so had not been a barrier.

    Furthermore, studies show that finances are the most frequent subject of communication between parents and their college children. The fact that college students are financially dependent on their parents is nothing new; nor are requests for more money to be sent from home. This phenomenon is neither good nor bad; it is a fact of college life, today and in the past.

    Thanks to the advanced technology, we live in an age of bettered communication. This has many implications well beyond the role that parents seem to play in the lives of their children who have left for college. But it is useful to bear in mind that all such changes come from the technology and not some imagined desire by parents to keep their children under their wings.