World Elephant Day is the perfect time to find out more about these amazing animals and what we can do to preserve them so they do not go the way of the mammoth（猛犸象）.

    World Elephant Day was created in 2011 by two Canadian filmmakers Patricia Sims and Thailand's Elephant Reintroduction Foundation and was first celebrated on August 12, 2012. They made the documentary Return to the Forest, a fascinating 30 minute film about the reintroduction of caught Asian elephants to the wild.

    Currently, the demand for ivory（象牙）is becoming bigger and bigger, whose price is higher than that of gold, making elephants bigger targets than ever. Habitation loss is also a danger to the world's elephant population as it robs elephants of the hundreds of pounds of food they need every day, making it more difficult for them to breed and making it easier for hunters to track them down. Circuses and tourism are also serious threats to the animals' well-being.

    The best way to celebrate this day is to take the opportunity to educate yourself about these magnificent（巨大的）mammals and share your knowledge with others. As ever, simply spreading the word about the dangers these magnificent mammals face via social media can actually make a real change. Expose that “training” elephants often involves tying and beating them daily for months on end. If you want to get a bit more involved, you could choose to make a donation to a foundation dedicated to protecting elephants from hunters or relocating them to locations better suited to their needs.

    Whichever way suits you best, make sure that you spend this day in a way that helps elephants all over the world, so we, in turn, can continue to wonder at them and their uniquely fascinating way of life.

    When we think of a generation gap we usually think of conflicting tastes in music, or pastimes. But now the generation gap is handwriting. After one teacher in Tennessee discovered that she had students who couldn't read the assignments she was writing on the board, she posted it on the Internet saying handwriting should be taught in schools.

    Opponents claim that handwriting has become out of time in our modern world. Typed words have become a primary form of communication. Once a practical kill handwriting is no longer used by the vast majority of Americans. It is no longer taught in schools, and some claim that the time that it would take to teach it could be put to better use, for instance, by teaching the technical skills.

    But even in today's world there are still plenty of reasons to pick up a pen and apply it to paper. Many American institutions still require original signatures, for instance, signing for a registered letter and buying a house. And original signatures are much more difficult to forge(伪造) than their digital counterparts. There is also strong evidence that writing by hand is good for the mind. It activates a different part of the brain, and improves fine moving skills in young children. People also tend to remember what they write by hand more than what they type, and the process of writing by hand has been shown to stimulate ideas. Besides, studies have shown that kids who write by hand learn to read and spell earlier than those who don't. Not to mention, handwriting is pleasing, as is evidenced by the fact that no one has ever typed a love letter. And handwriting remains popular as an art form.

    Yes, we live in a modern world, but we live in a modern world that is based on fundamental values.

    Science fiction writers create imaginary worlds. The way things work in your imaginary worlds will be based on actual science. So it's important for you to be familiar with the scientific principles and inventions that are related to your creation. For example, if you're writing about human living on a planet with zero gravity, then you need to know the effects of zero gravity on the human body.

    Then you have to figure out the exact rules of your imaginary worlds. And you have to follow them. If humans are able to breathe underwater in Chapter 1, your character can't drown in a swimming pool in Chapter 3. The issue here is maintaining your readers' trust. That means the readers are willing to pretend along with you. If you start out with an ordinary detective novel and then throw in someone breathing underwater in the 6th chapter, you will pull the readers out of their imagination. The same thing happens if you change the rules halfway.

    Part of your preparation work for the novel is to map out its worlds in great detail. You should decide the following issues: the history of the world, the geography, what possibilities it offers, how everything works in this new reality, and how all of these factors affect the way your characters think, feel, and react to things. You don't have to tell your readers all the rules in the first chapter. But you have to let readers know enough to understand what's going on. This also allows you to work out logical problems and contradictions before you start writing.

    When you are writing, remember to make it feel real. You are inviting readers to visit a new world. They will want to be able to see, hear, feel, smell, and even taste what it's like. Whether your novel is about a world without disease or an undiscovered planet, help your readers feel like they're actually there.

    Harvard University in the United States has been ranked as the university with the best “reputation” in the world.

    The Times Higher Education magazine has listed 200 top universities all over the world based on how they are regarded by a group of international college teachers. That is to say, the list measures how universities are regarded, rather than how they actually performed.

    “A subjective, word-of-mouth (口碑的) quality such as “reputation” has genuine economic value for universities,” said Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

    “Reputation is not just an impression, though it might not be as reliable as performance by objective indicators (客观指标),” said Prof Marginson.

    Based on the views of 13,000 college teachers around the world, it confirms the power of the big US universities, which dominate this list. Seven of the top 10 are US universities, headed by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Furthermore, 14 of the top 20 are from the US. Cambridge is the highest ranking UK university in the list, in third place, with Oxford ranked as sixth.

    “For students applying to university, reputation might be hard to quantify, but was an important part of the attractiveness,” said the president of Cambridge University's students' union, Rahul Mansigani.

    “Reputation makes a huge difference. If there is an idea that somewhere is great, it will get lots of good people applying whether it's true or not. Factors such as a sense of history and the presence of outstanding college teachers were part of the reputation of Cambridge,” he said.

    Environmental experts warn that our planet is drowning inplastic.

    The world's cities produce 2 billion tons of trash everyyear. By the year 2050 that number is expected to rise to 3 billion tons. TheWorld Bank estimates that the largest amount of trash today, about 44 percent,is plastic. But we often have to buy packaged goods. And often that packagingis made of plastic.

    Now, that may be changing. A new environmentally-friendlyshopping model was recently launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland. This shopping model, called Loop, aims to replace throwawaycontainers with reusable ones.

    Loop is the idea of Terra Cycle, an American-based recyclingcompany. Its chief, Tom Szaky told the Associated Press (AP) that "removingplastics from the ocean is not enough." He said the point is to get awayfrom single-use packages. Szaky said that Loop is the future of shopping. Butit comes from an idea of the past.

    He compared it to the "milkman model" of the 1950sin the United States. Back then, someone brought milk to your doorstep in glassbottles and then left with empty bottles. These could be cleaned and used again.The result is zero-waste.

    Jennifer Morgan from the environmental non-profitorganization Greenpeace also joined in the discussion about Loop at Davos. Shesaid that "Greenpeace welcomes the aim of the Loop Alliance to move awayfrom throwaway culture and disposability." But Morgan questioned whethercompanies worldwide are ready to change their business models.

    Loop is set to launch later this year in three eastern U.S.states, and also in Paris, France and some of the surrounding area. Then Loopplans to expand to the U.S. West Coast, Toronto, Canada and Britain by the endof this year or 2020.

    Everybody hates rats (big mice). But in the earthquake capitals of the world — Japan, Los Angeles, Turkey — rats will soon be man's best friends.

    What happens after an earthquake? We send in rescue dogs. Why? Because they can smell people. Dogs save lives. They help rescuers to find living people. But dogs are big and they can't get into small spaces. So now a new research project is using a smaller animal to save lives: the rat.

    How does it work? First, the rat is trained to smell people. When this happens, the rat's brain gives a signal (信号). This is sent to a small radio on its back, and then the rescuers follow the radio signals. When the rat's brain activity jumps, the rescuers know that someone is alive. The rat has smelled that person.

    Although there are already robots which can do this job, rats are better. Christian Linster at Cornell University, New York, says, "Robots' noses don't work well when there are other smells around. Rats are good at that." Rats can also see in the dark. They are cheaper and quicker to train than dogs, and unlike robots, they don't need electricity!

    The "rat project" is not finished, but Julie Ryan of International Rescue Organization in Scotland says, "It would be wonderful. A rat could get into spaces we couldn't get to, and a rat would get out if it wasn't safe." Perhaps for the first time in history, people will be happy to see a rat in a building (but only after an earthquake, of course).