Discovering Tasmania

    The island of Tasmania is separated from mainland Australia by the Bass Strait. The island is a place of natural beauty and has more than 2,000 km of walking tracks and 18 national parks. If you go on a tour, you'll discover a wild and beautiful place where the people are friendly and the food is delicious. If you don't like walking, there are other tours you can choose from including a river cruise and cycling. You can also combine your tour with fishing, sailing or sunbathing on the beach. 

    One of the most incredible places to walk is along the Tarkine coast which is located in the north-west of Tasmania. It's such a wild and remote area that you can easily complete your walk without seeing anyone apart from the members of your group and your two guides. The area contains the largest temperate rainforest in Australia which is home to more than 50 endangered species. It is also home to many Aboriginal Heritage Sites. Your guides will provide you with plenty of information about the area as you complete that part of your tour. During your tour, you'll come across rivers, mountain ranges, spectacular waterfalls, wildlife and long wild beaches. It will be an experience you won't easily forget. 

Tour Itinerary:

Day 1:

    You're picked up from your hotel in the town of Launceston and driven to the Tarkine. You then complete a three-hour walk through the forest before arriving at your camp at Mystery Creek. There you will enjoy a delicious meal cooked by your guides.

Day 2:

    After breakfast, you continue deeper into the rainforest, passing some of the tallest trees in the world as you go, and stopping for lunch and then camp in the evening.

Day 3:

    The highlight of today's hike is the Tarkine Falls, a beautiful 15-metre waterfall.

Day 4:

    Today you can stay at the camp and bathe in the Tarkine Falls, or you can go for a day hike for more fantastic views of the forest.

Day 5:

    After a last hike through the forest, you are picked up at about 4:00 p.m. and you arrive in Launceston at around 7:00 p.m.

    The tour includes two professional guides, transport to and from the rainforest, all food while on the tours and all safety equipment. You should buy or hire recommended camping equipment including: backpacks, sleeping bags, sleep mats, head torches, rain coats and trousers.

    “Indeed,” George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785, “some kind of fly, or bug, had begun to eat the leaves before I left home.” But the father of America was not the father of bug. When Washington wrote that, Englishmen had been referring to insects as bugs for more than a century, and Americans had already created lightning-bug(萤火虫). But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language, leaving it to the Americans to call a bug a bug in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    The American bug could also be a person, referring to someone who was crazy about a particular activity. Although fan became the usual term, sports fans used to be called racing bugs, baseball bugs, and the like.

    Or the bug could be a small machine or object, for example, a bug-shaped car. The bug could also be a burglar alarm, from which comes the expression to bug, that is, “to install (安装) an alarm”. Now it means a small piece of equipment that people use for listening secretly to others' conversation. Since the 1840s, to bug has long meant “to cheat”, and since the 1940s it has been annoying.

    We also know the bug as aflawin a computer program or other design. That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison. In 1878 he explained bugs as “little problems and difficulties” that required months of study and labor to overcome in developing a successful product. In 1889 it was recorded that Edison “had been up the two previous nights discovering ‘a bug' in his invented record player.”

    Recently, I experienced a wonderful lesson in how little things still mean a lot. My brother, mother and I live in a very rural district of Hawaii. Our farm is at least a dozen miles from the most basic of services. Therefore, I take weekly trips to COSTCO to get supplies. About a month ago, I finished loading up the car and was about to leave, when a piece of paper caught my eye. I picked it up and read it carefully.

    It was a receipt(收据) from the State Motor Vehicle Division, recording the owner's payment of her Vehicle's Registration fees. At first I thought that I could find the owner. So I waited there for about an hour. Although the receipt had been borne (由……携带) on the wind, where in the busy, crowded parking lot would I find the owner? I looked over the receipt for contact or any personal data, perhaps a license tag(牌照)or telephone number. I checked the date, the fees paid, noted the name of the owner and pocketed the paper. I concluded that the best and easiest step to take was to put the receipt in an envelope and send it to the owner first the next morning.

    By the end of the week, I received a beautiful thank-you letter from a very grateful and happy woman containing a handwritten message and a gift card. In the letter, the woman explained how the wind snatched(夺去) her receipt from a pocket in her car's passenger door. She had searched everywhere for quite some time before giving up.

    It felt great to know I'd helped someone avoid a loss by doing something that at first glance(一瞥) seemed little or even unimportant.

    Scientists have found living organisms(有机体) that could be 50,000 years old recently. The organisms were found in a hot, but beautiful cave system in Naica, Mexico. These ancient life forms can be seen only with a microscope, which proves they are probably microbes(微生物).

    Penelope Boston leads the Astrobiology Institute at NASA, the space agency of the United States. These ancient organisms are able to exist by eating minerals such as iron and manganese. If the findings are confirmed, they will show how microbes can survive in extreme conditions.

    Researchers have been studying ancient microbes for nine years. Forty different kinds of microbes and some viruses were found in the underground area this time. The genetic(基因的) structures of these organisms are different from those of their nearest relatives –viruses. That is similar to that humans are genetically different from mushrooms growing in forest. The caves in Naica are 800 kilometers deep. Before the miners began working in the caves, the area was isolated from the surface and the outside world.

    Some of the caves are as big as the large religious centers built during Europe's Middle Ages. There are crystals(晶体) covering the walls. Scientists must wear special clothing to keep cool. And the clothing keeps the crystals safe from human germs or other damage. The researchers could only work for about 20 minutes at a time before they have to go to a room that is 28 degrees Celsius to cool down.

    NASA officials would not let Boston share her findings with scientific experts until the last week's announcement. So scientists could not say much about the findings. But Norine Noonan, a biologist at the University of South Florida, said she believed them. “Why are we surprised?” Noonan asked, “As a biologist, I would say life on Earth is extremely tough and versatile.” “What's more, these organisms are not the oldest life forms on Earth. Scientists published studies about living microbes that may be 500,000 years old several years ago,” she added.

                                                                                      The Lifecycle of a T-shirt

    We all probably have a lot of T-shirts, but do you ever stop and think about the influence of a T-shirt on the planet? You'd probably be surprised to learn what's involved in the lifecycle of just one T-shirt.

    There are 5 major stages: material, production, shipping, use and disposal. The material stage involves farming, irrigating, fertilizing, harvesting and ginning. While cotton is a natural fiber (纤维) and not as harmful to the environment as manmade fibers, it still takes a toll in the material and production stages. Commercial cotton farming uses a large amount of water, and the use of pesticides (杀虫剂) is widespread across the globe, especially in cotton farming. Studies have shown that farmers spend around $4.1 billion on pesticides annually, of which 25% was spent on cotton crops in the US.

    Once the cotton is grown and harvested, so begins the production stage: spinning, knitting, bleaching, dyeing, cutting, sewing, etc.——these processes also use a great deal of water and energy. Commercial dyes and bleaches are harmful pollutants and can eventually pollute groundwater.

    After the T-shirt is produced, it enters the transportation stage. This often involves overseas shipping. Take a look in your closet. Chances are that most of your cotton garments (衣服) are made in China or India. Garments can be shipped via plane, ship or truck…, all of which spill CO₂ into the atmosphere. Calculations show that CO₂ emissions from light trucks alone amount to 1.15 pounds per mile.

    Once the T-shirt reaches the retail market, it is purchased. This stage may seem like the leastenvironmentally damaging part. But consider the number of times you've washed and dried your favorite T-shirt. Washing machines are certainly becoming more efficient. However, the average American household does 400 loads of laundry per year, using about 40 gallons of water per load. Such excessive water use is combined with the large amount of energy used by dryers.

    The final stage of life is disposal. This releases harmful emissions, or involves a landfill where cotton takes years to break down. Current US records show that an estimated 15% of clothes and shoes are recycled, which means that consumers send a shocking 85% of these materials to landfills.

    We all need new clothes every once in a while, but let's all try to keep in mind what goes into the production of clothing... It has a real impact on the planet.

    There are a lot of things you can do to help reduce your impact. Reuse and recycle clothes. If they're too worn out to wear, cut them up and use them as cleaning rags. Donate them to charity or another organization that recycles textiles. When possible, make an effort to buy organic cotton. Turn down the thermostat on your washer, and line dry your clothes when the weather will allow it.

    Dannis was waiting at the airline ticket counter when he first noticed the young woman with shiny black hair pulled tightly into a knot. She wore black boots of soft leather. Dannis struggled to see her face, she was ahead of him in line, but it was not until she bought her ticket and turned to walk away that he realized her beauty, which was fair-skinned and big-eyed. She seemed aware that he was staring at her and lowered her gaze abruptly.

    When next he saw her, Dannis was buying a magazine and became aware someone was pushing him. At first, he was startled (受惊吓的) that anyone would be so close as to touch him, but when he saw who it was, he smiled.

    "Busy place," Dannis said.

    She looked up at him and blushed. Wordlessly, she moved away and joined the crowds in the terminal.

    Dannis was at the counter with his magazine, but when he reached into his pocket for his wallet, the pocket was empty. Where could I have left it? His mind was racing, the credit cards, the cash, the identification card... "The girl who was so near to me!" he said to himself. All at once he understood she had stolen his pocket. What shall he do?

    Dannis gritted his teeth. When glancing around for the police, suddenly, he spotted the black-haired girl, seated against a front window of the terminal. She seemed absorbed in a book.

    "Where is my wallet?" he yelled. The black-haired girl glanced up from her reading, with a confused look on her face. Dannis glared at her and shouted, "You stole my wallet!" The crowds began to gossip. The girl turned deadly pale, looking so restless that words failed her. A strange silence hung in the air. Abruptly, she leaped from the seat and tried to escape from the crowds.

    Dannis grabbed her by the arm. At exactly that moment, a policeman approached them and asked about what happened. Dannis hastened to explain it while the girl frowned with a shake of her head. After further enquiries, the policeman took out a wallet and handed it to Dannis, adding that someone had found it in the toilet.