Coolest Hotels in the World

Ariau Amazon Towers

    The Ariau Amazon Towers hotel lets you sleep in a tree house. Eight towers make up this hotel that offers over 300 rooms. If you really want to get into the spirit, book the Tarzan Suite which is large enough for a big family. You'll be thirty feet up in the air and can travel between the towers through their wooden walkways.

    Prices: starting at $300 one night for each person for a regular room and going all the way up to $3000 for the Tarzan Suite.

    For more information, visit the website: http://www.ariautowers.com

The Ice Hotel

    Every winter in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, a special kind of hotel called the lee Hotel is built. Each year, world-famous artists are invited to design and produce works of art from the ice, many of which can be found in the rooms. You'll have your choice between hot or cold rooms but you will be well advised to stay at least one night in a cold room for a true experience.

    Prices: starting at $318 one night for each person for either a cold room or a warm one. For more information, visit the website: http://www.icehotel.com

Propeller Island

    Propeller Island City Lodge is a very special hotel that was designed by a German artist. Each room provides you with the possibility of living in a work of art. Every single piece of furniture in the thirty rooms of the hotel has been hand-made and each room is completely different. You'll be able to choose a room based on your own personal tastes.

    Prices: starting at just $91 a night, and an additional person for only 20 extra dollars. For more information, visit the website: http://www.propeller-island.com

    For information about other cool hotels in the world, visit the website: http://www.bahamabeachclub.com

    Scientists have found that human eyes are more likely to be damaged by UV rays while skiing in the snow-covered areas than sitting on the beach, according to a report by the UK newspaper.

    The researchers at Kanazawa Medical University, Japan and American company Johnson conducted the study together. They looked at the effects of light reflection on newly fallen snow on a ski trail in Ishikawa District, northern Japan. They compared the results with the levels of UV rays on a sand beach in southern Japan's Okinawa District.

    They found that on the beach, eyes are exposed to a daily 260 kilojoules (千焦耳) of UV a square meter compared to 658 kilojoules  in snow-covered areas.

The findings are supported by the Japan Meteorological (气象的) Agency. According to the agency, the reflection rate of UV light on beaches is often between 10 and 25 percent, compared to 80 percent in the new snow areas. The amount of light increased 4 percent with a 300-meter rise in height.

    Most of us know that UV rays can harm the skin. That's why we wear sunscreen on our skin before we get out in the sun. But many of us may not realize that UV rays are also harmful to the eyes.

    If your eyes are exposed to large amounts of UV radiation over a short period of time, you may experience a kind of sunburn of the eye, which is harmful. Your eyes will become red and feel a strange feeling. They may be sensitive to light. Fortunately, this is usually temporary and seldom causes permanent damage to the eyes.

    Long-term exposure to UV radiation, however, can be more serious. Scientific studies and researches have shown that exposure to small amounts of UV radiation over a period of many years increases the chance of eye damage, which could lead to total blindness.

    Navajo was the perfect choice for a secret language. It is very complex. One vowel (元音）can have up to ten different pronunciations, changing the meaning of any word. In the 1940s, Navajo was unwritten language. No one outside of the reservation could speak it or understand it.

    The Navajo Code team had to invent new words to describe military equipment. For example, they named ships after fish: lotso-whale (battleship), calo-shark (destroyer), beshloiron-fish (submarine). When a Code Talker received a message via radio, he heard a series of unrelated Navajo words. He would then translate the words into English and use the first letter of each English word to spell the message. The Navajo words tsah (needle), wol-la-chee (ant), ah-kh-di-glini (victor), and tsah-ah-dzoh (yucca) spelled NAVY.

    The Code Talker kept the code a secret. They memorized everything. There were no code books. As a result, no ordinary Navajo soldiers, if captured by the enemy, could understand the code. More than 3,600 Navajos served in World War II, but only 420 were Code Talkers with the US Marines. They coded and decoded battlefield messages better and faster than any machine. They could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in 20 seconds. Machines of the time required 30 minutes to perform the same job.

    Even after the war the code remained top secret. When they were asked about their role, Code Talkers just said: “I was a radioman.” War movies and histories came out without mentioning them. The code was never used again and was finally declassified in 1968. Only then did the secret came out.

    For students at The Farm School in Hamilton, Virginia, the classroom is outside-every day.

Jaclyn Jenkins is a founder of the school. "The number one question immediately we get from parents is 'what happens if it rains?' And we say, 'Bring an extra pair of clothes!'" Jenkins adds, "We still educate them. They also get energy. Their brains are working when they're moving. So, our goal is to always be outside."

    The Farm School is a preschool-a place for three-and four-year-olds to learn and play. Teacher Alison Huff has taught at other schools. She says The Farm School gives its students more of a hands-on learning experience. For example, children use pumpkins to learn about colors and counting. They learn about measurements by planting seeds 30 centimeters apart. Huff says "We can use everything a regular preschool uses, but out in the garden."

Apart from planting vegetables and fruits, students help prepare food and clean up afterward. The school teaches the children to cook using the food they have grown. "They can see the advantages of what they have in the garden and taste it then instead of going to the grocery store and buying it," Huff says.

    The preschoolers also lean words in languages other than English. Huff speaks in both English and Spanish. Her assistant speaks French and Arabic. She adds that a 3-year-old in her class speaks four different languages.

    Farm animals are also an important part of the education program. Jaclyn Jenkins says the children learn about a different animal every month. Two months ago, she says, that animal was a cow. The children spent another month with a large bird-a turkey.

    The children come home with new experiences, new knowledge and sometimes a few vegetables.

    When pups are between 2 and 3months old, their mothers will abandon them for any number of reasons. With no mother to watch out for them, infant (婴儿) mortality of pups under one year skyrockets (飞涨) to around 90%. So, only about 10% of motherless, homeless pups survive.

    Without mothers, how are these abandoned pups supposed to survive? For the study, researchers Clive Wynne at Arizona State, Nadine Chersini at Utecht University, and Nathan Hal at Texas Tech University brought in 51 college students and asked them to rate the attractiveness of headshots (头部特写) of puppies at different ages.

    The pups peaked at different ages, but they were all ranked likable between six to eight weeks, since newly abandoned pups are competing with each other for human heartstrings (怜悯), evolution says they should be most likable around 6 and 11 weeks. This is around the time they are weaned (断奶) and let go of by their mothers.

    There are a few characteristics that humans find particularly adorable across species: big, forward-facing eyes, floppy and unstable limbs (肢), and a soft, rounded body shape. We're also keen to scream when animals have large heads in comparison to their bodies, and this reaction goes back to evolution.

    Called kinderschema (婴儿萌), these qualities are also apparent in human babies and necessary for their survival. The characteristics activate the decision-making part of the brain to encourage you to protect and nurture the baby. At the same time, the brain's pleasure center releases dopamine (多巴胺). With these two reactions, your brain makes you want to protect the baby and rewards you for doing so. With your protection, the baby can survive.

    Asking for help is a sign of strength rather than weakness. In American culture, the independent individual is seen as their ideal. As the University of Missouri at St. Louis states on its website under the heading Key American Values, “Americans have been trained since very early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies.” The value also makes them think they can do everything themselves, and makes them feel badly about asking for help when they need it.

    And when it comes to work situations, when they think about asking for help there, sometimes they fear that a request for help would make them look inept. While this has always been true for men, many women in the workplace have felt the need to try twice as hard as their male colleagues and do twice as much to get just as far and to prove their worth. Sometimes when we think about asking for help, our inner voices tell us, "See, if you admit you can't do this on your own, they'll see you for the imposter(骗子) you really are."

    But the fact is, even though individualism is on the rise, we can't do everything by ourselves and we shouldn't try.

    Apple founder Steve Jobs once told the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association about the power of asking for help, and how he "never found anybody who didn't want to help me when I asked them for help". He said, at the age of 12, he called Bill Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, on the phone after getting his number from the phone book and asking him for spare parts so he could build a frequency counter(计频器). And Hewlett agreed and offered young Jobs a summer job assembling frequency counters.

    "If you're afraid of failing, you won't get very far," Jobs said.