Several safari camps operate as the base for this adventure, providing unique rides twice a day to explore deep into the delta. The camps have excellent horses, professional guides and lots of support workers. They have a reputation for providing a great riding experience.

              The morning ride, when the guides take you to beautiful, shallow lakes full of water lilies, tends to be more active. It is unlike any other riding experience. With rainbows forming in the splashing water around you and the sound of huge drops of water bouncing off your body and face. It is truly exciting. You are very likely to come across large wild animals, too. On horseback it is possible to get quite close to elephants, giraffes and many other animals. The sense of excitement and tension levels rise suddenly though, as does your heart rate, as you move closer to them.

              In the evening, rides are usually at a more relaxed and unhurried pace. With golden light streaming across the grassy delta and the animals coming out to eat and drink. Sedate though they are, rides at this time of day are still very impressive. As the sun's rays pass through the dust kicked up by the horses, the romance of Africa comes to life.

              Back at the camp you can kick off your boots and enjoy excellent food and wine. Looking back on your day, you will find it hard to deny that a horseback Safari is as close as you will ever come to answering the call of the wild.

    Pocket Tape-Recorders “Family and Home Magazine” test what's on the market now.

1）Pearlcorder S702 $64

    This simple model at the bottom of the Olympus range scored the most points for its excellent quality of recording. Background noise hardly affects the sound and recording from a pocket is perfectly possible, but it doesn't turn off automatically.

Tape length: 30 minutes per side. Weight:240g.

2）Sony M9 $49.95

    Small and very good looking, sony's latest offering scored most for appearance. Sounds clear, but there is slight machine noise. The big control buttons are a great improvement on some of the complicated little controls on other tape-recorders. Doesn't switch off automatically but a red light shows if the machine is still running.

   Tape length: 60 minutes per side. Weight: 195g.

3）Sony M400 $115

    Lots of little control buttons that make a noise and are difficult to use . Recording was good but machine noise lost points. Tape counter and automatic switch-off when tape has finished recording or rewinding are useful Tape length: 60 minutes per side. Weight: 230g.

4）Imperial OEM. MC $29.95

    Cheap and simple compared with the rest, but recording was good as long as there was no background noise. Use only its own make of cassette. No light to show it is on; no fast forward button and the record button makes a loud noise.

    Tape length: 30 minutes per side. Weight: 285g.

5）Philips 585 $80

    Handsome and simple to use, but recording is very poor at more than the recommended distance of 5 cm-designed for dictation. No recording light. Tape length: 15 minutes per side. Weight: 220g.

    Since English biologist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, scientists have vastly improved their knowledge of natural history. However, a lot of information is still of the speculation, and scientists can still only make educated guesses at certain things.

    One subject that they guess about is why some 400 million years ago, animals in the sea developed limbs (肢) that allowed them to move onto and live on land.

    Recently, an idea that occurred to the US paleontologist (古生物学家) Alfred Romer a century ago became a hot topic once again.

    Romer thought that tidal (潮汐的) pools might have led to fish gaining limbs. Sea animals would have been forced into these pools by strong tides. Then, they would have been made either to adapt to their new environment close to land or die. The fittest among them grew to accomplish the transition (过渡) from sea to land.

    Romer called these earliest four-footed animals “tetrapods”. Science has always thought that this was a credible theory, but only recently has there been strong enough evidence to support it.

    Hannah Byrne is an oceanographer (海洋学家) at Uppsala University in Sweden. She announced at the 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Oregon, US, that by using computer software, her team had managed to link Homer's theory to places where fossil deposits (沉积物) of the earliest tetrapods were found.

    According to the magazine Science, in 2014, Steven Balbus, a scientist at the University of Oxford in the UK, calculated that 400 million years ago, when the move from land to sea was achieved, tides were stronger than they are today. This is because the planet was 10 percent closer to the moon than it is now.

    The creatures stranded in the pools would have been under the pressure of “survival of the fittest”, explained Mattias Green, an ocean scientist at the UK's University of Bangor. As he told Science, “After a few days in these pools, you become food or you run out of food... the fish that had large limbs had an advantage because they could flip (翻转) themselves back in the water.”

    As is often the case, however, there are others who find the theory less convincing. Cambridge University's paleontologist Jennifer Clark, speaking to Nature magazine, seemed unconvinced. “It's only one of many ideas for the origin of land-based tetrapods, any or all of which may have been a part of the answer,” she said.

    Kentucky Fried Chicken has filed a lawsuit（提起诉讼） against three companies in China, because their social media accounts spread false information about its food, including that its chickens have eight legs. The case comes as the Beijing government holds an activity to clean up rumours （谣言）on social media（媒体）. Internet marketers have been accused （指控） of trying to control online opinions of their customers by posting false information about their competitors.

    In an announcement posted on its Chinese website, KFC said one of the best-known false rumours was that chickens used by the company have six wings and eight legs. It is requesting 1.5 million yuan and an official apology from each of three companies. It is also asking for an immediate stop to their activities to hurt it by spreading rumours.

    The fried chicken chain is China's biggest restaurant operator and is a kind of fast food for young people in China. It has more than 4, 600 restaurants in the country, and on average, opens a new branch every day. KFC'S China chief executive officer（行政长官）, Qu Cuirong, said that it is difficult for companies to protect their brands（品牌） against rumours because it is hard for them to collect evidence. She added, "The efforts by the government in recent years to purify（净化） the online environment have offered us much more confidence."

    The companies are Shanxi Weilukuang Technology Company, Taiyuan Zero Point Technology Company and Yingchenanzhi Success and Culture Communication in Shenzhen, south-east China. Calls to numbers listed for the companies either rang unanswered or were not available. In fact, authorities（官方） began an activity two years ago to clean up what they called online rumours. Comments in state media have argued that a clean-up is needed.

    No one can deny that buttons are an important clothing device. But, can they rise to the level of art? Organizers of an exhibit in New York City think so.

    Peter Souleo Wright organized “The Button Show” at Rush Arts Gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Eleven artists used the small, ordinary objects to create sculptures, portraits and wearable art. Some of the works are political, some are personal and others are just fun.

    Wright said each artist reimagines and repurposes the buttons to make art. “What I tried to do with this show,” he said, “was to look at artists who were promoting that level of craft.”

    He said he wanted the button art to be comparable to a painting “because of the amount of detail and precision in the work.”

    Artist Beau McCall produced “A Harlem Hangover”. It looks like a wine bottle that fell over on a table. A stream of connected red buttons hand over the side, like wine flowing down. Similar red button form a small pool on the floor.

    McCall layers buttons of different shapes and sizes to create the bottle. The stitching that holds them together is also part of the artistic design.

    For San Francisco-based artist Lisa Kokin, buttons are highly personal. After her father died in 2001, she created a portrait of him using only buttons. That memorial to her father led to other button portraits, including those of activists Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.

    Others use buttons for details. Artist Amalia Amaki of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, placed them on and around old photographs. Los Angeles artist Camilla Taylor attached buttons to three large sculptures that look like headless animals with long, narrow legs.

    “The Button Show” ends at March 12. The Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation paid for the exhibition. The foundation was created in 1995 by the Simmons brothers: artist Danny, hip-hop producer Russell and rapper Rev. Run. The foundation seeks to bring the arts to urban youth and to provide support for new artists.

On a recent Wednesday, archaeologists announced a groundbreaking discovery that challenges our understanding of early human capabilities. They have unearthed what is believed to be the oldest wooden structure ever found, dating back nearly half a million years. This discovery at Kalambo Falls in northern Zambia, near the border with Tanzania, suggests that our ancestors were more technologically advanced than previously thought.

The wooden structure, which is exceptionally well-preserved, dates back at least 476,000 years. This timeline predates the emergence of Homo sapiens, as detailed in a study published in the journal Nature. The wood shows evidence of having been cut and shaped using stone tools, indicating a level of craftsmanship that was not previously attributed to these early humans.

The structure, which is thought to have functioned as a walkway or platform elevated above the seasonally wet ground, demonstrates a purposeful construction technique. A collection of wooden tools, including a wedge and a digging stick, were also found at the site, further supporting the idea of a developed woodworking tradition.

Larry Barham, an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool and the lead author of the study, described the structure as involving "the intentional shaping of two trees to create a framework of two interlocking supports." A notch was cut into one log, and another tree was shaped to fit through this notch, providing stability to the structure.

The use of wood by early humans was already known, but it was typically associated with basic tasks such as starting fires or hunting. However, the discovery at Kalambo Falls indicates a more sophisticated application of woodworking skills. Barham explained, "The structure involves the intentional shaping of two trees to create a framework of two interlocking supports," which required a level of planning and execution that suggests a higher cognitive ability.

The preservation of the wooden structure is remarkable, given that wood typically decays over time, leaving little trace for archaeologists to study. The high water levels at Kalambo Falls are believed to have played a crucial role in preserving the structure for centuries.

These findings from Kalambo Falls not only provide evidence of an early human ability to manipulate their environment but also suggest a more complex cognitive capacity among these early humans than what has been inferred from stone tools alone. Barham concluded, "The finds from Kalambo Falls indicate that these earlier humans, like Homo sapiens, had the capacity to alter their surroundings, creating a built environment." This discovery underscores the need to reassess our understanding of early human technological and cognitive development.