A Pacific Science Center Guide

◆Visit Pacific Science Center's Store

    Don't forget to stop by Pacific Science Center's Store while you are here to pick up a wonderful science activity or souvenir to remember your visit. The store is located(位于) upstairs in Building 3 right next to the Laster Dome.

◆Hungry

    Our exhibits will feed your mind， but what about your body? Our café offers a complete menu of lunch and snack options, in addition to seasonal specials. The café is located upstairs in Building 1 and is open daily until one hour Pacific Science Center closes.

◆Rental Information

    Lockers are available to store any belongings during your visit. The lockers are located in Building 1 near the Information Desk and in Building 3. Pushchairs and wheelchairs are available to rent at the Information Desk and Denny Way entrance. ID required.

◆Support Pacific Science Center

    Since 1962 Pacific Science Center has been inspiring a passion(热情) for discovery and lifelong @ in science, math and technology. Today Pacific Science Center serves more than 1.3 million people a year and brings inquiry-based science education to classrooms and community events all over Washington State. It's an amazing accomplishment and one we connect achieve without generous support from individuals, corporations, and other social organizations. Visit pacificsciencecenter.org to find various ways you can support Pacific Science Center.

    People around the world are superstitious about numbers; even those ancient Greeks believed that all numbers and their multiples had some mystical significance.

    Those numbers between 1 and 13 were in particular to have a powerful influence over the affairs of men.

    For example, it is commonly said that luck, good or bad, comes in threes; if an accident happens, two more of the same kind may be expected soon afterwards. The arrival of a letter will be followed by two others within a certain period.

    Another belief involving the number three has it that it is unlucky to light three cigarettes from the one match. If this happens, the bad luck that goes with the deed falls upon the person whose cigarette was the last to be lit. The ill-men linked to the lighting of three things from one match or candle goes back to at least the 17th century and probably earlier. It was believed that three candles alight at the same time would be sure to bring bad luck; one, two, or four, were permissible, but never just three.

    Seven was another significant number, usually regarded as a bringer of good luck. The ancient astrologers believed that the universe was governed by seven planets; students of Shakespeare will recall that the life of man was divided into seven ages. Seven horseshoes nailed to a house will protect it from all evil.

    Nine is usually thought of as a lucky number because it is the product of three times three. It was much used by the Anglo Saxons in their charms for healing.

    Another belief was that great changes occurred every 7th and 9th of a man's life. Consequently, the age of 63 (the product of nine and seven) was thought to be a very perilous time for him. If he survived his 63rd year he might hope to live to a ripe old age.

    Thirteen, as we well know, is regarded with great awe and fear. The common belief is that this derives from the fact that there were 13 people at Christ's Last Supper. This being the eve of his betrayal, it is not difficult to understand the significance given to the number by the early Christians.

    In more modern times 13 is an especially unlucky number of a dinner party, for example. Hotels will avoid numbering a floor the 13th; the progression is from 12 to 14, and no room is given the number 13. Many home owners will use 12 1/2 instead of 13 as their house number.

    Yet oddly enough, to be born on the 13th of the month is not regarded with any fear at all, which just shows how irrational we are in our superstitious beliefs.

    Did you know that sixty percent of your body weight is water? However, a loss of only two percent of this water through dehydration (脱水) during exercise can significantly affect your performance. The more you sweat, the more your exercise performance declines, unless you drink enough to replace your loss of fluids (液体).

    When you lose too much water, you can overheat quite easily, especially in a warm environment. But this is not the only problem you may face. Dehydration leads to your heart pumping much faster, which means exercise becomes more difficult and requires more effort. Despite these problems, however, many of us simply do not take enough fluids in when we head for the gym or set out on a run.

    So why is this? How do we manage to lose so much water without simply drinking more to replace it? Well, it's easier than you think. When we are at rest, we quickly become aware that we are thirsty and will put that right by having a drink. When we exercise, on the other hand, our thirst mechanism (结构) does not work as effectively, so we don't notice early enough that we are actually thirsty. In fact, we only start to fed thirsty when we have already lost around two percent of our body weight.

    Another problem is that, the more dehydration we become during exercise, the more difficult it is to prevent further dehydration-because our stomachs become intolerant (不能容忍的) to fluids and we do not absorb water properly, just when we need it most.

    The key thing about fluids and exercise is to manage your intake properly-regular small amounts are preferable, and some should be drunk before the period of exercise begins. You also need to match your intake to the sort of exercise you are doing. For example, for one hour of exercise, such as taking part in a 10 km run, you need to drink about two extra litres of water. For longer periods of exercise, sports drinks are recommended.

    Many people all over the world enjoy an alcoholic drink, such as wine or beer, during dinner. Many people raise a glass of alcohol to celebrate a wedding or a birthday. And having drinks after work with friends and co-workers is called "happy hour".

    All these situations are considered "social drinking" because they happen at social events. But when does "social drinking" become problem drinking?

    According to the World Health Organization alcohol abuse kills 3.3 million people each year. That is six percent of all deaths around the world. And in a new report on alcohol use around the world, the WHO says alcohol can create dependency, or addiction, in some people. The report also warns that alcohol use can increase the risk of developing more than 200 diseases, including some kinds of cancers. And, the WHO says alcohol abuse can put people at greater risk of infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis(肺结核), pneumonia (肺炎)and HIV.

    WHO Mental Health and Substance Abuse Director Shekhar Saxena says the organization is concerned about drinking among young people between the ages 15 and 19. And it is most concerned about "binge-drinking", or an extended period of heavy drinking.

    The report concludes that worldwide 16 percent of drinkers over the age of 15 engage in binge-drinking, which is much more harmful than other kind of drinking and causes the most harm in terms of accidents, self-harm and harm to others. High income countries have the highest alcohol consumption and also the highest prevalence(盛行) of binge-drinking.

    The report also found that the highest rates of alcohol-linked deaths are in Europe, followed by the West Pacific and then the Americans. The report also finds Europe is the area with the highest alcohol use. Central and Eastern Europe are especially high.

    The World Health Organization suggests ways countries can protect people from alcohol abuse. These include increasing taxes on alcohol sales, raising the drinking age limit, and controlling the marketing of alcoholic beverages.

    One of the qualities that most people admire in others is the willingness to admit one's mistakes. It is extremely hard sometimes to say a simple thing like "I was wrong about that," and it is even harder to say, "I was wrong, and you were right about that." I had an experience recently with someone admitting to me that he had made a mistake fifteen years ago. He told me he had been the manager of a certain store in the neighborhood where I grew up, and he asked me if I remembered the egg boxes. Then he talked of an incident and I began to remember it.

    I was about eight years old at that time, and I had gone into the store with my mother to do the weekly shopping. On that special day, I must have found my way to the food department where the incident took place.

    There must have been a special sale on eggs that day because there was a big show of eggs in dozen and half-dozen boxes. The boxes were put three or four feet high. I must have stopped in front of them to admire the show. Just then a woman came by pushing her shopping cart and knocked off the pile of boxes. For some reasons, I decided it was up to me to put the boxes back together, so I went to work.

    The manager heard the noise and came pushing over to see what had happened. When he appeared, I was on my knees checking some of the boxes to see if any of the eggs were broken, but to him it looked as though I was the person who was to blame. He scolded me loudly and wanted me to pay for any broken eggs. My face turned red and I tried to explain, but it did no good. Even though I quickly forgot the incident, but the manager did not.

    Many of us think, wrongly, that the moon doesn't change. For example, the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ruoxu once wrote that "Generations have come and passed away; From year to year the moons took alike, old and new."

    However, a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience shows that the moon is in fact slowly shrinking over time. For the study, a group of US scientists examined and analyzed thousands of photographs taken by the NASA orbiter Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (月球勘测轨道飞行器照相机) . They found that there were lots of faults (断层) on the surface of the moon. These faults were formed by recent movement on the moon.

    According to NASA, the moon is made up of pieces of rocks with a hot core (核) .The moon continued to expand as it was born. But in this process, it released energy and cooled down. Then it began to shrink, in a way comparable to the shrinking of a grape into a raisin (葡萄干) . Over the past several hundred million years, it has become 46 meters "skinnier". But due to its hard and rocky crust (外壳) . the moon's surface continues to push up, "Some of these quakes can be fairly strong around five on the Richter scale (里氏震级) ," said Thomas Watters, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in the US.

    But does that mean the moon is a dangerous place that human shouldn't try to explore and live on in the future? Maybe not, reported the Telegraph, "This isn't anything to worry about. The moon may be shrinking, but not by much. It's not going anywhere," Watters comforted us.

    The new discovery proves that the idea that the moon is a dead, boring place is wrong. "We have been to the moon and we've done some great science, but there is still a lot we don't know. The moon is shrinking ­ we didn't really realize that until recently. It's a much more active and interesting place than we thought and we should explore that," NASA scientist Nathan Williams said.