The National Gallery

    Description:

    The National Gallery is the British national art museum built on the north side of Trafalgar Square in London. It houses a diverse collection of more than 2,300 examples of European art ranging from 13^th-century religious paintings to more modern ones by Renoir and Van Gogh. The older collections of the gallery are reached through the main entrance while the more modern works in the East Wing are most easily reached from Trafalgar Square by a ground floor entrance.

    Layout:

    The modern Sainsbury Wing on the western side of the building houses 13th- to 15th-century paintings, and artists include Duccio, Uccello, Van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli and Memling.

    The main West Wing houses 16th-century paintings, and artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bruegel, Bronzino, Titan and Veronese.

    The North Wing houses 17th-century paintings, and artists include Caravaggio, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velazquez, Claude and Vermeer.

    The East Wing houses 18th- to early 20th-century paintings, and artists include Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Renoir and Van Gogh.

    Opening Hours:

    The Gallery is open every day from 10am to 6pm (Fridays 10am to 9pm) and is free, but charges apply to some special exhibitions.

    Getting There:

    Nearest underground stations: Charing Cross (2-minute walk), Leicester Square (3-minute walk), Embankment (7-minute walk), and Piccadilly Circus (8-minute walk).

    Parallel worlds exist and interact with our world, say physicists.

    Quantum mechanics (量子力学), though firmly tested, is so weird and anti-intuitive that physicist Richard Feynman once remarked, “I think I can safely say nobody understands quantum mechanics.” Attempts to explain some of the bizarre (奇异的) consequences of quantum theory have led to some mind-bending ideas, such as the Copenhagen interpretation and the many-worlds interpretation.

    Now there's a new theory on the block, called the “many interacting worlds” hypothesis (假设) (MIW), and the idea is just as profound as it sounds. The theory suggests not only parallel worlds exist, but that they interact with our world on the quantum level and are thus detectable. Though still speculative (推测的), the theory may help to finally explain some of the bizarre consequences inherent in quantum mechanics.

    The theory is a spinoff of the many-worlds interpretation in quantum mechanics—an assumption that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual, though parallel, world. One problem with the many-worlds interpretation, however, has been that it is fundamentally untestable, since observations can only be made in our world. Happenings in these proposed “parallel” worlds can thus only be imagined.

    MIW, however, says otherwise. It suggests that parallel worlds can interact on the quantum level, and in fact that they do.

    “The idea of parallel universes in quantum mechanics has been around since 1957,” explained Howard Wiseman, a physicist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and one of the physicists to come up with MIW. “In the well-known 'Many-Worlds Interpretation', each universe branches into a bunch of new universes every time a quantum measurement is made. All possibilities are therefore realized — in some universes the dinosaur-killing asteroid (小行星) missed Earth. In others, Australia was colonized by the Portuguese.”

    “But critics question the reality of these other universes, since they do not influence our universe at all,” he added. “On this score, our 'Many Interacting Worlds' approach is completely different, as its name implies.”

    Wiseman and colleagues have proposed that there exists “a universal force of repulsion between 'nearby'(i.e. similar) worlds, which tends to make them more dissimilar.” Quantum effects can be explained by factoring in this force, they propose.

    When asked about whether their theory might imply that humans could someday interact with other worlds, Wiseman said: “It's not part of our theory. But the idea of human interactions with other universes is no longer pure fantasy.”

    What might your life look like if you made different choices? Maybe one day you'll be able to look into one of these alternative worlds and find out.

    Visa Medical Appointment

    For your appointment you must bring

    Your valid original passport. Driving license is not accepted.

    HAP ID(体检号)and your e-Medical Referral Letter.

    Prescription glasses or contact lenses.

    Any specialist's report／s about your medical condition.

    At visa medical assessment

    A phone interpreter will be made available upon request.

    You will be required to change into a medical shirt provided for your visa medical assessment. We recommend that female applicants NOT wear a dress or clothing which is difficult to remove to the appointment.

    If you are having an x-ray，you will be asked to remove all necklaces and neck chains and tie long hair back. We request valuables not be brought to the assessment. Change rooms and lockers will be available to store your belongings，including your mobile phone which must be kept in a locker during your assessment.

    Important information for your appointment

    Blood Test

    You are required to have a blood test，please eat and drink as normal before your appointment. There is no need to fast.

    Arriving for your appointment

    Please arrive on time for your appointment and allow approximately 2 hours for your assessment to be completed.

    Pregnancy

    If you are pregnant，please call our contact centre on 1 300 794 9 1 9 as it may affect you being able to proceed with the assessment.

    Menstruation(生理期)

    If you have booked your appointment when menstruating，please go online to reschedule your appointment so it falls 4—6 days after you have finished menstruating.

    For more information

    Please visit our website www.bupamvs.com.au

    Bupa Medical Visa Services Customer Service

Not long after Tony Berlin began working at the state driver's license facility in Niles in 1985, he noticed that some truck drivers who should have failed their exams mysteriously passed them. For six years, starting in 1992, he collected evidence to show why: He believed truck drivers were bribing state workers to get licenses. In another turn of the screw, the workers were using those bribes to buy tickets to the then secretary of state George Ryan's fundraisers, including for his successful bid for governor. Berlin tried to expose the corruption (腐败)-he went to the FBI and the upper ranks of the secretary of state's office - but was repeatedly met with indifference. Then he began to suspect that the truck driver in a 1994 accident that killed six children, all from the same family, got his license through the scheme. In a moment that changed everything, Berlin reached out to the Reverend Scott Willis, the children's father.

It was his call to Willis that connected the crash to what would become known as the licenses — for — bribes scandal (丑闻), "Berlin's the one who started it says the Willises' lawyer. A few months after that phone call, the U.S. attorney's office initiated Operation Safe Road, an ongoing federal investigation that by the end of November had disclosed 34 offenses.

The investigation ultimately netted 75 offenses, including that of Dean Bauer, Ryan's inspector general. He pleaded guilty in 2001 to obstructing (妨碍)justice and was sentenced to 12 months in. prison. Bui the biggest catch was Ryan himself, who was sentenced in 2006 to six and a half years tor fraud and blackmailing. As for Berlin, he continued to work a stale license facilities, in Streator and Pontiac, choosing to stay out of the public eye.

I still remember that busy fall evening as I hurried with my eldest daughter, Athena, to get to her classroom on time for a parent-teacher night. We walked in and all 1 were on me. A few adults quickly quieted their kids' 2 . A classmate 3 my daughter, "What's wrong with your mom's 4 ?" Shocked, I started to explain my 5 , but my six-year-old daughter looked at him and said, "It's my mom's birthmark! Don't be rude!" I was extremely 6 of how she handled that situation. 

I was quite young when I realized I looked 7 . I always thought I would be alone because of birthmark, but I was lucky enough to meet my 8 who saw me for who I am inside. When I had my first daughter, I was overjoyed, but I began to 9 if the world would judge my children. 10 , my facial difference has 11 my children. My daughters get disinvited from birthday parties or certain kids are no longer friends with mine. 

When my kids were 12 , I explained how my special purple skin was rare, and we talked about acceptance and never 13 others on how they look. With time, both my daughters have become my strongest 14 : we see the world a little differently and with a kinder, more 15 heart.

A new study examined scientists' peer reviews, or researchers' official statements on others' work, across multiple AI-related conferences. At one such conference, those peer reviews used the word "meticulous" — a buzzword often associated with generative A.I., like ChatGPT — almost 3,400 percent more than the previous year. Other major conferences showed similar patterns. In other words, many researchers were handing, at least, parts of their peer review over to A.I.

What's going on in science is a slice of a much bigger problem. Any viral post on social media now almost certainly includes A.I.-generated elements. There are synthetic videos for children on YouTube, like music videos about parrots where the birds have eyes within eyes, singing in an unnatural voice. The narratives make no sense, and characters appear and disappear randomly.

As a neuroscientist, this worries me. Isn't it possible that human culture contains within it cognitive micronutrients — things like reasonable sentences, narrations and character continuity — that developing brains need? Einstein supposedly said: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales." But what happens when a child is consuming mostly A.I.-generated waste? We find ourselves in the middle of a vast developmental experiment.

A.I.'s cultural pollution is driven by a desire to fill the Internet's appetite for content as cheaply as possible, which in turn pollutes our culture. And despite public appeals to act against it, A.I. companies are dragging their feet because it goes against the industry's bottom line to have detectable products, which they fear might weaken the model's performance, although there is no current evidence.

To deal with this general refusal to act, we need a Clean Internet Act. Perhaps the simplest solution would be to force built-in watermarking to A.I. generated outputs, like patterns not easily removable. Just as the 20th century required action to protect the shared environment, the 21st century is going to require actions to protect a different but equally critical resource: our shared human culture.