Have you ever seen a real night sky that looks like Van Gogh's Starry Night? I hope not! So, why would an artist paint the sky this way? Perhaps I can answer that with another question. When you're happy, why do you sing instead of speaking? Or when you're in love, why do you speak of roses and honey? When we do these things, we, too are artists. We're using something that goes beyond a mere scientific description in order to communicate our feelings more powerfully than straightforward words can. So consider for a moment that Van Gogh might not have been hallucinating on the night he painted this. Maybe he felt something so powerful that he had to go beyond the familiar to express it.

    I hope I'm reminding you of something you already know as I describe the experience of being outside at night under a crystal clear sky that makes everything seem clean and refreshing. So you look up. And suddenly you see the sky that you've seldom seen before. It's not just the same old dark night sky tonight. Instead, the blackness is a deep, rich blue that is more bottomless than any ocean. The stars are not spots of light but brilliant, magical diamonds that dance like tiny angels. In just this special moment, the sky is somehow alive, and it seems to speak to you silently about the meaning of infinity.

    Now look at the painting again. Can you see something of what makes this such a famous and well-loved image? But there's more here than that. Van Gogh painted this while he was quite struck down by a mental disease. It is natural to imagine that he frequently battled the fear that he would never escape his prison to true freedom. It is natural for us to imagine this because each of us has faced our own personal prison, whether it be disease, the loss of a loved one, serious financial problems … In such moments it is tempting to give up to despair and collapse in hopelessness.

    Looking at this painting, I imagine Van Gogh in just such a moment of despair, when he is struck by the memory of one of those amazing night skies. He recalls the sense that he is not alone, that there is a living, infinite world with rich colorful creatures and scenes all around.

    And so the sky flows across the canvas full of vitality and power. The stars don't just sparkle; they explode. Looking closer, we notice that the earth itself seems to respond to the movement in the sky, forming its own living waves in the mountain and rolling trees. In the sleepy village, the windows of the houses glow with the same light that brightens the universe. The giant trees at the left seem to capture the joy by stretching upwards toward the sky.

    What a tremendous message of hope there is in this masterpiece! Even if our troubles persist, the world around us assures us that life is worth living. That's what the angels sing about. Doesn't it make you want to sing, too?

    Researchers at Brigham found about one in five teenagers now have some degree of hearing damage. The researchers did not say why hearing loss has risen, but other experts have strong suspicions. One likely culprit, they say, is MP3 players.

    An MP3 player can be dangerous to hearing when its decibel level is turned up too high. High-decibel sounds can damage nerve endings, called hair cells. If a sound is loud enough, the damage can be permanent. A loud sound can shake the membrane (薄膜) on which the hair cells sit- “like an earthquake”. That shake can break or even uproot hair cells. When that happens, the hair cells are finished. Human ears cannot regrow hair cells. Therefore, when listening to an MP3 player, set a volume limit and avoid exposure to loud sounds.

    On the other hand, the loudness of today's music may not be totally under your control. Music companies have been purposely turning up the volume. It's a trend called the fight for loudness.

    Play a CD from the 1990s. Then play a newly released tune. Don't touch the volume control. You'll probably notice that the new CD sounds louder than the old one. Why? Sound engineers who create CDs are using dynamic range compression (压缩), a technology that makes the quiet parts of a song louder and the loud parts quieter. The overall effect of compression is a louder recording.

    Many musicians and sound engineers aren't pleased. They say that compression is driving down the quality of today, s music, making it sound flat and blaring. Gray Hobish, a sound engineer, explains that music should be a combination of loudness and softness. But music companies want to make music louder so it will stand out. That's important in the competition among recording companies.

    What about listeners? Many teenagers listen to music on the go in noisy places and through headphones, all of which reduce sound quality. So young listeners may not notice the poorer quality of modem recordings. “To their ears,” says Hobish, “the music sounds fine. And they are not aware of the hidden threat of the music they are enjoying.”

    In the mid-nineteenth century, as iceboxes became increasingly common in American homes, there were efforts to find cheaper and more reliable sources of ice. In the eighteen-thirties, scientists discovered a way to make ice, which is similar to how a refrigerator works. In 1860, there were four artificial-ice plants in the United States; in 1889, there were about two hundred; by 1909, there were two thousand. Ice now came from factories, not ponds, and it was turned out in three-hundred-pound blocks by lowering steel cans of pure water into tanks of refrigerated salted water. Kept below thirty-two degrees, the salted water did not freeze, but the water in the cans did. Those cans were then lifted from the tank, and the ice was taken out of them.

    The ice blocks were delivered to home users, and to the fishing and chemical industries. On the railroads, trains carrying fruit and vegetables had cars at each end filled with blocks of ice. It was a growing industry.

    The great trade began to fall away in the middle years of the twentieth century. The railroad business shrank, and, in the immediate postwar period, block ice lost out to home refrigerators and then to small commercial ice machines. By the nineteen-sixties, things looked very dark. “It was scary,” Dan Ditmar, an ice expert in San Antonito, told me. “Your biggest customers were cafeterias and country clubs, and you'd go out there and they'd say, 'We don't need you anymore; we've got ice machines.'”

    Then the companies that survived the slump（a slump is a period when there is a reduction in business）began investing（投资）in newly developed ice-cube machines, and by the late sixties American ice was becoming a packaged-ice business. And packaged ice was exactly what the country needed. These were years of increased leisure time—more barbecues, more cars, and more houses by the lake. “Things exploded in the nineteen-seventies, Paul Handler said. Ice cubes evolved. They became hugely popular^ shoveled（铲）here and there into picnic coolers and fast-foof sodas. They became noisier.

    Italian Language Immersion Class in Chicago, Illinois

    Language stars:

    FunImmersion Italian class at Language Stars in Illinois provides fun, full language immersion programs (全语言沉浸式教学) for children aged (1-10). Also: Spanish, French, German and Mandarin Chinese. Throughout their 3-hour class every day, the children take part in full-immersion activities, create art projects, sing and enjoy themselves all in Italian!

    Quality teachers:

    Teachers are the single greatest driver of the quality of our programs! Language Stars carefully selects our native-speaking Italian teachers, who have received extensive (广泛的) training before starting their teaching careers.

    Teaching Style:

    Language Stars makes learning a language fun, through a mix of games, songs, puppet shows, arts & crafts, cooking projects, treasure hunts, movement and drama, all in the foreign language. Our unique FunImmersion method is the best way for children to enjoy learning a foreign language.

    The Benefits of Learning a Language at a Young Age:

    It is uniquely suitable for young children to learn a second language. Exposing your child to a second language allows a child to optimize (使最优化) his or her learning potential, helping to shape the brain at its most flexible stage. Learning a second language at a young age is as easy as learning a first language.

    Language Immersion Programs for Kids (Aged 1-10):

    Language Stars offers play-based, full immersion programs in small groups of 4-8 children in Italian, Spanish, French, German and Mandarin Chinese in three exciting formats:

    Parents & kids (Aged 1-3)

    Kids Only Classes (Aged 3-5, 5-8, 8-10)

    Summer Immersion Camp

    Free Trial Class:

    During a free class we encourage your child to participate as if he / she is enrolled.

    Tuition Fee:

    $ 600

    Address:

    2105 N. Southport, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Thousands of years ago, Britain was covered by thick forests, home to many animals which no longer live in the United Kingdom. But all this has changed. Now the population of the United Kingdom has increased to sixty-five million. Three-quarters of Britain consists of fields, towns or cities. Although 25 percent of land is countryside, new methods of farming mean that there are fewer birds and small animals living in fields than ever before. Now, the United Kingdom does not have large wild carnivores (肉食动物). In Scotland, there are only 400 wildcats-Europe's rarest cats-but these are much smaller than wolves.

    Some people would like to change things, however! Some organizations and writers say that Britain needs to become more natural again. They suggest that trees and plants that grew in the United Kingdom before towns and cities were built should be allowed to grow again. They even say that large wild animals which have not lived in the United Kingdom should be helped to return and live wild. They call this "rewilding".

    Not everyone agrees. In the last twenty years, over one million trees which originally grew in Scotland have been planted and there are plans for more - but wild animals? Some people ask if wolves will attack sheep or even humans. They are also angry that rewilding might mean an end to walking in the hills which so many people enjoy. So far, there are no wolves or bears in Britain's forests - but soon there might be!

A team of biologists (生物学家) recently studied wildlife in the forests of northern Ecuador. While doing so, they made a surprising discovery: a Mindo harlequin toad (明多斑足蟾). The creature hadn't been seen alive in 30 years. The scientists couldn't believe their eyes. "It took our brains a while to believe it was a Mindo harlequin toad," says Melissa Costales, a conservation biologist from University of New Brunswick.

The Mindo harlequin is the latest harlequin toad species "to come back from the dead," says Costales. Since 2003, eight others have been found, three of them in Ecuador.

Until recently, 13 of the 25 species of harlequin toads in Ecuador had gone unseen since the 1980s or early 1990s. Scientists thought most of them had been killed by a disease called chytrid (壶菌). This illness is especially harmful to the harlequin toad.

Costales says the Mindo harlequin toad may have developed a resistance (抵抗力) to the disease. That would explain the toad's reappearance. And it could spell good news for other harlequins. Since discovering the first one, Costales's team has found five more. They were all tested for chytrid. None had the disease. But that doesn't mean the survival of the species is guaranteed (保证), Costales says. The harlequin toad is still endangered.

Costales is developing a conservation plan with a zoology museum in Ecuador. She wants to make sure the Mindo harlequin toad doesn't fall back into extinction. "Each rediscovery gives us a second chance to develop better conservation plans," she says. "Not every day do we have the chance to rediscover a species that we believed to be extinct."