Spend a pleasant day exploring the Georgian city of Bath during a day tour by rail. This package includes return train tickets to Bath from Paddington, central London, plus an open top bus tour in Bath and entry to the Roman Baths.

    London to Bath by Rail

    Make sure you arrive at London's Paddington Station before 8:30 am as your train to Bath leaves at 9:00 am! Please get on the train through Platform One. The countryside will fly past as the train travels to west, arriving in Bath after 1 hour 24 minutes.

    Hop-on Hop-off Open Top Bus Tour

    Once the train arrives in Bath, you can enjoy the view of the city during a hop-on hop-off bus tour. This bus tour has convenient stops near Bath Abbey, the Roman Baths and Jane Austin Centre, all must-see Bath destinations.

    Roman Baths

    The Roman Bathing Complex in the center of the city gave Bath its name, making it a key place to visit during your day in the city!

    The Roman Baths were built around Britain's only hot spring and were used primarily as a place to relax in the warm water! The Baths are located below the modern street level and you will be able to explore four fantastic parts of the attraction: the Sacred Spring, Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and the Museum, holding finds from the Roman Baths.

    How you spend the rest of your day in Bath is up to you! You could visit the Jane Austen Center, a wonderful exhibition which reveals Jane Austen's life in Bath, or wander along Great Pulteney Street, a magnificent-looking road that dates back to 1789. Bath is yours for the taking.

    Return to London

    Your train ride back to London takes 1 hour 26 minutes, arriving in London at 7:39 pm. Remember to arrive at Bath Spa Station at least 30 minutes before departure time.

    Do you know that women's brains are smaller than men's? Normally the women's brain weighs 10% less than men's. Since research has shown that the bigger the brain, the cleverer the animal, men must be more intelligent than women. Right? Wrong. Men and women always score similarly on intelligence tests, despite the difference in brain size. Why? After years of study, researchers have concluded that it's what's inside that matters, not just the size of the brain. The brain is made up of "grey matter" and "white matter". While men have more of the white matter, the amount of "thinking" brain is almost the same in both men and women.

    It has been suggested that smaller brain appears to work faster, perhaps because the two sides of the brain are better connected in women. This means that little girls may learn to speak earlier, and that women can understand sorts of different information at the same time. When it comes to talking to the boss on the phone, cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the baby all at the same time, it's women who come out on top every time.

    There are other important differences between two sexes. As white matter is the key to spatial(空间的) tasks, men know better where things are in relation to other things. "A great footballer always knows where he is in relation to the other players, and he knows where to go," says one researcher. That may explain one of life's great mysteries: why men refuse to ask for directions … and women often need to!

    The differences begin when fetuses（胎儿）are about nine weeks old, which can be seen in the action of children when they are very young. A boy would try to climb a barrier before him or push it down while a girl would ask for help from others. These brain differences also explain the fact that more men take up jobs that require good spatial skills, while more women speech skills. It may all go back to our ancestors, among whom women needed speech skills to take care of their babies and men needed spatial skills to hunt, according to one research.

Volunteer Day

    What better way is there to enjoy your own hobbies while helping others at the same time? Come to Volunteer Day and choose which activity you'd like to join for the day. See below for a schedule of events on Volunteer Day.

    Volunteer Day schedule:

    7:30a.m.: Meet at the Community (社区) Center for juice and bagels.

    8:00—8:30 a.m.: Choose which activity you'd like to help with for the day.

    8:30 a.m.: Board the bus to your activity site.

    9:00 a.m.—3:30 p.m.: Work as a volunteer.

    3:30 p.m.: Board the bus that will take you back to the Community Center.

    See below for a list of volunteer opportunities for Volunteer Day so you can begin thinking about which activity you might want to join.

    A list of volunteer activities:

    Paint houses: Do you enjoy making art? If so, this volunteer opportunity might be just right for you! Happy Homes is a local organization that provides home repairs for needy people in the form of painting. For elderly or physically disabled people who cannot do repairs to their homes, Happy Homes provides volunteer painters to repaint old homes; outside or in. Happy Homes also provides painters to create beautiful wall paintings inside schools or community centers.

    Plant flowers: Do you enjoy being outside in nature? City Parks Association has many great opportunities for people who love to be outdoors. Help plant flowers and bushes in city parks; help lay paths at Cave Springs Park, or help pick up rubbish around the river banks. These activities are very active, so remember to be prepared with plenty of drinking water!

    Read to children: Do you enjoy working with young children? Do you like books? Love and Learning is an organization that provides volunteers to help children with learning disabilities. Read books out loud to groups of children four to six years old, or read one-on-one with struggling readers seven to eight years old.

    Play with animals: Do you love animals? Lovely Friends is an organization that visits local animal shelters and provides volunteers to spend time with the animals while their cages are being cleaned. Play with puppies, snuggle with cats, or hand-feed rabbits.

    When you watch a movie these days, it's difficult to tell what's real and what's created by using computers. Visual effects can even change how movies are made.

    Almost anything that can be imagined by a director can now become reality in the world of movies. "We're really not limited by the technology, '' said David Smith, the CEO of Sony Pictures Imageworks. Mr Smith said that with today's technology, the digital world was more realistic than ever before. For The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Mr Smith's team created a Times Square that was exactly like the real one in New York. "If there are lights inside the stores that are lighting areas inside the store we put those lights there," said Mr Smith.

    But there was still one challenge for visual effects artists, said Paul Debevec of the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. "We're still trying to figure out how to perfect the human face in movies, " said Debevec. He said the movie — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was still one of the best examples of computer generated movies, as actor Brad Pitt could be from an aged man to a baby in the movie.

    Mr Debevec added that besides changing the look of an actor's face, there could be another use for digital faces in the entertainment. Last year, effects artists created a digital face of the Asian pop singer Teresa Teng who was dead. Fans could still see and hear the concert on YouTube.

    Mr Debevec expects directors will start to use more virtual production techniques, like those seen in the movie Avatar. Mr Debevec says that with virtual production, there won't be a need for so many people behind the scenes. But visual effects artists agree, even with advanced technology, there is no replacement for a real actor showing a character in a movie.

Your colleague's sharp comment keeps replaying in your mind. Two of your students are trapped in a" he said/she said" battle. When you reflect on your emotional reactions, you sometimes get caught up in cycles of negative feelings, which can make you feel even worse. If so, the answer may lie in a skill called" self-distancing", the ability to take a step back and view yourself more objectively. According to a research, when people adopt self-distancing while discussing a difficult event, they make better sense of their reactions, experience less emotional suffering, and display fewer signs of stress.

But what might self-distancing look like in action? Consider a typical "he said/she said" student conflict where they are each focusing on their own feelings. One is thinking, "I can't believe he did that to me" And another insists. "She really hurt my feelings" However, if you ask them to take the self-distancing, they might step outside of themselves and ask broader questions:" Why was he so hurt in this situation? "or" How did her anger affect him?"

Although this approach may sound too simple to be effective, studies indicate that a change in point of view can have a powerful effect on the way people think, feel, and behave. Here are several different techniques you can try.

First, consider how a thoughtful friend might respond after quietly observing their situation. Besides, avoid using the pronoun "I". Focus on using third-person pronouns, he, she, they, and they were able to see the stressful event as challenging rather than threatening. Finally, ask yourself, "How would I feel about this one week from now or ten years from now? "This form of mental time travel may be effective because our attention is directed away from our immediate, concrete circumstances.

It's breathtaking to watch the delicate spring wildflowers come out from their blanket of leaves, bloom, develop and disperse (传播) fruit, all in a matter of a few short days or weeks.

Although they look fragile, these are tough little plants, each focusing its efforts on spreading its species. They have evolved to have a wide range of flower structures and colors, some with fragrances, attracting many different insect species to assist them in pollination (授粉).

There is one strategy that a surprising number of spring blooming native plants have evolved in common: seed dispersal by ants. As many as thirty percent of the spring flowering plant species in the forests of eastern North America have evolved to take advantage of this situation to benefit themselves. These species have evolved to provide food attached to their seeds to encourage ants to disperse those seeds. This food, called an elaiosome（油质体）, is a specialized fat body whose chemical composition more closely matches that of the insects that ants prefer than it does that of a seed.

When a fruit opens to disperse its seeds, the elaiosomes are an instant attraction for ants. They take the seed with its attached elaiosome back to their nests for consumption there, but they just eat the elaiosome, their preferred food, and dispose of the seed on their trash pile. This tends to be an environment that is rich in nutrients, and will benefit the growth of the new plant. Just to make sure the ants don't eat the seeds in addition to the elaiosome, some plant species have hard seed coatings that ants can't really bite through.

This evolutionary adaptation is somewhat similar to the strategy of plants that have evolved to surround their seeds with fleshy fruits to attract birds to assist them with seed dispersal. Given the fact that there are fewer birds available in early spring to help with seed dispersal, it makes sense that the early blooming plants evolved to partner instead with the ants for this service.

Did you ever wonder how your Spring Beauty managed to pop up in new locations in your lawn or garden? Thank an ant!