Germany may be famous for its wealth of history and culture, but it also houses some of Europe\s most wild and wonderful landscapes.

Jasmund National Park

It lies on the west coast of the offshore island of Rügen. This UNESCO-protected site is the smallest of Germany’s national parks. It is here that painter Caspar David Friedrich found himself inspired to create one of his masterpieces, Chalk Cliffs on Rügen, in 1818. Here long trails can take you all the way to the Rügen coastline, where white-sand beaches and blue waters wait.

Berchtesgaden National Park

Berchtesgaden is one of Germany’s oldest and most beautiful conservation areas. Trails go in and out of the forest, leading you along the banks of glassy lakes. The more adventurous visitors may choose paragliding from Mount Jenner and they can fly over 1,800 meters. Back on the ground, a network of more than 150 miles of walking trails twist through the forest.

Southern Black Forest Nature Park

The highland areas, with views over Switzerland and France, are a good place for food- lovers. Activities in the park range from hiking and fishing to mountain biking,while the slower travelers will enjoy the trails for an escape from everyday life.

The Bliesgau Biosphere

This place is home to almost half of all German orchid species. The grasslands spread for miles, drawing in different butterflies. Thanks to its comfortable climate, this is a region of sustainable development. In fact, this park is an example of farming done right and offers a wealth of agricultural know-how to anyone eager to learn.

A teenager has realized her dream of becoming a model—just three years after a car accident left her with a broken back.

Marita Davies, was in a wheelchair for a year and had to learn to walk after she suffered terrible injures. She feared her dream of a modeling career was over but just three years on, she is now n the running to be crowned (加冕) Miss Great Britain. She said, “I was shocked when I learned how serious my injuries were. I thought my dream of becoming a model was over. My leg was seriously injured and my back was broken. The accident had broken my confidence.”

But she turned a corner when she finally came out of the wheelchair. Marita decided she would still try to follow her dream, and sent her photos off to some modeling agencies. She did a few unpaid jobs while studying at college, and soon, paid commercial modeling jobs started coming in. Marita was a bit doubtful at first, because the accident has left her with huge scars on her leg and back. She was worried people wouldn’t want her to model for them, but it didn’t stop her.

She has done amazingly well to overcome everything, which has been thrown at her in the last three years. Within months of learning to walk again, Marita was signed up for advertising campaigns. She has also appeared in a TV ad. Marita was crowned Miss Nottingham City earlier this year, and is now competing against 59 other girls to be crowned Miss Great Britain.

What do you do at the end of the day when you’re finished with work? How you spend your free time can have a big impact on your mental health. Hobbies can help you relax and ease pent-up (郁结的) stress caused by all that time in the office or in front of the computer. But, interestingly, how you spend your free time can also impact your work performance.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield’s Institute of Work Psychology in the UK found that developing hobbies can develop your confidence about how well you perform your job. But your hobby has to be significantly different from what you do from 9-to-5 work.

To study the connection between work and leisure activities, researchers employed 129 people who worked and were active in hobbies like rock climbing, musical theater and singing. They had them complete surveys to see how serious and committed they were to their hobbies and how demanding their jobs were. Then, each month for seven months, participants were asked how many hours they spent on their hobbies and how they rated their ability to perform at work.

Researchers found that if people have hobbies similar to what they do at work and that they do in an intense way, their on-the-job confidence can suffer. It’s likely because their work and leisure time have the same mental and physical demands, so they’re always feeling drained.

In contrast, people who have hobbies different from their work are happier and healthier. This is also true of those who choose a similar hobby but only participate in a light-hearted way. Those playful recreations act as a barrier between their professional and personal lives, giving them rest time to “recharge their batteries”, the researchers say.

“When we feel like we have the confidence to handle challenges in our jobs. We’re more likely to be able to build a sustainable job and remain healthy, productive, happy and employable over our lifetimes. Its important to consider how our leisure activities might play a role in that process,” lead researcher Ciara Kelly said in a statement.

We tend to think of plants as the furniture of the natural world. They don’t move, they don’t make sounds, they don’t seem to respond to anything-at least not very quickly. But as is often the case, our human’s view of the world misses quite a lot. Plants talk to each other all the time. And the language is chemical.

Over the years scientists have reported that different types of plants, from trees to tomatoes, release compounds (化合物) into the air to help neighboring plants. These chemical warnings all have the same purpose-to spread information about one plant’s disease or infestation so other plants can defend themselves. But exactly how plants receive and act on many of these signals is still mysterious.

In this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers in Japan offered some explanations. They had identified one chemical message and traced it all the way from release to action.

The scientists looked at tomato plants infested by a common pest, the cutworm. The researchers studied leaves from exposed and unexposed plants. They found one compound showed up more often in the exposed plants. The substance is called Hex Vic. When the scientists fed Hex Vic to cutworms, it knocked down their survival rate by 17%. The scientists identified the source of Hex Vic, and sprayed it lightly over healthy plants. Those plants were then able to start producing the cutworm-killing Hex Vic. Researchers confirmed that uninfested plants have to build their own weapon to fight off bugs and diseases. How do they know when to play defense? They are warned first by their friendly plant neighbors.

It is a complex tale, and it may be happening in more plant species than tomatoes. It may also be happening with more chemical signals that are still unknown to us. For now though, we know that plants not only communicate, they look out for one another.