【推荐1】For centuries, elephants have played a big role in the world’s economies, culture and religion. The African elephants used to be found all over Africa and the Asian elephants moved from Syria to China to Indonesia. Nowadays, elephants are found in small groups in the south of the Sahara Desert and scarcely in Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and India.

In the early twentieth century, there were close to ten million elephants, and now the elephant number is as low as 252, 000 and expected to drop down to 160, 000 by 2025. Between 2007 and 2014, the elephant population fell by at least 30%, or 144, 000 elephants. As researchers have traveled over the African plains, they only spotted one herd of 36 elephants in an area like the size of Mexico. It is clear that these gentle mammals are disappearing right before our eyes.

There are many reasons why the elephant population has been decreasing,one of which is their habitat. Humans are competing with elephants for living space, and as more and more humans clear the land that is being used by elephants, the elephants have less space. Elephant hunting or “poaching” has been a major factor for the disappearance of this species, and they are killed only for their valuable ivory tusks. Although the trade of tusks is illegal, it is still a common practice in many places.

Often, all the local people living among elephants would be farmers, and found that they could make more money by selling the tusks of one elephant, than doing manual labor for twelve years. That alone makes it really hard to prevent them from killing the elephants.

Some places such as Botswana, have put in extra effort to protect their wildlife from poachers by founding their Botswana Defense Force, which is made up of around 700 specially-trained soldiers that are stationed in 40 different areas. You may feel worried about the present situations elephants are in, but there are ways to help. To find out how you can help elephant conservation, adopt an elephant, or donate, click here.

【推荐2】Now, people may feel it surprising that due to technological advances, one growing nuisance (讨厌的东西) is the “junk” telephone call. Actually, without further human assistance, those calls are made by machines which can be programmed to dial numbers automatically. Once a number is reached, the machine delivers a prepared sales voice or even records the receiver’s response.

The machine, which can call hundreds of numbers during a regular business day, does present some problems. Some devices, particularly the cheaper ones, do not disconnect if the person called chooses not to listen and hangs up.

This has the potential to cause tragedy, as well as anger and inconvenience. Woman in the Midwest, for example, attempted to call a doctor for her mother, who had just collapsed with what appeared to be a heart attack. The phone did not present a dial tone but a recorded sales voice, which would not stop even after the woman hung up the phone. Fortunately, a neighbor’s phone was usable, and help was in place in time.

Certain models of the dialing devices can record orders for the product being sold. This has resulted in some bizarre situations. A family in Texas, for example, found that a $10,000 worth medicine was ordered by their healthy 75-year granny. Another family discovered that their three-year-old child, who didn’t know how to read, had subscribed to several adult magazines for which the parents were then being billed.

Many people regard the junk telephone call to be even more offensive than junk mail which is usually possible to recognize and get rid of without opening or reading it. A phone call, however, can’t be recognized as junk until it has been answered and at least a part of the message heard. Some people have turned to the continuous use of answering machines on their home telephones while others find the answering machines equally unpleasant as the junk calls. Considering all the facts, some kind of regulation of the nuisance should be in place.

【推荐1】It was early in 1981 when I first met George. I was in my early 30s, seeking a creative outlet unrelated to the humdrum of housework and raising little ones. My children, then aged three and five, were just entering kindergarten and school life. At 65, George had recently retired and was seeking a rewarding hobby for his golden years. For both of us, painting was art and we met at a local TAFE painting class. Thus began a friendship that was to last for 25 years—until the day he died.

In the late 1950s, George arrived in Western Australia from Britain with his wife and two children. He wasn’t a tall man but was as neat as a pin, with a mouthful of large teeth and glasses that gave his blue eyes a Bambi-like appearance. George was a man who lived life to the full; he worked hard, played hard, and had an opinion about everything. He loved his wife, his family, his friends, and was loyal and outspoken to the equal degree. A slim and vigorous man, George took pride in his fitness and health and walked three kilometres every day. “”I’d no more go without my walk than without brushing my teeth,” he’d say.

And as the only male in a painting class full of women, George was in his element. He loved his singular role and looked after his brood with the same attention he gave to everything.

He took to painting with passion and commitment, even turning the spare bedroom of his home into a studio. His painting equipment was comprehensive—an easel, quality paints, linseed oil, turpentine, brushes, palette, canvases, charcoal pencils, fixative, palette knives—even a rolling pin for removing air bubbles when gluing. Ever practical, George housed many of these items in a tool box-a red metal tool box-built to take hard knocks and purchased from a local hardware store.

For about six years George and I studied together through various units until the completion of the course and other commitments drew us apart, though we always maintained personal contact as we lived within a couple of kilometres of each other. Td sometimes see him on his daily walk or at the local shops and occasionally we'd touch base with a ‘proper’ afternoon tea, sharing a cuppa and a chinwag.

*First-year fall applicants

*Transfer students through the transfer admission process

For each class, we bring together a varied mix of high-achieving, intellectually gifted students from diverse backgrounds to create an exceptional learning community.

We care about what students have accomplished in and out of the classroom. The process is highly selective. In recent years, we’ve offered admission to less than 7 percent of applicants.

As you prepare your application, help us to appreciate your talents, academic accomplishments and personal achievements. We’ll ask for your transcript (成绩单) and recommendations, and we will want to know more than just the statistics in your file. Tell us your story. Show us what’s special about you. Tell us how you would seize the academic and nonacademic opportunities at Princeton and contribute to the Princeton community. Above all, please write in a style that reflects your own voice.

Princeton accepts the Coalition Application and Common Application. Princeton treats them all equally. To apply, you will need to submit online either the Coalition Application or the Common Application, plus the Princeton Supplement.

You have two choices for applying to Princeton for first-year admission—single-choice early action or regular decision. Before you begin preparing your application, we strongly encourage you to review our standardized testing policy, which includes detailed information regarding our standardized testing requirements.

*Single-choice Early Action, also known as restrictive early action (If you have thoroughly researched your college options and have decided that Princeton is your first choice)

Nov. 1 Application Due

Nov. 9 Princeton Financial Aid Application Due

*Regular Decision

Jan. 1 Application Due

Feb. 1 Princeton Financial Aid Application Due

【推荐3】TerraCycle is a company that has recycled and upcycled (升级改造) just about any garbage it can get its hands on. It upcycles things like pens and markers into dust bins and picnic tables and cigarette ends into railroad ties.

Now, TerraCycle wants to help families waste even less with a new book Make Garbage Great: The TerraCycle Family Guide to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle. The book is part wake-up call, part history lesson, part how-to, and part DIY arts and crafts instruction.

In an effort to help people do what they can to curb their contribution to the tons of waste created every day, Make Garbage Great gives the history of various materials, discusses why those various materials are a problem, and gives tips and DIY projects to recycle or upcycle each material.

There is a chapter each on plastics, metals, paper, glass, wood, rubber and organics. Each chapter is filled with tons of tips and ideas for reducing the amount of waste you create and for responsibly handling the waste you end up creating in your home. If you’re a conscious consumer, some of the information you may already know, but there are also tips in this book that will help you recycle more than you thought you were able to. It has information on where you can take old sneakers, pillows, and all that electronic waste that seems to pile up quicker and quicker each year.

Whether the book inspires you to get a little clever at dealing with your waste or simply inspires you to think before you buy or before you throw, anyone who is concerned about the amount of waste our culture creates will find some ideas here. Even the physical book itself is a bit of an inspiration. It’s printed on tree-free paper and is a reminder that there is usually a sustainable (可持续的) alternative to many of the products that we waste.

【推荐1】The company SpaceX has already launched hundreds of its Star-link satellites, with plans to put as many as 42,000 of them in Earth orbit. Its goal is to provide high-speed Internet to billions of people. Moving toward that kind of access is important, but it comes at a cost. Glittering with reflected sunlight, these first orbiters, sent up in the past year, are brighter than 99 percent of the 5,000 or so other satellites now circling Earth, and obviously there are going to be a lot more. This sudden increase is bad for astronomy: the probability of a Star-link satellite crossing a telescope’s field of view and ruining an observation will be quite high near sunset. For that reason, my fellow astronomers have signed a petition (请愿书) calling for governments to protect the night sky from this invasion.

In response to protests, SpaceX has promised to address the visibility problem by, for example, applying experimental coatings — essentially painting the satellites black — but the company’s aggressive launch schedule remains unchanged. And the satellites’ illuminated (被照亮) surfaces are mostly their solar panels — exactly the part that cannot be painted over.

Unfortunately, at present no regulations govern how bright a single satellite can be, let alone thousands of them together. Even if there were such regulations, one nation’s laws can not hinder (阻碍) another country’s launches. Space literally has no borders, and the sky will need to be protected at an international level. As a consequence, we hope that the United Nations will find a way to think outside of the box to save the sky for everyone.

When I was growing up in Montana, it was a game to be the first to find a moving satellite among the host of stars in the night sky. Soon it could be a game to recognize the constellations (星座) behind a swarm of moving points of light.

【推荐2】Putting Movies on Mobiles

Movies in the theater get their recognition at awards ceremonies such as the Oscars. But how about movies for phones? They are getting their turn at MoFilm- the first mobile film festival.

The first MoFilm competition received 250 entries from more than 100 countries. Entries were restricted to films that were five minutes or less in length-best for viewing and sharing on mobile phones. An independent team of judges then selected a shortlist of five film-makers. The winner was chosen from the shortlist by an audience voting using their phones.

New Platforms

The awards highlight the increasing influence that mobile phones are showing in the entertainment industry. Many grassroots filmmakers start out with short films. They are thwarted by the lack of opportunities to screen their work. Therefore, mobile phones are increasingly being seen as a new platform for these short works.

It is a good place for anyone who wants to express themselves and find a way to have that expression be seen by a wide audience. Just think about how many people have mobile phones in the world!

New Technology Advances

MoFilm is pioneering content for mobile and online services that is a world away from Hollywood. The majority of films made for mobiles are now short in length, taking into account the screen size. However this could be overcome as technology advances.

In the near future, longer films will likely be seen on the mobile phone. And there are mobile companies creating phones where users can watch movies at higher quality.

Wherever you see movies, one thing is certain: the quality of work, the simple ability at story telling，and the thing that inspires someone to tell a story can really come from anywhere.

【推荐3】When our professor Dr. Dressel outlined the requirements of the term paper, he sounded especially terrible, so I recalled another classroom nightmare, Mrs. Grace from Forsyth High. I could still picture her neat script in the margins of my papers, carefully listing each of my grammatical shortcoming in bright blue ink.

“One of these days,” she was fond of saying, “you’ll find that what you’re learning here will be useful.” Few of us believed her, but that didn’t discourage her from relentless training in composition repeatedly. At the slightest protest, her dark eyes would flash, “You’ll find that the real world is far more demanding than my term papers, but meanwhile they can help prepare you for it!”

When Dr. Dressel handed back my papers, an A+ stood out on the page. I disbelieved. I even bent over for a closer look. Professor Dessel, standing next to my table, said, “your term paper is among the finest by a junior student. It tells me that somewhere along the line you had a remarkable English teacher. You should go to that teacher and express your gratitude.”

On the evening, I forced myself up to the Mrs. Grace’s house. The woman who answered the door was far different from the Mrs. Grace I remembered. She was pale and frowning. I gave my term paper into her hands. She glanced at it, then looked back at me wondering.

“My professor knew someone like you was responsible for my paper and”, I stammered, “I just wanted to thank you. I really appreciate all you did for me.”

Mrs. Grace began to cry. “You’re the first person ever to thank me,” she sobbed. “This has been such a hard year. I’ve been sick all fall, but your visit has done me more good than all the medicine I’ve taken. God bless you!” She threw her arms around me and hugged me hard. Then we both shed some tears.

“I’m so glad you stopped by,” she said.

“So am I!” I replied.

Never again have I been reluctant to express gratitude.