【推荐1】How to Choose a College When You Can’t Visit

College tours and overnight visits have always been necessary parts of the college selection process. How do you choose a college when you can’t visit? You can get much information online.

Visit colleges virtually. Many colleges and universities have created official virtual tours for students who are unable to visit in person. Besides, YouTube is home to thousands of college video tours.     1    

    2     When evaluating colleges, you don’t want to rely entirely on their official descriptions. You’ll also want to learn what the students who actually attend the college think about their experience. Fortunately, there are many excellent resources for getting the student opinions on everything.

    3     If you want to study in a college, you’ll obviously want to make sure which fields of the school you’re considering are strong in. Individual college websites, of course, always have an “academics” area that lists all majors and minors, and you’ll be able to drill down to get information about specific majors.

Pay attention to after-class opportunities.     4     Be sure to visit college websites to look over the clubs, student organizations, athletic teams, musical bands and other opportunities for staying involved outside of the classroom. Also look into opportunities for internships(实习), conducting research with professors, studying abroad, tutoring and other experiences that will help you gain valuable hands-on experience and strengthen your skills for your future career.

Look at the school’s outcomes. The end goal of college, of course, is to give you the knowledge and skills you'll need to succeed in whatever you do later in life.     5     PayScale provides salary data for the US colleges and universities, so you’ll be able to see median early- career and mid-career pay.

【推荐3】How to Survive a Tsunami

A tsunami is a series of destructive and dangerous waves that are typically caused by earthquakes. If you live in a tsunami hazard region, make sure you know what to do in the unfortunate event of a tsunami.     1    

1. Evacuate on foot if possible.

Bridges and roads might be damaged or blocked after an earthquake. Whether there is an official tsunami warning or you live in a tsunami hazard zone and an earthquake just happened, immediately start moving on foot.     2    This helps you avoid getting stuck in a car in a dangerous location.

2.     3    

In some cases, you might not have time to evacuate. If you don’t have time to get away, go up to a third floor or higher in a strong building. Even better, try to get on the roof of the tallest, strongest building you can find. If you’re right on the coast, there might be a tall tsunami evacuation tower nearby. Look for evacuation route signs and follow them to the tower, then climb to the top.

3. Grab something floating if you’re in the water.

This can help keep you safe if you get caught by a tsunami’s waves.     4     Grab the object and hold on tightly while you get carried by the waves.

4.     5    

Tsunami activity can continue for up to 8 hours or longer. Stay away from the coast and on high ground for this period to play it safe. Listen to announcements from officials and only move when they say it’s safe to do so.

You may be stressed out and worried about loved ones, but you must stay where you are and try to remain calm. Don’t put your life at risk to try to meet up with someone in another area.

【推荐2】Ants are good navigators (导航员). They often travel long distances to search for food and carry it back to their nests. But how do they do it?

An international team of scientists, including researchers at the University of Edinburgh, UK, has recently come up with an explanation. According to the findings, ants use visual (视觉的) memories of their environments and the sun's position to find their way home. And they can even do it while traveling backwards.

The researchers studied a group of desert ants in Seville, Spain. The study's purpose was to find out how ants navigate when they carry pieces of food of different sizes.

To make it work, the scientists first trained the ants to follow a particular path back home, including a challenging 90-degree turn. Then the ants were given either a small or a large piece of food to test their navigational skills.

Ants with small pieces of food walked forward and cleared the 90-degree turn just fine. However, those with larger pieces sometimes had to turn backwards to drag (拖) them. Generally, these ants would set off in the correct direction. But if they stayed too long in the backward position, they would miss the correct turn to reach the nest. Interestingly, not all of the backward-walking ants were that                                 stubborn. Some would drop the food occasionally (偶尔) to check their surroundings (环境). So after turning back to pick up their food, the ants would find themselves back on the nest.

Researchers believe the ants were taking advantage of a mix of different information to navigate backwards. This may include local landmarks (地标), the position of the sun, and their position in the environment. To prove this, they used a mirror to make it look like the sun was on the other side of the sky. In that case, the backward ants would turn toward the opposite direction.

Barbara Webb, a professor from the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics, said the findings could help people make smarter robots in future.

“Understanding their behavior gives us new insights into brain function and has inspired us to build robot systems that mimic (模仿) their functions,” she told the BBC.

Scientists have been able to copy the neural (神经的) network in the ant's brain. The hope is to invent robots that can explore by themselves in natural areas such as forests.

【推荐3】Top 4 Best Places to Travel in 2023!

Kyrgyzstan

This offbeat Central Asian nation is perhaps one of the best-kept secrets of adventure travel. The landscapes are vast, mostly green expanses of stunning mountains and valleys-part of the famous Pamir Mountains even roll through the country.

Canada

Canada has endless options to keep your kids entertained-and tired out! It is a beautiful country to visit with a wide variety of great places to stay. You could go to Toronto and enjoy the must-sees such as the CN Tower. The Ontario Science Museum also has hands-on exhibits and hours of play and education-and not just for the kids!

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is the region to travel to on a budget. You can find dorm beds for five dollars, and delicious noodles for even less. One week you might be learning to dive in Phuket, and the next week you’re travelling on to Cambodia and through to Vietnam moving across jungle borders by motorbike.

Egypt

The Egyptian pyramids are one of those things that just live up to the hype. After all, it’s not every day you get to be impressed by masterpieces of the ancient world. But while you absolutely should visit all of Egypt’s archeological wonders, you’ll also love how easy it is to get off the beaten track. As Egypt gets very hot, it’s best to plan your trip for the winter-spring months, when temperatures are milder and you can easily spend all day exploring in comfort!