【推荐1】Christmas is a time for relaxing, having fun and spending time with family and friends.     1    It can be difficult to find the motivation for study when everyone around you is having so much fun. So, here are my top five tips for revising effectively over the Christmas break.

Set aside a few hours a day to revise.

Find the best time to revise and make sure that you stick to your timetable! For example, I find that I work best in the morning.     2    

Plan something fun to do every day.

Even if it’s just going for coffee with a friend or watching a film at home, this will give you something to look forward to and motivate you to finish your revision.

Explain to your family why your revision is important.

    3    So, make efforts to tell them why your exams are important. Perhaps you can agree to do something nice with them when your exams are over.

    4    

It is important to take some time to relax. When you do get back to revising, you’ll probably find it easier to concentrate. Pick the most important days for you and your family to concentrate on celebrating Christmas!

Remember that it won’t last forever.

You might have to spend your Christmas revising this year, and perhaps for a few more years, but soon enough you’ll be free of exams forever.       5    Have a great Christmas and make sure you find a balance between studying and celebrating. Good luck in your exams!

【推荐2】Writing tips for travel journals

There are many benefits of keeping a journal when you’re traveling. It helps you remember your visit and learn more culture and customs. Also, it helps you reflect on what you have learned.     1     Here are some writing tips for your travel journals.

Write about what you imagine it will be like

Sometimes when you travel, your destination is wildly different than what you expected. Maybe you expected the local food to be bad but it turned out to be delicious.     2     . Maybe you thought you would be more comfortable with the language. Whatever it is, write it down before you arrive. It will be interesting to compare these predictions to your actual experiences.

Write during your trip

    3     . Therefore, try and write as much as you can while traveling. Your journals don’t have to be long, but you should let them highlight what you feel. Before going to bed, try and recall what you did that day, what you thought and how you felt. This will serve as a great way to help you reflect and grow from what you experienced.

    4    

Even though your journal is meant for writing, pictures are still worth a thousand words. Combining pictures with your first-hand accounts of what they represent, or what happened when they were taken will make for an even more comprehensive narrative of your travels.

Write about your trip after you leave

It is necessary to write about your trip before you arrive.     5     . It is important to reflect on your travels to develop new understandings and apply them to future adventures. This is also a great way to learn about yourself. Step back from all the things you did and try to see the big picture. It may surprise you.

Confidence (自信) is very important in daily life. It can help you to develop a healthy attitude (态度). A study shows that the people who are more confident are much happier. They can have more chance to make themselves successful. When you are not confident you can’t do well what you want to do. But how to be more confident? Here are some suggestions:

Speak loud   You speak in a voice so low that other people can hardly hear you. Try to speak loud enough so that people can hear you clearly. The high voice can help you become more confident.

Play sports   Physical exercise makes you tired but completely relaxed. A strong body helps you be full of confidence.

Encourage yourself   Write down a list of things you did during the day to see how many things you have done well. Did you finish your homework? Did you tell a joke that made everybody laugh? Give yourself praise for the good things you’ve done.

Get rid of (消除) fear   Fear comes along with failure (失败). But it’s easy to overcome (克服) if you know that failure is part of your life. Don’t hide your head just because you said something stupid last time. Try to start again and believe you can do better.

Pick up a hobby   If you like singing, sing as much as you can. In some ways, a hobby can make you outstanding. And it will make you happy and confident.

【推荐1】Have you ever noticed that the stars sometimes appear brighter in December, January and February? There's a link between cold air and the night lights. "Part of it is that it tends to be drier in the winter," said Diane Tumshek, an astronomer at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Even though it's invisible, moisture can change the way light moves through the air. And in the summer, moisture can make stars appear more dull.

Air temperature is also what puts the twinkle twinkle in the little stars. "Even on very clear nights, some of the atmosphere is cooler, and some of the atmosphere is warmer,” said Tumshek, who also works with the Allegheny Observatory. And when the light from a star passes through those bubbles of varying temperatures, "it bends and shifts the light, so that we are seeing stars appear to dance or twinkle,” she said.

For star lovers in the United States, there's another factor that comes into play for bright winter stars, although this is a matter of coincidence. During Earth's journey around the sun, “there are just simply more bright stars visible from the Northern Hemisphere in the winter sky," Tumshek said. If you really want to see a shiny star, just try to find a burning ball of gas called Sirius near the horizon. At 8.6 light-years away, Sirius is relatively close to Earth and the brightest star visible in the night sky. It is also large — nearly twice as big as our sun and 20 times as bright. So this winter, when the world turns cold and it seems like we should be spending more time indoors, consider asking an adult to go exploring outside. With a warm coat and a clear sky, any night can be turned into a treasure hunt. All you have to do is look up.

【推荐3】It is becoming more and more important for researchers to closely observe our sea life, with climate change and overfishing damaging our oceans. However, this is almost impossible since human presence scares the animals.

Now, thanks to The Soft Robotic Fish, also called SoFi, researchers may not only be able to keep a close eye on the creatures, but also uncover undersea secrets that have been confusing us for centuries. Though not the first autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) created to observe the oceans, SoFi solves many of the problems that have hindered (妨碍) the usefulness of previous robots.

AUVs traditionally have had to be tied to a boat because radio communications do not work well underwater. To solve the problem, CSAIL director Daniela Rus and her team used sound waves which can travel greater distances, allowing drivers using a waterproofed Super Nintendo controller to pilot SoFi from up to 50 feet away. To ensure SoFi can freely move around the ocean, a pump moves water from one balloon-like structure to the other through its soft rubber tail, while a controller fitted with a battery powers the robot through the ocean.

During test dives, SoFi moved alongside the sea life at depths of 50 feet for up to 40 minutes at a time, taking high-quality photos and videos. Even more importantly, it was able to do so without causing any disturbance. The researchers say sometimes the fish would swim alongside the strange-looking robot-fish out of curiosity, while at other times they appeared completely unaware of its existence.

While SoFi currently only records videos, future versions will include sensors. “For us, this fish is magical,” says Rus. “We imagine someday it might help us uncover more mysteries from the amazing underwater world that we know so little about.”