【推荐1】Who says you can’t see the world if you stay at home? Virtual vacations let you travel around the world without leaving your sofa. All you need is a VR headset. Then you can connect（连接）your VR headset to your computer or smartphone.

Taking a virtual vacation is very easy. First, decide where you want to go and what you want to see. You can choose a place you have been in the past or a place you’d like to go. Maybe you feel like relaxing on a beautiful beach. Perhaps you want to walk side by side with elephants in Africa. You can even take virtual space vacations!

The next step（步骤）is to find a ________ place. Make sure you are away from all noise. A study or a room may be a good place to enjoy your vacation. Once you are sitting or lying comfortably alone, take five deep breaths to relax. Now you can begin your trip!

A VR headset gives users a special 3D experience（体验）, making them feel as if they are walking around inside a real world.

Although a virtual vacation can last from just a few minutes to 20 minutes or more, you will feel refreshed（神清气爽的）after it. That’s why it is as meaningful as a “real” vacation.

Want to travel around the world from the comfort of your home? Try virtual vacations!

【推荐3】Robots seem very new to most people. But they have a long history. The first one was made by a Greek inventor. You may see robots in some films. The robots in these films are stronger, faster and cleverer than people in real life. Robots can help us in many ways.

They can help us in school. For example, they can help us clean the classrooms and carry our books. They can also organize our library. Robots can also help us at home. They can help us to make our beds. They can clean our rooms as well. They can also cook dinner for us. Robots can also help us in the factory. They can pack the products and save a lot of human (人类) labor. They are used to do many dangerous, difficult or boring jobs. Some people can’t look after themselves and robots are used to help them. For example, some people can’t see, so many of these people use a dog to help themselves move around. This dog is called a guide dog. Scientists are making a robot to help them. In the future, robot dogs might take the place of these guide dogs.

Robots are also used in American hospitals. At one hospital, a robot takes meals from the kitchen to the sick people’s rooms. It never loses its way because it has a map of the hospital in its computer system.

In the future, robots will work in space. But robots will never take the place of humans. They can, however, help us in a lot of different ways.

In today’s world, people are spending less and less time on things. A study shows that most visitors spend just 15 seconds on a website before moving on to other things. It’s easy to understand because there are millions of websites on the Internet. What will people do when they’re in museums full of great works of art? Will they slow down a little more? The answer is no.

Studies show that it takes most people ten seconds to look at a piece of art. At Tate Modern in London, it’s even worse. People there spend an average of just eight seconds on each artwork. And in that short time, the visitors also do another important thing—taking photos!

These years, museums are working to change this. Today, over 170 museums around the world are having “Slow Art Day”. Most of the museums taking part in “Slow Art Day” are choosing just a few works for their visitors to enjoy. They are asking their visitors to spend at least 5—10 minutes looking at just one work of art.

Slow Art backers think that when visitors spend more time looking at and studying the work of art, they will enjoy it more. By spending time, they can see more details about the work. Studying a work of art for more time can also help people get a better understanding of the artist’s ideas. Phil Terry, who started “Slow Art Day”, said, “By slowing down, it helps us to see art in a new way.”

【推荐2】Many of us have this experience: we lie down in a bed, not our own, maybe at a friend’s house or in a hotel room, and find it difficult or impossible to fall asleep. Is it because the bed is uncomfortable? Maybe, but perhaps there can be other reasons.

According to a new study in Current Biology, an important reason is what the scientists call “first night effect (效应)”. They believe that it is because one side of the brains is more active. It forces us to stay awake on the first night in a new environment. The effect acts as a “night watch” to protect us from potential (潜在的) danger.

For the study, 35 young volunteers were asked to sleep in a sleep lab for several days. At the same time, researchers watched their brain activities.

According to the researchers, on their first night, the left brains were more active than the right brains and people had a hard time sleeping. However, left-brain activity reduced (减少) as days went by, falling even to the point of complete peace. In this process, the volunteers got an increasingly better sleep experience.

“At some level, the brain is continuing to analyze things, even though you can’t realize it.” US professor Jerome Siegel told Smith Sonian Magazine, “If something unusual happens—if a door opens or you hear a key in a lock—you can be alert (警觉的).” It works to protect us in a dangerous environment. More surprisingly, this is similar to the way some animals sleep. Whales, dolphins, and many birds can sleep with half of their brain while the other half stays awake, with its one eye staying open.

If you have ever had what you think is “first night effect”, researchers suggest that you bring your own pillow (枕头) or sleep in a room similar to your bedroom next time you sleep away from home.