Thought to have been constructed since the 1930s, Perth Blue Boat House has been rebuilt and repaired on a number of occasions and has had lots of uses. For decades, locals drove past this bright blue wooden house several times a day without noticing. But recently,   46   its popularity on Instagram, the boathouse has become a well-known tourist attraction. There has been a(n)   47   of visitors to this area, with tour buses and self-driven visitors stopping here for pictures. Popularity,   48   , can come with problems. The closest public toilet is 1.5 miles away. Tourists go to a nearby restaurant to use the toilets. The owner   49   that some had been rude, disruptive and even verbally abusive.   50   this problem, Perth’s city council has decided to build its first solar-powered toilet. It will reportedly cost US$278,000 to install and an additional $14,000 per year for maintenance.

        If you were a well-heeled Massachusetts lady in the late 1920s and wanted your hair fixed like the moviestars, there was one man to turn to: Samuel Bernstein. In 1927, this entrepreneurial immigrant, who had arrivedin New York from Tsarist Russia,  26  the only local license to sell the machine for curling hair. Like manybusinessmen of the times, he expected his eldest son to follow him into the family firm. 

        But Louis Bernstein, known to everyone as Lenny (he officially changed his name to Leonard as ateenager), had different ideas. The family had no musical roots, but ten-year-old Lenny found himself drawnobsessively to his aunt’s piano. No matter that his father remained vehemently  27  the notion that heshould make music his life, there was but one path ahead. 

        For all his early misgivings, Samuel later  28  that his son was a genius. In his passport, LeonardBernstein simply called himself a “musician”—characteristic humility from a man whose broad   29  areunique in musical history. Bernstein was a conductor whose interpretive gifts over the course of five decadesshone light on the classics from Haydn to Mahler, Bartok to Stravinsky. He was a fine concert pianist andpioneering broadcaster; an educator, Harvard lecturer, writer and humanitarian; a husband, father, lover. Sucha  30  life was not without complexities, contradictions and critics—but oh, what a life.

    Have you noticed the phenomenon of puppy dog eyes, the inner eyebrow raising movement of dogs? Do you believe it    41    for dogs to appeal to humans? Researchers dissected dog and wolf heads and found that the facial muscle anatomy of both animals was almost identical --    42    an eyebrow muscle, found only in dogs. The inner eyebrow raising movement makes the dogs’ eyes appear larger and more infant like,   43   prompts a “nurturing” response in humans. When dogs make the movement, it seems to elicit a strong desire in humans to   44   them. This would give the dogs that moved their eyebrows more a selection advantage over others, reinforcing the trait in   45   generations. The findings show how important faces can be in capturing our attention, and how powerful facial expression can be in social interaction.

     Australia is literally a land apart. While it is attractive and welcoming to visitors, from the perspective of     46      they are very keen to keep themselves separate. Australia has had some bad experiences    47    misguidedly importing rabbits and cane toads into the country.    48    hence has become a major concern. The government maintains a data base of about 20,000 materials that have the potential to cause trouble and must be declared at the    49    . If you fail to declare them upon arrival, it is almost certain they will be confiscated and you may    50    have to paya fine up to $66,000. If you have declared all the items in the Incoming Passenger Card, then even if the goods are not permitted and must be confiscated, you will not be liable for a fine. The authorities are not unreasonable, just strict.

       Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American who emigrated to New York City in 1884, was a scientist and visionary who developed the basis for alternating current (AC) that most of us use today and pioneered numerous technologies that improve our everyday lives. Without his contribution to the AC electric power, we would be fifty years behind technologically than where we are today.

       In 1884, Tesla left Europe and worked for Thomas Edison, the developer of direct current (DC). It was said that Edison promised Tesla $50,000 to fix the problems with his DC system. When Tesla succeeded and demanded his reward, Edison claimed the offer was a joke, saying “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.” This prompted Tesla to quit and he ended up in a battle with Edison. Today, Tesla’s AC system is predominantly used to power most of the world’s electricity. DC motors are still used for some industrial machines, but often require more maintenance. 

         It is not just AC power that Tesla worked on. Motors, radios, X-rays, neon signs were advanced by his extraordinary mind. History often touts Italian entrepreneur Guglielmo Marconi as the inventor of radio, but actually he was using technology from seventeen of Tesla’s patents. The two inventors became embroiled in a patent war. In 1943, the United States Supreme Court revoked Marconi’s radio patents in favor of Tesla. Unfortunately, Tesla and Marconi had already passed away by the time the court handed down their decision.

       Tesla also invented one of the world’s earliest remote control and was a pioneer of X-ray technology. He took some of the first X-ray images of the human body and was one of the first scientists to hypothesize that X-rays could be harmful. The brilliant inventor contributed to reusable energy as well. Nine out of the twelve patents used to build the world’s first hydroelectric station, erected at Niagara Falls, New York, belonged to Tesla. He helped pave the way toward clean energy because he understood the physics behind energy and what might be possible in the future.

       Often referred to as “the man who invented the 20th century,” Tesla was involved in many more discoveries and creations. When he died in 1943, there was so much interest in what he was working on that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided his hotel room within hours of his death. Experts say Tesla envisioned his inventions improving people’s lives. Indeed, his innovative ideas were milestones of technology. The great pioneer believed “Invention is the most important product of men’s creative brain.”