I did not see vast expanses of rainforest framed by distant blue-tinged mountain ranges. Instead I looked out into smoke-filled valleys, with only the faintest ghosts of distant ridges and peaks in the background.

They seem disturbingly prescient in light of what we are witnessing unfold in Australia.

The brown skies I observed in the Blue Mountains this week are a product of human-caused climate change. Take record heat, combine it with unprecedented drought in already dry regions and you get unprecedented bushfires like the ones engulfing the Blue Mountains and spreading across the continent. It’s not complicated.

China will ban US warships and military aircraft from making stops in Hong Kong in the wake of Washington passing legislation supporting the territory's pro-democracy protesters,

"In response to the unreasonable behaviors of the US side, the Chinese government decides to suspend the review of requests by US military ships and aircraft to visit Hong Kong as of today," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a news conference in Beijing.

Hua also announced that Beijing would impose sanctions on several US non-governmental human rights organizations that have been monitoring and reporting on the protests in Hong Kong.

“As one of the most important varieties of the Chinese language, Cantonese is losing its former glory following the popularization of Mandarin. Less young people prefer to use Cantonese to communicate with each other,

the use of Cantonese has seen a decrease at places of work and in education due to the national promotion of Mandarin, which has led to a decline in the number of Cantonese users.

According to an official document released by the Ministry of Education in April, 80 percent of China’s population will be able to communicate in Mandarin by the end of 2020, compared to the current number of 70 percent.

Because cues that signal the beginning and ending of words can differ from language to language, a person’s native language can provide misleading information when learning to segment a second language into words.

“The moment we hear a new language, all of a sudden we hear a stream of sounds and don’t know where the words begin or end,” Tremblay said. “Even if we know words from the second language and can recognize them in isolation, we may not be able to locate these words in continuous speech, because a variety of processes affect how words are realized in context.”

Other cues, such as intonation, are harder to master and are more likely to be influenced by a speaker’s native language.

"We're the ones that are deciding whether or not we want to make a deal," Trump said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York this month. "We're close."

The reality of what Beijing wants is far more complicated than an end to the recent economic hostilities. Instead, it is balancing a variety of interests, some more important than the trade war.

Beijing's ideal scenario includes a free hand to violate human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong; it includes continuing to press for reunification with Taiwan; and it includes achieving the aims of China 2025, the Chinese Communist Party's plan to transition the country's economy to one based on technology.

Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry, headquartered in Michoacan state, has become a prime target for cartels,

More than a dozen criminal groups are battling for control of the avocado trade in and around the city of Uruapan,

After seizing control of the forest in March, the Viagras announced a tax on residents who owned avocado trees, charging $250 a hectare in “protection fees.”

When an earthquake strikes, the instinct of many Californians is to ask: Which fault ruptured — the Newport-Inglewood, the Hayward, the mighty San Andreas?

But scientists are increasingly saying it’s not that simple.

New research shows that the Ridgecrest earthquakes that began in July ruptured at least two dozen faults.

The body of knowledge and practice known as mathematics is derived from the contributions of thinkers throughout the ages and across the globe. It gives us a way to understand patterns, to quantify relationships, and to predict the future. Math helps us understand the world — and we use the world to understand math.

The world is interconnected. Everyday math shows these connections and possibilities.

Algebra can explain how quickly water becomes contaminated and how many people in a third-world country drinking that water might become sickened on a yearly basis.

If we look at language as simply a network of words and phrases, language learning becomes lifeless and robotic. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but such an approach would omit layers of meaning behind the words.

Understanding culture puts you in touch with the development and etymologies of the language, such that a culture-free language learning process would never enable the user to fully understand the language, no matter how well they might learn to parrot it.

To really unlock a language, to understand it at its roots, understanding culture is key. Here are a few reasons why the two go hand in hand.

“Abstract art—when you actually look at it—gives you another way of looking at everything by not showing you anything in particular. It removes all the particulars and just shows you the general,” said retired UW-Madison chemist Rodney Schreiner, the exhibit’s curator. “If you’re trying to find patterns in the world, looking at the general is better than being overwhelmed by the specifics.”

The brain interprets visual information in two different ways. Through bottom up processing the brain takes parts of an image—like lines, edges, colors, and shading—and uses that information to come to an understanding of the whole image.

In contrast, top down processing refers to how memories and emotions assign meaning to an image.

Music plays an important role in the socialization of children and adolescents.

The effect that popular music has on children's and adolescents' behavior and emotions is of paramount concern.

Music provides entertainment and distraction from problems and serves as a way to relieve tension and boredom.

Songs are such powerful things: they can reassure, soothe, inspire and educate us – and that’s just for starters.

Songs have always held a mirror to the world, reflecting the things going on around us, and, arguably, music changes society like no other artform.

Songs could shape listeners in new ways, challenging people’s preconceived ideas of the world, shining a light on things that weren’t spoken of in the news of the day.

While improvised jazz solos are spontaneous, there are rules, says Martin Norgaard, associate professor of music education.

In other words, improvisation is an incredibly complex form of creative expression, yet great jazz improvisers like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis or John Coltrane make it seem effortless.

"As a musician, you feel that there's something different about the way your brain is working when you improvise,"

ir pollution levels in India’s capital have soared to hazardous levels this week, leaving a toxic grey haze hanging over the city and causing poor visibility.

Delhi was already considered one of the world’s most polluted cities, and it’s only gotten worse this month.

“We’re exceeding the measurement capabilities” of some of these pollution particle sensors, Limaye says, explaining that the pollution levels were “effectively off the charts.”

Climate change is already here. It’s not something that can simply be ignored by cable news or dismissed by sitting US senators in a Twitter joke.

Instead, we are seeing its creeping effects now—with hurricanes like Maria and Harvey that caused hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in economic damage; with the Mississippi River and its tributaries overflowing their banks this spring,

Climate change is, at this very moment, taking a real toll on wildlife, ecosystems, economies, and human beings, particularly in the global south, which experts expect will be hit first and hardest.

The answer, of course, is that they have been warning about severe global impacts from climate change for more than three decades. But over the past 12 months those warnings have intensified.

on the potential impacts of a rise in global temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius or more.

“global carbon dioxide emissions (to) start to decline well before 2030” to avoid the most severe consequences of global warming. It said “global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate.”

Huawei’s market share is growing fast, thanks to its focus on the Chinese smartphone market.

One competitor who may be alarmed by these emerging figures is Apple. In the third quarter of 2018 the two companies had an almost identical share of the global smartphone market, Apple had 13.2% to Huawei’s 14.6%.

Huawei shipped higher volumes than expected as it shifted focus to its domestic market, particularly in lower-tier cities, and increased inventories given the unknown future with Google Mobile services.

One of Huawei’s greatest defences in its ongoing battle against Washington and the blacklist imposed by the Trump administration has been its stronghold at home.

The Shenzhen tech giant knows that the impact of the blacklist is limited by unwavering support at home,

Android, its biggest international issue, has no impact on smartphone sales—Google’s software and services are unavailable in China.

"I soon found new inspiration in abstract impressionism, and from the day I started painting again I felt a powerful connection to my subconscious, which has been as satisfying as music to me," he writes. "

"I rely on color, vague shapes and my imagination for inspiration, and it’s more stimulating all the time to me," he says. "

"I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawing, painting or creating something."

The curriculum of one of the key components of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, theory of knowledge, is due to change next year. 

Teachers will start teaching the new version of the course next year, with the first assessment to be carried out in 2022.

The curriculum model is currently based on three components: a core theme called "knowing about knowing", which encourages students to critically reflect on knowledge claims; "ways of knowing", which encompasses eight areas including language and faith; and "areas of knowledge", which includes areas such as the arts and natural sciences.