【推荐2】The 33-year-old Australian, Bradley, is actually a student in international relations completing his PhD through Griffith University. He came to Beijing for a cooperative research at Peking University less than two   years ago. Such an academic life was just added color with a chance offered by the cultural exchanges project, “I’m in China”.

Bradley was lucky to win the most “likes” for his photo story about his life in China and became one of 20 winners to visit locations after a global recruitment (招募) by the project this summer. All the winners’ experiences were filmed to produce a reality show, My Chinese Working Day, which will be broadcast by mid-September. The film crew took them to many “amazing sites” and the staff taught them a lot about how to incorporate modern Chinese characteristics while still keeping traditional customs. “I would have to say two things stick out as the most memorable: the helicopter ride and talking with the staff at the hotel about how they organize weddings here in China,” he said. That was Bradley’s first time to be in a helicopter, and he was too absorbed with the awesome view of the beautiful coastline. “I think it is so important to show other Australians the different landscapes China has to offer. I think so many Australians, when they think about China, imagine the historical sites of Beijing and the exciting things to see in Shanghai but have no idea about other beautiful places, like Sanya or the many other places people have been taken to in this TV series,” Bradley said.

“I’m in China” is a project sponsored by China Intercontinental Communication Centre and other institutions under the guidance of China’s State Council Information Office. It invites foreign natives worldwide to experience unique jobs and participate in activities that one can find nowhere else except in China.

【推荐3】Countries may be ranked by many various groups, such as how expensive or interesting they are to foreign tourists. They can also be ranked by their openness and friendliness toward visitors. You might be shocked to find out that, for example, the USA is number 102 on the list of the least welcoming places, 140 being the most unfriendly land.

Mongolia

Mongolia was closed for quite some time and opened up to foreigners only 20 years ago. That’s probably the major reason why it is not yet experienced enough in hosting tourists. The country is beautiful, with huge spacious areas of land that are low populated. There local people are not yet used to being visited by foreign guests.

Slovakia

There are, undoubtedly, pluses as well as minuses in every country. Slovakia is not the perfect destination for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, Slovakia is becoming more and more similar to the rest of European countries surrounding it. Sameness is not the best quality. As a rule, tourists want to travel and see things they have never seen before. It is good that the land’s countryside is still unique, although it is also being commercialized day by day.

Iran

Iran is not the best place to travel to. It is located close to Pakistan with its negative political atmosphere. Western visitors are not welcome over there and embassies (大使馆) advise against traveling to Iran. The population, contrary to the country’s government, consists of very friendly and welcoming people.

Kuwait

In Kuwait people are warm and friendly. It has a unique history, plenty of traditions and customs. People respect their culture and are very religious. It is a Muslim country, which means that you are not allowed to drink alcohol. If you happen to visit Kuwait during Ramadan, you will not be allowed to eat in public places, either.

Russia

Russia is truly a special place. It is definitely worth visiting. What you might not find attractive is the corruption and bureaucracy (官僚主义) that rule in some certain official circles. Another nuisance you should be ready for is that, as a visitor, you’ll be asked to receive an invitation. Only then will you be able to apply for a visa. Once you arrive in Russia, you’ll be warmly greeted and accepted by the local people.

【推荐1】Antecedent (先前的) carbon emissions are greenhouse gases released during the making of a product. Most manufacturers or customers pay little attention to them. In fact, operating emissions is important in a fossil-fuel-powered world.

An expert, Annika Ramskold, summarized the problem and said, “Going fossil free isn’t just about how things are powered. It’s about removing fossil fuels from how things are sourced, made, transported and assembled. While electric vehicles are a great start, we need to go further. Fossil fuel free vehicles mean greenwash (环保幌子) until the entire production part has been decarbonized (使环保).”

One manufacturer paying much attention is a Swedish electric motorcycle company. It plans to build the world’s cleanest motorcycle. But it may have trouble visualizing carbon dioxide. The company came up against the problem. It said, “As the Cleanest Dirt Bike Ever project involves global suppliers. it is difficult to get primary data, due to the complex global supply chain. It is also difficult to clean up that global supply chain. We investigated the possibility of treating each component separately. This needed to track the entire supply chain of each individual part. We eventually didn’t focus on the end product, but dealt with the materials used to make said parts.”

So instead, they are concentrating on the four main materials in the bikes—aluminum. steel, plastic and rubber. But some parts of the bike, including motor. battery, controller, brakes and suspension. are made by outside suppliers located globally. The company will have much trouble making much of a dent in that.

Ultimately, the answer is how much stuff goes into your vehicle. The motorcycle is said to have a twentieth of the antecedent carbon of an electric car. This is why the company’s work is so important. When people finally understand the effect of antecedent carbon emissions. they may realize that the most important choice they can make is not to drive a car as much as possible.

【推荐2】In recent studies, doctors are employing feature films to motivate their patients to open up about their issues. Supporters of “film therapy (疗法)” say that discussing characters and plotlines from a proper film can help people to understand their feelings better.

One of those using the method is Dr. Zhang, a doctor from Shanghai, who charges ¥250 for a one-hour “film therapy” session. He said, “I was treating a woman who had been badly heartbroken in a relationship, and who was experiencing such strong feelings that it was difficult for her to speak about them. I told her that her situation reminded me of On the Waterfront, where the hero realizes his brother is dishonest and he feels a great sense of betrayal (背叛). My patient identified so easily with him that she started to cry. Watching and discussing the film unlocked all the feelings she had buried. Each time she watched and cried, she felt better.”

Dr. Zhang admits that film therapy isn’t effective for everyone, but he has successfully used it with around a third of his patients. He believes that through the characters, plots, and even the music of films, people can face their problems. For instance, he mentioned the movie Falling Down, in which Michael Douglas plays the part of an unemployed man who is so depressed that he uses violence, was an example of the dangerous results of not letting anger go. “I used this film with a patient who was very upset because he was holding back a lot of the anger he felt towards people who had hurt him,” said Dr. Zhang. “We talked about Michael Douglas’s character and the violent path he takes, and my patient then realized that he needed to let go of his feelings more regularly so as not to burst out like a time bomb.”

【推荐1】Camping wild is a wonderful way to experience the natural world and, at its best, it makes little environmental influence. But with increasing numbers of people wanting to escape into the wilderness, it is becoming more and more important to camp unobtrusively(不引人注目地) and leave no mark.

Wild camping is not permitted in many places, particularly in crowded lowland Britain. Wherever you are, find out about organizations responsible for managing wild spaces, and contact them to find out their policy on camping and shelter building. For example, it is fine to camp wild in remote parts of Scotland, but in England you must ask the landowner’s permission, except in national parks.

Camping is about having relaxation, sleeping outdoors, experiencing bad weather, and making do without modern conveniences. A busy, fully-equipped campsite(野营地) seems to go against this, so seek out smaller, more remote places with easy access to open spaces and perhaps beaches. Better still, find a campsite with no road access: walking in makes a real adventure.

Finding the right spot to camp is the first step to guaranteeing a good night’s sleep. Choose a campsite with privacy and minimum influence on others and the environment. Try to use an area where people have obviously camped before rather than creating a new spot. When camping in woodland, avoid standing dead trees, which may fall on a windy night. Avoid animal runs and caves, and possible homes of biting insects. Make sure you have most protection on the windward side. If you make a fire, do so downwind of your shelter. Always consider what influence you might have on the natural world. Avoid damaging plants. A good campsite is found, not made—changing it should be unnecessary.

【推荐2】You’ve probably heard someone lament (express disappointment about) the that current generations aren’t as smart as the ones that came before them. However, researchers studying the Flynn effect have found that scores on IQ tests have time.

The Flynn effect, first described in the 1980s by researcher James Flynn, refers to the finding that scores on IQ tests have increased in the past century. Researchers studying this effect have found wide support for this phenomenon.

Researchers have put forward several theories to explain the Flynn effect. One explanation has to do with improvements in health and nutrition. For example, the past century has seen a decrease in smoking and alcohol use in pregnancy, discontinuation of the use of harmful lead paint improvements in the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, and improvements in nutrition. As Scott Barry Kaufman writes for Psychology Today, “The Flynn effect serves as a reminder that when we give people more opportunities to prosper (成功), more people do prosper.” In other words, the Flynn effect could be partially due to the fact that we’ve started addressing many of the public health issues that prevented people in earlier generations from reaching their full potential.

Another explanation for the Flynn effect has to do with societal changes that have occurred in the past century as a result of the Industrial Revolution. In a TED talk, Flynn explains that the world today is “a world where we’ve had to develop new mental habits, new habits of mind.” Flynn has found that IQ scores have increased the most rapidly on questions that ask us to find similarities between different things, and more abstract types of problem solving ---- both of which are things that we need to do more of in the modern world.

The Flynn effect tells us that the human mind is much more adaptable than we might have thought. It seems that some of our thinking patterns aren’t necessarily inborn, but rather things that we learn from our environment. When exposed to modern industrial society, we think about the world in different ways than our ancestors did.

【推荐3】Dog owners swear that their furry best mend is in tune with their emotions, Now it seems this sense of interspecies connection is real: dogs can smell your emotions, and adopt them as their own

We already know dogs can see and hear the signs of human emotions says Biagio D'Aniello at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. But nobody had studied whether dogs could pick up on olfactory(嗅觉的) signals from humans.

“The role of the olfactory system has been largely undervalued, maybe because our own species is more focused on the visual system.” says D'Aniello. However, dogs 'sense of smelling is far superior to ours, D'Aniello and his colleagues tested whether dogs could really sniff out our emotions. First, human volunteers watched videos designed to induce fear, happiness or a neutral response and the team collected samples of their sweat. Next, the researchers presented these sweat samples to dogs ,and monitored their behavior and heart rates. Dogs exposed to fear smells showed more signs of stress than those sniffing happy or neutral smells. They also had higher heart rates, and made less social contact with strangers.

D'Aniello's study suggests humans can unconsciously, hijack their dogs' emotion by releasing smells .A second study suggests dogs can return the favour, using their expressive faces.

Juliane Kaminski at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and her colleagues have found that dogs' faces fare most expressive when they know people are looking at them.

The researchers introduced dogs to a human who was either looking at them or facing away and either offering food or nothing. The team analyzed how much the dogs' facial movements varied in the four situations. They found that the dogs' facial expressions varied most when the person was looking at them. Kaminski says there was no sign of a “dinner table effect”, which “would predict that dogs try and look super-cute when they want something from the humans”.

It's not clear precisely how dogs visually signal us and how we respond, says Monique Udell of Oregon State University in Corvallis. “This kind of research is needed to fully understand the nature of the human-dog relationship.”

【推荐1】Bats are the only mammals (哺乳动物) that can fly a great distance, but they have another ability. Many bats live a very long time for an animal of their size. European researchers are studying bats to understand why they live so long. They hope to make discoveries aimed at fighting the aging process in human beings.

Last week, the group of scientists said they had identified important biological qualities in some bat species. The group studied bat’s chromosomes (染色体), a line of genes found in the nucleus of cells. The scientists were most interested in structures connected to the ends of chromosomes. They are called telomeres (端粒), which protect the ends of chromosomes and shorten each time a cell divides (分裂). Scientists believed this shortening process causes cells to break down. They said this is what causes aging.

The European researchers studied 493 bats from four bat species. The group used information that had been gathered over more than 60 years. Of these animals, the greater mouse-eared bats generally lived the longest, an average of 37 years. The scientists said this and a related species, which are grouped together under the name Myotis, have telomeres that do not shorten with age. One Myotis bat holds the record for the oldest age, reaching 41 years. The scientists' findings suggested that these bats' cells have the ability to maintain and repair their telomeres. This, they said, helps guard bats against the aging process.

Based on its body size, a bat like the greater mouse-eared bat would   expected to live four years. But, these mammals have been found to live nearly 10 times longer than that. The scientists found that only 19 species of mammals live longer than humans when their body size is considered. Eighteen of these are bats.

【推荐2】There is a boy called Bill in my gym class who has unbearably yellow teeth that almost make everyone feel unpleasant. Recently another boy told Bill that he should “go Ajax” his teeth. Bill was crushed. If the other boy had been thinking, he would have realized that there is a better way to handle such a situation. He could have dealt with it with tact. He could have showed this hurtful truth in a more careful, sensitive way-that's “tact”.

If a person isn't sensitive to another's feelings, there is no way he or she can be tactful. Yesterday, my 5-year-old brother proudly announced that he had cleaned the screen on our television set. Unfortunately, he used furniture polish, which produced an oily film on the television screen. My mother smiled arid thanked him for his efforts-and then showed how to clean the screen properly. Her sensitivity enables my brother to keep his self-respect. Yet, sensitivity alone does not make tact.

“Tactfulness” also requires “truthfulness”. Doctors, for example must be truthful. If a patient has just been disabled in an accident, a tactful doctor will tell the truth-but express it with sensitivity. The doctor may try to give the patient hope by telling them curing techniques under study or about advanced equipment now available. Doctors must use tact with patients' relatives as well. Instead of bluntly saying, “Your husband is disabled,” a doctor might say, “I'm sorry, but your husband has lost feeling in his legs and...”

Tact should not be confused with trickery. Trickery occurs when a nurse is about to give a patient an injection(注射) and says, “This won't hurt a bit.” Instead of trickery, the nurse might guarantee the patient that the discomfort of the injection is a small thing compared to the benefits of it. It would also be thoughtful for the nurse to tell the patients about some of these benefits.

Tact is a wonderful skill to have, and tactful people are usually admired and respected. Without tact our society would become an intolerable place to live in.

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【推荐3】The world itself is becoming much smaller by using modern traffic and modern communication means. Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution. To pollute means to make things dirty. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.

Man has been polluting the earth.The more people，the more pollution.Many years ago，the problem was not so serious because there were not so many people.When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place，man moved to another place.But this is no longer true.Man is now slowly polluting the whole world.

Air pollution is still the most serious.It’s bad for all living things in the world，but it is not the only one kind of pollution. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us angry more easily.

Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories from putting dirty smoke into the air. Pollution by SO₂ is now the most dangerous kind of air pollution.It is caused by heavy traffic.We are sure that if there are fewer people driving，there will be less air pollution.

The earth is our home. We must take care of it.That means keeping the land，water and air clean.And we must take care of the rise in pollution at the same time.