【推荐1】It probably won’t surprise you that teens are texting more than ever before. Experts show great concern for teen texting. Students might not learn correct grammar and spelling if they write a lot of text messages. Also all that texting takes away hours that could be spent studying, exercising, pursuing hobbies, or talking with others face to face. Some kids even sleep with their phones beneath their pillows and wake up several times during the night to text.

Dr. Elizabeth Dowdell points out teens need to learn that they can—and should—turn off their phones sometimes. She and her team had two teenagers, Kenny and Franchesca, carry out an experiment. They should obey the rules: No phone for 48 hours. No computer or Internet either, unless it was for schoolwork. Would these be able to do it?

“I think I’m going to feel really alone,” Kenny worried. Franchesca was nervous but brave. “I’m excited for the challenge,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” They handed their phones to their mothers for safekeeping. The challenge was on.

The team caught up with Kenny and Franchesca after 48 phone-free hours. “Wow, it was pure suffering,” Kenny joked. “Though life with no phone wasn’t easy,” he admitted, “it had benefits. I felt less stressed because I didn’t have to be involved. ” Sure, Kenny missed his friends, and he was sad at times. But he also felt relief from the constant texting. Instead of texting, Kenny went to the gym and caught up on schoolwork. He said that the first night he slept for 10 hours. He also spent time sitting with his family and talking. “I felt closer to my parents,” said Kenny.

Franchesca had an even happier result when she put away her phone. “I loved it!” she said.   “I was going to the gym and hanging out with friends and playing basketball. I had a wonderful experience. ” She slept better too, and she decided to continue the experiment fora while. “I think I’ll be so much smarter and healthier,” she explained. “Everybody in the world should try it.”

Kenny doesn’t plan to give up his phone again. But he now knows that he can live without it. “It was a reality check,” said the teen.

【推荐2】As you probably know, leaning a foreign language is sometimes challenging. But it can also be fun. We spend hundreds of hours at school trying to get our tongues round different vocabulary and grammar in order to cam a qualification. But learning to speak a second language is more than just passing an exam-it opens doors to new opportunities, helps you to communicate with others and makes travelling overseas more satisfactory.

It might come as a surprise that the number of teenagers learning foreign languages in UK secondary schools has dropped by 45% since the turn of the millennium. German and French have fallen the most—these languages from two of the UK’s closest trading partners have declined at GCSE level. Another survey of secondary schools suggests a third of students have dropped at least one language from their GCSE exam options. There are some reasons for this, including many students` opinion that languages are difficult. Others have questioned the need for a second language when translation technology is advancing.

Matthew Fell, chief UK policy director for business group the CBI, believes that “The decline in language learning in schools must be reversed, or else the UK will be less competitive globally and young people less prepared for the modern world. ”But even for those who are eager to study another language, the opportunity is being reduced. In Scotland, for example, foreign language subjects are being pressed out of many secondary school timetables with some head teachers blaming pressure on the curriculum.

However, some native English speakers have admitted the benefits of speaking another tongue. Cassandra Scott, from Edinburgh, studied three languages in her final year at school. She is now a freelance translator in Edinburgh, and says “Learning languages at school really set the course for my career.”

【推荐1】Hello! Wait! Don’t run away. Yes, I know I am a cockroach (螳螂). So, what’s wrong with that?

You are speaking to the most successful species on the planet, you know! We’ve been around for 350 million years! Dinosaurs, gone. Trilobites, gone. Dodos, gone. But WE’RE STILL HERE.

So what’s the secret of our success? Be small! Run fast! Eat anything! Lay lots of eggs!

Sure, we’ve had plenty of enemies. If you’re small and full of protein, everything wants to eat you. Fish! Reptiles! Mammals! And don’t even talk to me about birds.

So what did we do? We got quick. We learned to hide. Today's thin, small turbo roach can squeeze so flat, and we can fit through a gap no bigger than a coin.

Over the last 350 million years, we've had plenty of time to perfect our amazing design. And we never skip a meal! What do we eat? What have you got? Rotting leaves, garbage, paper...Do you like dead things? They are my cup of tea! Just don’t offer me a cucumber. Disgust!

Ice ages came and went. Dinosaurs went extinct. Then the mammoths (猛犸象). But roaches, we just kept going. Once humans came along, roaches went everywhere humans went. In ships, on planes, in camel packs across the desert. Roach road trip! We even tagged along to space! That’s Uncle Anton. He hid on board the Apollo XII capsule — he was so mad when they just came right back to earth.

You can’t have too many roaches. Now there are 4,000 species of us. I hope you get to meet them all someday.

【推荐2】A Guide to the University

The TWU Cafeteria is open 7 am. to 8 pm. It serves snacks(小吃), drinks, ice cream bars and meals. You can pay with cash or your ID cards. You can add meal money to your ID cards at the Front Desk. Even if you do not buy your food in the cafeteria, you can use the tables to eat your lunch, to have meetings and to study.

If you are on campus in the evening or late at night, you can buy snacks, fast food, and drinks in the Lower Café located in the bottom level of the Gouglas Centre. This area is often used for entertainment such as concerts, games or TV watching.

The Globe, located in the bottom level of McMillan Hall, is available(可获得的) for relaxing, studying, cooking, and eating. Monthly activities are held here for all international students. Hours are 10 am to 10 pm, closed on Sundays.

Located on the top floor of Douglas Hall, the Wellness Centre is committed to physical, mental and social health. A doctor or a nurse is available if you have health questions or need immediate medical help or personal advice. The cost of this is included in your medical insurance. Hours are Monday to Friday, 9 am to noon and 1:00 to 4:30 pm.

All students have access to (接近，可以使用) the Writing Centre on the upper floor of Douglas Hall. Here, qualified volunteers will work with you on written work, grammar, vocabulary, and other academic skills. You can sign up for an appointment on the sign-up sheet outside the door: two 30–minute appointments per week maximum. This service is free.

The TWU Express is a shuttle(班车) service. The shuttle transports students between campus and the shopping centre, leaving from the Mattson Centre. Operation hours are between 9 am and 3 pm, Saturdays only. Round trip fare is $1.

【推荐3】Having trouble distinguishing one furry panda from another? A facial recognition app will make it easy for you. The app is developed by the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas along with researchers in Singapore Nanyang Technological University and Sichuan Normal University.

The image analysis research began in 2017. A database now contains about 120,000 images and 10,000 video clips of giant pandas. Close to 10,000 panda pictures have been analyzed and marked. Using the database, researchers are able to carry out automatic facial recognition on panda faces to tell one animal from another, the center said.

It’s not just a gimmick(噱头) for tourists, though. Panda researchers hope algorithms and AI technology will help them analyze data on pandas both in captivity (圈养) and the wild. "The app and database will help us gather more precise and well-rounded data on the population, distribution, ages, gender ratio, birth and deaths of wild pandas, who live in deep mountains and are hard to track," said Chen Peng, a researcher with the base who co-authored a paper on "Giant Panda Face Recognition Using Small Database." "It will definitely help us improve efficiency and effectiveness in conservation and management of the animals," Chen said.

China has carried out four scientific field research project of giant pandas in the wild. The giant panda was scientifically discovered 150 years ago and named in the city of Ya'an, Sichuan. It remains one of the world's most endangered species. The number of captive pandas was 548 globally as of November last year. Fewer than 2,000 pandas live in the wild, mostly in the provinces of Sichuan and Shaanxi.

【推荐1】Part of the importance of the practice of capacity building is that too many of us think our intellectual capabilities and focus are fixed. However, Benjamin Hardy, a psychologist and author, recently presented groundbreaking research that suggests that we can often change by changing our environment.

“Because people's lives become routine, you begin to see very predictable behaviors and attitudes,” Hardy says. This is why personality is viewed as stable and predictable over time. Hardy's book, Personality isn't Permanent, digs into this concept.

We regard our childhood, teenage years and 20s as our foundational learning periods. It can be common to think we can't learn as effectively as we grow older. But Hardy argues that we really stop learning because we stop trying new things.

In our young lives, we experience a number of “firsts”, ranging from social experiences to leaning opportunities. Absorbing new experiences is crucial to ensuring we keep expanding our minds and changing our personalities.

Learning new things is a great starting point to changing your personality for the better. Also consider making substantial changes to your professional environment. This can manifest in several ways. If you're a successful leader maybe you'd like to share your knowledge with others by coaching, writing or speaking. Anything that pushes you outside the limits of your normal work life can ensure you keep growing and changing.

In Personality Isn't Permanent, Hardy discusses a study from Harvard psychologist Dr. Ellen Langer. In 1981, Langer and her graduate students selected a group of men in their 70s and placed them in an environment modeled to look like the 1950s. It featured a black-and-white television, mid-century furniture and magazines from the era. As Hardy explains, “The goal was to trigger their minds and bodies to exhibit the energy and biological responses of a much younger person.” It actually worked.

【推荐2】Hundreds of years ago，news was carried from place to place by people on foot or by horse. It took days，weeks and sometimes months for people to receive news. Now it is possible to send words and pictures around the world in seconds. Billions of people learn about news stories of their own country and all over the world every day，either by watching TV or reading newspapers.

Newspapers have been an important part of everyday life since the 18th century. Many countries have hundreds of different newspapers. How do newspaper editors decide which news stories to print? Why do they print some stories and not others? What makes a good newspaper story?

Firstly，it is important to report news stories.TV stations can report news much faster than newspapers. Yet，newspapers give more about the same story. They may also look at the story in another way，or they may print completely different stories to those on TV.

Secondly，a news story has to be interesting and unusual. People don’t want to read stories about everyday life. As a result， many stories are about some kind of danger and seem to be “bad” news. For example，newspapers never print stories about planes landing safely；instead they print stories about plane accidents.

Another factor is also very important in many news stories. Many people are interested in news in foreign countries， but more prefer to read stories about people，places and events in their own country. So the stories on the front page in Chinese newspapers are usually very different from the ones in British，French and American newspapers.

【推荐3】With paper flowers and music hanging around in the air, Lyu Jun was hosting a small farewell ceremony at an industrial zone in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. It was a funeral for a pet dog. Lyu came up with the idea of becoming a pet mortician (殡葬师) four years ago when he was preparing to start a business.

“At that time, there was only one brick-and-mortar(实体的) business that provided funeral services for pets in Shenzhen, but hundreds of pets die every day in this city,” he said. According to Lyu, many pet owners used to bury the remains of their beloved animals near their homes , which had a harmful impact on the environment and created the risk of spreading disease.

He saw a gap in the market for someone able to properly handle the death of pets. “A pet funeral service provides treatment of the bodies that is harm-free, and it is the greatest comfort to pet owners,” Lyu said.

He takes good care of the remains of the pets and tidies up their appearance before the funeral. In addition, he prepares funeral addresses and selects suitable tombs for the pets. He also films funerals for owners who cannot attend the ceremonies, and provides paper and pens for those who want to write down their blessings and hang the notes on the wishing tree.

Over the past four years, Lyu has bid farewell to more than 2,000 dogs, cats and other kinds of animals. He also does volunteer work in his spare time to promote responsible dog raising. “The pet funeral service industry is still in its babyhood, and I hope there will be a set of strict standards for people who take on this job and a belter environment for the industry,” Lyu said.