【推荐1】I think a close friend is someone you get on really well with, who helps you when you have problems, who gives you advice, and who always has time for you. I didn’t use to have many close friends when I was at school or at university as I was very shy, but now I have several. They are all women—I think it’s difficult to have a close friend of the opposite sex(异性).

I don’t really have any close friends. I know a lot of people but mainly through work, and the kinds of social occasions(场合)when we meet are business dinners and evening parties. I think if you come from a really close family, then friends are a bit unnecessary. I prefer to spend the little free time I have with my family.

I think a close friend is someone who you’ve known for a long time, and who you still get on with. They probably have similar hobbies to you so you can do things together. I’ve got three close friends who I was at high school with and we often go away together(without our parents of course). We always go camping and somewhere we can go walking, play football and be outside in the open air.

For me close friends are the people you spend your free time with. I go out at weekends with a group of people—there are about seven of us, and I’d say we are all close friends. We also live near each other. I don’t think you can have close friends at a distance; you need to be able to see each other often. But I don’t think you need to be doing the same things. I mean I’m at university but none of my friends are.

【推荐2】In 1973, I was teaching elementary school. Each day, 27 kids entered “The Thinking Laboratory.” That was the name students voted for after deciding that “Room 104” was too dull.

Freddy was an average student, but not an average person. He had the rare balance of fun and compassion（同情）. He would laugh the loudest over fun and be the saddest over anyone’s misfortune.

Before the school year ended, I gave the kids a special gift, T-shirts with the words “Verbs Are Your Friends ” on them. I had advised the kids that while verbs（动词）may seem dull , most of the fun things they do throughout their lives will be verbs.

Through the years, I’d run into former students who would provide updates on old classmates. I learned that Freddy did several jobs after his graduation from high school and remained the same caring person I met forty years before . Once, while working overnight at a store, he let a homeless man sleep in his truck. Another time, he lent a friend money to buy a house.

Just last year, I was conducting a workshop when someone knocked at the classroom door. A woman excused the interruption and handed me an envelope. I stopped teaching and opened it up. Inside were the “Verbs” shirt and a note from Freddy’s mother. “Freddy passed away on Thanksgiving. He wanted you to have this. ”

I told the story to the class. As sad as it was, I couldn’t help smiling. Although Freddy was taken from us, we all took something from Freddy.

【推荐1】If you visit Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali, you’ll see how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the city. There are dozens of hand-washing basins at the city’s bus stations that allow passengers to wash their hands before getting on the bus. Layla Mc Cay, director of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health in the AUAS? told the BBC, “If everyone was washing their hands actively, we would see a reduction in all types of infection.”

In fact, every time there is a serious disease outbreak somewhere in the world, city planners come up with new ideas to fight it. Pandemics have been shaping our cities for a long time.

In 1854, for example, a cholera (霍乱) outbreak in London, UK led to the design of modern sewers (下水道).At that time, Londoners’ drinking water came from groundwater. It was heavily polluted by wastewater. The sewer system separated the wastewater from the groundwater. This stopped the spread of cholera.“By sewering certain towns in England, the death rate from lung diseases alone was reduced by 50 percent,” George Pierson wrote in his book The Separate System of Sewerage.

In New York,US,tuberculosis(肺结核)killed many people in the early 1900s. One reason was the overcrowded conditions in apartment buildings. Eventually the New York government made laws that required all apartments to have air shafts, windows, running water and indoor toilets.

During this year’s pandemic, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidaogo introduced the idea of decentralizing the city——every neighborhood should have a mix of stores, homes, offices, and other important buildings. Every basic need should be just a 15-minute walk away. This would reduce crowding on public transportation and prevent the spread of disease.

【推荐2】Every animal species carries unique viruses that have specifically adapted to infecting it. Over time, some of these have jumped to humans — these are known as “zoonotic” (动物传染的) viruses.

As the population grows, we move into wild areas, which brings us into more contact with animals we don’t normally have contact with. Thus, viruses can jump from animal to humans and they can spread between humans, through close contact with body fluids (体液) like blood or urine (尿液).

Because every virus has evolved to target a particular species, it’s rare for a virus to be able to jump to another species. When this does happen, it’s by chance, and it usually requires a large amount of contact with the virus.

At first, the virus is usually not well-suited to its new host and doesn’t spread easily. Overtime, however, it can evolve in the new host to produce variants (变体) that are better adapted.

When viruses jump to a new host, they often cause more severe disease. This is because viruses and their first hosts have evolved together, and the species has time to build up resistance (抵抗力). The new host species, on the other hand, might not have evolved the ability to deal with the virus. For example, when we come into contact with bats and their viruses, we may develop rabies (狂犬病) or Ebola virus (埃博拉病毒) disease, while the bats themselves are less affected.

It’s likely that bats are the original source of three recently known coronaviruses: SARS-CoV (2003), MERS-CoV (2012) and SARS-CoV-2 (whose current official name is COVID-19). All of these jump from bats to humans via an intermediate animal; in the case of SARS-CoV-2, this may have been pangolins (穿山甲), but more research is needed.

【推荐3】The COVID-19 and flu are both respiratory infectious diseases, with similar symptoms including fever and cough, but they are not the same.

Both the COVID-19 and flu are diseases caused by a virus. In the case of flu, the pathogens(病原体) are flu viruses, and for COVID-19, it is a novel coronavirus(新型冠状病毒).

Common symptoms for flu and novel coronavirus are nearly identical fever, cough and tiredness, sometimes sore throat and diarrhea. In severe cases, they result in pneumonia(肺炎), and even deaths in the worst cases. Flu has seasonal ups and downs. Although it can exist all year round, the virus infects more people in winter and spring. As for the novel coronavirus, there is not yet enough evidence showing how it would                    respond to changing weather.

The mortality rate(死亡率) for the novel coronavirus is higher than that for flu. Generally, people with poor immunity(免疫力), especially children and seniors, are more likely to catch seasonal flu and develop into severe cases. As for the novel coronavirus, the median age for the infected is 51. But the novel coronavirus is a brand-new virus, and no one has total                    immunity no matter their age.

Both the flu and the novel coronavirus are transmitted in similar ways, by direct contact with infected patients or small droplets from the nose or mouth when a person with viruses coughs or breathes.

Flu can be spread by an infected person for several days before their symptoms appear. As for the novel coronavirus, spread might be possible before people show symptoms, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

For the novel coronavirus, there is also a risk for aerosol transmission(气溶胶传播). In health facilities, people may catch the virus if they breathed in aerosol, the suspension of fine solid or liquid particles in the air, which have been contaminated by the virus. The novel coronavirus has also been found in patients' fecal(排泄物) samples, but fecal-oral transmission does not appear to be a major transmission route.

【推荐1】The other day on a cold night, I left my wife and drove from Harrisburg to Lewisburg, a distance of about 100 miles. It was rather late. Several times I got stuck behind a slow-moving truck on a narrow road with a solid white line on my left, and I became increasingly impatient.

At one point along an open road, I came to a crossing with a traffic light. I was alone on the road by now, but as I drove near the light, it turned red and I made a stop. I looked left, right and behind me. Nothing. Not a car, no suggestion of car lamps, but there I sat, waiting for the light to change, the only human being for at least a mile in any direction.

I started wondering why I refused to run the light. I was not afraid of being caught, because there was clearly no policeman around, and there certainly would have been no danger in going through it.

Much later that night, the question of why I'd stopped for that light came back to me. I think I stopped because it's part of a contract（契约）we all have with each other. It's not only the law, but it's an agreement we have, and we trust each other to honor it： we don't go through red lights.

Trust is our first inclination. Doubting others does not seem to be natural to us. The whole construction of our society depends on mutual（相互的）trust, not distrust. We do what we say we'll do； we show up when we say we'll show up； and we pay when we say we'll pay. We trust each other in these matters, and we're angry or disappointed with the person or organization that breaks the trust we have in them.

I am so proud of myself for stopping for the red light that night.

【推荐3】The event happened to Hunter as if it were yesterday when he was working in a fancy French restaurant in Denver. The ice cream he was serving fell onto the white dress of a rich and important woman.

Thirty years have passed, but Hunter can't get the memory out of his mind, nor the woman’s kind reaction. She was shocked, regained calmness and, in a kind voice, told the young Hunter, “It’s OK. It wasn't your fault.” When she left the restaurant, she also left the future Fortune 500 CEO with a life lesson. You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the waiter.

Hunter isn't the only CEO to have made this discovery. Rather, it seems to be one of those few laws of the land that every CEO learns on the way up. It's hard to get a dozen CEOS to agree about anything, but most agree with the Waiter Rule. They say how others treat the CEO says nothing. But how others treat the waiter is like a window into the soul.

Watch out for anyone who pulls out the power card to say something like, “I could buy this place and fire you,” or “I know the owner and I could have you fired.” Those who say such things have shown more about their character than about their wealth and power.

The CEO who came up with it, or at least first wrote it down, is Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson. He wrote a best-selling book called Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management.

“A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person,” Swanson says. “I will never offer a job to the person who is sweet to the boss but turns rude to someone cleaning the tables.”

【推荐1】An idea that started in Seattle’s public library has spread throughout America and beyond. The concept is simple: help to build a sense of community in a city by getting everyone to read the same book at the same time.

In addition to encouraging reading as a pursuit (追求) to be enjoyed by all, the program allows strangers to communicate by discussing the book on the bus, as well as promoting reading as an experience to be shared in families and schools. The idea came from Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl who launched (发起) the “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book” project in 1998. Her original program used author visits, study guides and book discussion groups to bring people together with a book, but the idea has since expanded to many other American cities, and even to Hong Kong.

In Chicago, the mayor (市长) appeared on television to announce the choice of To Kill a Mockingbird as the first book in the “One Book, One Chicago” program. As a result, reading clubs and neighbourhood groups sprang up around the city. Across the US, stories emerged of parents and children reading to each other at night and strangers chatting away on the bus about plot and character.

The only problem arose in New York, where local readers could not decide on one book to represent the huge and diverse population. This may show that the idea works best in medium-sized cities or large towns, where a greater sense of unity(一致) can be achieved. Or it may show that New Yorkers rather missed the point, putting all their energy and passion into the choice of the book rather than discussion about a book itself.

Ultimately as Nancy points out, the level of success is not measured by how many people read a book, but by how many people are enriched by the process or have enjoyed speaking to someone with whom they would not otherwise have shared a word.

【推荐2】Experts agree that parents who give up control over their children’s lives would raise them to be more independent adults. While the vast majority of parents are not in the position to bribe their children into elite(精英) schools, this extreme case illustrates the temptation many feel to take control of their kids’ lives. But an extreme hands-on approach can have devastating (毁灭性的) consequences when it comes to a child’s mental health.

“These parents thought their kids were incapable of managing their lives by themselves. And I don’t think there’s any worse message you can give somebody than ‘I don’t have any confidence in your ability to handle your own life,’” the clinical neuropsychologist Willam Stixrud told HuffPost. Stixrud is the author of The Self-driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives, along with Ned Johnson.

In their research, Stixrud and Johnson have identified the importance for young people to feel a sense of control over their own lives. “We have this epidemic(流行病) of stress-related problems like anxiety and depression, and so many of those are related to the fact that kids feel so little control over their lives,” said Stixrud. “They feel like, ‘Here’s a script to get into college, and that’s what your life is going to be.’ It’s incredibly stressful and discouraging for many kids.” In order to develop healthy self-motivation, young people need to feel a sense of agency and autonomy, which parents and educators have the power to promote.

“We suggest parents think of themselves as consultants, rather than a kid’s manager or boss, or the homework police. It’s a very different kind of thinking about your role”, said Stixrud, “As a consultant, your role is not to force anything or say ‘You need to be like this’. Instead, help your kid understand what he or she wants to be.” He advises parents to encourage their kids to make their own decisions long before the college years. It’s important to constantly ask, “Whose life is this?” and realize the answer is “My child’s life, not mine.”

【推荐3】Two hundred years ago, American students went to American schools. Like you, they studied math, spelling and geography. Unlike you, they also studied Greek (希腊语) and Latin (拉丁语). In fact, students spent more than half their time studying Greek and Latin.

The same was true for most students in Europe. Until the seventh century, all educated Europeans knew Latin. It did not matter if they lived in England, Italy, France or Spain. If they were educated, they knew Latin.

During the seventh century, educated Europeans began to study Greek as well as Latin. Greek and Latin had been the leading languages of the ancient Greeks and Romans. All educated Europeans were expected to know these languages.

To educated Europeans, the languages of the Greeks and the Romans were important. The ideas of the Greeks and Romans were also important. People knew that many of their own ideas had come from the Greeks and the Romans. To understand their own culture, they must understand its origin (起源). They knew that those beginnings lay in the classical (古典文学的) world.

Today we have so many things to study that few people have time to learn Greek and Latin. Few of you will study either language in school. Yet the ideas of the Greeks and the Romans are still important to us. These ideas still help to shape western culture today. To understand our own culture, we must understand the culture of the classical world.