【推荐1】Over the centuries, people have created many ceremonies to accompany the consumption of their favorite drinks, tea and coffee. Just think of the Japanese tea ceremony, British afternoon tea, or the morning coffee ceremony in countless societies. Why are these drinks so popular?     1     In the modern world, the new caffeine “delivery systems” are canned energy drinks. And the more modern our world gets, the more we seem to need caffeine.

Most people don’t think twice about their caffeine intake.     2     So the widespread use of caffeine is now a cause for concern among scientist and public health authorities. One result of this concern is that you are not allowed to sell energy drinks in France or Denmark. And in other European countries, manufacturers have to label cans with warnings. The United States has no such rule. but many canned energy drinks sold in the USA carry warnings anyway.

    3     Studies have shown it helps relieve pain and increases reaction speed. Despite this, a study in Ireland recommended that children shouldn’t drink energy drinks.

“For most of human existence, the pattern of sleeping and waking has followed sunrise and sunset,” explains Charles Czeisler, a neuroscientist(神经学家)at Harvard Medical School. “Then, the way we work changed from a schedule built around the sun to an indoor job timed by a clock, and as a result, humans had to adapt. Electric light, and caffeinated food and drink allowed people to follow a work schedule set by the clock, not by daylight or the natural sleep cycle.     4    . Without enough sleep the human body will not function at its best, physically, mentally, or emotionally.”

According to Czeisler, the mode m desire for caffeine is a “Catch-22 situation”(左右为难)-    5     But the main reason that people can’t stay awake is they don’t get enough regular sleep because they use caffeine.

【推荐2】In the green hills of northern Thailand, a woman painstakingly picks coffee beans out of a pile of elephant dung (粪便). They are preparing an essential ingredient of one of the world’s most expensive drinks.

This remote corner of Thailand is better known for drug trafficking than coffee, but Blake Dinkin decided it was a perfect place for him to combine wildlife conservation with business.     1     The company uses elephant dung to create a wonderful coffee.

Initially, Dinkin considered using a kind of cat to make coffee, but he found the cats were usually kept in cages and force-fed beans.     2     Eventually, Dinkin settled on elephants after discovering that the animals sometimes eat coffee. He also teamed up with an elephant rescue charity which saves the animals from the tourist trade.

    3     “I thought it would be as simple as taking the beans, giving them to the elephants and out will come great coffee,” said Dinkin, adding that the initial result was “horrible”. It took him another nine years to actually succeed in doing what he wanted.

According to Dinkin, the enzymes (酶) in the elephant’s stomach function as a kind of slow cooker and the stomach acid takes the bitterness out of the beans. The elephant riders’ wives collect the coffee beans from the dung, before washing and drying them in the sun.

The rewards, however, are worth all the work. At around $1,880 per kilogram, the coffee doesn’t come cheap.     4     This helps its sales a lot.

【推荐3】There’s been lots of concern recently about the potential dangers of microwave popcorn (爆米花), but is this concern founded, or just overmuch fear-spreading? The answer is that many of the chemicals that caused worry in earlier decades have been removed from microwave popcorn, but some critics still are not satisfied.

“You may consider popcorn to be a low-calorie, high-fiber snack, but microwave popcorn isn’t a healthy choice,” explains nutrition expert Dan DeFigio. That’s because microwave popcorn bags were coated with perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) to prevent oil substance from leaking out. One particular type of PFC, known as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), has been linked to certain cancers, but the American Cancer Society says the evidence is unsure and more research is being done about this.

Nevertheless, in response to concerns about PFCs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) worked with popcorn makers back in 2011 to remove PFOA from their packaging. Three more PFCs were banned in the next five years. So today’s microwave popcorn doesn’t have these chemicals, but critics say that the alternatives could cause problems as the old ones, but less is known about them.

That’s not the only problem, however. The chemical that for decades lent buttery deliciousness to popcorn has also been connected in rare cases with major lung damage. Known as diacetyl (二乙酰), it’s long been a documented problem with workers in popcorn making facilities, but also can be risky for people who just eat the snack a lot. A 2007 study published in the journal Critical Reviews found that more than 80 percent of chemical release happened when the bag was opened post-popping. Although diacetyl has been removed from most products, some critics claim that the alternative to diacetyl is also harmful.

Most of the exposure to diacetyl came from inbreathing rather than eating popcorn. Therefore, experts recommend at least waiting for the bag to cool before you open it to reduce potentially harmful chemical exposure. Better yet, make your own fresh at home with an air popper. If you like to flavor it, add organic butter or some cheese.

【推荐1】Poetry is one of mankind’s oldest art forms. Since first analyzed by Aristotle, poetry has been part of every major art movement, and some say it expresses emotion better than any other forms. Reading poetry is necessary to gain a full understanding of the world and has many additional benefits .

The immediate benefits of reading poetry are improvements to vocabulary. Poetry makes the reader familiar with new terms and encourages verbal analysis. This presents reading as a creative act in its own right. The common practice of memorizing poems also improves long-term brain health. Studies have shown that people who memorize and recall poems are more resistant to Alzheimer’s.

Poetry also improves critical thinking by forcing a reader to think. In great poetry, meaning is not obvious or one-dimensional (维度). Understanding poetry is an active practice, rather than the passive engagement encouraged with other forms. Readers of poetry are more likely than non-readers to analyze information for viewpoints. This skill benefits not only students, but also anyone who wants to form their own opinions of news items or gain a better perspective upon documents like contracts. The critical thinking skills developed through reading poetry give greater control over language itself.

The most remarkable power of literature is its ability to unite reader and writer across time and cultural boundaries, which poetry offers in a powerful way. Poetry sets off memories and emotions in its readers. This connection between universal emotions and personal experience encourages the development of empathy. A reader might have no practical idea of what life was like during the Elizabethan-era in England. However, Shakespeare’s Sonnets with their universal themes of love and longing, can bridge the gap of centuries and help us gain an insight into people’s feelings in the 17th century.

【推荐1】Suppose your permanent residence, or hukou, was in Chongqing, you worked in Beijing and you needed to get a passport for a business trip abroad. What should you do?

You have to go back to Chongqing, which is 1,500km away, and apply to local public security authorities for the passport, because in China public services are closely linked to hukou. But a new regulation, which is part of the hukou reform, will make this annoying experience a thing of the past.

The regulation targets China’s newly introduced residence permit system, which will take effect on Jan 1, 2016. It allows people who don’t have local hukou to receive more access to basic public services in the cities where they are living. These include education, basic employment services, automobile registration, and passport and ID card application processing.

You can apply for a residence permit at the local police station, which has jurisdiction (管辖权) over the area where you live. The documents needed for the permit application include your ID card, photos and materials that prove that you have a job, a place to live, or that you are studying at an education institution.

To certify that you have a place to live, a house rental contract or property ownership certificate will do. For employment, a business license, job contract, or employment certificate can do the trick. If you are a student applying for the permit, show your student card or other documentation issued by your school.

Despite all this, maybe you are still not happy about not having a local hukou. Don’t worry. People will have a chance, as the country is reforming the hukou system further.

【推荐2】For top students from low-income families, applying to colleges is particularly difficult. One approach makes this whole process easier? Provide an adviser for them.

That's the idea behind CollegePoint, a program to help gifted students go to schools that match their intelligence. When a high school student takes a standardized test—the PSAT, SAT or ACT—and they score in the 90th percentile, and their families make less than $ 80, 000 a year, they get an email from the program offering them a free adviser. The advisers listen, guide and answer students' questions.

Connor Rechtzigel, an adviser in Minnesota, sees the importance of his role, for research shows that low-income students are far more likely to undermatch because they don't think they have what it takes to get in and because many don't even know what schools are out there. He helped high school senior Justice Benjamin, the first in his family to apply to college, thinking about what his ideal learning experience was. Finally, Justice narrowed in on smaller schools where he could study environmental science and made his final choice: Skidmore College in New York.

Figuring out how to pay for college is a major part of what CollegePoint advisers do. Nakhle, an adviser in North Carolina, is working with Hensley, an Ohio high school senior who can't get extra financial help from her family. They spent a lot of time comparing and analyzing her financial-aid award letters, which made her decision much clearer. Finally, the Ohio State University offered an option where she would pay nothing. Staying in-state wasn't her first choice, but it was the best option for her.

【推荐3】The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report stating that the world is quickly running out of time to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. To get there, the world would have to cut current emissions by 45 percent by 2030. That sounds absurdly unlikely.

But before we give in to despair, we should remember that the technology to address climate change is going along at a high speed. The largest source of U. S. carbon emissions is transportation, and a Green New Deal for motor vehicles would be quite straightforward.

The reason is simple: with some subsidies(补贴), electric cars and buses are now cost-competitive with fossil-fuel vehicles. Electric buses have made the greatest speed into the market, because they are a logical choice for electrification. By the end of 2018, electric vehicles were displacing about 280.000 barrels of oil demand per day——about 84 percent of which was due to buses.

But the electric car market is also reaching maturity(成熟), with appealing designs, longer range, and a quickly-expanding rapid charging network in many countries. It’s worth emphasizing that most of the infrastructure(基础设施) necessary to recharge electric vehicles already exists. People often tend to assume that we would need to replace every gas station, but virtually all homes and businesses already have an electrical connection which can be easily improved for fast charging. All that is needed to go fully electric is enough battery capacity and fast charging stations to deal with long trips.

Now America would have to repair its electricity production, freight rail, shipping, and so on to fully decarbonizes(脱碳)the transportation sector, which taken together will be considerably more difficult than simply extirpating fossil fuel vehicles from the market.

But greening America’s vehicle would be straightforward, relatively cheap, and a huge stride forward on climate. The politics of climate change are so fearful that despair can seem logical, but the first step to achieving a tough goal is the confident belief that it can be done. And this particular step wouldn't even be that tough.

【推荐1】Scientists say they have developed a system that uses machine learning to predict when and where lightning will strike. Researchers report the system is able to predict lightning strikes up to 30 minutes before they happen within a 30-kilometer area.

Lightning is a strong burst of electricity in the atmosphere. Since it carries an extremely powerful electrical charge, it can be destructive and deadly. European researchers have estimated that between 6,000 and 24,000 people are killed by lightning worldwide each year. For this reason, climate scientists have long sought to develop methods to predict lightning.

The system tested in the experiments uses a combination of data from weather stations and machine learning methods. The researchers developed a prediction model that was trained to recognize weather conditions that were likely to cause lightning.

The model was created with data collected over a 12-year period from 12 Swiss weather stations in cities and mountain areas. The data, related to four main surface conditions: air pressure, air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed, was placed into a unique machine learning algorithm (算法), which compared it to records of lightning strikes. Researchers say the algorithm was then able to learn the conditions under which lightning happens.

The researchers test-ran the system several times. They found that the system made predictions that proved correct almost 80 percent of the time. “It can now be used anywhere,” the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology said in a statement.

The researchers plan to keep developing the technology in partnership with a European effort that aims to create a lightning protection program. The effort is called the European Laser Lightning Rod project. Scientists working on the project are experimenting with a laser technology that could someday control lightning activity, transferring lightning charges from clouds to the ground. They hope that such technology can one day be used as protection against lightning strikes. Possible uses could be at stations, airports or places where large crowds gather.

【推荐2】Messages in honor of Stan Lee are pouring in on social media and other online sites. Lee, the creator of famous Marvel comic book characters, including Spider-Man, the Hulk, Black Panther and others, died on Monday in Los Angeles, California.

Lee was born in New York City, 1922. He began writing for comic books at 19, under the name Stan Lee. He explained that he used a false name because he wanted to write a serious and great piece of literature someday, as he did not want his link with comic books to be known when that happened. But it never did happen. As the pride in his work grew, he decided to legally change his name to Stan Lee.

Lee’s characters often had super powers, but they also had weaknesses and moral failings. They got up and went to work every morning. These super heroes usually lived in New York City and others parts of real America. They not only struggled to save the world, but also to pay their bills, make friends, and hold jobs. This made his Marvel comic book heroes stand apart from its competitor DC, the company that produced the seemingly perfect heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman.

Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, is a good example of Lee’s Marvel heroes. He is a deeply gifted inventor with serious mental health issues. Or, Peter Parker, a sensitive, brainy high-school student who has no idea how to deal with the frightening abilities he gets from the bite of a radioactive spider. Even Steve Rogers, whose Captain America was the most Superman-like of the Marvel group, had problems.

Actor Chris Evans who played that character Captain America, posted a tribute (悼念) to Captain America’s creator on Twitter Monday. “There will never be another Stan Lee,” he wrote. Actor, writer and funny man Seth Rogen never played one of Lee’s characters but he remembered him with thanks in a tweet. “Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel different realize they are special,” he wrote.

【推荐3】Several years ago, the Woburn Safari Park in England admitted to killing many monkeys. The park said that it cost too much to continue to feed the monkeys, so the animals were shot and left to die. This is just one of the many cases in which animals are mistreated and murdered by humans.

Animals should be able to live life in natural environments without any negative influences by humans. The first reason zoos should be banned is that tyrannizing and murder are becoming more and more popular in zoos worldwide. In 2007, the IDA(In Defense of Animals) came out with a top ten list of the worst places for an elephant to go. All ten of the American zoos have had elephants die there, because of mistreatment, such as improper diet,   lack of exercise, and unsuitable living conditions.

Another example of mistreatment in zoos is illegal products made from animals. A tiger bone wine, banned in 1993, has been sold on the Chinese black market for several years now. Illegal trades like this are very easy because of the zoos. The third reason zoos should be illegal is that they can give visitors the wrong idea about animals. Animals will behave differently in the wild from how they will in a closed area. So, if someone came across an animal in the wild, they may think it is safe to approach the animal when it is not. People could easily get hurt.

Humans are animals too. What if animals got smart and decided to capture humans and put them in zoos? So in order to keep the circle of life and continue to have animals be a part of the world, humans must take basic steps to maintain the delicate balance between man and beast.