【推荐2】Silbo Gomero is an ancient language of whistle that enabled people to communicate across long distances before the invention of the telephone or the computer. It’s now being revived on mountainous Canary Islands and the island of La Gomera, where the usual language is Spanish.

The Canary Islands government is providing funding to help school children on La Gomera to learn this ancient whistling language as part of their heritage. It sounds like birdsongs and was developed thousands of years ago by islanders to enable them to communicate up to two miles across La Gomera’s valleys.

In the past, Silbo Gomero has been passed down from parent to child, but the islanders felt embarrassed at this form of communication when they came into contact with the outside world and modern technology. It started to die out when the telephone arrived and the island open to tourism. However, the government realized what was happening and decided to make sure that it would not be lost. So, since 1999 Silbo Gomero has been part of the school curriculum and now about 3,000 Gomero children spend at least 25 minutes a week learning it. This is enough time for the basics to be learned.

Probably originating in the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, the language was brought to the island by settlers 2,500 years ago. It was adapted to Spanish speech patterns, but uses tones rather than vowels and consonants (辅音). These are whistled at different frequencies (频率) to produce over 4,000 words, making proper conversations possible.

The importance of the language is growing. In 2003 the island held the first International Congress of Whistled Languages. Research is now being carried out in all places to which Gomerans have traditionally emigrated (移居国外) and where forms of the language survive. The Canary government’s Historical Heritage Department hopes to attract outside support so that it will continue.

【推荐3】Buzzwords (流行词汇)

Splinternet

Europe is floating regulation that could impose temporary bans on US tech companies that violate its laws. If such territorial agreements become more common, the globally-connected Internet we know will more like what some have called the “splinternet”, or a collection of different Internets whose limits are determined by national or regional borders.

Cyberpunk

—Do you think we are already in a cyberpunk age?

—I think we are. Just look around us, we are enjoying the fruit of high technology when we order almost everything at our fingertips. But the people delivering the products can’t even have a decent meal. That’s a typical “high tech, low life” contrast.

Mansplaining

—You must follow my instructions to complete the project. Don’t you ever screw up.

—Stop mansplaining, OK? I’m far more experienced than you.

Digital natives

If you are wondering why “Phone” app icon is designed like that and looks almost the same on every smartphone, you are definitely one of the digital natives who don’t know what a telephone is.

Social bankruptcy

Have you ever found it extremely exhausting trying to maintain a balanced relationship with all your social media friends and followers? Perhaps it’s time that you go social bankruptcy. Just close all your accounts and go out and enjoy the sunshine.

【推荐1】Do you love to play soccer? If you do, then you’ve probably daydreamed from time to time about scoring the winning goal in a big game. Perhaps you’ve even pictured exactly how it would happen. A bicycle kick (倒钩射门) can help you.

There are probably very few soccer players who haven’t dreamed of scoring a goal on a bicycle kick. It’s a feat even more impressive than a hat trick. You can try to describe a perfect bicycle kick, but somehow words struggle to convey the magic found in this unique combination of grace,beauty,and athletic prowess (超凡技术). In soccer,few moves can compare to the bicycle kick. It doesn’t happen often. So it’s not often that you’re able to witness one.

Given how special bicycle kicks are, it should come as no surprise that there’s some argument about exactly who invented the bicycle kick. Some soccer historians claim Ramon Unzaga invented the bicycle kick in 1914 in Talcahuano, Chile. Others believe the bicycle kick may have been invented as early as 1892 in Callao, Peru, in a game against British sailors. Even legendary   Brazilian striker Leonidas claims to have invented the move in 1932.

Regardless of who invented the bicycle kick, it has been-a special part of soccer for a century now. Only goalkeepers with very exceptional reflexes (反应) might be able to react quickly enough to block a shot from a bicycle kick. Why?Scientists claim it’s because of the physics involved in a bicycle kick. Since the player’s body is high above the ground and angled upward, the kicking leg has a greater distance than normal to travel before hitting the ball. The result: a forceful kick that sends the ball toward the goal more quickly than normal.

If you’re a soccer player, you’ve probably tried a bicycle kick a time or two. It’s not easy. But you’ll be able to see the basics broken down into steps by jumping online to check out how to do a bicycle kick.

【推荐2】In business, as in life, good leaders hope for the best and plan for the worst. There’s a reason that experts refer to the regular expansion and contraction of the economy as the business cycle.

Even producers of the most recession-proof products—toiletries, beer, funeral services—need to consider how rising and falling consumer sentiment will affect their bottom line.

Of course, timing the next downturn is easier said than done. So as we head into a new year, we reached out to the Fast Company Impact Council—a leadership group of 200 founders, executives, and creatives—to gauge how some of the smartest and most innovative people in business are thinking about a possible recession.

About 4 in 10 respondents told us they expect the global economy in 2020 to perform about the same. But remarkably, nearly 45% predicted that the next 12 months would be worse for business. Only 16% said that the global economy would be better.

Impact Council members were more like-minded about the timing of the next downturn. While 21% predicted a recession would hit in 2020, the majority (54%) said it would likely arrive in 2021, after the next presidential election. About 15% responded that the next recession would come in 2022. Only 1 in 10 said the economy would continue to grow until 2023 or later.