【推荐2】From chicken feet socks to green fish head masks, from sad frog toys to dinosaur costumes, “ugly” products have become popular among young people.

On the social media platform Douban, there is a group called Protection of Ugly Things with more than 200, 000 members. They post “ugly things” they see and buy in daily life. Many of the comments below the posts are “cute” and “the more I look at it, the more I love it”.

Some museums have also followed the trend and produced many “ugly” but impressive cultural and creative products. For example, on June 14, the Gansu Provincial Museum brought out a stuffed toy. It’s based on its famous bronze sculpture, known as Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Swallow.

The toy recreates the details of the sculpture in a cute and cartoon style. The horse puts on a crooked smile, standing on a chubby green bird. This makes the toy “more fashionable and more fun”, so it can connect with ordinary people, the museum said.

In fact, some of the “ugly” products can also be useful. Yin Peixin, 11, from Hubei, has a cabbage dog toy. Unlike others, she doesn’t find it ugly. “It’s a creative design to mix cabbage with a dog. The toy makes me feel better when I’m upset. It also serves as a mini pillow to help me have a good sleep, ” said Yin.

According to Zhang Lei, a professor at Zhejiang University of Technology, the rise in the popularity of ugly things means that young people want to show that they’re different. Suffering from tiredness of “perfect” items, they hope to get pleasure and a new taste of life from something a little more “ugly”.

【推荐3】As popular as they are globally, selfie sticks (自拍杆) are being asked to stay away from more places. Now the Palace Museum has become cautious about the device (设备), too.

Museums take the lead

Out of safety concern, a number of museums took the lead earlier this year to ban selfie sticks in order to protect their artworks and visitors. Several major museums in other countries have said “no” to the device, including the Rome’s Colosseum, the Smithsonian museums in Washington and the National Portrait Gallery in the UK. More Chinese museums are joining the international trend as well, for example, the Nanjing Museum, which took the step last week.

Although the Palace Museum has not issued an official ban, the museum’s administration has recently warned visitors to be more careful with the device. If the device is used in crowded place or narrow area, the staff is likely to walk up and stop it. Selfie sticks are also advised to stay outside the exhibition area in the museum, as the stretchable (可伸缩的) device can be disturbing to other visitors and dangerous to the museum objects.

It is still a question whether sefie sticks will be challenged in more casual occasions like amusement parks, but the Tokyo Disneyland officially bans the use of selfie stick inside the theme park area.

The voices

The Louvre museum in Paris has not yet banned selfie sticks, but an action is expected to be announced in a few weeks. A leader of the museum told a foreign media his vexation: More visitors are waving the devices high in the air, and some of them are only few centimeters away from the famous original Mona Lisa.

“Museum photos are good for spreading the cultural messages, but we should pay attention to our ways,” said Cao Wei, a famous Sina Weibo blogger. “I support the museums’ actions on the selfie stick ban.”

【推荐2】The Earth set unofficial record high temperatures last week. Scientists said they were a clear sign of how pollutants released by humans are warming the environment. “Heat sets the pace of our climate in so many ways... it’s never just the heat,” said Kim Cobb. a climate scientist at Brown University.

Ocean warming, wildfire smoke and early arrived EI Nino that much of North America experienced this summer are other signs of climate troubles. Other recent natural events also show that climate change has entered new territory.

Most of the planet is covered by oceans, which have taken in 90 percent of the recent warming caused by planet-warming gases. In April, worldwide ocean temperature rose to 21, 1°C, which scientists believe was caused by a combination of planet-warming gases and the early EI Nino formation. EI Nino is a period of warning Pacific Ocean waters. Newly published data documented exceptionally warm ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic and also extreme sea heat waves near Ireland, Britain, and in the Baltic Sea.

High levels of wildfire smoke were more common on the US West Coast recently. Several rounds of smoke from wildfires in northern Canada brought dangerous air quality levels to eastern North America. Scientists say that climate change will make wildfires and smoke more intense and that the East Coast will see more of it.

The current EI Nino formed a month or two earlier than usual. It replaced La Nina that, with its cooling of Pacific waters, kept worldwide temperatures down. That means that it will have more time than usual to strengthen. It is predicted that there is a 98 percent chance that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest on record. One of these years would beat temperatures from 2016 when an exceptionally strong EI Nino was present.

【推荐3】A sustainable (可持续的) neighborhood in the Dutch town of Nieuwkoop is leaving on the welcome light for bats. And if all goes well, they’ll never even notice it.

The neighborhood, based on research showing that light-shy bats are impacted by white and green light, but not red, uses street lighting that features specialized bat-friendly LEDs. This particular network of lights shines with a somewhat strange red color. To light-sensitive nocturnal (夜间活动的) creatures, however, this specialized red light preserves the night condi-tions important to their well-being.

“Bats don’t see red light as particularly bright,” said Maurice Donners, a senior scientist at Signify, which designed the new streetlights. “So if you have certain bat species that are really avoiding light, I think the obvious thing to do is use red light which is visible to us, but is much less visible, or perhaps even invisible, to bats.

The motivating factor behind using the new streetlights came after Nieuwkoop decided to create a new neighborhood of 89 homes near a nature reserve for rare and threatened species, which was also home to many light-sensitive bats. To reduce the impact the new community would have on the bats’ nocturnal feeding habits without compromising the safety of local people, developers reached out to Signify to find out more about the use of the bat-friendly lights.

The bat-friendly lights in Nieuwkoop are networked and have energy-saving features like dynamic dimming (调光) and scheduling. Additionally, people there can also request changes in brightness to individual lights outside their homes. As an added bonus, the red lights also don’t attract insects.

“When developing our unique housing program, our goal was to make the project as sustainable as possible, while preserving our local bat species with little impact on their living place,” Guus Elkhuizen, a city council member, said. “We’ve managed to do this and kept our carbon footprint and energy consumption to a minimum. I’m so proud.”

【推荐1】At the age of eight, Leon Portz was gradually losing his eyesight due to a born condition when he was given his first computer. By the age of nine, he had figured out how to speed up the machine-generated voice that could read out texts on websites and some electronic devices, allowing him to get the information faster. He now listens to texts much more quickly than before.

But his love of science only truly developed when he moved from his hometown in central Germany to Marburg, a medieval (中世纪的) university town, to attend a school for the blind. As it turned out, that move transported him into a place of inclusive innovation.

Marburg proudly calls itself a city for blind people. As an educational institute for the blind, the Blista in German was founded here during World War I, to provide opportunities for young men blinded in the war. The institute has had countless inventions for blind people since then. It has also shaped the town around it, turning it into a place where “everything is ideal for blind people”.

Marburg is small and hilly, so you can easily find where you are. Different kinds of leisure facilities span the city, such as a horse-riding school for the blind, and blind rowing, football, climbing and skiing clubs.

The Blista and its students have driven many of these inventions. Law and psychology are among the most popular course choices, as the materials can be studied easily with aids such as screen readers. Now teachers and pupils from the institute are trying another field: the natural sciences. “I don’t feel like a pioneer, but I guess I am one,” says Portz.

【推荐2】You may love staying home and having a quiet day in on Christmas — and we totally get that. But there’s a strong case for travelling during Christmas, if only once or a few times, too. In the following cities around the world, Christmastime is a wintery and magical experience like no other.

New York

At the head of our list is New York, the iconic setting for so many Christmas movies. Go skating in Rockefeller Center in front of the big tree(or if line s are too long, check out Central Park’s Wollman Rink for fantastic skyline views), and visit the Christmas shops at Bryant Park Winter Village.

Tallinn, Estonia

For an up- and-coming travel destination with one of the best preserved medieval towns in the world, head to this Baltic capital across the sea from Finland. It also just so happens to be gorgeous at Christmas time, with an authentic Christmas market, Christmas festival, concerts, and Christmas tree — thought to be the oldest public display of a Christmas tree in the world.

Quebec City

With its cobbled street s and stone buildings in the shadow of the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, which looks like a castle but is actually a hotel, visitors feel like they’ re in a holiday fairytale. Plus, its northern destination makes a white Christmas nearly a guarantee. Cap it off (if you dare) with the toboggan (雪橇) slide right in the centre of town, thrilling riders since 1884 with speeds of over 64 kilometres per hour.

Bruges, Belgium

This pedestrian- friendly city is breathtaking to walk around at Christmas time — or take a boat ride along the shining canals. The medie val buildings look like cookie houses. The city’s holiday events include a midwinter festival, winter market, carolling and music, and an ice sculpture exhibit.