【推荐1】There are many ways in which you can add a little bit of excitement to your life, and learning a second language is definitely one you should consider.     1    

Travel abroad with confidence.

If you want to get some adventure, then going to a foreign country is one great way of getting started. However, if the thought of heading off somewhere abroad is a worry for you, then you might want to consider whether speaking the language would let you travel more confidently.    2    

Get off the beaten track.

    3     Instead of sticking to the usual travel route you can hop a bus or jump on a train and go somewhere few foreigners go to. This on its own can be wonderfully exciting but if you want even more adventure you could head out into the countryside, a small village or even a jungle. The world is full of wonderful spots which are hard to get to unless you know how to ask.

    4    

Speaking to the locals is another must if you want a trip which is full of action. These are the people who know where the parties, the festivals and the big sporting events are going on.    5     Once you get talking to the locals you never know where you will end up or what you will be doing.

【推荐1】Before COVID-19, a friend, named Mark, who lived in a southern English village, used to commute to London. He'd leave home at 7:45 a.m. and return at 9:00 p.m., upset and worn out. He rarely saw his children, let alone his neighbours.

Now he works remotely from his garden, takes the kids to school and has used his spare time to volunteer to manage a village tennis club. He has gone from a commuter to a key member of the community. He isn't alone. In the former commuter belts of big cities, remote work is now creating the community. Is this a net gain for humanity, or the disadvantages outweigh the advantages?

Commuting worsened the decline of life. Ever fewer Americans knew their neighbours, worked as a volunteer or went bowling in clubs any more. Every 10 minutes of commuting results in 10 percent fewer social connections. The Office for National Statistics found fewer chats or exchanges of favours with neighbours, a weakening sense of local belonging and falling membership of "political, voluntary, professional or recreational organizations" in 2018 Compared with 2012.

I'd seen this over the decades in the neighbourhood where I finished school and where I still had family. At some point the church on the high street was replaced by a pub. Once people stopped gathering in pubs too, the place became a bad chain restaurant. I returned to the neighbourhood last month. COVID-19 has transformed it into a 15-minute suburb, where all the necessities of life are a walk away. Many residents now work from home. Everyone goes for a morning run, exchanging favours and, afterwards, parents appear in local coffee shops or hot-yoga Studios.

You may make fun of these new urban daily life all you like, but they are what makes up the 21st-century community. After a week there, I was waving to familiar faces on the street. It felt like the suburban idyll in the 1950s recalled by the Beatles in "Penny Lane", with the coffee shops where “all the people that come and go/stop and say hello”.

Some people worry that the neighbourhood revival will kill off city centres. But in the long term, that won't happen in attractive cities. The people living in suburbs are going to London a day or so a week, and they'll go more often when nightlife and cultural areas revive. They love central London. Some would happily move there. They just don't want to commute there every day. David Milder, an expert living downtown, sees Central Business Districts giving way to "Central Social Districts".

【推荐3】Five months ago, a new species of box jellyfish was discovered in Hong Kong. It is a relative of the deadly Australian box jellyfish, one of the most venomous (有毒的) animals on Earth. One sting (刺伤) from it can kill a person in minutes.

A university team in Hong Kong, led by Qiu Jianwen from the Hong Kong Baptist University, discovered it at the Mai Po Nature Reserve, a local wetland area. It was the first discovery of a new box jellyfish species in Chinese waters.

But it’s not the first time biology professor Qiu has discovered a new creature. He’s made more than 30 discoveries in about 20 years spent exploring new marine (海洋的) animals.

Qiu doesn’t go looking for new species on purpose. In 2014, he did research on the health of coral in Hong Kong waters. To learn more, Qiu and his team needed to find all of the coral species involved. And in doing so, they discovered four new coral species.

Finding new species reminds Qiu of how biologically diverse Hong Kong’s waters are. Hong Kong takes up just 0.03 percent of China’s total marine area, yet it is home to more than 25 percent of all marine species recorded in China, a report by the University of Hong Kong showed.

However, Hong Kong’s marine animals face threats, due to factors including habitat loss, climate change and overuse of natural resources.

Although action is being taken, it focuses more on bigger creatures, like dolphins and birds. “Many marine species are small and they are often overlooked. If these species were to become extinct, few people would notice or care. But for me, each one has its rightful place,” said Qiu.

He hopes everyone can recognize the importance of the ocean. “When more people show concern for the ocean, we are, in fact, acting for our own benefit,” he said.