【推荐3】Do you experience worse car sickness in electric cars than in petrol cars? You’re not alone - and when it comes to self-driving cars, it may be even worse.

Although scientists aren’t exactly sure what causes motion sickness, it has to do with passengers losing the ability to predict future movements. When you read a magazine in a car, your eyes will signal to your brain that the car is not moving. However, your brain will recognize the vibrations (振动) and turns that the car makes. This can confuse the mind and make you start to feel sick.

As for electric cars, one-pedal (单踏板) driving is often linked to feelings of car sickness, according to the US Department of Energy. The one pedal does both the accelerating (加速) and braking (刹 车) - the driver steps on the pedal to increase speed and takes their foot off the pedal to slow down. If you stop accelerating, the one-pedal will automatically slow and stop the car. The deceleration caused by this system is thus more rapid than that of petrol cars, which may lead to motion sickness.

Another technological advance that can also be related to car sickness is the larger and increasing number of screens inside vehicles. These screens overburden users with visual information, which discourages them from looking outside, according to The Conversation. Passengers thereby lose their ability to take in the “correct” visual signals, such as the moving surroundings, which can lead to sickness.

Unfortunately, even when people get used to the movements of electric cars and experience less car sickness, self-driving vehicles might be another challenge for them. According to a 2015 study, as much as 12 percent of the US population may feel carsick while riding in autonomous vehicles.

To ensure the widespread usage of new types of vehicles, car producers are working to solve such problems with better technology. For example, Japanese company Honda is working on reducing the car’s “violent (猛烈的) ”acceleration by making changes to the engine, said Car Magazine.

【推荐1】Samuel Baron, a student at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, has traded his 55.7㎡Edmonton apartment for a 23㎡micro-flat downtown. He was determined to live closer to Vancouver’s city center and cut out his transport expenses. He achieved both, but the trade-off was space. “Between work and school, I am rarely home,”said Baron. “My suite functions as a place to simply store my possessions, and for sleeping, because I live in a neighborhood that has plenty of coffee shops, restaurants and pubs. My neighborhood functions as my living room , blurring the lines between public space and private space.”

The tiny house movement has been on the rise. Driven by housing shortage and an affordability crisis in cities across the globe, these micro-suites are being planned and promoted by developers. These living spaces of less than 46.5㎡are becoming popular with entry-level income groups and young people who want to be close to urban conveniences, job opportunities and city life in places like New York, Paris and Vancouver. A report from Neilsen, a consumer research company, showed 40% of Americans between the age of 18 and 36 prefer to live in urban areas instead of the suburbs. However, the trend doesn’t just apply to young people. Many empty nesters have been selling their houses in the suburbs to buy a place in the city.

Rising house prices in big cities have squeezed many homebuyers out of the market. The average price of a new home in Toronto is $733,578; in London it’s $794,549. However, the demand for affordable accommodation near work is endless in cities where land is limited. Thus the micro-flat offers an affordable alternative.

New York City opened a pioneer project called My Micro NY at the end of 2015. “We have built to optimize every inch of space inside, so there is no unused room,” said Tobias Oriwol, the building’s project manger. Similar projects are being developed in the UK and Canada, too.

【推荐3】Although it was a rainy day, that didn’t stop book fans from heading to Beijing’s Ditan Park (the Temple of Earth) for the first day of the famous Beijing Book Fair.

This year marked the return of the fair in Ditan Park after a 10-year hiatus (中断). Despite its fame, the book fair and others of its kind have faced an uncertain future. In 2011, the Beijing Book Fair at Ditan Park, which had been running for 21 years at that time, was reported to “struggle to survive” due to the rise of e-books, online book purchasing and pirated (盗版的) book copies. 

But this year’s book fair, which was a sideline event of the 2023 Beijing Culture Forum, seemed full of vitality (活力), aiming to enhance the city’s reputation as the nation’s cultural center. Running under the name “The Temple of Earth and Me”, the book fair brought together a record 400,000 books from 208 exhibitors. It featured eight distinctive exhibition zones, including one on Beijing culture and another containing over 5,000 kinds of foreign language works.

One keen attendee was Rosanna Ho from Canada. She’s a big fan of books and book fairs. “It was very packed, and I think you needed at least an hour just to walk around and see everything,” she said. But luckily, with the free entry ticket, attendees were offered help with the routes from volunteers to know where all the different areas were. 

Book readings by famous writers, unique cultural products, children’s toys, and old books — the fair had something for everyone. That was particularly appealing. It seemed very popular with families and children, with the theme of this year related to the life attitude and personal pursuits of young people. 

“It was super cool seeing how many people showed up and how popular purchasing physical books is in this digital age,” said Ho.

【推荐1】Healthy House Plants: A Complete Gulde to Gardening Indoors

BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine has collaborated (合作) with digital educational platform, FutureLearn, to bring you a brand new online gardening course — Healthy House Plants: A Complete Guide to Gardening Indoors. This four-week online course has been designed to provide you with tips and advice on growing indoor plants and take you on a world journey, exploring imported plants.

The course is led by expert tutor and Associate Editor, David Hurrion, who will share his 50 years of gardening experience and bring his skills to you online, so you can learn from him in the comfort of your own home.

You can take this self-guided course. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

Week 1: What will you grow?

Week 2: Growing conditions and the indoor environment.

Week 3: Caring for your house plants.

Week 4: Making more plants and problem-solving.

There are three options for registering for this course：

*FREE — Access to the course is limited to six weeks, and no certificate (证书) is given.

*Upgrade for £32, unlimited time access, and a printed and digital certificate.

*Unlimited access to all FutureLearn short courses: £16.68/month.

Gardening for Beginners: The Basics and Beyond: Grow your gardening skills with easy-to-follow techniques aimed at both new and experienced home gardeners in this five-week online course.

【推荐2】There are a number of animals that give off light in some way-including several kinds of insects and fish. Some kinds of mushrooms give off light, too. But most plants don’t give out light. Now, scientists are working to change that.

When a living thing gives off light, it’s called bioluminescence (生物发光). Fireflies are a well-known example of bioluminescence. Though less well-known, many mushrooms are also bioluminescent. These bioluminescent creatures light up thanks to the chemicals called luciferins (荧光素)inside their bodies. Luciferins cause a chemical reaction that can give off light.

Plants don’t naturally have luciferins, so there are no naturally bioluminescent plants. But that hasn’t stopped scientists from trying to create them. In the past, scientists have created plants that made less bright by adding DNA from shining objects. Scientists have also created plants that can give off light by adding luciferins to plants. But it only works as long as the chemicals last. In 2017, a team was able to cause a plant to give off light for about four hours.

Now, researchers at a Russian company have come up with a new method of creating shining plants. By adding certain parts of the DNA from shining mushrooms to ordinary tobacco plants, the researchers were able to create plants that could make their own luciferins. The scientists reported that the light was about 10 times brighter than in earlier shining plants.

The researchers believe that shining plants could help scientists learn more about the way plants work. For example, the moving patterns or waves of light in the plants may show activities in plants that normally can’t be seen. The shining also helps reveal how plants may be affected by things around them. For example, the plants gave off much more light strongly when a ripe banana skin was nearby. But the researchers don’t think the plants will just be used for science. They think many people may want shining plants for their beauty. So they are working with a company to develop shining plants for sale.