【推荐2】In the past, many people depended on horses for transportation, farming and other kinds of work. A lot of people still like to ride horses for sport. Horse racing and betting on horse racing are also popular. So, it is not surprising that Americans use a lot of expressions about horses.

Long ago, people who were rich or important rode horses that were very tall. Today, if someone acts better than everyone else, you might tell him to "get off your high horse."

And if someone is pushing you to do something, you can say, "Hold your horses!" This is a very informal way to tell someone to calm down and wait. You would not use it with your boss but you could use it with children.

Something else you could say to children if they are playing too rough or hitting each other is to stop horsing around! When kids horse around, they could get hurt. However, kids who live in a one-horse town might have nothing to do but horse around. A one-horse town is a small town with not too much going on.

So, if you live in a one-horse town, you might like to watch a lot of television. Imagine that you are watching your favorite show when your phone rings. You do not answer it. Wild horses could not drag you away from the television. Nothing could stop you from doing what you want to do.

When you get news directly from the best source, you get it straight from the horse's mouth. If your teacher, for example, tells you there is going to be a test tomorrow, you got that information straight from the horse's mouth.

Sometimes a person keeps arguing a question that has already been settled. They are beating a dead horse. A dead horse is quite different from a dark horse. A dark horse is a person who surprises others by doing better than unexpected. In politics, a dark-horse candidate is someone who is not likely to win ... but then does.

【推荐3】A recent study has followed the origins, or beginnings of the family of languages that include modern Japanese, Korean, Turkish and Mongolian. The findings show a shared genetic ancestor for the hundreds of millions of people who speak what the researchers call Transeurasian(跨欧亚的) languages. Such languages had their origin with millet farmers who lived in an area in northeastern China about 9,000 years ago. Millet is a small, round whole grain. It was an important early crop as hunter-gatherers became farmers.

The study’s findings show how the use of agriculture following the Ice Age powered the movements of some of the world’s major language families. The research highlights the complex beginnings of modern populations and cultures.

Martine Robbeets, head of the Archaeolinguistic Research Group, said people often think of Japan, Korea and China as powerful nations representing one language, one culture and one people. “All languages, cultures and humans, including those in Asia, are mixed.” Robbeets said. “Accepting that the roots of one’s language, culture or people lie beyond the present national boundaries is to surrender identity, which some people are not yet prepared to make.”

The researchers studied data of vocabulary from the 98 languages. They identified a group of words related to agriculture and created a language family tree. The researchers examined data from 255 archaeological sites in China, Japan, Korea and eastern Russia. They studied ancient objects including pottery, stone tools and plant and animal remains. They also included the dating of 269 ancient crop remains from different areas.

The researchers found that farmers in northeastern China eventually grew rice and wheat along with millet. The crops spread along with farming populations to Korea by about 1300 BC and from there to Japan after about 1000 BC. As the ancient farmers moved across northeastern Asia, related languages spread into Siberia, Korea and Japan over thousands of years.

【推荐1】Folklore (民间传说) has long been passed down from one generation to the next, holding families and communities together. But the National Trust has warned that advances in technology are causing traditional folklore to die out as it’s no longer related to modern life. It said that in a world filled with smartphones and the Internet, legends (传说) of magical blacksmiths (铁匠) were no longer of interest to children who have never put coal on the fire.

Jessica Monaghan, the National Trust’s Head of Experiences and Programming, called on the public to share their knowledge of folklore from different areas of the UK in an effort to keep it alive.“These legends and traditions tell us so much about our ancestors and their relationship with the world around them and help us appreciate the history and symbolism in the places where we live now,” she said.“Through these legends, we can explore what makes communities around the UK unique and what has tied us together for generations.”

“In the 16th century, the walnut (核桃) was considered as a treatment for brain illnesses simply because they are similar in shape. Few people today would believe this as we now have advanced medical knowledge and scientific methods,” said Dee Dee Chainey, author of A Treasury of British Folklore. But she thinks there are still chances for folklore as many people attempt to unearth old legends and efforts are becoming common.

Folklore should be rewritten and retold in new ways with new heroes and new lessons that are related to modern life. And that’s what folklore is about: taking the old wisdom and traditions and redescribing them for who we are and the lives we now have.

【推荐3】First constructed in the 10th century as a part of a villa, the garden of Keyuan in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, was rebuilt and redecorated on numerous occasions throughout history until it became a Confucian academy in 1805. The waterscape, rockeries and flourishing willows may have greeted students to step into a “painting” where earthly beauty and dynamics of a real world can be felt.

However, in recent history, the shine of the past seems to have been forgotten by the passing of time. The pond was muddy. Rocks were unstable. Plants were withering. Termites also damaged the buildings, the structure of which had been damaged through decades of neglect. The contrast became even more regrettable when the Great Wave Pavilion, a garden on the UNESCO World Heritage List that is just a few meters away across a narrow lane, was crowded with tourists every day.

When Keyuan was handed to He Fengchun, an experienced garden renovation designer, in 2016, her work to make “the pearl” shine again was challenging. “Every step in the restoring and decorating process has to follow historical recordings,” says the designer. “It took just more than one year for us to actually renovate this garden, but much longer time was spent in evaluating every detail in the plan and making sure of its historical accuracy,” she says.

Renovation of Keyuan was recognized with an Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation by UNESCO in 2021. A bright and elegant garden is now accessible to visitors and jointly describes a culturally rich neighborhood with the Great Wave Pavilion.

And now, to keep healthy, it also needs regular maintenance, in which modern science plays a key role. For example, with support of big data analysis and scientific evaluation of impact brought by tourism, the largest numbers of visitors — within a day or even an hour — are set for every key site to create a comfortable experience for both tourists and the gardens.

【推荐2】Traditionally, the study of human health has focused on individual and collective groups, rather than outside forces. In recent years, however, we’ve seen the range of nutrition expanded to include environmental components, with the introduction of new terms like “sustainable nutrition” and “planetary health”.

The growing population will put a greater strain on the ecosystem and resources, further contributing to climate change, which is observed through increased temperatures, rising sea levels and severe weather patterns. Altered weather patterns directly affect yields and crop production, which along with non-climate factors, can impact food security. Displacement from homes, decreased access to resources such as health care and illness due to exposure to extreme temperatures can have long-term health consequences.

As is reported, the extreme drought in Ethiopia in 2016 caused widespread crop failure and resulted in nearly 10 million people requiring food aid. Similarly, in the U. S., 2021 brought Hurricane Ida to the Gulf Coast, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 91 people. When the storm faded, extreme heat followed, which was particularly dangerous given many had lost their homes or electricity in the hurricane. Widespread power failures left people with limited access to essentials.

The challenge of feeding more people using the current food systems poses a threat to biodiversity. For example, overfishing, which involves non-sustainable practices that decrease or endanger species, can result in biodiversity loss. On the contrary, “the more variety of crops grown in one farming system, the more adaptable that system is”, Mary Purdy, an integrative eco-dietitian, says. “The less biodiversity you have in an ecosystem, the more impressionable it is to pests, crop failure and soil degradation (退化).”

As more ecosystems and species become threatened, biodiversity will continue to decrease, which will impact the entire food chain. Each organism and species plays a role in the food chain; altering that chain will have a domino effect (多米诺效应), which could impact human health in numerous ways, such as altering typical eating habits based on availability and in some cases resulting in nutrition insecurity, reducing the gut microbiome and impacting the availability of some medicinal resources.

【推荐3】Every year around the world some 2. 2 million books are published. For most of these authors the writing process has relatively been unchanged since Mark Twain’s day in the late 19th century. Plot outlines and ideas are written down to be deciphered (解读), developed and refined over time.

These days, however, technology is increasingly making the life of an author a little easier. For Michael Green, a novelist, the need to use technology to simplify and streamline the writing process came when he was in the middle of writing his first book.

“I had all these documents on the deeper aspects of the world I was creating. I was worried about being able to keep track of it all. That’s when I switched into my more data science-minded approach to solving a complex problem with a lot of different pieces.” The end result was that Mr. Green created Lynit, a digital platform that helps authors visualize, plan and weave (编织) together the various elements—such as characters, plots, themes and key events. Mr. Green says that many novelists begin their work with merely a general idea of a plot or a particular character. With Lynit he says that the process of adding to this initial idea is simplified.

Experts, however, still caution against being overdependent on technologies aimed at helping writers.

“Technology can also be distracting (令人分心的), particularly if you’re one step away from social media, or jumping down a research hole,” says Melissa Haveman, a writer and author coach. “A quick five minutes can sometimes lead to hours of lost writing time. Authors can sometimes fall into the trap of trying everything in the hope that it will be the magic piece, which really just turns into another distraction.”

Yet Michael Green says he believes technology will become even more outstanding as a new generation of writers becomes more outstanding. “What I'm finding with the Generation Z and even younger writers is that they’re looking for technology to give them guidance,” he says, “They see it as a tool to learn and grow with, rather than extra work.”