【推荐1】Do boys and girls really deal with people in different ways? With Leaper’s help, we carried out some tests that showed us yes.

We offered the kids brightly wrapped (包装) gifts which may be disappointing: socks and a pencil. The girls responded very politely. Courtney said happily, “Just what I need. Socks and a pencil!” Her words made me feel good, while the boys weren’t about to make me feel good. “What?” Raja said, “Socks and a pencil? Rip-off!” Jacob had a similar reaction.

Are boys and girls simply born different?

Susan Witt, at the University of Akron, says boys and girls respond differently in situations like these because we parent them differently.

Witt means parents and society treat kids differently. A famous study called “Baby X” designed by Phyllis Katz tested adults on how they treated babies based on what they thought the gender (性别) was. When adults thought they were holding a girl, they held her gently and gave her dolls. When they thought the baby was a boy, they offered him a football. In the 1970s, some people took this to argue boys and girls were born entirely the same, and they behaved differently only because parents and society taught them to. Now, however, it’s accepted that society and biology both create the difference.

Witt also offered a few tips for the parents of girls: Don’t help them so much. Research shows parents tend to help girls more than boys. This can make girls feel helpless and less confident.

In the case of the boys who were honest in our test, we saw that their parents gave them a lot of freedom to act out. “Maybe too much,” says Witt. Witt said Moms should discourage kids who scream out demands.

Finally, a caution (警告) about generalizing about gender. The differences between individuals are frequently bigger than differences between sexes. In our experiments, some girls did speak their mind, and some boys were very polite.

【推荐2】In Asia, meetings do not begin until business cards have been exchanged. It is no mere formality. If a new acquaintance fails to give a card to Glenn Lim of CEO Asia, a Singaporean company, “it makes me forget them,” he says.

Yet the pandemic has put the business card on life support. Networking is difficult when white-collar workers have fled to home offices, business lunches have been canceled and conferences have been held online. Orders for business cards from Vistaprint, a multinational printing company, decreased by 70% in late March and early. April and have yet to recover fully. Mr.Lim normally hands out about 200 cards a month. In the six months following Singapore’s lockdown in March, he assumes he received about five. “I’ve forgotten what business cards look like,” remarks a British banker based in Singapore.

But it is still helpful to know who is who at meetings, even when.they take place on Zoom. Companies are therefore reimagining the business card for the era of social distancing, Nagaya, a Japanese firm, prints them on face masks. After the launch of the “Meishi” mask, traffic to Nagaya’s website increased by 65,000%. Sansan, another Japanese firm, offers “virtual cards”. Users receive QR codes which they display as virtual backgrounds on video-conferencing apps. Scanning the code with a phone camera will summon (召唤) the user’s digital business card. Some 4,300 companies have begun using Sansan’s virtual cards since they launched in June.

But Mr. Lim, who uses Sansan’s virtual cards, does not plan on throwing away the paper version just yet. People tend to exchange virtual cards after meetings have started or as they end, forcing participants to ask who does what during the meeting itself.

“That’s sometimes a little bit rude,” he says. Many others in Singapore are evidently fond of paper cards, too. Sales at Express-Print, a printing company, have picked up in the past two months, as more people restart in-person meetings. Even Edward Senju, the head of Sansan’s operations in Squth-East Asia, still keeps in his wallet, “just in case”.

【推荐1】Many people, including some successful men, wear the same clothing daily to focus their decision-making energy on more important things.     1     Julia, an art teacher, is wearing the same dress for the first 100 days of school to create awareness of the environmental costs of fast fashion.

Available online or from various shops, it allows everyone to adopt the latest fashion trends instantly. Though that sounds like a win-win for all, the rapid change in styles and the affordable prices result in impulse (冲动) purchases, many of which are thrown away after being worn just once or twice.    2    

Julia's idea for the “One Outfit (服装), 100 Days” began as a comment she made to her husband during the summer.     3     Moreover, it would serve as a great lesson for her new students. Selecting a perfect outfit for the challenge was a little tricky.After some consideration, Julia settled on a plain dress. Though she has a backup dress, Julia plans to use it only if absolutely necessary.

    4     It has also inspired some of her colleagues and her husband to take up the challenge. Julia says the experiment has forced her to rethink her attitude towards clothes. She values things more now—respecting the planet for her children and trying to value herself in a different way, as opposed to caring so much about what she looks like.     5     Reuse, recycle, and, most importantly, reduce.

【推荐2】Ocean sounds may help people sleep at night, but marine animals depend on them for survival. For example, dolphins rely on echolocation to hunt and communicate with their companions. Such species are in trouble, because human generated ocean noise has increased significantly since the Industrial Revolution.

Ships alone always generate low-frequency volume along shipping routes by an estimated 32 times. That along with tones from sonar, seismic surveys, pile driving. and even motorboats, all of which can be heard easily by marine animals in the water, can trap whales in ice by delaying their migration, according to a review published last week in Science.

The paper notes that climate change also threatens the sound track of the sea. The Great Barrier Reef has quieted over the years, but it has become smaller in size and become less habitable because of climate change. Animals that rely on the sounds of coral reefs to locate food and settlements may struggle to adapt.

Earlier this year, whale scientist and National Geographic Explorer Jansen Greenwood found an unusual scene. He returned from studying whales in Antarctica to find few cars on the road, virtually no ships on the sea, and humpbacks arriving at one of the Golden State's most popular coastal recreation spots from their winter habitats in Mexico. He believed the reason may be that the place was suddenly free of the human noises.

The experts argue that making the sea quiet should be a core component of environmental policy. And they say it can be done: A study conducted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, found that a reduction in shipping traffic coincided with an average decrease of 1.5 decibels in waters along shipping routes near the Port of Vancouver.

【推荐3】Rain Collection

What do you like to do on a rainy day —sit inside and listen to the pitter-patter on the roof or splash outside and feel the cold drops on your face? Whatever you choose, rain is vitally essential in the nature.

    1     It fills rivers and lakes, slowly sinks into the earth, nourishes our plants, and keeps the land alive and beautiful. In the past, people obtained their water from rain, wells, or nearby rivers. Now, many of us live in places where water is piped in, sometimes from far away. Removing so much water from nature and sending it to great distances harm the living things that also need that water.

As climate change heats up the planet and causes extreme weather, more places face water shortages.     2     . One easy place to look for more water is the sky!

Humans have collected rain since ancient times.     3    . They are tapping into this clean and rich source of water provided by nature. By harvesting the rain we can reduce the amount of water we take from rivers and out of the ground.

Even in dry climates, there is a lot of potential rainwater that can be effectively harvested and utilized. This rich yet often overlooked resource has the potential to significantly contribute to water conservation efforts, especially in regions facing water shortages. Just one inch of rain falling on a medium-sized house produces over 600 gallons of water.    4    .

Nowadays, rainwater is still used as a primary supply in many places in the world, like Vietnam and Hawaii. In places with piped-in water, rainwater is not commonly used, but this is changing. Rainwater harvesting is getting more popular since it’s easy to do and helps create water security.