【推荐1】When we think of food farming we usually think of green fields in the country, outside the city. Sam Chee works on a very different type of farm, in the center of the Canadian city of Toronto. “We grow fruit, vegetables and herbs,” says Sam. “But not many people know the farm is here. You can’t see it from the street. We’re on top of an office building, 50 meters above the ground.”

Rooftop farming is becoming popular in cities like Toronto, New York and London. The roofs of buildings are often just wasted space, but this space can be used for growing good fresh food, right in the middle of the city. Sam explains how it works. “We grow everything in big boxes —there are hundreds of them. We catch rainwater to water the plants when the weather is dry.”

The rooftop farm where Sam works belongs to a restaurant called Green Garden, on the ground floor of the building. The farm produces about half the restaurant’s fruit and vegetables. Sam believes that the rooftop farm is what makes Green Garden special. “We help to keep food production local. We don’t need to transport this food from anywhere and that saves energy. It’s better for the environment.”

The food from the rooftop is fresher too. “When the fruit and vegetables are ripe we can pick them and use them right away. They taste better when they’re really fresh,” says Sam. “I hope that there will be more rooftop farms in the city soon. It could be the farming of the future.”

【推荐2】THE BEST PARIS ART EXHIBITIONS IN 2022

Lovers of art and culture will be spoiled in Paris in 2022 with some excellent shows at the city’s impressive museums and galleries. We’ve rounded up 3 of the best Paris art exhibitions this year to attract you.

THE MOROZOV COLLECTION. ICONS OF MODERN ART

Fondation Louis Vuitton

One of this year’s flagship Paris art exhibitions, The Morozov Collection. Icons of Modern Art at Fondation Louis Vuitton shares 200 Impressionist and Modern art masterpieces from the collection of brothers Mikhail and Ivan Morozov, the first time it has travelled outside of Russia. Expect French works by Manet, Matisse, Monet, Pissarro, etc., alongside Russian talents such as Malevich, spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

GAUDI

Orsay Museum

Gaudi is the first major show of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi’s work in Paris in 50 years, honoring his novel art buildings. Exhibited at Orsay Museum, it digs into his love of space, decoration and color, captured in his extraordinary palaces, hotels and churches. It’s also a rare chance to see some of Gaudi’s furniture designs, never before shown in France.

CÉZANNE, THE LIGHTS OF PROVENCE

Lighting Studio

Kids will adore immersive (沉浸式的) digital art space Lighting Studio in the 11th district, where vivid images of artists’ works are projected around a former foundry (铸造厂), with videos and music combining to impressive effect. Offering an exhibition Cézanne, the Lights of Provence explores the life and works of French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne.

【推荐3】At 6.00 p.m. on Thursday, in Waterstones in Piccadilly, London, staff (全体雇员) were running around with bowls of jellybeans and bottles of lemon juice. Five minutes later, people of all ages started to come through the doors. Some dressed up as characters from the books! “This is the third event I’ve been to,” said 28-year-old Alex. “Last year they changed the second floor into Diagon Alley.” In many of the chain’s 275 branches across the UK, similar scenes were taking place. “Our first wizards (巫师) have arrived for Harry Potter night,” said staff at the Bradford store.

But Harry Potter night wasn’t the only cause for celebration for staff and customers. The previous day, Waterstones had announced that it was back in profit for the first time since 2011, under the leadership of its very own wizard. James Daunt. Daunt was already a successful bookseller. He was brought in to rescue the Waterstones chain when it was about to close down.

When Daunt took over Waterstones, his first task was to cut costs. Then he had to make the stores more attractive and improve the lighting. Coffee shops were opened inside the stores, and events were held, such as the now-famous Harry Potter nights, or talks by authors. But the biggest change was that Daunt gave each store the power to choose what books to sell, and to choose the prices for different books. This made a big difference. Sales went up because shops were storing more books that interested local customers.

Daunt is confident about the future of bookshops. “People love buying books,” he said. “It’s a physical pleasure that customers don’t get when they shop online. If we keep creating shops that do that, it doesn’t matter what goes on online. High streets and shops are part of the heart of the community. People will always want to go to shops.”

【推荐1】In Flanders, the best advice to give a confused cyclist is: Keep calm and check your numbers. Many riders have a string of numbers with them, preprinted or handwritten on a piece of paper. The numbers are a roadmap to the route.

Nearly 220 miles of cycling paths go through the region in northern Belgium. Each path is numbered, and before setting out, cyclists can check an interactive map to create a sequence(排列顺序)that’s unique to their route. Arrows point riders in the right direction on their way across villages, forests, and fields. And as they ride, cyclists look at the blue signs and then their string of numbers to ensure they’re on the right track.

The network opened in 1990, after being proposed by Belgian mining engineer Hugo Bollen. In the early 20th century, the region experienced an economic boom(繁荣), particularly in the province of Limburg, which mined coal. But by the 1980s, those businesses started to close, and towns needed something else to restart their economic engines. Bollen came up with an idea to develop tourism by depending on another natural resource that was plentiful in the region: astonishing landscapes. He suggested a bike network—and because names of villages and towns could be hard to remember, he proposed a system based on numbers.

The routes are organized around themes designed to inspire and are not necessarily meant to be the most efficient path from one destination to another. These paths celebrate the journey and the scenic spots along the way. Cyclists can choose to ride through strawberry fields, for instance, or around a brewery(啤酒厂)known for its high quality beer. History lovers can choose paths that link up with various sites of historic battles from both World Wars, particularly near the border with France. Besides, there are still signs of the region’s mining heritage(遗产)across Limburg.

Over the years, the region’s tourism agency has added some new attractions along the route, while still highlighting nature and local ecosystems. Kate Vandy, a cyclist from the U.K., said “You’ll soon lose yourself in shades of green, and the white of apple flowers.”

【推荐2】Parenting styles and choices are known to influence the way that children develop and grow. Researchers are now discovering more about a similar relationship between owners and their pets. How you “parent” your dog has an impact on the kind of dog it grows up to be.

The researchers studied 48 dog owners and their dogs, asking them to complete a pet parenting style survey before joining in three behavioral tests in the lab, assessing attachments and interactions between the dog and their human owners. Then researchers put the dog owners into three categories: authoritative (high expectations, high responsiveness), authoritarian (high expectations, low responsiveness), and permissive (low expectations, high responsiveness). The three behavioral tests covered attachment (how the dog responded to its owner during close interactions), sociability (how the dog responded when a stranger and its owner changed places with one another in the testing room), and problem-solving.

Dogs with authoritative owners had the highest rate of secure attachment and were highly social and sensitive to social context, compared to dogs with authoritarian or permissive owners. What’s more, the only dogs to solve the problem best came from the authoritative group. So researchers came with the conclusion that an owner who’s highly responsive to a dog’s behavior and needs tends to lead to a more social, secure, and smart dog.

The study matches up in some ways with previous research into parents and kids, specifically that children with authoritative parents are more likely to show secure attachment. It is thought to be because of the reliable support they get. “This research shows that the pet dog-human caretaker bond may be functionally and emotionally similar to the bond between a human parent and their child,” says behavioral scientist Lauren Brubaker.

For now, though the study is enough to show that there is some kind of relationship between the approach we take as dog owners and the way that those dogs then behave, even with numerous other factors in play. “We still need to conduct more research in this area,” said the researchers in their published paper.

【推荐3】Look, I’m not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don’t work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I’ve just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama’s kindness and empathy (同情) changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.

This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It’s a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman’s life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.

I hate words like “inspirational” because they’ve become so overdone and cheese (俗气的), but I just have to say it — Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.

And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it’s genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people — especially kids — and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.

She’s obviously intelligent, but she also doesn’t gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She’s been one of the most powerful women in the world, she’s been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she’s had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl — Michelle Robinson — from a working class family in Chicago.

I don’t think there’s anyone who wouldn’t benefit from reading this book.