【推荐1】No one knows for sure when and where the idea of April Fool’s Day for silly jokes started. One thing is for sure：Humans have been celebrating this holiday for hundreds of years，in many cultures.

One popular theory has to do with the calendar. Many ancient cultures celebrated the new year in spring，around April 1. In Europe，Pope Gregory XIII introduced a new calendar in 1582. The calendar named January 1 as the new start of the year. Many people and countries did not accept the change for years. The story goes that people made fun of the people who still celebrated the new year on April 1.

In some countries，people exchanged gifts on New Year’s Day. So another theory is that people began to give joke gifts on April 1 after the calendar changed. But there are probably as many explanations for the tradition as there are cultures that participate.

One thing is for sure，almost everyone has fun！

Mexicans celebrate a kind of fools’ day on December 28. You’re in trouble on that date if you lend someone something，because you won’t get it back！In India，March 31 is the day for tricks. Portuguese，who celebrate on the Sunday or Monday before the Christian holiday of Lent，throw flour on their friends. People in England say playing tricks after noon on April 1 brings bad luck to the jokers. The U.S. holiday doesn’t have special traditions.

Humor expert Joel Goodman of the Humor Project teaches businesses and individuals how to enjoy the positive power of humor in daily life. When asked to define the difference between a good prank and a disgusting one，he explains，“It is the difference between laughing with someone and laughing at them. Humor should lift people up！”

So start thinking now. If it looks like rain，fill someone’s closed umbrella with pieces of paper and watch them pour down when it is open. Glue a coin to the sidewalk with superglue. When people get annoyed trying to pick it up，remember to yell，“APRIL FOOLS！”Of course，kids can reply with the “Disappearing Class”. When the teacher goes out of the room for a moment，all the kids hide. Just remember，the person you play a trick on should be laughing，too. So keep the tradition going in the right spirit.

【推荐2】Thailand(泰国) has several unique holidays. One of them is King’s Birthday, which is a national holiday. On this day, each city is decorated with bright colored lights, and in the evenings the Thai walk around together looking at the decorations. Traditional dishes and family favourties are eaten, and meals always include steamed whole chicken with hot pepper dipping sauce and sliced roast pig’s head.

New Year’s Day is also important in Thailand. Brown eggs are boiled and then cooked in soy sauce, sugar, fish sauce and five spices. These eggs represent good life in the coming year.   The Thai will also eat special egg rolls, dipped in namplaprig, a sweet and sour sauce. Decorations for the New Year include fruit like bananas, coconuts, pineapples and papayas.

Songkran is a three-day water festival that comes in April. For this holiday, people douse each other and everything they have with water in thanks for rain and in the hope of good luck. April is the hottest month in Thailand, so this festival is refreshing and fun. The celebrations also include a big dinner, at which curries, usually yellow ones, and long noodles are eaten. These noodles symbolize long life.

Loy Krathong is a November holiday that involves making bamboo boats and putting lighted candles into them. As these little boats float down the river, they are supposed to carry away sin and pay honor to the spitits of the water. After watching the boats, people eat a large meal that includes grilled chicken, fish, coconut and egg yolks. No matter what they are celebrating, Thai holidays always include family and good food.

【推荐3】USA TODAY 10Best's Readers Choice Awards are currently on hold.We asked our readers to vote for the top events across six categories:music,general food,specialty food,film,cultural and emerging industries(founded in the past five years).These are some of the winners:

The nine-day Kutztown Folk Festival is the nation's oldest continuously operated folk life festival,drawing visitors from around the globe.A celebration of Pennsylvania Dutch culture and heritage,the event includes America's largest quilt sale,200 craftsmen and folk artists,local food and family friendly entertainment.

The Water Lantern Festival is all about connections.Magical nights in cities across the US include food,live music and the beauty of thousands of lanterns decorated with letters of love, hope and dreams floating on the water.

The Quebec Carnaval is a 10-day festival of winter,the world's largest,complete with nighl parades(庆祝游行），ice skating,snow sculptures and a towering ice palace.Other highlighls include ice canoe racing,a sugar shack and iconic Caribou drinks.

San Francisco has celebrated its Chinese heritage during its annual Chinese New Year Festival&Parade since just after the Gold Rush.The parade ranks among the best in the world, with 100 units,fancy costumes,fireworks and a 268-foot Golden Dragon,which takes a team of 100 men and women to march through the streets.It has become one of the largest events of its kind in the world,drawing some three million spectators and television viewers.

【推荐2】In the UK we often equate life experience, especially amongst younger generations, with the number of stamps in your passport. Travel is not simply a pursuit of leisure but also “character-building”, “defining” and potentially, “career-boosting”.

Most of the people I know here at university experience that same itch to get in a plane, train, bus or car and escape the hectic stress of deadlines and seminars that usually surrounds us. But I don’t think, as UK student, we can blame our addiction to international travel simply on a stressful life. Yes, I have a lot to handle and it’s a fine balancing act managing my part-time job, my degree and my social life to a perfect level. But really I think we are the first generation in a truly open world, where we can get anywhere, see anything and experience every culture under the sun, at the click of a button, the purchase of a ticket.

Many people I met while working in China were surprised at the number of countries I’d travelled to, which came as a surprise. Compared to friends and family I consider myself vastly under-travelled. I’ve yet to even set foot across the pond in the U. S. A and Canada. let alone South America and even within Europe, my checklist of destinations is far from complete. But more eye opening for me, I was also met by astonishment at how little geographical traversing I had done within my own borders. This was something I had not really considered before and as I left Beijing I felt an overwhelming appreciation not just for the rich culture of China but also for the diverse localities within the UK. How much of my own country had I really seen and experienced? To those from a place as vast and varied as China, Britain was really so small in comparison and so to have spent 20 years there and not seen every nook and cranny of it was quite surprising.

I spent a while engaged in a convention with a Chinese colleague over the difference in building style, in architecture from the Highlands of Scotland to the Cornish const. Now for most people this sounds dreary and dull, and I guess I am biased as a student of history who finds anything remotely historical fascinating. However it was not the geological variety of stone within British cities I found interesting. We continued our discussion, yet I was left embarrassed that I could not provide a concrete answer to her question. In China, as well as a wealth of new culture that fascinated me, I discovered that there were parts of the UK’s culture, history, the very structure of my identity that were so different, so unique from China that I also gained a new found interest in my own heritage.

In this respect, travelling enables you with two things. Firstly, you develop an overwhelming fascination with new cultures, understanding customs, experiencing cuisines and absorbing the sights and smells of every new city. For many employers this adaptability to new locations is seen as a tremendous asset to your personal resume. But alongside increased employ ability, through international, cross-cultural conversations, you develop an interest in your own history, culture, and customs. You return to your home filled with an understanding of other people’s fascination with it and imbued with your own sense of love for its peculiarities.

【推荐3】A lot of manufactured glass today made from sand and sodium carbonate (碳酸钠) can be reused or melted down and recycled into new items, but it doesn’t break down in the environment and will sit in landfills for thousands of years. A team of Chinese scientists aimed to deal with this environmental concern by developing an eco-conscious alternative.

In a study published recently in the journal Science Advances, a team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Process Engineering describe how they engineered biodegradable glass made from amino acids (氨基酸). That glass would have a smaller impact on the environment and can break down in a few weeks or in several months.

In a test, glass beads made out of amino acids were placed under the skin of mice, and the breakdown of the bead and the skin healing process were observed for 30 days. A diagram from the study shows how the mice’s bodies broke down the beads. In that month, the glass implant degraded beneath the skin, the wound site healed, and fur grew back. “Throughout the experimental period, no mice exhibited any pain-related behavior that may have been caused by the glass implantation, and none of them experienced obvious weight loss,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Although amino acids do degrade over time in the environment, this biodegradable glass is not as durable as traditional glass, because amino acids can break down quickly in heat. To overcome this problem, the researchers chemically modified amino acids using the heating-cooling process tailored for manufacturing the new glass. This is when materials for the glass are heated to become soft and then rapidly cooled so as to make the glass tougher.

“It’s important to point out that this biodegradable glass is currently in the lab stage, and far from large-scale commercialization,” emphasized Yan Xuehai, a professor involved in the study, in a press release.