【推荐1】Shortly after the war，my brother and I were invited to spend a few days with an uncle who had just returned from abroad. He had rented a cottage in the country，although he rarely spent much time there. We understood the reason for this after our arrival: the cottage had no comfortable furniture（家具）in it；many of the windows were broken and the roof leaked（渗漏），making the whole house terrible.

On our first evening，we sat around the fire after supper listening to the stories which our uncle had to tell of his many adventures in distant countries. I was so tired after the long train journey that I would have preferred to go to bed；but I could not stand missing any of my uncle's exciting stories.

He was just in the middle of describing a rather terrifying experience he had once had when there was a loud crash from the bedroom above，the one where my brother and I were going to sleep.

"It sounds as if the roof has fallen in！"cried out my uncle，with a loud laugh.

When we got to the top of the stairs and opened the bedroom door，we could see nothing at first because of the thick clouds of dust which filled the room. When the dust began to clear，a strange sight met our eyes. A large part of the ceiling had fallen down，falling right onto the pillow（枕头）on my bed.

I was glad that I had stayed up late to listen to my uncle's stories，otherwise I should certainly have been seriously injured，perhaps killed.

That night we all slept on the floor in the sitting room downstairs，not wishing to risk our lives by sleeping under a roof which might at any moment fall down on our heads. We left for London the very next morning and my uncle gave up his cottage in the country. This was not the kind of adventure he cared for either！

【推荐2】When I was three years old, I couldn’t speak at all. Unfortunately, however, none of the doctors I visited could understand.

One day, I was following my mother. She found herself looking in a mirror, and through it our eyes met. She began to speak, to me through the reflection (反射), and I slowly began to mimic (模仿) her mouth’s movements until I formed a word.

It turned out I’m deaf in my left ear, and have a slight problem in my right. Being hard of hearing has been difficult, but I’ve never lived in a state of self-hating sorrow. Imagine being able to shut out all sound as you lay your head down to sleep by simply rolling over onto one side. That’s my reality when I sleep on my “good ear”，and it makes me feel like a superhero sometimes.

People call my deaf side my “bad ear”，but when I wear my healing aid (助听器), I have access to a range of features that some other deaf people don’t. In cinemas, for example, with one click of a button I can enjoy a whole film as if it were whispered to me from the mouths of the actors.

Owning a hearing aid hasn’t always felt good, however. On the first day I got my aid, when I was eight, I took it to school for show-and-tell. As I explained how it worked to my classmates, a boy shouted out, “Aren’t those for old men?” At that moment, I felt different. It took a long time for me to get over that sense of being so unlike my schoolmates.

But it’s not just school kids who can make us deaf and hard-of-hearing people feel like burdens (负担). Every video on social media (社会媒体) without subtitles (字幕), for example, means an entire community of deaf people is unable to enjoy it. Completely deaf people are not included in enjoying many movies too, as subtitles in cinemas are almost impossible to find.

And with hearing aids costing around $2,500 each, it can be hard for many people to afford to be able to listen to the things that others think it natural. As for me, I can listen to music, enjoy films, and catch conversations — I’m lucky. I’m deaf, but I can stilI hear everything. I’ve been blessed with wonderful life experiences, and I am human. And when it comes to sleeping, I’m even a superhuman.

【推荐1】During the COVID-19(新冠病毒)crisis, working from home has become common for many people. For some, working from home is distracting and exhausting. But one pioneering study found that working from home increased output by 13%. Nicholas Bloom, a professor at Stanford University in California, began the experiment when James Liang, one of the founders of Trip.com Group-the largest online travel agency in China-met Bloom in Stanford and mentioned to him how expensive Shanghai housing was, how the costs of maintaining company headquarters were huge there, and that he was thinking of letting his staff work from home. This idea made Bloom interested.

Bloom started to test Liang’s thought. First, 1000 employees who volunteered for the study were divided into two teams, separated by birth dates. Those born on even days got to work from home 4 out of 5 weekdays for the next 9 months Those born on odd days stayed in the office all week long. Then the two teams were tracked. It was easy to do, as these workers had repetitive, straightforward tasks that could easily be quantified(量化), and their productivity could easily be measured-making bookings in the system or making phone calls, for example. Nine months passed; Bloom and Liang discovered workers were 13% more productive at home.

Bloom’s data suggests the staff could become much more productive while working from home long term-but it’s not so straightforward. In the experiment, there were warmings as to who could take part in the first place. Participants had to meet 3 requirements: have no kids, have a room that wasn’t their bedroom and have quality Internet on equipment which the firm installed for them at home. So there’s no guarantee that everyone’s productivity will increase.

Lynda Grattan, a professor at London Business School, distrusts other points: Bloom’s experiment was easy to carry out because it was essentially happening at a call centre. “We have no proper data on the productivity of knowledge workers when they’re based at home,” she says.

【推荐2】Artemis is NASA's new lunar exploration program. Through the Artemis program，NASA will use new technology to study the Moon in new and better ways，and prepare for human missions to Mars.

NASA's new rocket will carry the Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit. Then，astronauts will dock(对接)Orion at a small spaceship called the Gateway，from which the crew will take trips to the lunar surface in a new human landing system，and then return to the Gateway. The crew will return to Earth aboard Orion.

NASA will test the rocket and spacecraft in flight，then send a crew for a test flight：

●Artemis 1 will be a test flight of the SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft with no crew.

●Artemis 2 will fly SLS and Orion with a crew past the Moon，then circle it and return to Earth. This trip will be the farthest any human has gone into space.

●Artemis 3 will send a crew with the first woman and the next man to land on the Moon by 2024.

The Artemis 3 crew will visit the Moon’s South Pole. No one has ever been there. At the Moon，astronauts will：

●Search for the Moon’s water and use it.

●Learn how to live and work on the surface of another celestial body(天体)where astronauts are just three days from home.

●Test the technologies we need before sending astronauts on missions to Mars，which Can take up to three years roundtrip.

The Moon is a good place to learn new science. NASA will learn more about the Moon，Earth and even the Sun. The Moon is a“test bed”for Mars. The Moon is a place to show that astronauts will one day be able to work away from Earth on Mars for long periods of time.

【推荐3】Chicago already has bike sharing and car sharing. Could electric scooter(滑板车)sharing be the next big thing?

With electric scooter sharing already appearing in many cities and the biggest operator eyeing the Chicago market, Moreno is trying to make the rules of the road before electric scooters arrive.” It’s yet another means of transportation and we need to welcome them and make the regulations in advance if we are really serious about reducing traffic and reducing air pollution,”said Moreno.

Moreno said that in other cities, electric scooter riders have ignored helmet rules and traffic laws. They have parked illegally and ridden scooters on sidewalks. Those are the problems he’s trying to avoid. The rules would require related companies to first get an “Electric Scooter Share License”. To get the license, companies would need to provide a minimum of 100 scooters operating at a maximum（最高的）speed of 20 miles per hour.

Bird is the nation’s leading electric vehicle sharing company. It has raised $100 million and begun operations in many cities. Bird ‘s spokesman Kenneth Baer said his company welcomes the Chicago regulations, which can help to avoid the start-up problems it has met with in other cities.

“We follow the laws on the books. It happens to be that in a good number of cities the law is silent or not clear how to treat this new technology. And that causes some troubles,”said Baer. “If the rules of the road are officially made in advance then it is very clear. I think the Chicago regulations really would give the citizens a great way to get around the city.”

【推荐1】A sea turtle named Herman, an octopus called Octavia, and a seal named Lidia all spent this summer at the Smithsonian’ s National Zoo in Washington, D.C. But unlike the zoo’s other residents, they are not real animals. These creatures are actually huge sculptures and they’re made entirely out of plastic trash from the ocean.

These giant artworks, along with 14 others, are part of a traveling exhibit called “Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea”. The Washed Ashore project, led by artist Angela Haseltine Pozzi, works to raise awareness about the problem of plastic pollution in Earth’s oceans.

More than 315 billion pounds of plastic litter the world’s oceans today. Most of the plastic is garbage from towns and cities, as well as trash that people leave on beaches. Rainwater, winds, and high tides bring the trash into the ocean or into rivers that lead to the ocean. Once it is under the waves, the plastic begins to break up into smaller and smaller pieces. It often collects in spots called garbage patches, which spread over large areas of the ocean.

Thousands of marine animals — including whales, sea turtles, and fish — die each year from eating or getting stuck in plastic bags and other items. Plastic pieces can also injure coral and kill sea grass.

Washed Ashore and other organizations are working to stop that from happening. Since 2010, Washed Ashore volunteers have collected 38,000 pounds of plastic trash from more than 3000 miles of beaches. They helped Pozzi create more than 60 sculptures of marine creatures that were harmed by plastic pollution.

The artworks on display at the National Zoo include a 20-foot-long coral reef, a 12-foot-long shark, and a 16-foot-long parrot fish. Each one is made from hundreds of pieces of trash like water bottles and sunglasses.

“These sculptures are a powerful reminder of our personal role and global responsibility in preserving biodiversity on land and in the sea,” says Dennis Kelly, director of the National Zoo.

【推荐2】A breathtaking trick potentially left over from our ancestors might be found in us-the ability to sense oxygen through our skin.

Amphibians, animals such as frogs that can live both on land and in water, have long been known to be capable of breathing through their skin. In fact, the first known lungless frog that breathes only through its skin was discovered recently in the rivers of Borneo.

Now the same oxygen sensors found in frog skins and in the lungs of mammals have unexpectedly been discovered in the skin of mice. “No one had ever looked,” explained Randall Johnson, a biologist researcher. Mice and frogs are quite distant relatives, so the fact they have these molecules in common in their skin suggests they might well be found in the skin of other mammals, such as humans. “We have no reason to think that they are not in the skin of people too.” Johnson said.

These molecules not only detect oxygen, but help increase levels of vital red blood cells, which carry oxygen around the body. Normal mice breathing in air that is 10 percent oxygen-a dangerously low level similar to conditions at the top of Mount Everest, and about half that of air at sea level. However, mice that had the oxygen sensor HIF-la genetically removed from their skin failed to produce this hormone even after hours of such low oxygen.

These findings, if they hold true in humans, suggest one could raise the level of oxygen circulating inside the body. This could help treat lung diseases and disorders such as anemia without injecting drugs, which make up a multibillion- dollar market, Johnson said.

Athletes also often try to get more oxygen delivered to their muscles in order to improve their performance. They often do this by training at high altitudes or in low-oxygen tents. The new study suggests they might want to expose their skin as well as breathing in low-oxygen air to improve their performance. “It's hard to say what exactly might be done, however-there's a lot we don't know yet,” Johnson explained. The scientists detailed their findings in the April 18 issue of the journal Cell.

【推荐3】A

The Huaqing Palace Heritage Site

Address: At the foot of Lishan Mountain in Lintong, 30 kilometers east of Xi'an. Opening hours: From March to November: 7:00-18:00;

From December to February: 7:30-18:30.

Bus routes: 914, 915, U5, and 306.