【推荐1】NEW YORK—Women are now as likely to use the Internet as men--about two-thirds of both genders(性别)--yet a new study shows that gaps remain in what each sex does online.

American men who go online are more likely than women to check the weather, the news, sports, political and financial information, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported Wednesday. They are also more likely to use the Internet to download music and software and to take a class.

Online women, meanwhile, are bigger users of e-mail, and they are also more likely to go online for religious information and support for health or personal problems.

“For men, it's just, 'Give me the facts',” said Deborah Fallows, who wrote the report based on six years of Pew surveys. “For women, it's 'Let's talk about this. Are you worried about this problem? ' It’s keeping in touch and connecting with people in a richer way.”

About two-thirds of the 6,403 adults surveyed by Pew during 2005 said they use the Internet. By gender, it was 68 per cent of the male respondents(调查对象), and 66 per cent of the female participants－a statistically insignificant difference given the study's margin of sampling error (误差幅度) of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

In 2002, by contrast, the gap was slightly larger: 61 per cent vs. 57 per cent.

The surveys find that for many activities, such as getting travel information or looking up a phone number, men and women are equally likely to use the Internet.

【推荐2】Chicago festival season is here, but are you ready? Music festivals, film series, street fests, beer bashes – it’s a summer long party. So pull out your calendar, read our guide and start enjoying weekends.

♦Friday Art Markets at Daley Plaza

Select Fridays August 19 through September

Daley Plaza

Cost: Free

Directions: Nearly 75 artists will be showing their work in Daley Plaza, including jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, paintings, glass, wearables, wood and mixed media.

Website: http://www.FridayArtMarketsaDaleyPlaza php?sid=146320

♦Renegade Chicago Pop-Up

Sept. 9-10

Pilsen

Cost: Free

Directions: Get your hands on the goods at this outdoor celebration of all things handmade. Festivities include food trucks, DJ sets, craft brews, DIY workshops, photo ops and shopping.

Website: http://www.RenegadeChicagoPop-Up php?sid=146346

♦Millennium Park Summer Music Series

Select Mondays and Thursday June 12 through Aug. 21

Millennium Park

Cost: Free

Directions: Grab a blanket and some picnic snacks for a free outdoor concert in the park. The music series features a wide variety of music from top local, national and international artists.

Website: http://www.MillenniumParkSummerMusicSeries php?sid=146432

♦Northsider Craft Beer Fest

Sept 23

Uptown

Cost: $15 - $69

Directions: Spend a day on the green sampling beers and hard ciders （苹果汁）from breweries across the country, including Colorado, Michigan, California and Wisconsin – and let’s not forget those in our own home state, too.

Website: http://www.NorthsiderCraftBeerFest php?sid=146467

【推荐3】Should swimming lessons be compulsory in schools?

Guangdong Province is set to make swimming lessons compulsory in primary schools starting from 2020,proposing the courses should be given from the fourth grade.Do we need to make swimming compulsory in schools?Forum(论坛) readers share their opinions.

White Bear(Poland)

In Poland swimming lessons are not compulsory,but most of the schools have them.I think that when it is only possible,there should be the swimming lessons for kids.It is a life-saving skill.

Mister Panda(France)

I come from France where swimming lessons in school are compulsory(dating back to Charlemagne).I even got my life-saving certificate in school.

Boilermaker(Expert in China)

There are swimming lessons in my city,but I was very disappointed in how they were taught.The kids spent 45 minutes of the one-hour lesson practicing strokes on dryland.They only spent 15 minutes in the water.All of the children panicked and sank immediately to the bottom.Then all of the parents scolded the children,telling them they weren’t paying attention to the teacher and that they were failures.

Yunzhang(China)

It is a pity that many Chinese athletes have won world championships in swimming while most schools don’t have the swimming facilities.Swimming is an essential life-saving skill that everyone should have access to.The earlier,the better.The government needs to put money into the popularity of the sport.

【推荐3】Mr. Utterson was a lawyer who was good-natured to his friends. His companions were usually distant relations from his own family, or friends that he had known for a long time.

One friend in particular was Mr. Richard Enfield, a distant relative, and a well-known man in London. The two men were very different, but they always went for a long Sunday walk together. People who saw them out on their walk reported that they rarely spoke. However, they would even cancel other appointments in order to go and enjoy their walks without interruption.

One day, while they were out on their walk together, they were strolling (漫步) along a small quiet street. It was all clean and attractive except for one building two storeys high.

As they passed, Mr. Enfield asked Mr. Utterson if he had ever noticed the dirty door, because it reminded him of a very strange story.

“No,” said Mr. Utterson. “What story was that?”

“Well,” replied Mr. Enfield. “Once, I was coming home this way at about 3 am on a dark winter’s night, and the whole area was very quiet and deserted. But then suddenly I saw two people. One was a small unpleasant-looking man walking along this street at a good speed. The second was a small girl, about eight or nine years old, running as fast as she could. Well, the two met at the corner and ran into each other. The unusual thing was that instead of stopping and apologizing, the little man, quite on purpose, stamped (踩) hard on the girl as she lay on the ground, screaming with pain.”

“It was a terrible thing to see. I shouted out and chased the man, caught him and brought him back to where he had knocked down the girl. The noise had attracted a small crowd of people, including some of the girl’s family, who were very angry with the man. He did not apologize, nor was he sorry for what had happened. We all told him that we would make a lot of trouble for him if he did not pay for his actions.”

“The man agreed to pay one hundred pounds to the family. As he did not have that amount of money with him, he said he had to go and get a cheque. He went to the house with the door we are looking at now, and came out with another man’s cheque for almost one hundred pounds at four o'clock in the morning. Therefore w made him stay at my house until the banks opened. Then we went to cash the cheque. I handed it over myself and was sure that it would be a forgery, but to my surprise, it was real”

【推荐1】I was in Walt Disney World with my son, Daniel, who is autistic (患自闭症的), and at that time he was 7 years old. My wife and our three other sons were with us too. He was having one of his melt down screaming tantrums (发怒), only God knows why. So my wife and I decided I would take the bus back to the hotel, and she would stay in the park with the other three children.

After we got on the bus, the screaming continued. My son looks “normal”. To the many people on the bus, he appeared to just be a kid screaming --- or a spoiled child who did not get his special toy that day. It did not take long --- less than a minute --- before the screaming brought about stares, then glares from the other passengers.

To my shame, I found myself losing my temper at my own son. I was embarrassed, angry, and frustrated, and felt cheated by God for not being able to enjoy a normal vacation with my family because of him. I started to wonder what life would be like without having to deal with this cross (痛苦).

And just as the reactions of the other passengers were becoming most intense, a man seated just in front of me turned around to face me. I cheered myself up for his advice on how to raise a well-behaved child.

He said calmly, “Is he alright?” I said, “He’s autistic.” Then the man said , “It's alright.” And he smiled. That’s all.

And suddenly, all the anger building up inside me was gone. I almost wept for shame at how I had felt a moment before. It no longer mattered what the other people thought. My son was my gift from God.

I will never forget that man, nor his small, simple act of kindness and understanding. I truly believe he was my son’s guardian angel that day maybe mine too.

【推荐2】Reducing, reusing and recycling is a way of life in Sweden. Recycling is required by law and garbage is sorted at home before it goes to a recycling center. Recyclables are sorted into seven categories and recycling stations are within just 300 meters of all residential areas. “Recycling almost everything is a must in Sweden now. It actually feels very uncomfortable when you visit another country and can't find easy ways to recycle,” said Owen Gaffney, an expert at Stockholm Resilience Centre and Future Earth.

But not all of its garbage is recycled. Sweden uses alternatives that include burning garbage to make electricity instead of using fossil fuels to heat 1.2 million homes. About half of household garbage is sent to one of the 33 waste-to-heat plants. Sweden is importing garbage from other countries to keep these plants running. Sweden is also a world leader in turning food waste into eco-friendly biogas. It has made food waste collection compulsory beginning in 2021. There is a food waste biogas plant, which allows biogas to be used to run public buses and to heat apartment buildings.

Sweden now wants to deal with those remaining items that cannot be recycled by using a circular(循环论证的)economy approach. It means that products can be reused and only recycled when absolutely necessary. The Swedish government formed an advisory group to find a new way of making this part of its environmental policy.

This will not work effectively unless people are taught to change their behavior. Now the government is reforming its tax code so that people could get cheaper repairs or buy used things. The large Swedish clothing retailer(零售商)H&M operates a recycling program that gives customers discounts when they bring back old clothing.

Sweden is fighting climate change by doing all the right stuff. Waste recycling and the plans to switch to a circular economy will go a long way in reducing its carbon footprint and will help stop global warming.

【推荐3】Sophia Scott meant to spend the summer as an intern (实习生) shadowing doctors at the UCLA Concussion Clinic, as she had the year before. With COVID-19, the senior from Marymount High School had to put her plans on hold.

“Once everything fell through, I wanted to make sure I used my time as well as I could,” she explained.

Instead of using the summer focusing on herself, the 17-year-old from Los Angeles set about trying to help others. Recognizing that distance learning has been tricky for many, Scott decided to use her God-given academic skills to do something for others.

In a matter of weeks, she set up and launched Quaranteens, a free tutoring service that gathered together other like-minded teens to help out those students needing an academic boost in various subjects. She hoped that she and her group could really help the students get improved.

Impressively, Scott didn’t sit around waiting for students in difficulty to reach out for help. She set up a website and actively offered her services to charities focused on education, appreciating that there were many pupils struggling with the distance learning experience.

“A lot of the students I’ve worked with felt their school year was essentially cut off last March, which absolutely would have a negative impact on the year ahead. So a lot of the work we did was trying to help them catch up,” the new tutor shared.

This situation has been experienced around the world by many students, so the fact that this caring teen sought to remedy (挽救) the situation single-handedly makes her actions more inspiring.

Now with lots of children back in school, Scott hasn't finished her tutoring service. Instead, the experience has encouraged her and her team, which now totals an impressive 16 tutors, to continue offering their help.

“What is most satisfying to me is knowing that something small I'm doing now, like helping a kid become better at reading, could have such a wide range of impact on their education in the future.”

【推荐1】Would you drink water that had once been flushed down a toilet? After it’s been cleaned, that is. The climate is warming, and the population of drought-prone states California continues to grow. So recycling wastewater into drinking water may become a necessity.

But, it can be really hard for people to get over their disgust at the thought of drinking recycled water. People are grossed out by cycled water, because it was once wastewater—you know, the stuff that goes down your kitchen drains, your showers, your toilets. And even though it’s cleaned up to a standard that is identical, if not better, than commercially bottled water, the key barrier to recycled water acceptance is people’s disgust regarding it,” said Daniel Harmon, a psychologist in University of California.

In one experiment, the researchers had some participants watch a short video promoting water conservation. And in another experiment, they added a video explaining why recycled water might trigger disgust even though all pollutants have been removed. And neither video had a strong effect on people’s willingness to drink recycled water or to support the practice.

The messages were not enough to get them to actually use recycled water more. “Disgust is such a powerful reaction that simply giving more information is not going to really be effective.” The study appears in the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Researchers say it’s probably going to take a lot more to get people to embrace recycled water. For example, it might help to see members of their community drinking water that’s gone, as it’s called, from “toilet to tap,” with no ill effects.

It is clear that these kinds of more direct campaigns for acceptance are necessary to get people to get over that psychological barrier—to take that first sip, so to speak. Cheers!

【推荐2】Dreaming of summer picnics filled with family and fun? We’ve come up with 4 of the top picnic areas across the US.

Cumberland Islands, Georgia

A few hours south of Savannah, this national seashore is a picnic paradise. It’s an unspoiled place in the Deep South with over 50 miles of hiking trail. Covered in Spanish moss (苔藓), the trails are lined with trees and since it’s still a rural area, the stars line up for a spectacular show at night and creates the perfect evening starlit picnic opportunity.

Giant Park, Chicago

If you are looking for delicious food in Chicago, go for a taste of a 20-day, lake-front, foodie festival that happens in October each year. Grab a spot near the fountain to enjoy your picnic, appreciate the city scenery and lake views and relax with family and friends. If you are there on July 4th, be sure to plan the day to include the fireworks display at the Navy Pier.

Cranberry Islands, Maine

Here, you’ll enjoy natural picnics with island views. The islands are a delightful group of islands about 20 minutes offshore from Acadia National Park. You can visit the islands by private boat or ferry service. Bring a picnic basket along for the ride as it’s a romantic picnic area to take your special someone or go for a family outing to visit the islands.

Big Sur, California

The Point Lobos State Reserve is a small gem. Besides the coastal wildlife there are rare plant communities, and unique geological (地质的) formations. It’s good to have a picnic there. We recommend bringing a telescope, because much of the wildlife can be seen only at a distance.

【推荐3】Constant worry and tension can cause one to suffer hair loss. It would make sense that if it can cause this problem, perhaps it also may contribute to graying. However, there is no sound evidence to support this. Main factors in gray hair were thought to be age, stress, environment and improper diet.

In addition, genetics is a very powerful factor, if one of your parents turns gray at an early age, there is a good chance that you will too. The team led by Professor Andres Ruiz-Linares at University College London analyzed DNA samples of more than 6,000 volunteers in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru. It identified a gene called IRF4 that is responsible for gray hair. He said the most important reasons for gray hair are genes rather than other influences. This newfound gene means that preventing or even reversing gray hair is now a possibility.

But most scientists think that the answer for gray hair comes from the cells in your hair. These are what determine the color and, eventually, the fade to grey. Your hair is made up of cells called melanocytes which produce pigments (色素) as they grow into the hair fiber. Our hair color is determined by the amount of melanin (黑色素) in our body. The more melanin a person has, the darker his or her hair color.

There are two different types of melanins: eumelanins (真黑色素) and pheomelanins (类黑色素).The former produces black and brown pigments, while the latter produces red and yellow pigments. The exact amount of these pigments determines whether a person has black, brown, blonde or yellow hair. As we age, the ability of the melanocytes to produce more pigments weakens.

Scientists are continuing to try and find ways to prevent graying hair. A team of scientists in France is working to try and stop the melanocytes from being damaged at the end of each hair cycle. They are trying to use a special enzyme to protect the cells from damage. If successful, it could lead the way for new products that keep our locks full of color for years to come.