【推荐1】To many people, honey bees symbolize wealth, sustainability and environmentalism. But as a honey bee researcher, I have to tell you that only the first item on that list is defensible. Although they are important for agriculture, honey bees, which are usually imported from outside the local area, also disturb natural ecosystems by competing with native bees.

For several years the media has told us that bee populations are under threat. In response to this media campaign to"save the bees", raising honey bees has become a popular hobby. But as a species, honey bees are least in need of saving. Much media attention is given to honey bees at the expense of native bees, and this has led many citizens—myself once included—to mistakenly believe they are doing a good thing for the environment by raising honey bees. Unfortunately, theyare probably doing more harm than good.

“Beekeeping is for people; it's not a conservation practice, "says Shelly Smith, an environmental science professor. People mistakenly think keeping honey bees also helps the native bees, which are at risk of extinction. That's wrong.”

Smith and her research team recently surveyed one thousand local people in Canada and found that they had a surprisingly poor understanding of bee types and their roles in promoting flower growth. Most people’s attention is on saving honey bees when, from a conservationist's point of view, native bees are the ones in more need of support.

“To make matters worse, beekeeping companies and various non-science-based projects have financially benefited from the decline of native bee populations, "Smith explains. "These companies pretend they are interested in saving bees but their actions are actually damaging the native bee populations.”

The introduction of honey bees increases competition with native bee populations for food,putting even more pressure on the wild species that are already in decline. Honey bees are extremely efficient food gatherers and take over almost all local flower resources, thus leading to damaging competition—that is, where one species uses up a resource, not leaving enough to go around.

【推荐2】People are being attracted to Facebook because of a fun, free service without realizing they’re paying for it by giving up large amounts of personal information. Facebook then tries to make money by selling their data to advertisers.

Most Facebook users don’t realize this is happening. Even if they know what the company is about, they still don’t know what they’re paying for Facebook, because people don’t really know what their personal information is worth.

The biggest problem, however, is that the company keeps changing the rules. Early on, you keep everything private. You could create your own little private network. Last year, the company changed its privacy rules so that many things — your city, your photo, your friends’ names — were allowed to be shared with everyone on the Internet.

According to Facebook, the company is simply making changes to improve its service, and if people don’t share information, they have a “less satisfying experience”.

Some people think this is more about Facebook looking to make more money. Its original business model, which was about selling ads and putting them at the side of the page, totally failed. Who wants to look at ads when they’re online connecting with their friends? In April, Senator Charles Schumer wished Facebook to change its privacy policy. He also asked the government to set rules for social-networking sites.

I think that whatever Facebook has done to invade our privacy is only the beginning, so I’m considering stopping using it. Facebook is a convenient site, but I’m upset by the idea that my information is in the hands of people that I don’t know. That’s too high a price to pay.

【推荐3】Living alone in nature is the kind of decision that looks great on paper. You could move away from the pressures of city life, to somewhere with a lower cost of living and more privacy. You could enjoy scenic views all year round, and adopt a simpler way of life. It’s not hard to see the appeal of this at all. But what happens when that all goes wrong?

Paul Kingsnorth is a distinguished writer—his novel The Wake was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Gordon Burn Prize. His books help develop an awareness of place and history, so it’s not hugely surprising that his latest book, Savage Gods, is about his own rural existence. Savage Gods is in part about Kingsnorth, his wife, and their children moving to western Ireland. He writes, “In my country a small house and a field is beyond the means of anyone who doesn’t earn much money or who refuses to get into debt to chase a dream.” It’s a feeling that anyone who’s looked longingly at rural tiny houses miles from anyone else can relate to.

But Kingsnorth is aware that this is only part of the story. “Because I am not a real farmer, I have to make my money in other places,” he writes, “I need the Internet or the Dublin-to-Holyhead ferry and sometimes both to put food on my family’s table.” To make matters worse, Kingsnorth’s isolation(隔离) results in a crisis of confidence in his own writing abilities—which becomes one of the central themes of Savage Gods.

Kingsnorth isn’t the only writer to make time spent in a vivid countryside landscape sound less enjoyable than one might expect. The French writer Sylvain Tesson takes this to what may be its most extreme point in his book. He lived alone for six months. His book includes impressive descriptions of the landscape and what it’s like to experience depression in the middle of such a landscape.

Some books neatly remind you of the appeal of such an existence, while others make the drawbacks central to their accounts. In Names for the Sea, Moss summarizes the attraction of wilder places. “We’d come for the landscape, for the pale nights and dark shores, rain sweeping over trees and bushes,” she writes. From that, it’s not hard to see why a life in nature—even with its potential downsides—still appeals to so many.

【推荐2】Modern life is full of things that can influence your ability to be sensitive and responsive to your child. These include extra work, lack of sleep, and things like mobile devices. Some experts are concerned about the effects that distracted (分心) parenting may have on emotional bonding and children’s language development, social interaction, and safety.

If parents are not available, kids can get distressed and feel hurt or ignored. They may have more emotional outbursts, feeling alone and even lose emotional connections to their parents.

It can be tough to respond with sensitivity during tantrums, arguments, or other challenging times with your kids. “If parents respond by being bad-tempered or aggressive themselves, children can copy that behavior, and a negative cycle then continues to upgrade,” explains Dr. Carol Metzler.

According to Crnic, kids start to regulate their own emotions and behavior around age three. Up until then, they depend more on you to help them regulate their emotions, whether to calm them or help get them excited. “They’re watching you to see how you do it and listening to how you talk to them about it,” he explains. “Parents need to be good self-regulators. You’re not only trying to regulate your own emotions in the moment, but helping your child learn to manage their emotions and behavior.”

“When parents engage positively with their children, teaching them the behaviors and skills that they need to cope with the world, children learn to follow rules and regulate their own feelings,” Metzler says.