【推荐1】Rather than building new homes to help satisfy housing markets, a new study says that taxing empty homes in big cities could increase housing affordability for local residents while generating income for the governments.

During the past 20 years, housing affordability has decreased significantly in the UK due to a rapid increase in prices relative to earnings. This may be due to foreign investors buying out properties in cities such as London, or from British citizens in the countryside buying out second homes in the city, which reduces the availability of affordable housing for local residents.

This means that local citizens who actually live in the city are forced to pay more money for housing in neighborhoods that are filled with homes that are unoccupied for more than half of the year.

In a study that was published recently,researcher Jonathan Bourne at University College London studied the relationship between the amount of properties which do not have permanent residents, and housing affordability in different parts of England and Wales. Upon researching the data, which represents about 40% of the population.the researcher was stunned to find that there were over 340,000 empty apartments across the places.

Though some cities are trying to meet housing demands by building more housing. Bourne suggests that local governments put an empty homes tax of 1% instead. “The data shows that empty homes are very concentrated in small numbers of desirable areas. In such cases simply building more homes is not going to solve the problem.as the issue is severe competition for property, not a lack of places to live." says Bourne.

Vancouver introduced a similar empty homes tax in 2017,which was the first oi its kind in North America. One year after it went into effect. the city reported a 15% decrease in unoccupied homes,which amounted to 163 properties being rented out to local people. Furthermore, the tax raised more than $ 38 million in city revenue(税收），all of which was spent on affordable housing programs.

【推荐3】Roughly the size of a soda can, sitting on a bookshelf, a relatively harmless device may be turning friends away from your home. The elephant in your living room is your Internet-connected camera, a device people are increasingly using for peace of mind in their homes. But few stop to think about the effect these devices may have on house guests. Should you tell your friends, for instance, that they’re being recorded while you all watch the big game together?

“It’s certainly new territory (领地), especially as home security cameras become easier to fix,” says Lizzie Post, president of the Emily Post Institute, America’s distinguished manners advisors. “I think it will be very interesting to see what manners appear in terms of whether you tell people you have a camera or not, and whether guests have a right to ask that it be turned off, if it’s not a security issue.” Post wants to make clear that she’s not talking about legal rights, but rather personal preference.

When it comes to security cameras, Post says it’s a host’s responsibility to make sure guests feel comfortable within their home. If the host casually acknowledges that there is a camera in the room by telling a story about, it that may be enough to provide an opening for a guest to say if they are uncomfortable.

However, if a contractor (合约工) is working in your home, you don’t need to tell them that there are cameras watching. Then again, the camera can also work in contractors’ favor. “If anything does go wrong while they’re in the house, they don’t want to be blamed for it,” she says. “In fact, the camera could be the thing that proves that they didn’t steal the $20, or knock the vase off the table.”

【推荐1】Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is America’s fifth largest city. Once a major American colonial city, it is the home of America’s first library, its first hospital, and its first zoo. Now it is also the first US city to be named a World Heritage City. On November 6, 2015, Philadelphia joined more than 260 other cities that have been recognized for their influence on the world. These cities include Paris, France, Florence, Italy, and Cairo, Egypt.

“Today marks the start of a new and exciting chapter in the history of Philadelphia,” remarked Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter when the announcement was made. “As a World Heritage City, Philadelphia is being officially recognized on the global stage for its wealth of contributions to the world.

To be named a World Heritage City, a city must be home to a UNESCO World Heritage site. UNESCO World Heritage sites are selected for their universal value and significance. For Philadelphia, the site is Independence Hall.

Independence Hall is where two of the most important documents in US history—the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution—were adopted. The Declaration of Independence, approved on July 4, 1776, united the 13 former British colonies and declared them independent from British rule. The US Constitution, signed in 1787, established the American democratic system of government. A democracy is a system of government in which the people elect their leaders. The Constitution later spelled out the basic freedoms American citizens have.

Philadelphia Deputy Mayor Alan Greenberger says the city’s selection as a World Heritage City also reflects its educational, cultural, and economic achievements. The city is home to dozens of colleges and universities, and many museums, such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “Philadelphia has rightfully earned its place as one of the greatest cities in the world.” Greenberger says.

【推荐2】Bottle Cap Alley is a special roadside attraction located at the north edge of the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas.    1    

No one knows exactly how the tradition began, but some people believe that it started out as a dumping site (垃圾场) for two bars.    2     Besides, as word of the Bottle Cap Alley spread, other local bars started bringing in their bottle caps here as well. It is estimated that the tradition dates from four decades ago.

    3     They set up a large sign over it, added lights so it could be visited at night and began promoting it as a part of the local sightseeing tour. The move didn’t sit well with many college students who wanted to make the tradition survive forever, but it did turn the alley into a popular roadside tourist attraction.

Some people noticed that most of the beer bottle caps all came from American brands, and made it a point to add a variety of caps from imported beers as well, turning the place into an international bottle cap gallery.    4    

It is a gold mine for people who collect bottle caps, and it has been reported that some collectors travel to College Station from far away for the specific purpose of finding rare caps for their collections.    5     However, considering that average visitors often take a few as souvenirs, it’s easy to see why constant bottle cap contributions are vital to the preservation of the alley.

【推荐3】Now, cities large and small often have remains of earlier historic streets and sidewalk pavements(人行道）。Yet they often go unprotected even when they may be older than neighbouring historic buildings that have enjoyed protection for tens of years.

There are many reasons to protect historic pavements - culture value, economics, environmental benefits and public safety. Pavements represented an important step in the modernization of city environments in the 19th century.

Before the laying of pavement, streets of dirt caused many problems to citizens,especially in wet weather when they became muddy(泥泞的），which limited the movement of people and vehicles.

To solve the problem, cities experimented with a wide range of materials in an attempt to balance durability(耐用性），economics,sources of materials and noise considerations.

The earliest pavement in many cities were cobblestones-naturally rounded stones.They were cheap and durable, but rough and noisy. Loose stone pavements were cheap and smooth, but not very durable. Wood also appeared in the 1850s as a popular option-smooth,quiet and affordable,but not very durable.

In many cities and towns,brick(砖）streets are the only historic pavements that have survived.This fact covers up the truth of pavement experimentation between the 1850s and 1920s, when a city could use up to a dozen different paving materials at the same time! Indeed, each city developed a unique "pavement identity” in the materials chosen and the way they were laid.

It is easy to think of the past when seeing historic pavements, as recalling “old world” city qualities. However, they are more similar to the early high buildings and parks-important city features that showed the modernization of the city. At a time when cities are becoming increasingly similar, such pavements also help define an important sense of place.

【推荐2】The values of artistic works, according to cultural relativism (相对主义), are simply reflections of local and economic conditions. Such a view, however, fails to explain the ability of some works of art to excite the human mind across cultures and through centuries.

History has witnessed the endless production of Shakespearean plays in every major language of the world. It is never rare to find that Mozart packs Japanese concert hall, as Japanese painter Hiroshige does Paris galleries. Unique works of this kind are different from today’s popular art, even if they began as works of popular art. They have set themselves apart in their timeless appeal and will probably be enjoyed for centuries into the future.

In a 1757 essay, the philosopher David Hume argued that because “the general principles of tastes are uniform (一致的) in human nature,” the value of some works of art might be essentially permanent. He observed that Homer was still admired after 2000 years. Works of this type, he believed, spoke to deep and unvarying features of human nature and could continue to exist over centuries.

Now researchers are applying scientific methods to the study of the universality of art. For example, evolutionary psychology is being used by literary scholars to explain the long-lasting themes and plot devices in fiction. The structures of musical pieces are now open to experimental analysis as never before. Research findings seem to indicate that the creation by a great artist is as permanent an achievement as the discovery by a great scientist.

【推荐1】“Deep reading” —as opposed to the often superficial reading we do on the Web —is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art. Its disappearance would jeopardize(危及) the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the preservation of a critical part of our culture: the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains, quite literally, have been trained to understand them.

Recent research in cognitive science and psychology has demonstrated that deep reading —slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity—is a distinctive experience, different in kind from the mere decoding of words. Although deep reading does not, strictly speaking, require a conventional book, the built-in limits of the printed page are uniquely helpful to the deep reading experience. A book’s lack of hyperlinks(超链接), for example, frees the reader from making decisions —Should I click on this link or not? —allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative.

That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, indirect reference and figures of speech: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the stuff of literature are also vigorous exercise for the brain, propelling us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity for empathy (认同).

None of this is likely to happen when we’re browsing through a website. Although we call the activity by the same name, the deep reading of books and the information-driven reading we do on the Web are very different, both in the experience they produce and in the capacities they develop. A growing body of evidence suggests that online reading may be less engaging and less satisfying, even for the “digital natives” to whom it is so familiar. Last month, for example,   Britain’s National Literacy Trust released the results of a study of 34,910 young people aged 8 to 16. Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who read only onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and a third less likely to have a favorite book. The study also found that young people who read daily only onscreen were nearly two times less likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or both in print and onscreen.

【推荐2】Apple announced its new iPhones last week, but competitors’ mobile phones can do many of the same things for less money.

The new iPhone 8 and X have wireless charging, edge-to-edge glass screen and double cameras. But all of these features are already available in smart phones from China’s Huawei and Oppo, and Korea’s Samsung. While Apple asks buyers to pay $1,000 for its high-end model, some Asian phone makers can offer similar features for less.

At one time, Chinese manufacturers copied features and designs from others to produce low-cost phones. But they have now added high-end features to their phones and they control nearly half the global mobile phone market.

Media MarktSaturn is Europe’s biggest electronics seller. A spokesperson for the store told Reuters that,“Huawei is seen as a relevant competitor to Apple and Samsung by covering all major price points and placing big investments in marketing and sales. ’’ She also said that the Chinese companies Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo and TCL were among the top-10 best-selling smart phones in its stores.

Chinese manufacturers’ fast growth has been fueled by strong sales in China. But they now export 40 percent of their smart phones. That is almost double the number from just three years ago, according to the Hong Kong investment company CLSA.

Huawei is currently the world’s third largest phone maker behind Samsung and Apple. According to research company Canalys, the Chinese company is getting closer to second-place Apple and might overtake it later this year. Huawei plans to show its top-of-the-line Mate 10 phone on Oct. 16. The phone will have artificial intelligence features such as instant translation and image recognition and will cost less than $1,000.

Other Chinese companies are looking to enter the high-end smart phone market.

【推荐3】Recently, a new study suggests that staying positive through the cold season could be the best defense(抵御) against getting sick.

In an experiment that exposed（暴露）healthy volunteers to a cold of flu virus, researchers found that people with a generally sunny emotion were less likely to fall ill. The findings, published in the journal “Psychosomatic Medicine”, build on evidence that a “positive emotional style” can help defend the common cold and other illnesses.

“People with a positive emotional style may have different immune responses to the virus,” explained Dr Sheldom Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. And when they do get a cold, they may experience their illness as less serious.

Cohen and his colleagues had found in a previous study that happier people seemed less susceptible(易受影响的) to catching a cold, but some questions remained as to whether the emotional quality itself had the effect.

For the new study, the researchers had 193 healthy adults complete standard measures of personality qualities, physical health and “emotional style”.

Those who tended to be happy, energetic and easy-going were judged as having a positive emotional style, while those who were often unhappy and tense had a negative style.

Afterwards, the researchers gave them nose drops containing either a cold virus or a particular flu virus that causes flu-like symptoms. Over the next six days the volunteers reported on any aches, pains, sneeze they had. Cohen and his colleagues found that positive emotions really have the big effect of fighting virus.