【推荐1】Do you like drinking Coke? As a symbol of American culture, Coca-Cola is liked by many people, especially young people all around the world. But from now on, perhaps it will be hard for students in the US to get it on campus. A new agreement will end almost all sales of high-sugar fizzy drinks in US schools. The agreement allow only unsweetened juice, low-fat milk and water in primary and middle school vending machines(自动销售机) and cafeterias. Former American president Bill Clinton helped the American Heart Association and the beverage industry(饮料业) to come up with the agreement. He suffered from a weight problem and has had a heart operation since leaving the White House. He takes the agreement as “a bold step forward in the struggle to help 35 million young people lead healthier lives”.

Rising childhood obesity(肥胖) has become a big problem in America. A federal report noted that obesity hastripledamong teenagers in the past 25 years. It called for new limits on the marketing of junk food to children. Soda is a particular target because of its caloric content and popularity among children.

Britain has already taken similar steps to fight obesity. A recent study shows that people in the UK are much healthier than the people in the US. However, it’s better late than never. Now American schools are trying to make new rules to guide the students to choose healthy drinks. American schools say goodbye to Coca-Cola.

【推荐1】Have you ever tried making music with glasses or bottles filled with water? I bet your favorite band hasn’t. Experiment with your own special sounds by turning glasses of water into instruments, make some cool music and find out how it works.

What you’ll need:

Five or more drinking glasses or glass bottles. Water. Wooden stick such as a pencil. If possible, you’d better do it in a small but empty room with a long table in.

Instructions:

Line the glasses up next to each other and fill them with different amounts of water. The first should have just a little water while the last should be almost full, and the ones in between should have slightly more than the first.

Hit the glass with the least amount of water and watch the sound, then hit the glass with the most water, which makes the higher sound?

Hit the other glasses and see what noise they make. See if you can get a tune going by hitting the glasses in a certain order.

What’s happening?

Each of the glasses will have a different tone when you hit with the pencil. The glass with the most water will have the lowest tone while the glass with the least water will have the highest. Small vibrations (震动) are made when you hit the glass, and this creates sound waves which travel through the water. More water means slower vibrations and a deeper tone.

【推荐2】Now more and more people buy and sell things on the Internet. They buy and sell goods to make money. So hackers(黑客) around the world are interested in this.

Hackers are often young people who love computers greatly. They use computers to get on the Internet, looking for ways to go into computer systems run by banks, homes and all kinds of offices. If they go into a computer system, they will find other people's credit cards and try to steal the numbers. With the numbers they can take the money out of the bank.

Hackers often break into your computer system, but it's difficult to find them. So it is also difficult for you to find the hacker who is taking your money out of the bank. Hackers can get the money from a bank with the credit card number they have got from your computer.

Scientists always ask people who have computers to pay attention to hackers. They also tell people how to fight the hackers. The answer is to choose a clever password(密码) and change it often and not to show your credit card out to anybody. If you are not careful, it's just like keeping the bank door wide open.

【推荐3】Height is just one of the features (特征) your genes (基因) decide. In fact, because you have two parents, your genes give you a height between the height of each parent. If both your parents are tall, then most probably you will be tall too. But if you have questions about how tall you’re going to be, ask your doctor if he or she can help you find them out.

But genes don’t decide everything. For example, eating unhealthy food can stop you from growing to your full potential (潜力). Getting plenty of sleep and enough exercise will help you grow to the expected (期待的) height. Maybe you’re thinking how fast you should grow. There’s no perfect or right answer. Kids grow about 6 cm a year between age 3 and the time when they start puberty. Your doctor will know how your growth has been going over the years, how you have been growing up to this height, what other changes your body may be going through.

Don’t be surprised if you seem to have grown a lot in a very short time. Everyone has a growth spurt (高峰) during puberty. The age for starting puberty is about 10 for girls and about 11 for boys. But it can be earlier or later — between 7 and 13 for girls and 9 and 15 for boys. You’ll usually begin to find that you’re growing faster about a year after your body starts to show the first changes of puberty.

【推荐1】From driver-less cars to voice control in the house, AI (人工智能) has developed so fast. “AI is going to change the world more than anything in the history of mankind. More than electricity (电力).” said AI expert Dr. Kai-Fu Lee. That’s true. According to a research by scientists at the University of Oxford, AI will be better than humans at translating languages by 2024, writing school essays by 2026, selling things by 2031, writing a bestselling book by 2049, and treating diseases by 2053. In the next few years, AI will become an important part in our lives.

These are just a few examples of how AI will change the future. But wait, what about jobs? Will they steal our jobs in the future?

“AI will take our jobs!” is the most common fear. In fact, with AI automating (自动操作) all kinds of work, we can think of a more comfortable future for ourselves with millions of new job chances. According to a report on the Future of Jobs by World Economic Forum, AI will create 58 million new AI jobs by 2022. There is an excellent chance that AI will replace humans in most of the mental (脑力的) tasks by 2030. However, that does not mean it will take away jobs. Taking India as an example, the Indian AI industry (工业) doubled in size in 2019 compared to the year before. In just one year, three times more companies are working on AI-based projects and this is likely to continue. India almost doubled its AI engineers in 2019 (from 40,000 in 2018 to 72,000 in 2019) but still faces a talent shortage. Top technology companies are in a race to implement AI in our day-to-day lives, which will lead us to a really exciting AI future.

AI Future is coming soon! And there will be more new jobs in the AI industry. Do you want to be a part of this fourth industrial revolution (革命)? Will you upgrade your skills to stay ahead or will you remain still and slow in the industry? The choice remains with you. With the process of education and training, now is the time to prepare for the age of AI.

【推荐2】Since 2017, short videos have gotten millions of opinions online. Many people make and share short videos on popular video apps like Douyin and Kuaishou. In these popular apps, you can even add music and special effects (特效) to your videos. A video usually lasts 15 seconds to a few minutes. People in the videos usually do things like cooking, exercising and singing.

Teenagers enjoy these videos very much. More than 50 percent of junior high school students said they enjoy themselves while watching these short videos. About 47 percent have posted their own videos, according to a recent report by the China National Youth Palace Association.

The videos let teenagers see something funny and exciting. Many teenagers like to share the fun things they do with others as well. For example, a 12-year-old user named Xiaoqianyu posted videos to show her jazz dance. This made her win many fans.

However, the videos can also cause trouble. Some students spend too much time watching them and less time studying. Some videos are not appropriate for teenagers. Watching these videos is bad for teenagers’ study and life.

To deal with these problems, Douyin added a new function in April. It locks the app if someone uses the app for over two hours a day. In the same month, the government asked the video companies to control these apps and take out the bad videos. The apps have been checked and controlled much more strictly since then, the Beijing News reported.

【推荐3】An afternoon nap can make your body better

When I was a child in kindergarten, I had to take a nap (小睡) during school every single day. It was probably my least favorite thing about being in kindergarten. But now, as an adult, I love taking naps. Being able to relax and get some rest in the middle of the day is great! But attitudes (态度) toward naps are quite different when comparing the US and China.

In the US, taking a nap in the middle of the day is looked down upon. People who take naps are seen as lazy. You can even be fired (解雇) from your job if you fall asleep at work. This kind of thinking dates back to the founders of the US, the Puritans (清教徒). They were known for working hard.

But in China, taking a nap is just a normal part of the day. Some people even bring their own pillow to work for naptime! People in China have a much more relaxed attitude toward taking naps.

On one hand, it is true that you spend less time working or studying if you take a nap. There are also times when it isn't appropriate (合适的) to take a nap. You don't want to fall asleep in the middle of an important meeting, or during a wedding.   

But on the other hand, having a short rest can help you work better. A good rest can improve your mood as well, studies say. So why not take a nap during lunch break and make the rest of the day more enjoyable?