3 . Why would anyone want to write a poem? One reason to write a poem is to dig from yourself some thought, feeling, comprehension or question that you didn’t know was in you, or in the world. Other forms of writing, such as scientific papers, political analysis and journalism, attempt to record something known. Poetry is a release of something previously unknown.

Poetry opens our eyes and offers increase of reach. We live so often on a lonely island, separated from ourselves and others due to social or personal reasons. To step into a poem is to agree to risk. Writing takes down all protections to see what steps forward. Poetry is a trick of language, in which the writer is both magician and audience. You reach your hand into the hat and surprise yourself with a rabbit or memory, with unusual verbs or rhymes. Poems lead to revolutions of being. Whatever the old order was, a poem will change it.

What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless.

There is also the matter of connection. You can’t write an image, a metaphor (暗喻), a story, a phrase without approaching the shared world, without recognizing that your supposed solitude (独处) is at every point touching some others. You can’t read a good poem without recognizing your own face in the poet’s experience. It allows us to feel more strongly and accurately what is already present. Then it expands that and expands us.

Does art change anything by its existence or non-existence? I’d argue that art, if it is genuinely art, is a force for the good. That the rearrangement of words can reopen the potential of both inner and outer worlds — I cannot say why I feel this to be true, except that I feel it so when I read good poems.

4 . Maybe you grew up eating food made by your grandmothers, mouth-watering dishes that bring back sweet, unforgettable memories. Perhaps it was Italian noodles or even Chinese dumplings. Now, at Enoteca Maria, a unique restaurant in New York City, you can eat the dishes same to your grandmother’s cooking.

When Joe Scaravella opened his restaurant, he named it after his mother. Then, in order to remember his grandmother, Joe invited local grandmothers to cook Italian dishes in his kitchen. “I wanted to try to recreate that: the grandma cooking in the kitchen”, he said.

Enoteca Maria is an Italian restaurant where half of the menu changes daily. The fixed half is Italian; the changeable half includes cuisines from all over the world. And what makes the restaurant unique is not professional chefs calling the shots in the kitchen, but grandmothers! Each night, a grandmother from a different country designs a fresh menu, honoring her native cuisine and the food she loves best. Currently, the restaurant is only open three days a week: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Although it’s usually packed, the grandmothers arrange everything orderly.

When the restaurant first opened, several local Italian grandmothers from different Italian regions would cook their own special dishes on a regular schedule, sometimes launching friendly competitions of whose dish was better. When people from different cultures visited the restaurant to get a taste of original Italy, Scaravella decided to extend the competition to include women from across the globe, to make sense to celebrate every culture, and thus, in 2015, the “Grandmothers of the World” initiative was born.

Now, business is running at full speed with around 30 grandmothers from different nationalities cooking in the kitchen.

5 . Getting less than five hours of sleep in mid-to-late life could be linked to an increased risk of developing at least two chronic (慢性的) diseases, according to a new study. The research analyzed the effect of sleep time on the health of more than 7,000 men and women over 50. Researchers examined the relationship between how long each participant slept for and whether they had two or more chronic diseases over the course of 25 years.

People who were reported getting five hours of sleep or less at age 50 were 20% more likely to have two or more chronic diseases, as opposed to people who slept for up to seven hours Additionally, sleeping for five hours or less was linked to a 30% to 40% increased risk of multimorbidity (多病症) when compared with those who slept for up to seven hours.

Lead author, Dr Sabia, said: “To ensure a better night’s sleep, it is important to promote good sleep, such as making sure the bedroom is quiet, dark and a comfortable temperature before sleeping. It’s also advised to remove electronic devices and avoid large meals before bedtime. Physical activity and being exposed to light during the day might also promote good sleep.”

Dr Sabia said, “Short sleep increases the risk of chronic diseases that in turn increase the risk of death. However, if a participant has already suffered from a chronic condition, then long sleep time is associated with around a 35% increased risk of developing another illness. Researchers believe this could be due to unnoticed health conditions impacting sleep.” Dr. Sabia added, “This research adds to a growing body of research that highlights how important it is to get a good night’s sleep.”

6 . Imagine a new smartphone product. It works the same as any other smartphone, but when dropped, those cracks that appear after an annoying fall slowly begin to fade away, and the phone magically repairs itself、A team of researchers led by chemistry professor Takuzo Aida have found a way to create self-repairing plastics that can be used in smartphones, cars and other products. But their new plastics won’t only be used to create unbreakable products, but also help the fight against growing wastes harming the planet.

91% of plastic is non-recyclable and filling Earth with waste. The increasing plastic in landfills is a growing concern due to its negative environmental impact. In 2019 about only9% of plastics were recycled globally, leading Japanese scientists to seek to find plastic that can start its own formation or self-repair.

The self-repairing plastics are made by adding a tiny amount of a specialized substance into ordinary plastic to hold the monomers (单体) together by hydrogen bonds (氢键). When the new plastic is broken down by heat, instead of burning to waste, the hydrogen bonds mix and allow for the formation of special shaped monomers to create a foundation for more monomers to layer on and rebuild itself. The team found that their self-healing plastic was able to automatically repair at room temperature over an hour to regain its durability.

The team’s work suggests great prospects for the future of plastic. “The technique could lead to the development of a made-to-last plastic that does not need to be recycled,” lead professor Aida said at the conference, “and can one day be in products from smartphones to cars and even buildings.”

7 . Most teenagers kill time playing video games, or surfing TikTok. Not William Gadoury, a 14-year-old from Matha, Quebec. William Gadoury has been crazy about the Mayans for most of his childhood, ever since his grandparents bought him books about the civilization. What started as a hobby at age 12 snowballed into serious research, and he theorized that the locations of Mayan cities might correspond to stars in Mayan constellations(星座).

Using ancient books, Gadoury analyzed 22 Mayan constellation maps and covered the positions onto Google Earth images of the Yucatan Peninsula, which to this day is home to large local populations and some best-preserved architecture from Mayan culture. He would track the constellations from Google Earth using special sheets, covering them onto the position of Mayan cities on a paper map. The teen was able to show that 117 Mayan cities matched up with the position of the stars, with the brightest stars representing bigger cities.

But when Gadoury was working on the 23rd Mayan constellation, he found a conflict: three stars, but only two ancient cities on Google Earth. The third star pointed to a location on the Mexico-Belize border. However, the area was covered with thick jungle, leaving Gadoury stuck.

Luckily, he asked NASA for images from their RADARSAT-2 satellite. Indeed, there was a square, man-made-looking structure in the heavy forest. Gadoury then learned a fire had swept across the region, thinning out the grass cover. He found images from the agency, and eventually concluded that there was indeed a city there.

Gadoury’s findings eventually took him into the jungle in 2022 to search on foot, along with scientist Francisco Bell. The team discovered a farming village deep in the Mexican jungle, which showed the “backbone” of the Maya’s long-term success, which was down to their ability to work the land and support large cities.

9 . For one month, I turned down all in person activities with friends: going out for drinks, dinners, parties and non-work events, to see if it would make me more productive and improve my focus on my career.

Gradually, I came to enjoy the moments of doing nothing, sitting at cafes without any technology, and found myself daydreaming more frequently as I was no longer attempting to fill every spare moment. Such moments are linked to creative problem solving, brainstorming new ideas and reimagining existing projects.

However, such benefits would be a concern if I remained alone at home for too long. “For many working in an office environment, socializing is one of the most important parts and people with a ‘best friend’ at work are seven times more likely to throw themselves fully in their work,” says Silvia Bellezza, professor of Harvard University. Workplace friendship also creates a common sense of purpose and a social support network. Of course, off-hours socializing is also an important way to build work contacts. While one month of no social life did not impact people’s relationship with existing connections, it may have reduced their ability to build new ones.

During the month, I learned that I couldn’t cut out an area of life in order to lift another — a connection with people is linked to our work and helps us deal with life’s ups and downs. Researcher Ellen Galinsky has found that people who are dual-centric (兼顾的) are the most satisfied in their lives. “We find that people who are dual-centric tend to be healthier, do better at work and do better at home,” says Galinsky. Perhaps the secret to a successful career is not cutting out my social life, but combining the two.