1 . If you explore somewhere interesting, you should never miss the three beautiful bookstores in the world.

City Lights

City Lights, an independent bookstore-publisher combination specializing (专门从事) in world literature, the arts and politics, is still one of the world’s greatest bookstore since it was founded by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It became well-known for publishing important poem Howl and Other Poems. Having been a gathering place for American literary icons (偶像), like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. City Lights is located at 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco.

Shakespeare and Company

Originally founded in 1919 by Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company is a combination of a bookstore and a reading library, specializing in English-language literature. In the 1920s, the store was a meeting point for literary icons such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. Located in the 5th arrondissement (郡，法国行政区), on Paris’s Left Bank, the current store was opened in 1951, named after and in honor of the earlier store that closed during World War II.

Selexyz Dominicanen Bookstore

The 800-year- old Domonican church in Maastricht has been turned into one of the most beautiful bookstore in the world- Selexyz Dominicanen Bookstore. The store keeps the character and charm of the old church. It houses the largest stock of books in English in the city. Reading here is a special experience.

5 . You may study English for years and still not understand a native speaker of English when you meet one. Many language learners know that native speakers say a lot of things that you can’t find in a dictionary. Well, here’s a secret for you: A lot of British people can’t understand each other either!

Across the UK, a number of regions have different dialects. There are many different accents (口音) in London, because it is not just where a person is born in the UK that decides their accent. Language and accents also change across social class and level of education. Therefore, “Multicultural London English” was created at the end of the 20th century.

Other factors are also important in the invention of new accents and ways of speaking. These include the influence of people from different countries and different age groups, too.

“Yoof culture” is an example. The word “yoof” is a slang (俚语) spelling of “youth”. Young people are creating their own language, ideas and identity. By using words that their parents don’t understand, children can talk about things that their parents might not agree with. For example, instead of saying something like “That’s good!” or “I understand”, yoof will use a single adjective like “Safe!”, or “Sorted!” Yoof would use “kind-a-thing” or “sort-a-thing” to replace “if you understand what I’m saying”. In this way, they are starting to find freedom, independence and self-expression.

As learners of English, we may wonder how well we can talk to a native speaker, but perhaps we should worry less about this. Research by the British Council shows that 94 percent of the English spoken in the world today is spoken between non-native speakers of the language. In fact, when we think about “international English”, there is no such thing as a native or non-native speaker. The UK no longer owns the English language.

6 . In times of sadness, a friend would always suggest going for a walk. “Are you overwhelmed (压垮) by your work? Take a walk around the neighborhood.” Comments like this are often said with nothing but the best of intentions, but they used to make me angry as much as being told to drink more water. I did not understand how these things were going to help.

Three years ago, I hit a low point. Once I saw a pair of empty eyes looking at me through the mirror, I knew I was at my breaking point. So, I took the advice I fought so hard to ignore. I went for a walk—with the hope that it would somehow change my life.

I embraced (拥抱) the fresh air everyone seemed to be talking about. But it did nothing. I was just as sad as I was before. I went on a walk every single day for more than a month. Some days I could hardly make it outside, but I managed to push through. I took a picture every time I went. I think I wanted to document myself trying to make an effort. One day, the unthinkable happened. I found myself smiling. I realized I had patiently waited all morning to go on this walk. What I once hated had become the best part of my day. I found myself longing to be outside. I never had a destination in mind. I just danced along the trails (小路) , stopped to look at the beautiful blue skies and listened to music.

I’m glad I took pictures because there was a noticeable difference in my face. I slowly started to look less tired and defeated. I don’t know why I refused to go on that walk for so long. I guess I didn’t want to believe that something small and seemingly meaningless could actually make an impact on my physical and mental well-being.

If you’re having a bad day, a bad month, a bad year or even a bad life, you should try going for a walk. Sometimes, all we need to do is try.

7 . Volunteering is a great way for teenagers to make a difference and meet new people. There are many different types of volunteer opportunities for teens available. Here are a few volunteer opportunities that you could encourage your teen to take up.

Help at a local food bank

Food banks always welcome donations and new volunteers. They provide perfect volunteering opportunities for those who are interested in helping the homeless. Your teen would be involved in anything, from preparing meals to working behind the scenes to repackage donated food items, serving food, and carrying boxes.

Help at a soup kitchen

A soup kitchen is one of the places where the hungry can get free or affordable meals (usually soup and bread). Most soup kitchens run primarily on donations and the generosity of people. As a soup kitchen volunteer, your child may be made to clean the tables and utensils (用具), help distribute food, cook food and more.

Volunteer for Meals on Wheels

By volunteering for Meals on Wheels, your teen will deliver nutritious meals to the elderly or the disabled. It’s perfect for teens who have just received their driving license and love to get behind the wheel for any reason! They can make a massive impact in a short amount of time. Alternatively, your teen can also volunteer in their kitchen and prepare meals for delivery. With a simple gesture, your teen can bring millions of smiles to people’s lives.

Work with Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity’s mission is to build or improve a place that someone could call home. Besides helping the community, your teen will learn valuable skills such as repairing fund-raising, painting, and building. You can sign them up for long-term projects or one-time program.

9 . Raising livestock (牲畜) is a big part of the carbon emission from agriculture. But it is hard to change people’s habits and get them to give up their hamburgers, especially since more than one-third of Americans eat fast food every day. We previously called for carbon labels on everything from buildings to burgers. Now, a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that labels on fast food affected people’s choices.

The study said shifting current dietary patterns to more sustainable diets with less red meat could reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 55% and have health benefits.

The 5,000 participants in the study were shown fake menus. One group got menus with high climate impact labels on red meat items and another had low climate impact labels on fish or plant-based burgers. Both menus were effective in reducing the orders for red meat. But interestingly, the high-impact labels were far more effective, with 23% of the participants choosing a more environmentally sustainable selection, while menus listing low-impact choices encouraged only 10% participants to change.

“We found that labeling red meat items with high-climate impact labels was more effective in increasing sustainable selections than labeling non-red meat items with low-climate impact labels,” wrote the authors of the study.

Lead author, Julia Wolfson, said, “These results suggest that menu labeling, particularly labels warning that an item has high climate impact, can be an effective strategy for encouraging more sustainable food choices in a fast food setting.”

The study points out negative labels might be unpopular: “It is unlikely that the industry would voluntarily adopt a negative label approach; such an approach needs to be carried out via law. However, high climate impact labels may easily be adopted in settings like universities and hospitals.”

They have a point that this label is aggressively negative, more like a cigarette warning than a food label. In the study, the authors note that future research should test more label designs using qualitative and quantitative research on how people understand different climate impact labels.

10 . Dandelion (蒲公英) seeds are some of the best flyers in nature, catching the wind and spreading as far as 100 kilometers. Each dandelion seed is tied by a thin tube to around 100 hairs, which form the parachute-like (类似降落伞的) structure. When seeds break free from the flower head, these hairs catch the wind and carry their seeds. This hairy parachute closes when the air is humid (潮湿的), which often means the wind is weak. In drier and windier conditions, dandelions widen their parachutes to better catch the wind so the seeds can fly freely.

However, in the past, nobody knew how they sense and respond to their environment so effectively.

Now researchers have uncovered the secret “thinking” behind dandelions’ spreading seeds. Their work, published in Nature Communications, found the seed-carrying parachutes open and close using something like actuators — devices that change signals into movement — without using active input of energy. The center of the parachutes senses the humidity of their immediate environment by absorbing water molecules (分子) from the air. Responding to these humidity signals, they either open their parachutes and fly away, or close their parachutes and stay put.

Study author Dr. Naomi Nakayama of the Department of Bioengineering who led the work said that their findings reveal how the dandelion ensures the survival of its species by making perhaps the most important decision in a plant’s life — to stay or go to seek a better habitat.

“Understanding how dandelions work is fascinating because the dandelion is the foundation of ecosystems. It feeds insects and birds,” Nakayama says. “So, the environmental sensitivity of their flight is an important topic for us to understand how nature will change in future climates.”