2 . 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.

3 . I was cutting up lettuce (生菜) in the kitchen when I suddenly remembered watching a video about putting the lettuce stub (残余部分) in water to grow a whole new vegetable. So I took out a wide-mouthed mug (大杯) and placed the stub into it, gave it a little water, and placed it by the window.

On a snowy morning, I noticed the first sign. A first small leaf from its heart spread out. A tiny green flag of hope. Beaten, but not defeated. Within days, it was impossible to see the cuts where I had removed the leaves. The growth was explosive. And when I lifted the blossoming head out of the mug, tiny root threads fell down, seeking for the earth. What is growing here? Lettuce or hope?

If I were a lettuce in a similar condition, I’d want to doubtfully assess where I found myself before being devoted to full growth. Yet for this lettuce, my inadequate offering of water and a place by a window was enough for it to decide to reclaim itself again. It grew in a mug of water, in faith. This is the heart of this lettuce: alive, strong and fearless. It deserved a name. I decided to call it Monty.

Monty wanted to grow, as we all do. I think I gave him a little love and freedom. Those two ingredients were all he needed to return to himself. I see joy in this lettuce. The return to self is always an expression of joy, which is life itself. With the right ingredients, this is the tendency of all living things.

Monty still lives in a mug, but I’m going to transplant him outside. He deserves to become his full self. The only problem I see now is my capacity to support Monty. I hope I have enough of a green finger.

I’m surprised to find myself where I am. Maybe Monty is, too. I have the same choice as he does: give in, or start again. The prospect of starting again is discouraging. But my lettuce-friend, Monty, leads the way. I can only hope to be as brave.

4 . Bill Gates was born in 1955. He grew up in Seattle, Washington. When he was young, he was good at science and maths. And he wanted to be a scientist.

Bill started to play with computers when he was 13. At that time, computers were very large machines. Once he was interested in a very old computer. He and some of his friends spent lots of time doing unusual things with it. In the end, they worked out a software program with the old machine. Bill sold it for 4,200 dollars when he was only 17.

In 1973, Bill went to Harvard University. He developed the Basic Language for the first microcomputer. In his third year, he left Harvard. Bill began his company in 1975 with his friend Paul Allen. They thought that the computer would be a very important tool in every office and in every home, so they began developing software for personal computers. They developed the software to make it easier for people to use computers.

In 1999, Bill wrote a book. In the book, he told people how computer technology could solve business problems in new ways. It was one of the best-sellers on The New York Times’ list. Bill Gates has many hobbies. He enjoyed reading very much. He also enjoys playing golf and bridge.

5 . Looking out of the window of his truck, Bob Fitzgerald sees dying forests and empty farmland. Fitzgerald says the land has been in his family since the 17th century. “I can show you land around here that people grew tomatoes on when I was a little boy. And now it’s gone.”

Climate change is making things worse. As sea levels rise, salt water is entering rivers and other waterways. As a result, the land is becoming too salty for crops to grow on. Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to move inland because of rising waters.

Kate Tully, a researcher in the University of Maryland, wants to keep coastal farmers in business as the seas rise. She has seen the forests filled with pine trees killed by the increasingly salty soil. The United States Department of Agriculture gave Tully and other researchers $1.1 million to study the problem. She and her team hope to give farmers ways to stay on their land.

They are testing different crops on pieces of land around the Eastern Shore. “Sorghum (高粱) is my new favorite crop because it can grow without rain and it can grow with lots of rain.” The grain (谷物) crop may be a good choice to feed the nearly 600 million chickens kept in the area each year. As farmers know, chickens can deal with salt, dry weather conditions and heavy rains. Yet just being able to grow a crop is not enough. The crop has to bring in money.

Some people believe the land should be given back to nature. They say the fields should be turned into wetlands, which are popular with duck hunters. “There’s money in duck hunting,” Tully said. “Hunting organizations will pay farmers for hunting on their land. Farmers could make a lot of money from duck hunting.”

Tully and her team are just getting started. It will be a few years before they really understand how to save the farms.

6 . In 2021, scientists studying animal communication discovered that some dogs connect objects with words at a similar level to babies. Then what about cats, which are commonly believed to be unconcerned about human affairs?

Saho Takagi, a researcher at Azabu University, doubted cats’ seeming unconcern. “Cats don’t appear to listen to people’s conversations, but in fact, they do,” said Takagi. According to previous research, cats understand human communication better than expected. Like dogs, they can use human pointing and stares to find food. They even can tell the difference between human facial expressions and states of attention , according to a 2016 study. However, cats can do more than that.

Another study showed that cats can discriminate their own names from the names of their cat companions (those that live in the same house). The researchers believed that cats learned to connect names with other cats by observing communication between their owners and their cat friends.

In a recently published study, Takagi and her colleagues compared two groups of cats: one group was made up of house cats that lived with at least two other cats; the other was made up of cats that lived in “cat cafés”, which had up to 30 cats. They used a simple, two-phase (阶段) test. During the name phase, the study participant (参与者) was softly placed in front of a laptop computer. Then the researcher played a recording of its owner saying the name of one of its cat companions.

Immediately after the name phase came the face phase. A cat’s face appeared on the monitor. Sometimes , the cat that appeared on the screen matched the name spoken; other times，the name and the image did not match. If cats knew the names of their cat friends, they would investigate by staring doubtfully at the monitor when the name and image did not match. House cats had a significantly longer stare than café cats, indicating that house cats generally expected a specific cat’s face upon hearing the cat’s name.

“This is the first evidence showing that house cats link human words and their social companions through daily experiences,” the researchers wrote. However, we could not recognize the mechanism (机制) for learning. But with more and more scientists becoming interested in cats, who are much smarter than we assume, this question is sure to be solved.”

7 . Museum Day

Museum Day is here for one day and one day only — so you’ll need to hurry if you want to take advantage of the chance to get free Saturday admission to one of the hundreds of participating museums.

This event is hosted annually by Smithsonian Magazine and involves museums and cultural institutions coming together to offer free admission for visitors who would otherwise have to pay for entry.

To get a ticket you’ll need to go to the Smithsonian Magazine website and pick which museum you want to go to. You’ll be able to search to see which museums near you are participating, and you just have to put in your email address and name. After that, you can download your ticket and head out for some fun.

The event is happening as museums are still struggling from the hits they took during the first few years of the pandemic.

The American Alliance of Museums estimated it will take years for museums to fully recover. In February, the group released survey results that detailed those financial losses.

But there’s hope that a free day at the museums might contribute to more future visits.