3 . Singapore cannot afford to have large plots of land dedicated to growing crops—it is just too small. However, farming, or more precisely, urban farming, is now a buzz word here. Instead of looking at the grounds, Singapore has decided to look skyward, towards rooftops!

In 2020, Singapore announced plans to convert the roofs of nine multi-storey car-parks in public housing areas into spaces for commercially farmed vegetables and other crops. This is part of Singapore’s strategy to meet the country’s 30 by 30 goal, which is to produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030 up from 10% in 2020.

Several companies have taken on the task of cultivating the urban farming scene in Singapore. Citiponics has made a name for itself, building water-efficient organic “growing towers” that can be used to grow anything from butterhead lettuce (奶油生菜) to sweet basil (罗勒). In April 2020, they opened the first commercial farm on the rooftop of a multi-storey car park and now sell their produce via their own brand at local supermarkets. Edible Garden City (EGC) has more than 200farms across the island and works closely with restaurants to ensure sustainable supply and demand. A 460-square-meter farm run by EGC, is positioned on the rooftop of a mall to supply nearby restaurants.

Singapore is not alone in its efforts to go beyond the confines of conventional agriculture. All over the world, cities are seeking to feed their communities with local produce. At Thammasat University located just outside of Bangkok, a formerly disused rooftop has been transformed into a 7,000-square-meter space for organic farming, the largest in Asia.

Urban farming is not restricted to eatable plants such as leafy greens and vegetables. Rooftop Honey, which has over 130 hives throughout various locations in Greater Melbourne specializes in bees. The urban beekeeping operation, founded in 2010, serves two purposes: producing creamy and delicious honey for the city’s residents while also allowing the bees to pollinate (授粉) flowers in the surrounding areas.

There are several benefits to have the farms so close to home. Through community gardens or access to commercial-scale farm produce, the public have an opportunity to understand how food is grown. As the produce is pesticide free, there is also comfort in knowing where the food comes from and its impact on the environment.

4 . Will the AI chatbots eat search engines’ lunch? For more than 20 years, search engines have been the Internet’s front door. Google has dominated the field in most of the world. But nothing lasts forever, particularly in technology.

Just ask IBM, which once ruled business computing, or Nokia, once the leader in mobile phones. Both fell behind because they didn’t follow big technological transitions. Now another tech innovation might announce a similar shift—and a similar opportunity. ChatGPT has put itself on centre stage, by letting people chat with an AI directly. ChatGPT can write essays in various styles, explain complex concepts, summarize texts and answer questions. And it can collect, process and combine knowledge from the web: for example, listing holiday spots that match certain criteria, or suggesting menus or schedules. If asked, it can explain its reasoning and provide details. Many things that people use search engines for today, in short, can be done better with chatbots.

Will ChatGPT help students cheat better? Yes, but as with many other technology developments, it’s not a simple black and white situation. Decades ago, students could copy encyclopedia entries, and more recently, they’ve been able to search the Internet and explore into Wikipedia entries. ChatGPT offers new abilities for everything from helping with research to doing their homework for them. Many ChatGPT answers already sound like student essays. Ask the new artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT to write an essay about the cause of the American Civil War and you can watch it produce a persuasive term paper in a matter of seconds.

It can even (narrowly) pass a number of exams. It scored 60% on the United States Medical Licensing Examination, 70% on an exam for lawyers, 78% on New York state’s high school chemistry exam’s multiple choice section, and ranked the 40th on the Law School Admission Test.

A high school teacher concluded ChatGPT already writes better than most students today. He’s torn between admiring ChatGPT’s potential usefulness and fearing its harm to human learning: “Is this moment more like the invention of the calculator, saving me from the boredom of long division, or more like the invention of the player piano, robbing us of what can be communicated only through human emotion?”

6 . The Best Time to Buy Everything

If you’re in the market to buy something, you can save big by timing your purchase right. Here’s our smart guide to what to buy when:

JANUARY

·Fitness Equipment Deals on workout equipment, scales and activity trackers leave you with no excuse not to follow through with your fitness resolutions!

FEBRUARY

·Tax Software Get a jump on filing your taxes and you’ll be rewarded with discounts on programs such as TurboTax.

·Winter Coats The end of the winter season, coupled with Presidents Day sales, make February a great time to stock up on warm coats.

MARCH

·Air Purifiers Mild spring air may make you want to open up all the windows—and to filter out all those allergens.

·Fine Jewelry With Christmas and Valentine’s Day now behind us, jewelers try to keep up their sales by lowering prices.

APRIL

·Leaf Blowers Tires Drivers are gearing up for summer road trips, so expect to see a variety of tire sales and promos around this time.

·Sports Coats and Sweaters All sorts of sports sweaters go on sale.

MAY

·Blenders A variety of small kitchen appliances go on sale, thanks to Mother’s Day and Memorial Day.

·Mattresses Prices are best during Memorial Day sales. That goes for air mattresses, too.

JUNE

·Outdoor Equipment Before the official start of summer is the best time to save on bikes, sunscreen, camping equipment and other seasonal gear.

·Smart-watches All sorts of tech gadgets go on sale for Father’s Day.

7 . When I was in third grade my family moved from a house in the sticks to a house in town. My parents sold the first house _________ they bought the second, so we had about three months when we were _________. During those three months, a family friend _________ us their very small fishing cabin right next to what we called the canal. The cabin had one bedroom, a small living room, a(n) _________ kitchen, and a foyer(休息室)where my brother and I slept in a bunk bed. It was a _________ time for my parents. All of our routines were upended. But _________, I loved it.

I loved the bunk bed, where I _________ my brother was right above me, close enough for me to reach up and _________ if needed. I loved the small kitchen, where my mother would cook and I would read aloud to her. I loved that there were no other _________ anywhere nearby, so my brother had to play with me. I loved the games that we found in the cabin. I loved that as I went to sleep at night, the light from the living room and the __________ of my father watching TV were just a few feet away.

In that period of disruption, I loved the closeness that our small cabin __________ us. In our normal lives, I wouldn’t have dared to ask my brother to play with me instead of his friends. I couldn’t have __________ to share a bedroom with him. In our normal lives, I wouldn’t have been allowed to __________ late enough to hear my father watching TV.

__________ my parents found a new house and we moved into it. It was bigger than our old house and much bigger than the cabin. But I mourned the loss of the cabin and, particularly, the loss of the __________.

8 . Recycling is a great way of doing your bit for the environment and helping to protect the earth’s precious resources. However, a new study has revealed that our desire to be sustainable maybe doing more harm than good. According to waste company Biffa, this is because of “wish-cycling” — assuming that items such as disposable coffee cup sand pizza boxes will be recycled if put in the recycling bin. In fact, pollution from those items or other non-recyclables can result in recyclable items that have been put in the correct bin going to landfill. David Heaton, a business director at Biffa, said: “Pollution happens when items are disposed of in the wrong bins or haven’t been cleaned before being recycled.”

Experts at Biffa analyzed the amounts of non-target and non-recyclable materials that entered UK material recycling facilities between 2016 and 2020. It was found that, in 2016, the average pollution rate of recycling waste was 13.4 percent, rising over four years to 17 percent by the end of 2020. This shows that, even as people are becoming more eco-conscious, wish-cycling is increasing both in households and businesses.

The Biffa experts say that one of the best ways to prevent pollution of recycling is to clean recyclable waste before putting it in the bin. They suggest cutting off the top of old pizza boxes and only recycling that part to avoid pollution from the grease (油脂). Check the on-packaging recycling label to check it can actually be recycled When it comes to plastics, Biffa recommends checking the resin code, the number in the plastic triangle, to know whether it should go in the recycling bin. In general, resin codes 1, 2, 4 and 5 are recyclable, while 3, 6 and 7 are not. Larger items, like electronics, furniture and batteries, can also be recycled but often can not go in household recycling bins as they need specialist separating. These will need to be taken to recycling centers or sustainable waste management companies.

“It’s vital as a nation that we get better at effective ‘pre-cycling’— sorting waste correctly before collection to reduce pollution rates,” added Mr. Heaton.

10 . It all started with a post on social media. Returning home from the grocery store, then 25-year-old Simone Policano felt compelled to help the elderly in her neighbourhood to practise safer social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic. With this in mind, she reached out to her friends via the social media, inquiring about existing volunteer opportunities in the state of New York. Unexpectedly, many responded to her post, expressing their interest to volunteer as well. As a result of that outreach, one of her friends, Liam Elkind joined Policano. They decided to start an initiative called Invisible Hands Deliver.

Just two days after conceiving(想出)the idea, Policano and Elkind had a website up and running. This site allowed the elderly and other at-risk individuals to make requests for groceries and prescription medicines to be delivered to them. Volunteers left the bags of groceries outside the doors. The webpage also included a call for volunteers, which gained more than 2,000 sign-ups within the first five days.

As the pandemic began to take its toll on New York in March 2020, Invisible Hands Deliver witnessed a massive outpouring of support from like-minded individuals in the community. Besides volunteering to deliver groceries for free, New Yorkers also reached out to translate the Invisible Hands flyers into over a dozen languages, enabling the organisation to reach out to more members of the community.

Following its success in New York and New Jersey, the organisation has expanded its operations to Philadelphia and there are plans to expand to other areas of the United States. Their acts of kindness have also inspired similar networks to sprout up worldwide. Invisible Hands Deliver is also supported by other organizations.

Helmed by a team of college students and recent graduates, Invisible Hands Deliver has shown that one is never too young to make a difference and give back to the community. In a time when the pandemic has forced people apart, the young are in a prime position to take advantage of technology and bridge the gap, bringing communities together.