1 . Things to do in Las Vegas

Explore the food and drink scene in Chinatown

It’s a bit of a secret, but Las Vegas has one of the most amazing Chinatown dining scenes in the country. There is incredible variety to be enjoyed throughout the district, such as roast meats at Raku, spicy Sichuan at Chengdu Taste, etc. Chinatown is about two miles of Spring Mountain Road easily reachable by taxi or rideshare.

Compete in esports

We already know video games are big business. Now they’ve become their own form of competitive sport. Las Vegas is fast becoming a centre for esports. Visit the HyperX Esports Arena at the Luxor, a multi-level venue that hosts tournaments, special events and stations for anyone to play.

Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden

Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden at the Mirage allows guests to enjoy an up-close experience will nature’s most charming creatures. Take a tour and mix with bottlenose dolphins, white tigers, white lions and so on. You can even upgrade to a VIP package and work alongside dolphin trainers.

Soak in the views at the Eiffel Tower

The centerpiece of the Paris Las Vegas is a half-size replica (复制品) of the Eiffel Tower. Take a lift to the observation platform to be absorbed in the views 46 stories above the Las Vegas Strip. Don’t forget to take a few photos. A new light show lightens the tower every 30 minutes after dark. If you’re hungry, try distinctive cuisine at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant, which has its：own mid-level views of the Strip.

2 . It is possible that interstellar（星际的）space explorers could face problems communicating with all the arrivals, their spoken language having changed in isolation（与世隔绝）along the way.

Therefore, a new paper by two American scholars Andrew McKenzie and Jeffrey Punske recommends that such crews include members with knowledge of what is likely to occur and how to adapt. They co-authored the article “Language Development During Interstellar Travel”, in which they discuss the concept of language change over time.

In a recent interview, McKenzie gamed it out.

“If you’ re on a spaceship for 10 generations; new concepts will emerge, new social issues will come up, and people will create ways of talking about them,” McKenzie said, and these will become the vocabulary particular to the ship. People on Earth might never know about these words. And the further away you get, the less you’re going lo talk to people back home.

So if we have Earth English and spaceship English, you will have to learn a little Earth English to send messages back, or to read the information that came with the spaceship.

“Also, keep in mind that the language back on Earth is going to change, too. So they may well be communicating like we’d be using Latin-communicating with this version of the language nobody uses.”

The authors also point out that an adaptation in the form of sign language will be needed for use with and among crew members who, genetics tell us，are sure to be born deaf.

“Every new spaceship will essentially offload linguistic（语言学）immigrants to a foreign land. Given the certainly that issues such as whether they will be discriminated will arise, and the uncertainty of exactly how they will progress, we strongly suggest that any crew exhibit strong levels of linguistic training in addition to simply knowing the required languages. There will be need for an informed linguistic policy on board that can be maintained without referring back to Earth-based regulations.”

If a study of the linguistic changes aboard ship could be performed, it would “add to its scientific value,” McKenzie and Punske conclude.

3 . I recently gave a talk about zero waste living to university students. During the Q&A afterward, the unavoidable question of cost came up. One student pointed out that he “can’t afford to buy $30 toothpaste.” While the $30 price may be a bit generous, the student did raise a good point -that buying zero-waste products is often more expensive than the overly-packaged conventional ones.

I tried to handle the question as best I could in the moment, but I kept thinking about it afterward. I’m writing about it because I’m sure many others have similar doubts about their own abilities to reduce waste without breaking the bank.

First, once you begin to explore the zero waste world, you quickly realize how pointless many products in your life are. You start using fewer, buying less,and using them interchangeably. Soon you’ll find yourself spending less money overall, which balances the higher cost of the zero waste ones. The total number of products in my bathroom decreased by 50% when I became more focused on waste reduction.

Second, if you stop to examine those zero-waste products, you’ll see that they are usually of superior quality. Companies rarely redesign their packaging to be reusable without also upgrading them to be healthier, safer, and greener. So you’re paying extra money not just for non-disposable（一次性的）packaging, but also for a better product that does less harm.

In my experience, higher-quality skincare products last longer than cheap ones. My personal habits have developed gradually, too. Knowing an item costs more leads me to use it in small quantities and use it to the very end. Moreover, I sometimes even make my own. The price-per-unit is cheap.

To quote Lindsey Miles, a zero waste blogger, “Zero waste is not about what we can afford to buy. It is about what we choose not to buy.” To that student who got me thinking about this, I’d recommend starting with what matters to you. Over time you will figure out where you get the most value for your money. In return, you’ll gain a sense of liberation from the consumer culture, and a rewarding sense of accomplishment.

4 . An 8-year-old boy I know is small for his age, shorter and slighter than his friends, even smaller than his 5-year-old sister. Concerned about the increasing use and possible risks of growth hormone(生长激素), I asked his mother if she’d considered treating him with it. She replied, “Not really. He’s built like his father, who was short and slight as a boy and didn’t shoot up until college.”

His father, at 41, is now 6 feet tall, though still very slender. He recalls being a reasonably athletic child but without the physical power of his friends, making up for what he lacked in mass with speed and agility. “I enjoyed competitive sports and worked on skills others didn’t have,” he told me, and said he encourages his son to recognize and capitalize on the skills he has.

If only every parent with a short but healthy child approached the matter as sensibly. Experts estimate that 60% to 80% of children who are short for their age do not have a growth hormone deficiency(缺乏) or other medical condition that limits growth. But knowing there’s a therapy available to increase height, some parents seek a medical solution for a perceived problem, even when there is no medical abnormality. They should also know, however, that new research has linked growth hormone treatment to serious unfavorable health effects years later.

Dr. Adda Grimberg, a doctor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, recalled that “Twenty years ago, families were focused on health. They came in with a child who was not growing right and wanted to know if there was an underlying disease. Now, more and more, they’re focused on height. They want growth hormone, looking for a specific height. But this is not like online shopping; you can’t just place an order and make a child the height you want.”

In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration approved use of recombinant human growth hormone for the condition known as “idiopathic short stature”, or short build of unknown cause, which is not a disease. But it has caused a growing number of parents to consider using the hormone to boost the height of their children.

The resulting rush to therapy reflects concerns about a widespread societal bias(偏见) against shortness, rather than a true medical need. Experts have noted that the practice backs up the belief that short stature is unacceptable, leading to an increasing demand for therapy. It is far better, Dr. Grimberg suggested, to help a short child develop coping skills than to buy inches through medicine.

6 . Scientists have shown a new printing process that can turn just about any piece of paper into a waterproof keyboard that you can fold up and put in your pocket.

The technique uses a special coating that's repellent (排斥的) to liquids and dust, which allows multiple circuit (电路) layers to be printed on top of the paper without any dirt between the layers. On the other side of the paper, standard ink printing can then be used to point out where the buttons are, and what they represent. These layers can be printed in any design you want. What's more, no batteries are required to operate the finished keyboard. It's able to be fully powered from the touch of the operator and the mechanical energy that's produced.

"This is the first time a self-powered paper-based electronic device has been shown," says engineer Ramses Martinez, from Purdue University. When the primed parts of the paper get pressed, they're able to send signals over Bluetooth to another device—a laptop, for example. You've then got a lightweight, foldable keyboard that can be taken anywhere and easily wiped clean when needed.

The technology is great. It's good for the environment because the paper can be simply recycled again. These paper devices are cheap to produce as well - less than $0.25 each, according to the researchers. Potential uses include smart packaging, or where temporary input devices are required.

"I expect this technology to help the user interact with food packaging—checking whether the food is safe to be consumed, or allowing users to sign the package that arrives at home by dragging their fingers over the box to properly identify themselves as the owner of the package," says Martinez. "Additionally, our group showed that simple paper sheets from a notebook can be transformed into music player interfaces (界面) for users to choose songs and play them."

7 . Remote work, especially in a world affected by COVID-19, naturally leads to "flex time". Employees with small children might be getting the majority of their work done at night after the kids are in bed. Working early, you quit early. Starting late, work late.

With your teammates working during different hours, you may be getting messages at all hours of the day, night, or weekend, making you always available. That might be necessary in some industries during these challenging times, but certainly not in every industry and not for everyone in any industry. Once this takes root in your company culture, it becomes difficult to "reset" later. Besides, “always-on” isn't sustainable (可持续的), which increases pressure and quickly turns your company into an unpleasant place to work.

If your company adapts "flex time", how can you accommodate your employees’ needs while still protecting your culture and your team's work-life balance? The key is to encourage flex time while also setting clear "communication hours" (for example, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.）. Outside of those hours, employees should be encouraged to change their settings to "Do Not Disturb" and to use the “schedule send” feature of their email client so that messages only get delivered during communication hours.

If messages must happen outside of the set communication hours, such as for urgent or time-sensitive issues, make employees phone or text only. This way people can comfortably close down all other communication channels like email, WeChat, WeCom, etc. The act of having to call or text someone is usually enough to give the sender a pause to think, "Do I really need this person now, or can the communication wait?" This allows everyone on your team to work whenever is appropriate for them, but not feel like they have to work all the time to accommodate everyone else's schedule. A word of “Thanks for being so responsive” to someone answering an email outside of the defined communication hours definitely brings empathy (同理心) which smooths the urgency while also cultivating the trust and culture.

9 . Rap, a style of hip-hop music, was created in the 1980s in the United States. It first became popular among young black people in New York City. By the beginning of the 21st century, it had become a presence around the world. Its performers, called rappers, have their own fashion style. They often wear a baseball cap, large jewelry, brightly colored clothes and oversized jeans. And it’s evident that rap is no stranger to negative stereotypes (刻板印象), but this entertainment medium, is actually a means of human expression. You can find a lot of evidence.

Rapper Chen Jinnan performed her hit song Malice From the World on the reality show Rap for Youth. Chen said that she wrote the song last year after receiving a message from a fan who was battling severe depression and had been ignored by her parents and schoolmates. “I shared my own story with her in the hope of offering her encouragement,” Chen told China Daily. Another rapper who appeared on the show is a well-known rapper TangoZ, who expresses his love for his hometown of Hangzhou — his “heaven on Earth”— and raps in the dialect. “Wu dialect is disappearing at an alarming rate, so I struggle to make the situation a bit better.” he told independent media platform RADII China.

Just as Li Yuchun, a mentor (导师) on the reality show, pointed out that rapping is not defined by anger. “A lot of people think that Diss–or disrespect–is the only definition of rap. But on this show, I’m touched and proud of the fact that you can express gratitude and kindness through music writing and rapping,” she said.

Actually, rapping, for most performers, is a way to express opinions and let their voices be heard. If you dive deep into it, you’ll find that it’s charming. Just as Hannah George wrote on the website Soundigest. “It’s a diary ... someone’s life on display for the world to enjoy, grieve (悲伤) with or be inspired by.”

10 . When our Scottish puppy, Annie, reached adolescence, she suddenly stopped following my commands. Previously, if I called “come”, she would fly across our yard to my arms. Now, the 8-month-old gave me a look and ran the other way. Our dog trainer advised us to stop worrying. “She's a teenager,” she said. “She'll grow out of it.”

Now, a new study is backing that up: Dogs experience a period that makes them act out, just like human teenagers. Puppies bond with humans much as children do. “But owners often feel like they're failing when their puppies reach adolescence,” said Lucy Asher, lead author of the new study.

Asher and her team monitored 70 female dogs being raised as guide dogs. They asked caregivers to score them on their attention-seeking behaviors like sitting close to their owners and separation-related behaviors like trembling when left behind. Both types of behaviors show general anxiety and fearfulness. Dogs with high scores entered adolescence earlier — at about 5 months, compared with 8 months for those with lower scores. Further, adolescent dogs that were stressed by separation from their caregivers were also increasingly disobedient to that person, but not others.

To test obedience, the scientists assessed a separate group of 69 guide dogs, first at 5 months and later at 8 months. They asked the dog's caregiver and a stranger to give the command to “sit”. All of the preadolescent puppies quickly sat for both people, but when the same puppies reached adolescence, they refused to follow the order from their caregivers. However, they readily obeyed the stranger. Dogs that weren't securely attached to their caregivers were even more willing to follow the stranger's commands.

Because of the similarity between adolescent puppies and humans, dogs could serve as a model species for studying adolescence in humans. And on a more practical note, the temporary nature of dog disobedience might make us worry less when our puppies suddenly get minds of their own. Just ask Annie — she's now happy to come, sit, and stay a while.