1 . If you’re searching for a present for a tech-interested friend, here are cool tech gifts for everyone.

▶Roku Streaming Stick

Roku Streaming Stick is easy to carry, which lets you play TV, music, movies, and other content in a smooth system with better quality pictures. It’s small enough to stick behind the TV or take with you when you are traveling. Just turn it on, connect to the Internet, and start enjoying yourself.

The top feature:

·The free Roku mobile app lets you listen to whatever you’ re watching on TV through headphones connected to your phone.

Price: $ 4,999

▶Jackery Bolt Charger

This charger has built-in power cords (电源线) for many iOS and Android devices, as well as an additional USB port (端口) for other devices. It’s tiny, making it perfect for travel.

The top feature:

·Enable devices and the battery pack itself to be charged at the same time.

Price: $ 99

▶Rocketbook Core

Rocketbook notebooks are like pen and paper netbooks, but without pen and paper. These digital notebooks are very reusable. The Rocketbook Core comes in a choice of letter size (8.5 inches x 11 inches with 32 pages) or smart size (6 inches x 8.8 inches with 36 pages).

The top feature:

·Notes can be saved and sent in PDF and other forms.

Price: $34

▶Amazon Kindle Oasis

The Kindle Oasis has all the same features as older versions, such as built-in Wi-Fi and access to millions of books, newspapers, and audiobooks. It also has many new features, such as the latest electric-ink technology for fast page turns. Have a friend or family member? This is the best gift for those who love reading.

The top feature:

·Being waterproof (防水的), it can be read by the pool.

Price: $249

2 . You probably know who Marie Curie was, but you may not have heard of Rachel Carson. Of the outstanding ladies listed below, who do you think was the most important woman of the past 100 years?

Jane Addams (1860-1935)

Anyone who has ever been helped by a social worker has Jane Addams to thank. Addams helped the poor and worked for peace. She encouraged a sense of community (社区) by creating shelters and promoting education and services for people in need In 1931, Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

If it weren’t for Rachel Carson, the environmental movement might not exist today. Her popular 1962 book Silent Spring raised awareness of the dangers of pollution and the harmful effects of chemicals on humans and on the world’s lakes and oceans.

Sandra Day O’Connor (1930-present)

When Sandra Day O’Connor finished third in her class at Stanford Law School, in 1952, she could not find work at a law firm because she was a woman. She became an Arizona state senator (参议员) and, in 1981, the first woman to join the U. S. Supreme Court. O’Connor gave the deciding vote in many important cases during her 24 years on the top court.

Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rasa Parks would not give up her seat on a bus to a passenger. Her simple act landed Parks in prison. But it also set off the Montgomery bus boycott. It lasted for more than a year, and kicked off the civil-rights movement. “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in,” said Parks.

4 . While travel may have been brought to a standstill, it certainly didn’t stop progress. Here are just a few of the new attractions in some of our favourite places to visit, writes ALENEY DE WINTER.

A fairy tale (童话) first

The first stages of the H. C. Andersen House in Odense, Denmark — the hometown of the famous fairy tale writer — have opened. The site will also soon be home to a kid’s space where more fairy tales will be brought to life. hcandersenshus. dk

A floating (漂浮的) flower garden

Team Lab Planets TOKYO in Toyosu, Tokyo, has shown a new Garden Area with two garden artworks. One of them invites you to get close to 13,000 live orchids (兰花). Visitors will find themselves walking through water and floating as they become one artwork with the flowers. planets. teamlab. art

Sunken (沉没的) city

Dubai landmarks haven’t just gone high, they’ve gone deep! The world’s deepest dive pool, Deep Dive Dubai, is the latest record-breaking attraction. More than 60 metres deep, the too-cool pool includes an underwater sunken city for divers to explore on their own or with a guide: Whether you’ve never dived before or you’re an experienced diver, those aged 10 and over are welcomed. deepdivedubai. com

New York’s newest island

Park life just got a little more interesting in New York. Little Island @Pier55 is a human-built island park next to the Hudson River Park. The new public space is unlike any other in the Big Apple: visitors can take in views of the Hudson River and New York City, along with music, dance and other performances (表演) in its 687-seat theatre. littleisland. org

5 . There is more of a connection between food and culture than you may think. On an individual level, we grow up eating the food of our culture. It becomes a part of who we are. Many associate food from our childhood with warm feelings and good memories and it ties us to our families, holding a special and personal value for us. Food from our families often becomes the comfort food we seek as adults in times of frustration and stress.

On a large scale, traditional food is an important part of culture. It also operates as an expression of cultural identity. Immigrants bring it wherever they go, and it is a symbol of pride in their culture and means of coping with homesickness.

Many immigrants open their own restaurants and serve traditional dishes. However, the food does not remain exactly the same. Some materials needed to make traditional dishes may not be readily available, so the taste and flavour can be different from what they would prepare in their home countries. Additionally, immigrants do not only sell dishes to people from the same countries as them, but to people from different countries. Therefore, they have to make small changes in the original dishes to cater to a wider range of customers. Those changes can create new flavours that still keep the cultural significance of the dishes.

We should not only embrace our heritage (传统) through our culture’s food, but also become more informed about other cultures by trying their food. It is important to remember that each dish has a special place in the culture to which it belongs, and is special to those who prepare it. Food is a window on culture, and it should be treated as such.

7 . Like most of us, I try to be mindful of food that goes to waste. The arugula (芝麻菜)was to make a nice green salad, rounding out a roast chicken dinner. But I ended up working late. Then friends called with a dinner invitation. I stuck the chicken in the freezer. But as days passed, the arugula went bad. Even worse, I had unthinkingly bought way too much; I could have made six salads with what I threw out.

In a world where nearly 800 million people a year go hungry, “food waste goes against the moral grain,” as Elizabeth Royte writes in this month’s cover story. It’s jaw-dropping how much perfectly good food is thrown away — from “ugly” (but quite eatable) vegetables rejected by grocers to large amounts of uneaten dishes thrown into restaurant garbage cans.

Producing food that no one eats wastes the water, fuel, and other resources used to grow it. That makes food waste an environmental problem. In fact, Royte writes, “if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world.”

If that’s hard to understand, let’s keep it as simple as the arugula at the back of my refrigerator. Mike Curtin sees my arugula story all the time — but for him, it's more like 12 bones of donated strawberries nearing their last days. Curtin is CEO of DC Central Kitchen in Washington, D.C., which recovers food and turns it into healthy meals. Last year it recovered more than 807,500 pounds of food by taking donations and collecting blemished (有瑕疵的) produce that otherwise would have rotted in fields. And the strawberries? Volunteers will wash, cut, and freeze or dry them for use in meals down the road.

Such methods seem obvious, yet so often we just don’t think. “Everyone can play a part in reducing waste, whether by not purchasing more food than necessary in your weekly shopping or by asking restaurants to not include the side dish you won’t eat,” Curtin says.

9 . Too many people want others to be their friends, but they don't give friendship back.     1     To have a friend, you must learn to be one. You must learn to treat your friend the way you want your friend to treat you. Learning to be good friend means learning three rules: be honest; be generous; be understanding.

    2     Friends must be able to trust one another. If you do not tell the truth, people usually find out. If a friend finds out that you haven't been honest, you may lose the friend's trust. Good friends always count on one another to speak and act honestly.

Generosity means sharing and sharing makes a friendship grow. You do not have to give your lunch money or your clothes. Naturally you will want to share your ideas and feelings. These can be very valuable to friend. They tell your friend what is important to you.     3    

Sooner or later everyone needs understanding and helping with a problem. Something may go wrong at school     4    Turning to a friend can be a first step in solving the problem. So to be a friend you must listen and understand. You must try to put yourself in your friend's place so you can understand the problem better.

No two friendships are ever exactly alike.     5     If you plan to keep your friends, you must practice honesty, generosity and understanding.

10 . Country music is one of the most popular kinds of music in the United States today because it is about simple but strong human feelings and events — love, sadness, good times, and bad times. It tells real-life, stories and sounds the way people really talk. As life becomes more complicated (复杂), it is good to hear music about ordinary people.

Country music, sometimes called country-western, comes from two kinds of music. One is the traditional music of the people in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern Unite States. The other is traditional cowboy music from the west. The singers usually play guitars, and in the 1920s they started using electric guitars. At first city people said country music was low class. It was popular mostly in the South.     

But during World War II, thousands of Southerners went to the Northeast and Midwest to work in the factories. They took their music with them. Soldiers from the rest of the country went to army camps (军营) in the South. They learned country music. Slowly it became popular all over the country.

Today country music is also popular everywhere in the United States and Canada — in small towns and in New York City, among black and white, and among educated and uneducated people. About 1, 200 radio stations broadcast country music twenty-four hours a day. English stars sing it in British English, and people in other countries sing it in their own languages. The music that started with cowboys and poor southerners is now popular all over the world.