“No conversation” or “less conversation“ seemed incompatible with businesses like hair salons and barber shops, where conversation     1     (basic) is part of the service.

However, one Tokyo salon decided to implement the ”silent cut“ service     2     it proved so popular that others quickly followed suit.

“It’s great… ! I’ve been waiting for this service for 20 years. Because chatting is so depressing, I only get     3     haircut every 3 years, ” one person wrote about the silent cut service.

“I     4     (save) because the conversation with the hairdresser is troublesome,” someone else commented. A recent survey revealed that over 70 percent of respondents preferred the silent experience, with the most common explanations     5     (be) that they found it more relaxing, as they were able to rest instead of spending what little energy they had left on hearing     6     (want) information and making small talk.

As     7     turns out, hair stylists prefer the silent cut as well. “I started chatting because I was taught in my early days     8     (talk) to customers and get information about their preferences, but focusing on topics that I didn’t like     9     (make) me feel very uncomfortable, so I decided to put their     10     (private) first, ”one hairstylist said.

5 . When I was about 5 or 6 years old, my mother set me down on a purple banana-seat bike. She _________held the back of the seat while I found my balance. Then she gave me a _________and let me go，calling，“Pedal(踩踏板)，pedal，pedal，glide(滑行)!”as I rode across the grass.

When I was older, I _________ a soccer team and I always rode my bike to go to _________. On my bike, my_________was my own. I can do what I want to. After a(n) _________ practice, I would pick an apple from a tree in the garden near the soccer _________ and eat it while I pedaled home, or _________ to the shop and go home with some of my favorite snacks.

Then I got married and had babies. _________ the house for a two-hour ride was no longer a(n) ____________. When my girls got older, my mom ____________ them to ride their own bikes. “Pedal, pedal, pedal, glide!” she’d ____________ as she used to. But this time it was me ____________ after them with my hand on the seat.

Last spring, my mother died suddenly. I was in deep ____________. Every morning, I’d leave my hotel and ____________ my bike to a bike path. She’s never going to teach us again. I wanted to cry.

6 . Customized STEM Study Trips for High School Groups

On our science-based study tours and STEM field trips, the planet becomes the living classroom for high school groups with as few as 10 participating students. We have over 50 years of experience in designing student STEM trips around the globe for all science related subjects - everything from Astronomy to Zoology! You can select from a number of topical areas to add to your curriculum and maximize student learning including, but not limited to:

Earth Sciences & Geology Trips

Participate in problem-solving workshops on topics like vectors, exponentials or calculus in physics. Tour the facility at CERN, site of the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. Start a geological adventure through Iceland, the land of fire and ice, or explore the alpine landscapes, mountaintops and glaciers of Switzerland.

Life Sciences & Biodiversity Trips

Our life sciences and biodiversity programs offer a window into the fascinating worlds of biology, zoology, botany, ecology and many others. Explore the interdependence of various species and their impact on one another in the rainforest of Bolivia. Consider changes in geography, habitat, atmosphere, and how life forms have adapted… or not!

Mathematics & Technology Trips

Uncover the significant impact of mathematics and technology on human life in our developing world. Understand how a storm surge barrier works and how countries like the Netherlands use wind turbines to power all of their electric trains. Learn what goes into making and breaking codes like those used in World War II.

Green Engineering Trips

Learn the basic function of photovoltaic (光电的) cells and how they form together to make solar panels. Investigate how various factors like temperature and angle impact the performance of solar panels, and take on the role of an engineer and develop the optimal solar panel array for a given geographic location.

We can also customize STEM trips based on your interests and needs. Please contact us at 800-522-2398 or email us today at educationalpartnerships@worldstrides.org to discuss other academic themes you are interested in pursuing.

7 . The Nobel prize for economics is awarded for work on the climate and economic growth

From The Economist; Oct 8th 2018

WHY do economies grow, and why might growth outdo the natural world’s capacity to sustain it? For years, economists have failed to find the answers to such questions. But the profession’s progress towards cracking them is in large part because of this year’s winners of the Nobel prize for economic sciences, Paul Romer and William Nordhaus.

    1    . But the Sveriges Riksbank, which awards the economics prize, praised them for “integrating innovation and climate with economic growth”. Both men, in other words, have improved the way their profession thinks about the operation of impossibly complex, crucially important systems.

Mr. Romer’s attention has ranged widely over the course of his career.     2    . Some scientists used to think that sustained growth over the long run depended on technological progress, which was in turn related to the creation of new ideas. But they struggled to explain how new ideas emerged, and how innovation interacted with other market activity.

Mr. Romer searched for answers by investigating the “non-rivalrous” nature of new knowledge: the fact that ideas can be exploited endlessly. The firms or people who come up with new ideas can only capture a small share of the benefits arising from them; before long, competitors copy   the clever idea and decrease gradually the innovators’ profits. In Mr. Romer’s models of growth, the market generates new ideas. But the pace at which they are generated, and the way in which they are translated into growth, depend on other factors.    3    .

Mr. Nordhaus’s work tackles the interplay of several different complex systems. Awareness of the dangers of environmental damage, and of the threat from climate change, has grown over the past half-century. Understanding the economic costs such damage imposes is essential to answering the question of how much society should be willing to pay to prevent environmental destruction. Mr. Nordhaus has applied himself to this daunting problem. His most significant work models the economic harms from carbon emissions. To do so, he combined mathematical descriptions of how emissions affect atmospheric carbon concentrations with those of how atmospheric carbon affects global temperature.     4    .