2 . Styrofoam, or polystyrene, is a light-weight material, about 95 percent air, with very good insulation (隔热) properties, according to Earthsource. org. It is used in products from cups that keep your drinks hot or cold to packaging material that protects items during shipping. With the above good features, Styrofoam still enjoys a bad reputation. It cannot be recycled without releasing dangerous pollution into the air. The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is the fifth-largest creator of harmful waste.

But now the common worms which are usually disgusting can come to the rescue, specifically, meal-worms. Scientists from the U. S. and China have discovered that meal-worms can digest plastic. One meal-worm can digest a pill-sized amount of plastic a day. Study co-author Wei-Min Wu says that in 24 hours, the plastic is turned into carbon dioxide.

Since Styrofoam has no nutrition at all, are the worms hurt by eating plastic? Much to the scientists’ surprise, the study found that worms eating Styrofoam were as healthy as worms eating bran (谷糠) . The researchers will study the worm’s eating habits and digesting system, looking to copy the plastic breakdown but on a larger scale. Once the way can be put into practice, it will make a revolutionary difference to the disposal of plastic.

“Solving the issue of plastic pollution is important”, says Wu, a Stanford University environmental engineering instructor. After all, our earth is small and landfill space-is becoming limited with too much garbage waiting to be dealt with, he says.

About 33-million tons of plastic are thrown away in the United States every year. Plastic plates, cups and containers take up 25 percent to 30 percent of space in America’s landfills. One Styrofoam cup takes more than 1 million years to recycle in a landfill, according to Cleveland State University.

The silk industry in Sichuan is one of the original points of Chinese silk culture. Sichuan brocade (蜀锦) originated from the Spring and Autumn period, and     1    (develop) in the Han and Tang dynasties. It     2    (have) a history of more than 2,000 years and has a far-reaching influence     3     traditional Chinese silk production. Sichuan brocade features light shades integrated in an elegant and care free style,     4     shows Han Chinese characteristics and local traditions.

Sichuan brocade is one of China’s four most famous branches of brocade, the others being Yun brocade in Nanjing, Song brocade in Suzhou and Zhuang brocade in Guangxi. With     5     (it) attractive designs and bright, clear colors that follow the style of Chinese-ink paintings, Sichuan brocade     6     (put) on the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2006.

Silk has been produced in Sichuan Province since ancient times and Chengdu was the starting point of the southern Silk Road. Sichuan brocade is made with local silk and colored silk threads, which are the raw     7     (material). Special embroidery (刺绣) skills are used     8     (turn) brocade into quilt covers, pillowcases, clothes and shoes.

    9     subjects of the Sichuan brocade are rich and varied. Some come from legends, myths, historical stories, and others come from landscape, figures, flowers, birds and animals,     10     (especial) the beasts that symbolize fortune and long life.

4 . From its origins in the California hills in the US to its acceptance on urban streets worldwide, the history of skateboarding spans (跨越) seven decades over which it has developed from an unwelcome sport to an Olympic event in 2020. Now, a London exhibition is to show the path from those humble homemade boards of the 1950s to today’s hi-tech professional models.

The exhibition will feature about 90 rare and unique boards along with more than 100 other related objects, including safety equipment and magazines. Half of the skateboards will be on loan from the Skateboarding Hall of Fame Museum in California. A highlight will be a 1967 Bilbo board produced by European Surfing Company, which was set up at Newquay in Cornwall in southwestern England in 1965 and marketed the first skateboards in the UK.

Also on display will be the famous skateboarder Tony Hawk’s first professional model, from 1982, with its adaptations for the vert style of skateboarding which uses vertical ramps (垂直坡面) rather than level ground; early homemade boards from 1950s California modeled on the design of roller-skates and surfboards; and the first two models to feature a kicktail —the raised tail enabling skaters to turn or balance the board on the back wheels.

It will also feature Laura Thornhill’s Logan Earth Ski from the 1970s, the first women’s professional model. Sky Brown, who at 13 won bronze for Team Great Britain at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, is represented through her first professional model, the Sky Brown & Skateistan Almost model.

“Skateboards, often misunderstood as being just toys, are now hi-tech products responding to constantly changing urban environments,” said Jonathan Olivares, the show’s director. “This exhibition is centred around a single question: how did the skateboard get to positioning the skateboard as a truly unique object.”

5 . Connected to each other like never before, young people today are becoming agents of change, increasingly contributing to innovative solutions that improve people’s lives and the planet’s health. The United Nations Institute for Training and Research is therefore delighted to launch the Young Leaders Online Training Programme, a four-week e-Learning course, to provide participants with the knowledge and skills to fully unfold their potential as global leaders.

◆CONTENT

◇Online Learning Modules

Module 1: The United Nations (3—9 June 2024)

Module 2: Conference Diplomacy (外交) (10—16 June 2024)

Module 3: Sustainable Development Goals (17—23 June 2024)

Module 4: International Communication (24—30 June 2024)

Each module will comprise about 30 pages of literature, external links, videos, and other relevant material, corresponding to a total workload of 40—45 hours during the four weeks.

◇Live Components

Each e-Learning module will go with a series of live meetings with UN experts. These will have varying lengths and formats, including e-workshops, mock (模拟的) interviews, etc.

◆COMPLETION REQUIREMENTS

Participants are qualified for a course certificate upon successful completion of the components below:

◇Reading the four modules’ content. You may wish to study the material through the interactive programme Articulate Storyline or simply download the PDF version of the content. They are identical in content and are meant to give participants flexibility in the way to study.

◇Participation in the discussion board forums (论坛). You are supposed to answer questions on every module in short texts. Your posts will be evaluated according to both quantity and quality.

◇Passing the multiple-choice assessments. Each module features an assessment quiz at its end. It contains 10 questions, and passing the module requires at least 8 out of 10 questions correctly answered.

8 . Losing an eye might be an unthinkable thing, especially for a young woman, but not for Xintong. She chose to become an ocularist (义眼师) who makes artificial eyes for herself and people in the same ________ to help them get back their ________. Xintong is the name that she gave to herself — which she ________ people to call her instead of her real name — because “xintong” in Chinese sounds like “new pupils”.

Nearly 10 years after ________ her right eye in a car accident , 28-year-old Xintong from Beijing transformed the empty of her eye socket (眼眶) into a fashion statement. She ________ a short video online in which she wears a charming artificial eye. As she ________ her hand, the artificial eye begins to ________ with red light. With another wave, the light ________ to green and then purple and white. The video soon became ________ on social media, with many ________ praising her. But that wasn’t the case 10 years ago. “The artificial eye I ________ at that time was suffering,” Xintong said. “It ________ and gave me a red eye socket. I was young and I wanted to look ________.”

She started ________ artificial eyes. Beginning in 2019, she dedicated about two years to mastering the production techniques and skills under the ________ of an ocularist. This journey ________ her own artificial eye studio, providing personalized services for those ________ them.

Now when Xintong hears her ________ say words such as “Finally, I can ________ myself” or “Now I feel free to take photos”, she feels deeply ________.

9 . Music can relax the mind, energize the body, and even help people better manage pain.     1    . Music therapy (疗法) is an intervention sometimes used to promote emotional health. help patients cope with stress, and boost psychological well-being.

Music can improve mental performance.

Research suggests that background music improves mental performance. Playing more positive music leads to improvements in processing speed.     2    , turn on a little music in the background for a boost in your mental performance.

Music can help you eat less.

    3    . To lose weight, listen to soft music and dim the lights. According to one study, people eating at low-lit restaurants where soft music was played consumed less food. Music and lighting help create a more relaxing setting where participants may consume their food more slowly and feel full sooner.

    4    .

Sleeplessness is a problem that affects people of different age groups. While there are many approaches to treating this problem, research has demonstrated that listening to relaxing classical music can be a safe, effective, and affordable therapy.

Music can help you manage pain

Research has shown that music can be very helpful in the management of pain. One study of fibromyalgia (纤维性肌痛) patients found that those who listened to music for one hour a day experienced a significant reduction in pain.     5    .

I flew back to New York from a spring break. My flight landed lately in the evening. I decided to taking an airport bus to the downtown area so that I could find a faster and cheap taxi to get home. It turned out that a bus was full of passengers but I was chatting with a few of them. I told that it was unsafe to be waiting for in the street to catch a taxi at midnight. One of the woman in the bus said that her car was parked near the station. So she offered me a ride to my home, drop me safely and did not accept a penny in return. I was so thankful for his kindness.