1 . Is future you? It might seem like a strange philosophical question. But the answer to how you think about your future self could make the difference between decisions you ultimately find satisfying and ones you might eventually regret.

The brain patterns that emerge on an MRI (核磁共振成像) when people think about their future selves most like the brain patterns that arise when they think about strangers. This finding suggests that, in the mind’s eye, our future selves look like other people. If you see future you as a different person, why should you save money, eat healthier or exercise more regularly to benefit that stranger?

However, if you see the interests of your distant self as more like those of your present self, you are considerably more likely to do things today that benefit you tomorrow. A paper in the journal PLoS One revealed that college students who experienced a greater sense of connection and similarity to their future selves were more likely to achieve academic success. Relationships with our future selves also matter for general psychological well-being. In a project led by Joseph Reiff, which includes 5, 000 adults aged 20 to 75, he found that those who perceived a great overlap (重叠) in qualities between their current and future selves ended up being more satisfied with their lives 10 years after filling out the initial survey.     

So how can we better befriend our future selves and feel more connected to their fates? The psychological mindset with what we call ”vividness interventions“ works. We have found, for instance, that showing people images of their older, grayer selves increases intentions to save for the long term. Besides, you might try writing a letter to-and then from-your future self. As demonstrated by Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson in their 2020 study in the journal Self and Identity, when high-school students engaged in this type of ”send-and-reply“ exercise, they experienced elevated (升高的) levels of feelings of similarity with their future selves.

Letter-writing and visualization exercises are just a couple of ways we can connect with our future selves and beyond, but the larger lesson here is clear: If we can treat our distant selves as if they are people we love, care about and want to support, we can start making choices for them that improve our lives-both today and tomorrow.

4 . Four Interesting Science Museums

Polytechnic Museum, Russia

For many guests of the capital, some of the most vivid childhood memories are associated with this museum. A variety of technical fields are presented in 65 halls-Mining, Space, Energy, and Transportation, etc. And the exposition（博览会）is the only museum project in Russia about the history of the bike. The interactive division "Technoplay" is open, where you not only can but also need touch most of the exhibits with your hands. In addition to self-experimentation, for personal requests the museum's experts will show many entertaining experiments.

Eureka, England

The Eureka educational center is a huge complex where modern science and technology are becoming clear, even to kids. The main exhibition is devoted to the human body, the laws of physics and natural things. Visitors can obtain energy or create paper with their own hands. On the area of the Eureka educational park there is a botanical garden and a collection of minerals from the rock types of Finland is presented there.

Deutsches Museum, Germany

In this museum you can see more than 100 thousand different items from windmills（风车）to medical equipment. All aspects of industrial production appear before the eyes. Several museum rooms are arranged especially for children-there are exhibits that entertain kids starting from three.

NEMO, the Netherlands

The largest Dutch research centre stands ready to share its secrets with everyone. This immersion（沉浸）in the world of science and technology will not be dull. All significant information is presented in the form of exciting games. All exhibits are interactive; visitors are allowed to touch, pull and press on anything. The museum is for children from 6 to 16, as well as for their parents-it will be interesting to all.

6 . Some termite (白蚁) species have figured out how to enjoy the shelter of the huge complex nests that the insects build without contributing to their construction. They avoid the full anger of their builder hosts by being extremely easy-going.

Animals that live in the nests of another species without affecting them are known as inquilines. Inquiline termites are unique among termites in being unable to make their own nests. Instead, they live in the hallways built by another termite, Constrictotermes cyphergaster. Until now, it has been unclear how the two parties kept peaceful in such tight quarters because termites are typically very aggressive towards outsiders.

Helder Hugo at the University of Konstanz in Germany and his colleagues collected Constrictotermes cyphergaster’s nests in the Brazilian Cerrado and brought them into the laboratory. They then placed host and tenant (房客) termites in either open or narrow areas and used video to track and record the ways in which the two species reacted to each other.

Right from the start, the inquiline’ termites moved around less than their hosts and interacted little with them, even in the much narrower area. “Many times,” says Hugo, “when two unrelated groups are put together in a limited space—such as an experimental area—the outcome is conflict with losses from both sides.” But that didn’t happen here. Despite attacks from host termites, the tenant termites were obedient. Hosts would bite or attack the inquilines with strong chemicals, but their targets never responded in the same way, choosing to flee. Some ignored the hosts completely.

“We did not expect that they would never fight back,” says Hugo, noting that the inquilines are capable of protecting their own place with mouths. “By preventing conflict going worse, inquiline termites may considerably improve their chances of living together with their host termites peacefully.”

“Passiveness does not necessarily lead to defeat, but can be a very useful strategy, saving energy and resources,” she adds. “Nature may not always be red in tooth and claw, and aggression is not any more successful a strategy than ‘cowardice’ (儒弱).”

7 . I live in Xizhou in Yunnan Province, on the historic Tea Horse Road. I have to admit that when I first heard that Paul Salopek was going to walk the entire globe on his own two feet, I was blown away. I couldn’t imagine that there could be such an unusual person in the world.

Last May, I met Paul. He told me that it was his first time in China. He talked to me with great excitement about the history, migrations, and discoveries in my region of China. He spoke of the Shu-Yandu Dao (the Southern Silk Road), the travels of the 17th-century Chinese explorer Xu Xiake, the Tea Horse Road and the early 20th-century American botanist Joseph Rock. He also talked of Xuanzang. Paul considered many of them heroes and in a sense Chinese pioneers of slow journalism.

I decided to accompany Paul on his walk toward Yunnan. On September 28, 2021, we set out. Our days were simple: walk, eat, sleep, and repeat. We woke up at sunrise, set off in high spirits, and rested at sunset, dragging ourselves into exhausted sleep.

We met many people on the road. Some were curious, surrounding us and watching us; some gave us directions; some invited us into their home to take a rest; some spoke of the charm of their hometown. We met many beautiful souls, simple souls and warm souls. We were walking with our minds.

Together, we were impressed by the biodiversity of the Gaoligong Mountains. As I walked on ancient paths through mountains, I seemed to hear the antique voices of past travelers urging me to be careful on the road.

Looking back on the more than 200 miles I walked with Paul, I came to a realization. Walking for its own sake, while healthy and admirable, is only a small part of the benefit of moving with our feet. A deeper reward is rediscovering the world around us, shortening the distance between each other, and sharing each other’s cultures.

10 . It’s been nearly two decades since the traditional clothing style Hanfu first started to reemerge in China. Since then it has gone from a small cultural movement celebrating an ancient fashion to a trend that is booming on social media, having been adopted by China’s Generation Z as a means of connecting with their past. Instead of following other cultures blindly, Generation Z now have different opinions about what trend is by promoting local culture while having an objective view of exotic cultural products.

The new tastes of Generation Z—young people born after 1995—are well represented on Bilibili. In the recent New Year’s Eve gala presented by Bilibili, it attracted more than 100 million views within 48 hours with a colourful set of programmes ranging from Peking Opera to classical Chinese cartoons. The same is also true of movie industry. Last year, for the first time, the top 10 most viewed films in China were all domestic films, while the ticket sales for imported films have dropped to only 16.28 percent.

”Generation Z grew up with the rapid development of China and under good economic conditions. With the development of the Chinese Internet industry, they have more access to diverse international information and culture, which bring them a much broader vision and makes them more open and confident in analyzing foreign culture. Apart from taking pride in China’s rapid development, this generation also pursues individuality and values devotion to the country,“ Professor Zhang Yiwu said.

He also noted that the popular rock and punk culture pursued by the 70s and 80s generation is more of a challenge against real life and local culture. Some people who were born in the 1970s and 1980s did not grow up in the Internet age—they experienced the transformation of China going from poor to rich first-hand. This kind of longing and admiration of the West came from a lack of confidence.

However, Generation Z now have the confidence to look at Western culture with equal status. This kind of cultural confidence will result in China being more active and creative in its development on the international stage in the future.