1 . Have you ever wondered why it feels so satisfying to sing in the shower? You are alone. You are warm. The air is moist, making your throat feel wet.     1     You’re at once relaxed and pleasantly energized by the water. Little can take you away from the simple tasks at hand. You control the speed and pitch. And the bathroom provides wonderful resonance (共鸣).

Now imagine singing while driving. You are sitting, stuck by a tight seat belt that limits airflow. Without any warm-up, you probably start right in with the first song you hear. The air is drier. And to stay awake, you may be drinking coffee, which can make you thirsty.     2     While singing along to the radio, your voice may get lost in the noise of the song and the car.

From my personal experience, I realize the importance of not only focusing but also setting the right conditions during practice.     3     This is why some argue against baseball players practising hitting before a game. They try hitting different types of throws, even slower ones that they wouldn’t see in a real game.

    4     To warm up, I practise deep breathing exercises and relax my tongue with “blah blah blahs.” Brightening my face helps make my sound more energetic. My voice becomes richer and stronger when I practise opening up my mouth by yawning, imagining the back of my mouth expanding like a frog’s. I also adjust the way I stand.     5    

2 . Yoga has been around for roughly 5, 000 years but it is more popular today than ever. An estimated 300 million people play yoga worldwide. Experts say its accessibility and the fact that you can practice it anywhere are big reasons why.     1    

Yoga can improve your posture and balance, strengthen bones and muscles and keep your back and joints healthy.     2     Downward-facing dog can help relieve back pain while plank (平板) pose is good for building a strong core and upper body. Typically the final position of a yoga class is ideally done for at least five minutes.     3     After that, you and your classmates usually acknowledge each other with a greeting: Namaste.

Many people adopt yoga as a form of exercise.     4     As recorded in the Yoga Sutras, a classic yoga text, the philosophy of yoga is based on the idea that the mind, body and spirit are one. The practice of yoga consists of not only physical postures but also moral guidelines, breathing techniques, and self-awareness, helping reduce anxiety and improve focus. It is an approach to health and well-being that aims to bring balance and harmony to all aspects of life.

    5     However, a 13-year U. S. study found that between 2001 and 2014, almost30, 000 individuals went to the emergency room with a yoga-related injury. Overstretching tends to be the most common issue, but serious injuries-although rare-can happen even to advanced coaches.

3 . A Picture Paints A Thousand Words?

Nowadays, everyone takes selfies (自拍照), from famous actors and politicians, to everyday people. Selfies are a great way to share your hobbies and daily routines, and thanks to smartphones and their high-quality cameras, anyone can take and upload these images on social media.     1     According to research, our selfies and how we take them also say a lot about our character.

Researchers found that both the poses that we choose and the way that we actually take a selfie can show the world something.     2     Those who stick their tongues out could be fun-loving and silly but might actually feel uncomfortable in front of the camera.

Even how often we smile in our selfies and the way we smile tell people about our character. Someone who smiles a lot is more likely to be outgoing and open to new experiences while someone with a large broad smile may be a risk-taker. It’s not just our expression, though, that gives away things about us.     3     For example, people who look directly at the camera could be cooperative and sociable.

    4     Studies found that showing the left side of the face and cheek in a selfie communicates emotions better and makes you seem more attractive to others. People who take a selfie from below often want to appear bigger and stronger, white those taking a picture from above looking down could want to appear shorter and sweeter.

Next time you grab your smartphone, hold on for a moment.     5    

4 . The holidays can be a difficult time to stay on track with your fitness goals.     1    . Even the most disciplined people can find it difficult to stick to their fitness routines during the holiday season. Here are some expert-recommended tips that can help you stay on track.

    2    .

Planning is the best way to make sure you don’t lose track of your goals. Plan your workouts for the week and mark them in your schedule to assure they are a part of your day.

Exercise early.

    3    . Make sure workouts are in the morning and you’ll set yourself up for a productive day. Then you can enjoy holiday activities and time with family without worrying about when you’ll have time to exercise.

Keep moving.

Research shows that getting up for just five minutes every 30 to 60 minutes and performing light activities reduces the risk of heart disease risk factors. Small efforts to get moving can help your overall health during the holidays. In addition to staying active, try to avoid sitting for long periods of time, such as when watching football games or eating.     4    .

Think out of the box.

The holidays are busy, but do your best to avoid the “all or nothing” mentality when it comes to physical activity.     5     — like taking a family walk around the neighborhood before opening Christmas presents.

5 . Aesthetic (审美) education aims to enhance aesthetic perception, experience aesthetic qualities, stimulate aesthetic creativity, and promote aesthetic judgement.

In order for kids to be able to appreciate natural wonders, shapes and pictures, they must be able to first notice them. This is why the development of the ability to notice the beautiful is the primary task of aesthetic education.     1     Kids are incapable of noticing particular shapes if their ability to notice object s and forms is undeveloped. The aesthetic relationship begins with the noticing of aesthetic qualities.

    2     This means that they generate emotional responses like excitement and joy, enriching individuals’ emotional lives and inspiring artistic expression. The ability to experience aesthetically must also be developed. The cognitive (认知的) elements of the processes that we experience during noticing must also include emotional tones with which we form impressions.     3     The aim of this task is, with the aid of aesthetic qualities, to enrich the emotional life of children and young people and the development of a sense for aesthetic values.

It is essential to allow children to participate in activities that will develop their creative abilities.     4     Instead, it is about creativity in the creation of aesthetic values in everyday life. We are not simply born with creative abilities which have to be developed.

Judging or evaluating aesthetic qualities demands formed evaluation criteria. In order for beauty to reveal its true value, we must be familiar with its particularities. Throughout the process of aesthetic education, various types of knowledge, abilities and evaluation criteria must be applied.     5    

7 . When you think of your closest friends, who will come to your mind? Perhaps your college roommates or the neighbor you played with as a child. Regardless of how you met these people, they most likely have one key thing in common:     1     A 2023 study found that, for those aged 21 to 30, over 80 percent in their social circles, were born within five years of them. Moreover, nearly 63 percent of adults have no close friends 15 years older or younger than them.

Spending our time with such a narrow group of people can fuel age segregation and increase our loneliness. These limitations also keep us from other generations’ mindsets and potentially surprising points of connection.     2     Of course, the ones that are older might offer a brief look into the coming years.

A program that runs schools out of senior centers has said a lot about it.     3     Dawn Carr, a sociology professor, said most older people get much from practical help—with new technology, for instance—their younger friends offered.     4     Having fun with someone decades younger definitely takes off their pressure to “act their age”.

    5     Lila, aged 75, was proud that her life experiences prepared her to give advice to her young friend with depression, for which the young was grateful. Also, older friends offer more examples of what growing up can look like. If someone’s parents are the only older people they know well, they might fail to picture other possibilities. A greater pool of older friends can help young people create their own blueprint.

8 . After building some standard cargo bikes,    1    , this time with something very special. I wanted to build an ideal cargo bike combining the stability of a three-wheeler with the possibility to change directions like being on two wheels.

The first step was to do extensive research.    2    . An incredible source of technical inspiration was the online Tilting Group. Although primarily concerned with tilting concepts of engine driven constructions, the group is surely the best place to find information about constructing a tilter.

After researching and outlining a few ideas, I grabbed some parts and started with a very simple prototype. Building such a vehicle needs a high degree of accuracy, which was not the case with my prolotype.     3    . So I made a few more sketches, which led to an improved version of the driving and tilting mechanism.

Then I started building the tricycle. Building the structure was quite straightforward. As usual I took an old bike apart for the back triangle and then added the front part. After adding a cargo basket to the structure,     4    .

Now came the hard part the driving mechanism. I started with the usual design used for two-wheel cargo bikes, but it took me quite some time to figure out how to pass the driving force to both wheels without allowing the whole thing to lock itself in any angle.

    5    , but I’m sure I can use the knowledge I gained one way or another.

9 . We’re growing more used to chatting to our computers, phones and smart speakers through voice assistants. Out of these assistants, Siri is the most well-known spoken web. Blind people have been using text-to-speech assistant for decades.     1    

Some think voice could soon take over from clicking as the main way to interact online. They believe online interaction would soon depend mainly on voice.     2    

Building the spoken web—web-to-voice and voice-to-web—is by no means an easy task. For software to answer simple questions about the weather and play music for us is easy.     3     Artificial intelligence isn’t smart enough yet. Even turning your voice into text is one of the hardest problems to solve. There are as many ways to pronounce things as there are people on the planet.

Using voice interaction feels far closer than surfing the net the old-fashioned way.     4     But if something speaks, it must also listen. Our phones are always near us and they are constantly collecting their personal information. This has already raised privacy concerns. People worry assistants will one day be used to deliver advertising directly to us.

    5     In environments when one’s hands are occupied, such as while driving or cooking, the spoken web is helpful. Think about when you are cooking, it is natural to talk. And speech obviously makes sense when you are driving. On the other hand, in a quiet library, using voice commands to ask a question may not be as suitable as typing, as it could disturb others. The effectiveness of using voice depends on the specific surroundings.

10 . In the eras before air-conditioning, southern China’s skywells played a key role in keeping people’s homes cool. Could they do it again today?

Ru Ling loves spending time in skywells. To her, these courtyards of old Chinese houses are the perfect place to be on a hot and humid day. “    1    ” says Ru.

From 2014 to 2021, Ru lived in a century-old home in the village of Guanlu in eastern China’s Anhui Province. She moved there for a change of life after living and working in air-conditioned buildings for many years. Ru says that the house’s skywell helped to create this cooling effect.     2     Studies have found that the temperatures inside some of the skywells in southern China are significantly lower than the outside.

In today’s China, fewer and fewer people live in houses with skywells.     3     But a revival of interest in traditional Chinese architecture is leading some historic buildings with skywells to be restored for modern times.     4    

A skywell is a typical feature of a traditional home in southern and eastern China. Different from a northern Chinese courtyard, a skywell is smaller and less exposed to the outdoor environment.     5     It is either surrounded by rooms on four sides or three sides plus a wall. Some large houses have more than one skywell.