Please Be a Wise Smartphone User

4 . When a bowl or teapot falls and breaks into pieces, we throw them away regretfully. Yet there is an alternative, a traditional Chinese practice that ________ and enhances the breaks thus ________ value to the broken object. It’s actually called golden repair.

This traditional technique uses a precious metal like liquid gold or liquid silver to ________ the pieces of a broken pottery item and at the same time enhance the breaks. The technique ________ bringing pieces together and giving them a ________ look.

With this technique, it’s ________ to create true and always different works of art, each with its own story and beauty, ________ the unique cracks (裂缝) formed when the object breaks, as if they were wounds that ________ different marks on each of us.

The technique ________ many things. We shouldn’t ________ broken objects. When an object breaks, it doesn’t mean that it is no longer useful. Its ________ can become valuable. We should try to ________ things because sometimes in doing so we obtain more ________ objects. This is the most important quality of adaptability. Each of us should look for a way to deal with unpleasant events in a ________ way, learn from negative experiences, take the best from them and convince ourselves that exactly these experiences make each person ________ and precious.

6 . Tips to Exercise When It’s Really Hot Outside

Exercising in the fresh air might seem like a good idea.     1     When we exercise outdoors in hot weather, there’s an increased risk of serious heart-related illnesses. Therefore, we need to bear some tips in mind during our workouts in the summer sunshine.

    2     Go in the morning or evening. The middle of the day isn’t a good time to exercise in the warmer months. If we choose to exercise in the midday sun or the afternoon sun, we’ll get tired soon and dehydrate (脱水) much faster in direct, intense sunlight.     3     Just try to exercise on the shady (背阴的) side of the building to avoid the midday sun.

Drink promptly (及时地). Regardless of how fit we are, exercising outside will pose a significant danger to our body when it’s hot. Drinking water is probably the most basic part of exercising in the sun.     4     Drink water every 15 minutes when exercising in the heat, even if we are not thirsty. Aim for 2 to 4 cups (16 to 32 ounces) of fluids each hour.

Dress appropriately. Wear material that will help our body breathe. Consider wearing light colored clothing.     5     Besides, sunscreen is a must whenever we exercise outdoors. In addition, don’t forget to bring a hat because it provides shade so our head can stay cool.

When Sam and I were first married, we lived in a quiet neighborhood. Across the street, there was a big house with a six-foot high hedge (树篱) that blocked all but a small path to its yard. It was clear that our neighbors wanted privacy and weren’t interested in any “neighborly” behavior. Sam had discovered that a brother and sister lived in the house. The house belonged to the sister, and the brother helped around the house with things like getting the mail and setting the rubbish cans out on the day when the rubbish-collecting truck would come. The sister and brother were both very old. And we considered them unfriendly because they had called the police when Sam played music with his band in our yard one afternoon.

Not realizing it was we who were in the wrong, we thought our neighbors caused trouble to our already difficult life. At the time, Sam and I were quite short of money. We felt sad when Christmas was around the corner. It was our first Christmas as a married couple, and we didn’t have much money to celebrate it. There were no gifts or parties. We didn’t even have any special holiday treats to share at home.

“I wish we could have enough good stuff on Christmas Day. When I was a kid, my family would always have cheese, meat, cookies, candies, etc. It always felt like a feast (盛宴) to me as a kid,” I told Sam. I understood that Christmas wasn’t all about nice things, but it just didn’t feel like Christmas with only a few foods. Sam seemed to feel the same way. “Things will get a lot better next year,” he said, trying to be cheerful.

Three weeks before Christmas, we got to know our “unfriendly” neighbor, the brother, had a bad disease and passed away. One morning after that, we noticed our neighbor—the tiny sister Mary—trying with all her strength to pull her rubbish cans to the roadside alone. She looked so weak and lonely.

Sam couldn’t stand it and rushed to her, saying, “May I help you?”

When we answered the door, there was nobody but a big bag of goods.

Suodiu is an unusual type of Chinese street food that consists of small river stones stir-fried (被煸炒) with a mixture of ingredients (配料) . The practice involves sucking (吮吸) on the stones and then     1     (throw) them away.

Suodiu is believed to have been invented hundreds of years ago by boatmen     2     would prepare the dish when they became stranded in the middle of a river     3     any real food while delivering goods.     4     (comfort) their stomachs, they would stir-fry some river pebbles (鹅卵石) and then suck the flavor from them.

The traditional dish     5     (pass) down through several generations, and today, roadside cooking in China sometimes showcases Suodiu.

A series of videos showing the preparation of Suodiu has recently gone viral on Xiaohongshu, a social media platform, exciting the    6     (curious) of millions of people. It wasn’t just the uniqueness of the dish that interested viewers, but also the high price per serving, considering there is hardly any edible content in it. However, it’s important to note that river pebbles are used because they     7     (supposed) acquire the flavor of seafood over time. Thus, when sucking on them while eating Suodiu, one can experience the taste of fish     8     (combine) with various ingredients.

“Do I have to return the pebbles to you     9     I finish?” one person asked in one of the viral videos, to which the cook replied, “Take them home as     10     happy remembrance.”

9 . Fish farming is the fastest-growing form of food production worldwide. Seafood accounts for around 17% of the world’s protein intake. It’s estimated that global consumption of fish will reach 180m tonnes by the end of the decade. The World Bank thinks that 90% of the world’s fisheries are being fished over their capacity. Aquaculture (水产养殖) has therefore accounted for nearly all the growth in fish consumption since 1990. It’ll account for almost all the growth to come, too.

As with farming on land though, aquaculture has some problems. Many farmed fish are grown in net pens (网栏) either in rivers or the open ocean. Uneaten food and fish waste can pollute surrounding waters. When net pens break, escaped farmed fish can damage the local ecosystem. Inland “flow-through” farms require continuous streams of fresh water from rivers, competing with those who might need to drink it.

Therefore, newer fish farms, like Salten Smolt, came into being. They adopt a technology called RAS (recirculating aquaculture systems). Rather than relying on a constant flow of water to keep fish healthy, a RAS farm grows fish on land in tanks whose water is continuously cleaned and recycled. Standard salmon farming consumes about 50,000 litres of water for each kilogram of salmon produced. A RAS farm might need just 150 litres. Besides, it takes better care of the fish, and allows picky species to be raised anywhere. However, the pipes, pumps and monitoring systems mean that costs are higher. And these systems need to be monitored regularly by skilled personnel in case of a loss.

The RAS tanks are climate-controlled tanks, which can provide ideal temperature, without the need to worry about terrible weather. Reel Data, a company in Nova Scotia, uses data from cameras and sensors in tanks to estimate how hungry fish are, how much they weigh and even how stressed they are. The firm says the technology can raise its productivity by up to 20%.

For now, the RAS farm remains small fry (鱼苗). Just as Kathrin Steinberg, head of research at the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, said, less than 5% of the farms certified by her organization make use of it. But with the world’s demand for fish rising rapidly, she believes that market share will definitely grow soon.

10 . In late 2017, California-based fine arts photographer Norma Quintana was planning a trip down to her native Puerto Rico to document Hurricane Maria’s destruction. Instead, she and her family found themselves caught in another natural disaster much closer to home. Beginning in early October, the Atlas Fire swept through Napa County and lasted weeks. When Quintana and her family were finally able to return to their property, everything was gone: her home of nearly 30 years, her studio, her photographs, her prints and her collection of over 100 cameras.

Ever an artist at heart, she began photographing the remains of her home and possessions. Those photos would eventually become a series, Forage from Fire. Now, the project can be viewed as part of “Fire Transforms”, a new exhibition at the Palo Alto Art Center. The exhibition mainly explores the following themes: living with fire, learning with fire, and creating with fire. It features photography, paintings, ceramics (陶瓷), sculptures, textiles (纺织品) and digital media.

One of the artists on the exhibition is Linda Gass, a textile artist and environmental activist, who sewed a map of the damage from the 2013 Rim Fire, the largest recorded fire in the Sierra Nevada. Brian Fies’ A Fire Story is a graphic (图表的) novel and an account of the artist’s losing his home in the 2017 Tubbs Fire, along with 6,000 others. At the time, it was California’s most destructive fire, though the Camp Fire in 2018 would be worse.

“Art offers a safe place of comfort after the firestorm has passed,” says Rina Faletti, who is in charge of the exhibition. “How can we learn to transform our fear, sadness, loss, anger and confusion into something more comforting and clear? How can we rest from climate change, even as we face the real losses that fire causes in the face of global change? Thankfully, we have artists to help us.”