1 . In-flight announcements can be crucial in providing important information.     1     But beyond the “necessities”, are passengers being flooded with too many announcements?

Imagine boarding an aircraft late in the evening or during the early hours of the day, eager to get some sleep. After forcing yourself to stay awake for the safety briefing, you fall fast asleep.     2     It’s the captain making an announcement. She’s telling you her name, her first officer’s name, the name of every flight attendant, and of course, the cruising speed and altitude. Was this really necessary and was it worth being woken up for?

    3     It’s anyone deep into a film or two passengers trying to talk to each other. In fact, in-flight announcements automatically pause television shows and movies—sometimes coming through your headphones far louder than the volume of whatever you were watching.

Which announcements are necessary? There are many in-flight announcements that are absolutely necessary. Anything to do with safety and security is, of course, essential. Anything to do with delays and scheduling is also important to know.     4     I think most people care about those as well.

However, anything beyond these is questionable. Of course, the additional announcements are meant to better connect passengers to the flight crew, the airline, and the overall experience of flying.     5     But in my opinion, this comes at the cost of the overall flight experience.

So from my point of view, in-flight announcements have gotten out of control and need to be controlled.

2 . Staying focused can be a challenge even when you are doing one thing at a time.     1    , concentrating might appear impossible. Here are a few strategies that can really help you.

Unfocus your brain.     2    . It’s a place where your unfocused mind often make better decisions. This involves pairing your daydreaming with some unimportant activities such as walking and gardening. Doing this several times a day can offer your mind a fresh approach to the job at hand.

Block interruptions before diving into important work. Our days are filled with distractions (干扰), from others and ourselves. To help, turn off text messaging and social media notifications. Pretty basic?     3    . When distracting interruptions are shut off, your brain will get a chance to complete full sentences of thought.

    4    . Do you feel more sharp-minded in the morning? Or are you more clear-minded late in the night? Either way, it doesn’t matter as long as you can do the most important tasks when your brain is at its best performance. Avoid spending your best brain hours doing unimportant work. Instead, reserve it for the big tasks.

Try new hobbies. Hobbies not only give you fun, but also can help you come up with creative solutions to problems you’re facing at work or home.     5    .

3 . Most of you may want your kids to stay away from social media because it can bring harm. But social media can have a positive effect on them, like helping them learn how to communicate with others, improve relationships and deal with somebody who isn’t being kind to them.     1    . If you decide to let your kids use social media, follow a few tips to help them better explore the social media world.

Talk to your kids. From the beginning, it’s important to have an open and honest conversation with your kids about what social media is and what it can be used for. Ask why they’re interested in having an account on a particular platform and what they want to use it for.     2    .

Limit screen time. The American Academy of Pediatrics (儿科) recommends limiting screen time to two hours a day for kids.     3    , but parents should also focus on a bigger picture—making sure your kids are getting enough physical activity and face-to-face interactions.

Monitor their usage.     4    , whether that’s scrolling through (滚动浏览) their tablet or phone or using a social media monitoring tool. “See what apps are there and familiarize yourself with those,” psychologist Kate Eshleman says. “Ask yourself if this tool is going to fit your goal.”

    5    . Easier said than done, right? But practicing safe and healthy social media behaviors in front of your kids really matters. “It’s much harder for kids to understand the potential dangers or risks of social media when parents engage in the same behaviors themselves,” Eshleman says.

4 . According to a survey, nearly a third of all adults reported that they sometimes struggle to make basic decisions.     1    , try these strategies from decision-making experts.

Let go of the idea of making perfect decisions

Much of the pressure you feel comes from how much you associate your choices with your identity. For example, you are always worried about sending the wrong message about who you are and what you stand for.     2     In fact, it can keep you from making any good decision at all.

Just allow yourself three to five options

The grocery store is as good a place as any to get struck by indecision. If you walk in without a shopping list, you might spend twenty minutes picking up boxes and putting them down. Sometimes, there are just too many options to process any of them meaningfully, because we can handle about three to five choices on average.     3    .

Practice trusting yourself

It is normal to rely on friends for fit checks or for movie recommendations.     4     try to resist the urge and make more of those choices on your own. And then look at what is the outcome of the decision, so that you can build up trust in your ability to know what’s right for you in any given moment.

    5    

Whether it’s about choosing how often you’re going to hit the gym, or deciding when you’ll go grocery shopping for the week, sticking to your old habits or starting new ones is a great way to reduce stress.

5 . There is a lot to learn about the unusual habits and qualities of the British people when you first visit London.

Get to know what to wear. Most men now go for a shirt, and women go for a smart-casual skirt or trousers and top(上衣), or a dress. Some men might keep a jacket and tie at work that they can put on if they have a client meeting or some other reason to look extra smart.     1     For example, if you head to the Ritz Hotel for tea, or visit the members’ section at: Lord’s Cricket Ground, you will be expected to dress appropriately.

Pay attention to the art of giving praise.     2     We receive praise, we will often make a self-deprecating(自嘲) comment to emphasize modesty. For example, if you tell somebody “I love your dress”, you expect the reply to be “This old thing? I bought it in Primark ages ago!” In this example, when faced with a self-deprecating British person, you could say, “Well, I think it’s lovely.”     3    

Visiting gardens is common. Gardening is one of the most popular leisure activities in the UK. Two-thirds of British people visit a garden centre each year, which results in great economic value.     4     In fact, we love the gardens so much that each year the National lead 10Garden Scheme opens over 3,000 private gardens to the public, raising money for charity in the process.

    5     The truly wealthy rarely show off their wealth, and we don’t like to talk about money or how much we earn. A common saying is “money can’t buy taste”. In other words, if you are truly “upper class”, you do not need to show it.!

6 . Do you believe that a baby can only have one parent? It is widely understood that animals have two parents, each contributing essential DNA. However, a female shark became pregnant and gave birth to a baby shark at the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois, US,     1    , a new study documented.

This is a phenomenon called parthenogenesis (孤雌生殖), which means “virgin creation” in Greek. For most animals, an egg cell and a sperm (精子) cell are essential to create offspring (后代).     2    . However, in cases of parthenogenesis, the body finds a way to make up for the genetic material usually provided by sperm.

As the female generates an egg cell, small cells called polar bodies are produced in the process. In the case of parthenogenesis, an egg merges with one of its polar bodies, which replaces a sperm cell.     3    . So, the baby is similar to the mother but not a cloned version of her.

    4    . In 2018, a female crocodile who had been living alone for 16 years at a zoo in Costa Rica laid 14 eggs. Scientists found a fully-formed baby crocodile inside one of these eggs. In 2012, scientists incubated (培育) six snake eggs without fertilization (受精), and these eggs developed into healthy baby snakes.

Parthenogenesis may occur in “lower animals” like some species of insects, fish, reptiles and even birds.     5    . So, it is currently impossible for female mammals to reproduce without a male.

7 . Imagine your home on its messages today. Legos spread over the floor. Dirty socks are jammed between couch cushions. Receipts and pieces of mail litter on the table. Though many of us feel shame when your homes end up in this state, a messy house is not a moral failing. The only thing that actually matters is whether your house is functional and livable.     1    .

Collect trash. First get a trash bag or a trash can. Then move around the room, collecting the garbage. But don’t take out the trash yet.     2    .

Pile up dirty dishes.     3    . Or you can pile them up. Maybe do the dishes. With unwashed plates in the kitchen and dining table, we are sure to be distracted and upset.

Pick up clothing and laundry. Collect the laundry that’s lying around. You can use a laundry basket or a bag. Bring the laundry to the machine and start it, if you want.

Put back things that have a place. This one is pretty straightforward.     4    . But if some items be long in another part of the house, put them in a basket or pile them up by the door for now.

    5    . Sometimes our belongings become disordered because we’ve never chosen a place to store them. We may decide to gather all the stuff that doesn’t have a place, put it in a basket and set it aside. At this point, you may also decide to create a home for these random odds and ends. Some people call this a “junk drawer.”

8 . How long does it take to become an elite (精英) in your field?     1     That’s what John Hayes, a cognitive psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, wanted to know.

For decades, Hayes has been investigating the role of effort, practice and knowledge in top performers.     2     The research focused on people like Mozart and Picasso-to determine how long it took them to become world-class at their craft.

Let’s talk about what Hayes has discovered about world-class-performers. And more importantly, let’s discuss how you can use these insights to achieve your goals and become your best.

    3     He analyzed thousands of musical pieces produced from 1685 to 1900. The central question that drove his work was, “How long after one becomes interested in music is it that one becomes world-class?” Eventually, Hayes developed a list of 500 pieces of “masterworks” in the field, which were created by a total of 76 composers.

text, Hayes mapped out the timeline of each composers career.     4     What he discovered was that virtually every single “masterwork” was written after the tenth year of the composer’s career. Not a single person produced incredible work without putting in a decade of practice first. Even a genius like Mozart had to work for at least ten years before he produced something that became popular.     5    

In follow-up studies, Hayes found similar patterns among famous painters and popular poets. These findings have been further confirmed by research from professors like K. Anders Ericsson, who produced research that revealed that you needed to put in “10, 000 hours” to become an elite or expert in your field.

10 . Nearly everything we do contributes to our carbon footprint.     1     Sales of electric bikes, or e-bikes, are on the rise. In 2021, 880, 000 e-bikes were sold in the U. S., compared with 608,000 electric cars and trucks. That’s up from 450,000 c-bike sales in 2020.

E-bikes have the same components as traditional bicycles: frames, seats, handlebars, and wheels.     2     The speed of a non-electric bike relies on the rider’s physical strength and endurance. Casual cyclists can pedal at 10 to 14 miles per hour, depending on the terrain and weight of the bike and rider.

    3     Some models have a pedal (脚踏板)assist system with a motor to amplify pedaling power, while others have a throttle and don’t require pedaling. The max speed an e-bike can reach is 28 miles per hour, which is comparable to moped speeds, thus requiring more safety precautions than traditional bikes.

The pedal assist on e-bikes can encourage riders to bike farther and more often than they would on a traditional bike, leading to more exercise long-term. This also makes e-bikes a multifunctional option for older riders and individuals with disabilities that would otherwise prevent them from biking.     4    

    5     When it replaces trips made by a car, an individual e-bike can reduce CO₂ emissions by 225 kilograms each year. That’s equivalent to the emissions produced by one passenger flying economy from Philadelphia to Chicago.