3 . At some point in the stretch of days between the start of the pandemic’s third year and the feared launch of World War III, a new phrase unfolded itself before us, a mysterious foretell of an age to come: people were going “goblin mode”.

The term embraces the comforts of depravity(堕落): spending the day in bed scrolling endlessly through social media; pouring the end of a bag of chips in your mouth; leaving the house in your pajamas and socks only to get a single Diet Coke from the store.

First appearing on Twitter as early as 2009, “goblin mode” represents a direct departure from the “cottagecore” influence of early pandemic days, a standout trend of 2020 that thrived under the wistful ethos of making the best of what many people assumed would be only a few boring weeks at home in 2020.

But as the pandemic wears on endlessly, and the chaos of current events worsens, people feel cheated by the system and have rejected such goals. “The trend sets an unrealistic standard for people to think that if they aren’t waking up early to exercise, their lives are not put together”, one blog indicting “cottagecore” culture reads.

Most people tweeting about goblin mode characterize it as an almost spiritual-level embrace of our most debased tendencies and call it a logical progression into nihilism(虚无主义)after years of disappointment. However, Marnell, an author who has been tweeting extensively in recent weeks about entering goblin mode, says there is “healthy goblin mode and destructive goblin mode”. For her, it represents a certain air of harmless mischief. “It is cool to be a goblin,” Marnell says. “Everyone is so perfect all the time online, it is good to get in touch with the strange little creature that lives inside you.”

5 . How to Make a Difference in Your Career

Making a meaningful career choice is a crucial decision in life.    1    , such as being a doctor, teacher or charity worker. However, you don’t have to limit yourself to just those choices. To have a lasting and meaningful impact, it’s important to consider the problem you expect to overcome.

    2    . To ensure success, remember that your career is a marathon and not a short running. Most people reach peak productivity between the ages of 40 and 60, so it’s important to choose something that you can stick with for the long term. When looking for meaningful work, consider what is satisfied with you.

To maximize your career’s impact, consider the importance of the problem you are addressing, how effective your job is at dealing with it, and your personal fit. Your personal fit depends on your abilities and career capital-skills, connections, and reputation,     3    , and you can ensure that you have a long term improvement in the lives of others.

    4    

Before thinking about specific career paths, it’s valuable to consider what kinds of careers tend to have the highest impact. Remember many career categories can enable you to make a big contribution to whichever global problems you think are most pressing.

List promising alternatives you can switch to if your plan A doesn’t work out. If you’re ambitious enough, your plan A probably has a good chance of not working out.    5    To avoid unacceptable risks, write a plan Z — how you’ll get back on your feet if things go wrong.

6 . Young boys often dream of superpower to solve their problems “If I could just lick my fingers, my homework would be done,” many have imagined. Jerry and Joe put their ideas down on paper and created the world’s most popular superhero, Superman.

In 1931, the two became fast friends at Cleveland’s Glenville High School and ended up crating comics together. Joe was the artist and drew all the time, using bits of any kind of paper he could find. He hung out at newsstands (报摊) concentrating on magazines, especially amazing stories and then took up a pencil to recreate them at home. Jerry was the storyteller and the more ambitious of the two. He described how the creation of Superman came to him in the middle of a sleepless summer night, “I spring out of bed and write this down, and then I go back and think some more for about two hours and get up again and write that down. The inspiration for Superman’s origin story start taking shape, and the next morning, I run over to Joe’s place ...”

As is often the case, when we experience something painful in life, we deal with the feel-ing through creative expression. Jerry’s father owned a shop and died during a robbery. A young child might process that experience by wishing something could have prevented it. For Jerry, out came the Man of Steel, who was invulnerable (刀枪不入的) and tended to protect innocent people. Creating storylines must have helped Jerry to deal with the pain. Superman always wins. He stops trains and bad guys and cannot be killed.

The story of Superman has inspired kids for generations. It has calmed their fears and driven their dreams. Most importantly, the Man of Steel has inspired us all to find our super-power and use it to help others.

7 . It was eight o’ clock on Christmas morning, and Uncle Tom said he wanted to listen to the news. My 11-year-old self was wondering why grown-ups would be interested in the news when there were important things to be done, such as handing out presents. However, while I was only half-listening to the radio broadcast, I was confused that I had heard that report earlier.

My older brother, Colin, figured out what was happening. “Pete, it’s a tape recorder! We’ve got our tape recorder!” This was one of those rare moments when my inside gave an involuntary lurch (倾斜). Colin and I had both been blind from birth. In the late 1950s, tape recorders were definitely the top choice for blind kids, especially with the rise of rock ‘n’ roll.

But it wasn’t the first time I had been attracted to a tape recorder. I vividly remember walking into a room when I was four and hearing a child’s beautiful singing. It turned out that my dad had borrowed a tape recorder for preparing his projects. And for the first time, in the same way that a sighted child might react to seeing themselves in a mirror or a photograph, I got the sense of myself as a separate person who existed outside my head and was experienced by other people.

Then I became a broadcaster at school. I would wander around the school with my microphone, recording my thoughts in the style of the voices I heard on the radio. But the biggest challenge was not finding things to do with the tape recorder but taking it away from Colin. His generosity on the first day we got it did not extend to handing it over to his brother at school. “You’ll break it,” he would say.

But ten years later, I drew on the confidence gained from those early explorations of the sound and walked into a radio station, in the hopes of selling myself as a broadcast journalist. Eight years later, I presented my first report for BBC’s Six O’Clock News. I never thought that a Christmas present had changed my life.

8 . A growing body of research suggests that the gut microbiome (消化道菌群) could play a major role in a rising chronic disease that makes us physically weaker. The illness, which is commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), is characterized by intense fatigue, gastrointestinal (胃肠道的) issues, muscle pain, and cognitive challenges such as headaches and difficulty concentrating, among other symptoms. It often follows a viral infection which can lead to a “disruption” in a balanced gut ecosystem. Actually, an increasing number of Americans have been the sufferers since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Two recent studies published in Cell Host &Microbe point to changes in the microbiome as a possible cause of CFS. Research groups at Columbia University and the Jackson Laboratory performed detailed analyses of the microbes in stool (粪便) samples from patients with CFS and compared them to healthy controls.

The two groups found similar bacteria species were less present in CFS patients compared to control patients. They focused on bacteria that produce butyrate, a fatty acid involved in regulating metabolism and the immune system. “Butyrate plays several roles in directing the body’s response to infections, while also protecting the barrier between the intestine (肠) and the circulatory system, regulating genetic changes in cells, and more,” says Brent Williams, lead author on the Columbia study. Williams and his colleagues extensively analyzed the role of butyrate in CFS patients’ guts, even identifying a correlation between low levels of bacteria that produce this acid and more severe symptoms.

Parallel findings from the Jackson Laboratory team suggest the bacteria that produce butyrate could be used to diagnose CFS. Previous research has identified microbiome issues in CFS patients, but the new findings help clarify which microbes could be related to the illness.

More research on butyrate-producing bacteria and other species identified in the studies is necessary to investigate these potential biomarkers of CFS, the authors say. If the findings are replicated, specific gut bacteria could be used to diagnose the illness, which is currently identified based on symptoms alone.

The findings additionally point toward possible treatments, such as probiotics or microbiome-focused diet adjustments—though patients who have been sick for long periods may require drugs that alleviate the damage done to their metabolism or immune system.

9 . Last September, several hundred tomato lovers gathered on a sunny, breezy day in Portland, Ore. for Tomato Fest. Agricultural researcher Matt Davis was handing out samples of experimental tomatoes which were dry-farmed.

Dry-farming, a form of agriculture that doesn’t require irrigation, has roots stretching back millennia. But in the 20th century, the practice largely fell out of widespread use. Today, however, farmers are once again experimenting with dry farming as they struggle with water shortages, which are being exacerbated by rising temperatures and more frequent and intense droughts linked to climate change.

It’s a common misconception that dry farming means growing plants without water. Instead, dry-farmed plants take up moisture stored in the ground rather than sprinkled (洒) from above. Thus, sites must generally receive more than 50 centimeters of annual precipitation (降水量) to create moisture in the soil, and the soil must be composed of fine grains that help preserve that water over time.

Dry-farming won’t solve all of agriculture’s woes, but it offers a way forward. Farmers have noticed that dry-farmed plots contain only about a fifth of the weeds that grow in irrigated plots. Not having to pull up as many weeds can translate into labor savings. Coupled with not having to manage irrigation facilities, dry-farming can simplify a growing operation.

In 2016 and 2017, Alex Stone and Jennifer Wetzel from Oregon State University grew different varieties of winter squash in Corvallis. The pair irrigated some vegetable fields and dry-farmed others. After harvesting the squash and leaving them in storage for four months, they found that about 80% of the roughly 1,250 dry-farmed winter squash were still marketable while the number dropped to 50% out of the roughly 1,150 irrigated winter squash.

“You get to really learn what the environment gives you, and you learn to respond accordingly.” Michael Johnson, a specialist at the University of Arizona says, “A relationship develops between the cropping system and the farmer. It’s a beautiful thing that needs to be cherished.”

10 . Public health data signals a genuine crisis in adolescent mental health: rising rates of anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. But as we worry about tweens and teens who are struggling, we can’t ignore another mounting effect — the burdens that are shouldered by their friends and peers in an “always on” world.

We have studied teens and tech for over a decade. Their networks are ever-expanding, in no small part because there’s a sense that being nice means accepting fellow requests from acquaintances and friends-of-friends. And it’s not just staying connected — it’s keeping up with what others post, too.

Social media platforms thus make it technically possible to maintain more relationships than we are historically actually wired to track and manage. The result is an overwhelming wave of social information. It’s especially intense for adolescents whose developmental sensitivities drive them to care deeply about what their peers are doing and thinking.

Significant stress comes with trying to be a “good friend” in the age of social media. Friendship requires both public and behind-the-scenes support. Even before a social media post is made public, close friends can be pulled into photo selection, editing, and final examination. Besides, they need to respond in the right way and in the right amount of time, which differs from one relationship to another. Replying too quickly can be seen as over-eager, especially when the friendship is new or not close. But when it’s a close friend, too long a lag (延迟) can be hurtful.

The qualities that are key to building or breaking friendships are actually the same as they’ve always been: mutual (相互的) sharing of joys and sorrows, a give and take of acceptance and support, and an ability to weather and resolve conflicts. But technologies have transformed how friendships play out. Social media increases the burdens that come along with being a good friend. Too often, these dynamics hit teens hard in ways that are lost on adults. And that is what should be changed with the help of parents, schools and other parts of society.