1 . The US tech giant Microsoft Corp and the leadership consulting firm DDI worked together on a new project on Thursday, with the goal of helping more than 1 million women in China improve their digital skills and embrace the digital future.

The Women Digital Future project came as reports show that women have been more negatively impacted by the COVID-19 than men, and an improvement in digital skills is expected to help them better deal with the bad results from it.

Microsoft said it will partner with a number of companies and organizations to help women in multiple ways, as COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation worldwide and women are faced with more challenges in both life and work.

Alain Crozier, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Greater China, said, “Microsoft has always placed a high value on the development of our female employees and strongly promoting the power of women to drive the world forward.”

Mindy Yeh, managing director of Greater China, said the company’s global survey shows that there are nearly double the number of female leaders at the top 20 percent of well-performing companies than in the bottom 20 percent. Moreover, they have clear advantages in terms of teamwork and interaction.

Cecilia Qi, general manager of GSK China, said, “Digital transformation is both an opportunity and a challenge for women. This is especially the case in the new era, which requires companies to provide women with more support to help them achieve better work-life balance and continue to gain success as they continue forward in their career. Success belongs to everyone, and I believe that, in the future, society will be more supportive of women and provide them with more equal career opportunities.”

2 . Those who don’t live in cities often complain about or feel surprised at the fact that strangers don’t talk to each other in urban public places. They feel sorry about the way we seem to increasingly get lost in mobile devices, seemingly oblivious to what’s going on around us. But sociologists recognize that the space we give each other in the urban places serves an important social function.

Well-known sociologist Erving Goffman developed the concept of   “civil inattention” in his book Behavior in Public Places. Far from ignoring those around us, Goffman proved through years of studying people in public that what we’re actually doing is pretending to be unaware of what others are doing around us, therefore providing them a sense of privacy, as they do the same for us. Goffman proved in his research that civil inattention typically involves at first a mirror form of social interaction, like very brief eye contact, the exchange of head nods, or weak smiles. Following that, both parties then typically shin their eyes from the other party.

Goffman theorized that what we achieve, socially speaking, with this kind of interaction, is mutual (相互的) recognition that the other present causes no threat to our security, and we both agree, tacitly (默契地), to let the other alone to do as they please. When we provide civil inattention to others, we effectively approve their behavior. Sometimes, we use civil inattention to save face when we’ve done something we feel embarrassed by, or to help manage the embarrassment that another might feel if we witness them trip, or drop something.

Civil inattention is thus not a problem, but an important part of maintaining social order in public. For this reason, problems arise when this norm (规范) is broken. Because we expect it from others and see it as normal behavior, we may feel threatened by someone who doesn’t give it to us. This is why women feel threatened by those who catcall (发嘘声)to them, and why for some men, simply being stared at by another is enough to cause a physical fight.

3 . Population：Is 8 billion people too many?

The world’s population has reached 8 billion people.     1     because of longer life expectancy, fewer child deaths, and increasingly effective health-care systems. The UN secretary general, Antonio Gutters, declared it “an occasion to celebrate”.     2    . When the global population hit 4, 5, 6 and 7 billion, in 1975, 1987, 1999 and 2011 respectively, there was widespread dismay. The doubling of our numbers in 47 years did not bring about the famines and other disasters widely predicted in the 1960s. Our ability to feed ourselves has grown faster than our population has. Therefore, every projection of a limit to Earth’s human population, or assumed “ideal number”, has been wrong.

    3    , with fertility rates dropping below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. Most of the ongoing growth is occurring in developing nations in Africa and Asia. In the developing world, though, things are about to change. The average woman in Tanzania in 2020 was a mother to four children, 9% down on a decade earlier. UN projections predict that it will fall to an average of 2.3 children in 2080.    4    . And over the next 70 years, “societal aging” will become a major problem. When there are far more old people than young, there aren’t enough workers to pay into pension systems, threatening their collapse. This phenomenon is already underway in the U.S., Europe, Japan and China.

For now, we can both acknowledge the downsides of the 8 billionth human and believe this is an occasion worth celebrating.    5    . In that sense, it’s a good thing that millions of new people — with their new ideas and fresh energy — are on the way.

4 . It is reported that 90 million people in China suffer from depression, with around 90% not getting any effective treatment. Other research further suggests that mental disorders have generally become more common across China in the last 30 years.

China’s resources for dealing with mental health have not always been at the same level as other countries. A 2020 WHO report showed that there were only 1.7 psychiatrists per 100,000 people, compared with 15 per 100,000 in the European countries.

In the past, mental health support was largely focused on specific groups such as “left-behind children”. However, many now recognize the need to make support more widely available.

One issue that has helped bring mental health into the spotlight on a national scale is that of “996” work culture. The term refers to jobs in which employees are required to work six days per week from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. With the 996-work culture, more and more people are starting to realize that actually, mental health can affect a whole number of people. As we all know, long hours of overtime may cause many health problems, even leading to sudden death.

Our government is indeed designing policies to deal more effectively with mental health challenges. The country’s National Health Commission plans to introduce screening (筛查) for vulnerable groups and require medical institutions as well as universities, colleges and high schools to re evaluate mental health policies. The government plans to set up mental health outpatient services in 40% of the general hospitals in pilot areas by the end of 2022, a move catalyzed by the pandemic.

Whether said policies will be effectively implemented remains to be seen. However, what is clear is that mental health is now very much taken seriously across China.

5 . Over the years, there has been a rising trend in the popularity of volunteer vacations and a rapid increase in the number of people interested in volunteering while traveling. Here are a few established organizations for you to choose.

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) program is a United Nations organization that contributes to peace and development through volunteerism worldwide. Based in Bonn, Germany, UNV is active in around 130 countries every year. Anyone who is concerned about world peace and development is welcome.

Contact online: https://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/ opportunities

Volunteers In Asia (VIA) is an independent, non-profit organization aimed to increase understanding between the US and Asia. Based in San Francisco, VIA provides two kinds of programs. VIA’s Asia Programs offer Americans the chance to live and volunteer in Asia. while VIA’s Programs enable East Asian university students to participate in programs in the US.

Contact online: https://viaprograms.org/contact/

Meals on Wheels originated in the UK. It’s a program that delivers meals to individuals at home who are unable to purchase or prepare their own meals. This type of service requires many volunteers with a good knowledge of basic cooking to prepare the meals.

Contact online: https://www.mealsonwheelssa.org.au/

Big Brothers Big Sisters offers a range of mentoring programs (指导计划) to meet the needs of Canadian children and families. In the traditional one-to-one mentoring programs, one youth and one adult mentor meet twice a month for at least one year. Big Brothers Big Sisters also operates group mentoring programs for teenagers and clubs for newcomer Canadian youth. Volunteers are in demand all the year around.

Contact online: https://bigbrothersbigsisters.ca/

7 . The e-commerce boom has fueled demand for warehouses (仓库). And the increasing demand is mostly linked to online shopping, because Internet shoppers are always expected to provide a wider variety of goods. Vacancy rates (空仓率) have therefore decreased greatly, from 10% across America and Europe a decade ago to just 5% now. In some places, like Toronto and Tokyo, they are below 2%.

The value of existing assets of warehouses is ballooning as a result. This in turn is attracting more investment. However, people’s enthusiasm for building new warehouses is now starting to run up against obstacles. The first is lack of space, especially in densely populated cities. The problem has grown so acute in parts of Germany that delivery lorries operate from sites across the border in Poland and France. High costs, restrictive zoning rules and current rents make it difficult to convert existing properties, such as struggling shopping malls, into distribution centers.

Public hostility to new sites is also growing. Large warehouses are noisy and operate around the clock. Suburban homeowners across America and Europe worry about pollution from lorries. Even where developers promise thousands of jobs, politicians complain that these will be low-skilled, or soon replaced by robots. Five Conservative members have called on Britain’s government, run by their own party, to stop a huge warehouse from being built in south-east England.

Warehouse owners are getting more crentive. Amazon is changing former golf courses in America into distribution centers. The online giant is also converting an empty car park in central London into a delivery hub. Less creatively, developers are raising rents and it’s estimated that they will go up by 6% globally this year. That may upset e-merchants.

8 . It’s a cold night, and strong winds are blowing atop a hill in southwest Uganda. The wind rattles the giant metal insect trap. A 400-watt bulb is fixed at its center. The light is blinding to human eyes, but it’s a magnet for local bush crickets.

Protein dense and full of iron, zinc, and other essential minerals, bush crickets, and edible insects in general, have been praised by the UNFAO as a “food source of the future”, key to establishing food security. That’s important in countries such as Uganda, where nearly half of the children and a third of women suffer greatly from poor nutrition due to food shortage.

The visitors, as they’re called locally, come together to mate and feed in huge swarms after each rainy season in the autumn and pring, when hundreds of people across the country set aside their day jobs to catch then. Salted and fried, the crickets are a delicacy in Uganda, sold for two dollars a bag at open-air markets, taxi parks, and roadsides. Now what once was a small-scale and personal harvest in Uganda has become an increasingly commercialized undertaking, with giant traps taking tons of the insects at a time to meet the growing demand. “You see how you enjoy a movie with popcorn? Me, it’s movie with crickets,” says one fan.

However, this month, it should be the middle of the autumn harvest in Uganda. Legend has it that the insects come from the moon, and tonight it’s full. Yet “we’ve got nothing,” says a cricket catcher and wholesaler. “Where are they?”

Decreasing catches suggest the problem is not just overharvesting. Logging to clear land for cash crops has destroyed much bush cricket habitat. And climate change is making the rainy seasons unpredictable, affecting the crickets’ swarming patterns. With so many problems accumulating, there is still a long way to go. Thus, scientists have to start from scratch.

9 . Every year thousands of people are crowded in the city of Pamplona, in north eastern Spain, for the opportunity to run for their lives as six fighting bulls are released to charge through the town. There are dozens of injuries every year, and there have been at least 15 deaths recorded since 1910. Daniel Parisi, a physicist and computer scientist realized that the Pamplona bull-runs offered the perfect natural experiment to research the insight of the psychology of panicked crowds.

Dr. Parisi and his team went to two different rooftop locations in Pamplona in July 2019, and recorded footage (镜头) of the runners as the animals were released. A wave of people running at top speed raced past their cameras a few seconds ahead of the bulls. The researchers brought their recordings back to the lab to calculate the speed of the runners, the density (密度) of the crowd and the probability of a runner tripping and falling. They also examined the tracks of the bulls, the responses of individual runners as the bulls came near to them, and the relationship between runner-group density and speed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the researchers found that runners picked up speed when the bulls drew near. Less expected was the finding that the speed of individual runners increased with the density of the crowd This finding is at odds with a long-held assumption in architectural and urban-design circles that people will slow their pace as group density goes up, in order to lower the risk of a collision, which could lead to a fall and, perhaps, injury or death as a runner is trampled by others.

It seems that, in the heat of the moment, people pay little attention to the danger of colliding with each other, and do not slow down. The duty falls upon urban designers to work out how best to plan the construction of future alleys, tunnels, bridges and other passages that restrict flow. The only option may well be to make them wider.

10 . Restaurants’ growth accelerated in the 20th century. Dining out became relatively more expensive. And yet three economic changes ensured that demand for restaurants grew despite rising prices.

The first was immigration. In the 50 years after the Second World War, the net flow of migrants into rich countries were more than four times as before. Starting a restaurant was a good career move for new arrivals：it neither required formal qualifications nor, at least for chefs, fluency in the local language. Migrants tended to improve the quality of an area’s restaurants. London’s became far better in the era of free movement with the European Union. The melting pot that is Singapore has some of the best food in the world Restaurants became more tempting, even as prices went up.

The second factor was the changing microeconomics of the family. Households’ choices about whether to make their own food or to buy it premade were shaped not only by the cost of ingredients, but also by the time spent on shopping and preparation. As more women entered the workforce during the 20th century, a working woman who cooked dinner would be sacrificing time which might otherwise be used to earn money. And so eating out made increasing economic sense, even as it became more expensive.

The third factor was changing working patterns. Historically, poor people tended to work longer hours than rich ones. But in the latter half of the 20th century the opposite became true. The rise of knowledge-intensive jobs, and globalization, made rich people’s work more financially rewarding and enjoyable. Working late into the night became a sign of status. The result was that the people with the most money to spend on dining out increasingly needed it most, since they had the least free time.

The long-term future of the restaurant is less clear. The pandemic has led to many people buying more takeout than before, while others have a newfound love of cooking.

Restaurants have little choice but to continue to adapt. Maybe apart from food, they can also double down on what they do best: offering those who need to eat a taste of romance, glamour and love.