2 . My mother died of breast cancer when she was merely 50 in 1970. Afterwards, the comment repeated most often was: “You’ll need to be careful for the rest of your life because it may have been passed to you.” In 1994, the first ever breast cancer gene testing arrived. I jumped right to it and tested negative. I’m thankful for the science that has given me this preventive screening (筛查). Good for me, but is it good for everyone?

Here’s the catch. Research on genetic disease has been based mostly on European people, like me. The same went to the mapping of the human genes. The problem is that we know little about how new treatments might work for people of other races. If we diversify patients in clinical trials, we can realize the promise of personalized medicine for everyone, not just white patients. Faced with the unfair phenomena in medical research, what should we do to resolve the problem?

Not only do we need more diverse populations participating in research, but we also need diversity among biomedical researchers and medical professionals to make efforts. That makes research stronger and builds trust with diverse communities. A medical team is working on this now. They are building a diverse next generation of gene editing researchers by teaching high school and community college students from different backgrounds about promising technologies like gene editing to encourage them to become future researchers. This sort of educational outreach can also help to build trust in the medical and research communities. The team leader, John Cooper, PhD, has been outspoken about the current inequalities of delivering new technologies to all people at a fair cost.

Numerous scientists and medical leaders are working to change the situation. While science wasn’t yet far enough along to save my mother, I have harvested the benefits of advanced research and so should we all.

Cinemas may be dying. But the high end is thriving.

The box office has a bad case. Worldwide takings last year were a quarter below their peak. Americans, who went to the cinema more than five times each in 2000, last year went     1     (few) than three times. As streaming services keep audiences     2     (glue) to the small screen, theatre chains including Cineworld, the world’s second-largest, have gone bankrupt.     3     the biggest of the big screens are thriving.

IMAX,     4     screens are as large as 38 metres wide with denture-rattling (震感十足的) sound systems, had worldwide box-office takings of $1.1 bn last year and its biggest-ever haul in America. The luxury-cinema trend is not limited to America. IMAX’s share of the international box office     5     (rise) from 1.7% in 2019 to 2.1% last year. CGV,     6     South Korean chain with branches across Asia, has rebranded its multiplexes (多厅影院) as “cultureplexes”, offering music, gaming and     7     (dine) alongside films.

Theatre operators must hope audiences are     8     (hunger) for these add-ons, especially when this year’s movie menu is limited. Ever since strikes last year in Hollywood, they     9     (delay) titles, including Mission: Impossible and Avatar sequels, to 2025.

Successful cinemas will treat a trip     10     the movies as the rare luxury.

4 . Aviation is a big polluter. Cutting the sector’s impact on global warming is high on the agenda. Although many governments are regulating emissions from cars and trucks, air transportation is technologically rooted in old patterns.

Facing the reality that the sector will keep emitting a lot, ICAO has established an international carbon-trading plan—Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, or CORSIA. This encourages wide use of offsets (抵消) : aviation companies can buy emissions credits or invest in sectors that store carbon, such as forestry, to allow them to carry on as normal. CORSIA aims to keep CO2 emissions at 2019 levels through such purchases for emissions over that year’s baseline. ICAO predicts that increasing demand might reach 1. 7 billion tons by 2035, potentially making aviation the largest offset market in the world.

Yet offsetting faces a fundamental challenge: the size of the offset requires estimating flows of warming pollution that would have occurred if the carbon-removal project hadn’t existed, and comparing them against flows with the project in place. The former — a baseline that is unobservable — is a hotbed for shady accounting.

The vast majority of offsets today and in the expected future come from forest-protection and regrowth projects. The track record of reliable accounting in these industries is poor, because they lack convincing baselines. Even with oversight, forest projects are often troubled by wild assumptions, for example that trees would disappear completely from these areas in the absence of those projects, even when there are other forest protections in place. Such assumptions drive up baselines and flood the market with huge volumes of offsets. They make it easier for accountants to claim a net reduction in emissions even though the atmosphere sees little or no benefit. These problems are essentially unfixable. Evidence is mounting that offsetting as a strategy for reaching net zero is a dead end.

In our view, this approach could prove dangerously narrow. Removing aviation’s impact on global warming means upending the industry. The longer that reality is overlooked, the harder it will be to find effective solutions.

8 . However seemingly boring, the choices we make in social activities almost always depend on those with whom we’re dealing. If we’re out of work, for example, and meet someone for the first time, we would tend to act differently if we believe he or she is a potential (潜在的) boss. We’d probably be more attentive, keep longer eye contact, choose our words a little more carefully, speak with increased confidence, and so on. With good friends, or perhaps those who don’t have high respect, our conduct would almost certainly be less respectful. Who the receiver is and, or rather, the status (地位) level that we attach to him or her, affects how we express ourselves.

Our feelings about the use of laughter and humor will also depend on those with whom we’re relating. Their status will help direct the course of activities. We feel more comfortable expressing laughter in the presence of close friends than near a scientist or a leader.

Not only will we adjust our direction of conversation based on others’ status, but also on their emotional state or mood at the time of the exchange. If friends are celebrating their job promotion, we’re going to be more comfortable laughing with them than under more typical conditions. If they’re dealing with a job loss, we’ll probably avoid drawing attention to their job.

As social animals, we’re born with an ability to “read” the status and the emotional state of others. This is true even when dealing with strangers. Most of the time their clues are nonverbal (非语言的), many being realized subconsciously (下意识地). For example, expensive clothing or watches might show their financial status; something about their facial expressions or willingness to make eye contact can suggest their mood.

This will lead us to the next, and maybe most important question: What is the nature of the relationship between the sender and the receiver or receivers? The answer directly affects our ability to understand who someone is and how they are. This will be the topic I deal with beginning with my next chapter.

9 . Wellness for Younger Tastes

Wellness, or yangsheng in Mandarin, is no longer a term exclusive to the middle-aged and elderly. Faced with intense competition in education and their careers, those born in the 1990s and 2000s have already started a journey to safeguard their health. As the pursuit of wellness becomes an essential pastime for many young people, a trend known as “New Chinese-style Wellness” has taken over social media platforms.     1    . During a busy work day, they enjoy herbal teas brewed (煮) in wellness pots, enhancing their well-being while tapping away at their keyboards.

    2    , advocating for the consumption of fresh, natural ingredients, balanced meals and exercising moderation in the consumption of oil y and peppery foods, essentially maintaining a light and nutritious diet. Additionally, it promotes mental well-being by incorporating traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) theories to regulate emotions and achieve a balanced development of physical and mental health.     3    , and as long as this demand continues to exist, the interest in related TCM practices will continue to grow.

Given the long hours facing a computer for work, young people often experience muscle discomfort in their shoulders and neck. Besides using a meridian massage (按摩) device, they may also get regular professional massages at hospitals to ease these issues.     4    , such as tai chi, to strengthen the body and achieve the goal of well ness and fitness.

    5    , which is behind their exploration of new wellness practices. According to the China Good Life Survey released by CCTV Finance, in 2023, health-related consumption ranked third with 31.04 percent in the list of consumption intentions among young people aged 18 to 35.

10 . Globally, about 192.1 million animals are used annually for experimental purposes. Iran has conducted animal-based research dating back to the time of Ibn Sina. Although, like many countries, Iran regulates the use and treatment of laboratory animals, it lacks sufficient enforcement. To ensure ethical treatment of research animals, Iran needs better data about their use, and institutions and individuals need to take responsibility for their care.

Iran’s Ministry of Health, which oversees animal testing, requires all animals are treated according to international ethical standards. However, some institutions that produce or use animals provide substandard treatment, disregarding the ministry’s guidelines. To facilitate better enforcement of established regulations, Iran needs clear, accurate and reliable information about the quantity of animals used in research. All Iranian research institutions that use animals should be required to collect and report annual data on the number of animals they use, the conditions in which the animals are kept, and the animals’ research purpose. Such data would allow Iran to track each institution’s adherence (遵守) to the “3Rs”of animal research: Replacing animal-based experiments with alternative strategies, reducing the number of animals used, and refining techniques to minimize the pain and discomfort research animals experience.

In addition to government enforcement, individual institutions should prioritize the replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal use. Iran’s medical schools and research institutions should establish an accessible database with comprehensive experimental details to prevent excessive animal studies. Ethics committees shouldn’t approve experiments that use more animals than necessary or methods that require animals when alternative methods are available. In some cases, technical sampling (using a small sample size) can replace experimental sampling (using a relatively large sample size).

Individuals should also take an active role. All researchers must be trained to adhere to ethical principles and understand unnecessary pain or discomfort in animals could affect the interpretation of data.

Maintaining international ethical standards for animal treatment is vital for Iran to establish its global standing in the field of medical sciences. Iran’s government, institutions, individual scientists, and public can work together to ensure ethical animal research.