1 . In an air-conditioned office, you may see men sporting shorts while their female co-workers wear jackets to keep warm. Why do women feel cold more easily than men?

The accepted answer is that men and women feel temperature differently. Our bodies produce heat through metabolism (新陈代谢). One of the key factors of the metabolic rate is our muscles. Generally speaking, men have more muscles than women, leading to a higher metabolic rate. It means that more heat is created. As a result, men, on average, do not feel cold as easily as women. Yes, women and men have physical differences. But why is it women, in most cases, who feel more uncomfortable in a room set to a “comfortable” temperature? The answer lies in the data bias (数据偏见) behind the model of temperature setting in buildings.

In a 2020 article in the journal Nature, Boris Kingma, a human thermal (热量的) performance researcher in the Netherlands, pointed out that most office buildings set the temperature in light of a model based on men’s metabolic rate. Female data were not considered when setting the model. In other words, temperatures for comfort in office buildings are mainly comfortable for men, not women. In his article, Kingma called for the end of this so-called “bias in thermal comfort”.

This is just one example of data bias. In her book, Caroline Perez gave more examples in which women were ignored in data collecting for scientific and technological research and design. Women are more likely to die from a serious car accident because a car’s safety equipment is designed for the typical body of a man. The medicine aspirin (阿司匹林) shows better performance in men since it was developed on data collected mostly from males. Women, who form half of the world’s population, seem to be ignored in these cases.

3 . For this year’s Fourth of July celebration, some US cities have replaced traditional fireworks with impressive drone (无人机) light shows. Maybe most importantly, the drones being employed by more and more cities for Fourdr of July celebrations don’t leave behind a blanket of smoke at a time when America’s air quality is already at its worst in decades.

“Around the world, we’ve seen consistently that, during times when firework usage is really high, we have really bad air quality.” said Pallavi Pant, the head of global health at the Health Effects Institute. And while that pollution typically disappears quickly— usually around noon on July 5th— the concentration can be high enough to worsen the condition for those with breathing problems. Cities making the switch to high-tech shows say there’re plenty of other reasons why people may want to avoid traditional fireworks.

“Fireworks can be harmful to folks who suffer from PTSD (创伤后应激障碍) or families who have dogs. Salt Lake City has more households with dogs than we do with kids,” said Lynze Twede, a manager for Salt Lake City Public Lands. “Being away from fireworks is considered by many to be the tendency of the future. Drones are reusable, while with fireworks, you have smoke, falling debris (碎片), and noise which especially stresses dogs and people with PTSD out.”

About 12, 264 fires were started by firework displays in 2021, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Those added up to around $59 million in direct property damage. But data also shows that much of the wildfire risk comes not from grand public displays, but from the small-scale shows on sidewalks.

It may be too early to tell how this tendency may get close to smaller shows and consumers, but the price is a limiting factor.

5 . Among many other criticisms of technology is that it is killing creativity, or at least getting in the way. For example, the smartphone’s ability to keep us entertained whenever boredom threatens stifles (压制) the original thinking that might have otherwise taken place. And the Internet, critics say, gives us a limitless supply of content that we can draw from, copy, or even steal. All in all, it seems that in the minds of many, technology and creativity are in opposition.

Like any big change, there are always bad effects. However, in the case of technology, the benefits far outweigh those harms — even when it comes to imagination and original thought.

Information does not prevent creativity. We might have more data than ever, but the way that we use it is far from set in stone. Who could have guessed fifteen years ago that people all around the world would be getting into the cars of strangers, or sleeping in the beds of people they’d never met? And yet Uber, a ride-sharing service, and Airbnb, a home-sharing service — two truly original companies are now very well known.

Technology doesn’t only enable creativity, but encourages its growth. Through mobile video platforms like YouTube, anyone with an Internet connection can develop their skills and be inspired by others. Thanks to the Internet, artists in tiny villages can reach a broad audience on the other side of the planet, and we in turn can experience kinds of creativity borne out of widely different cultures, which improves our own.

Forums and media platforms might create harmful echo chambers (回声室) for some forms of thought, but they also represent safe discussion environments for all topics and people, including creatives and would-be creatives, where exercises and conversations can encourage original thought.

Technology is not perfect, but the idea that there is something naturally creativity-stifling about technology simply isn’t true. Creatives shouldn’t fear the tech “attack” but look for ways that they can take advantage of it to become better at what they do.

6 . More people who enter their “golden years” without a significant other or children, or don’t like the idea of living in a retirement community can copy what the characters in a popular’80s and ‘90s TV show do as an example, and more and more of them are doing so.

“The Golden Girls” ran from 1985-1992 and described four “older” women living together in a Miami house. While Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur played the mother-daughter pair of Sophia and Dorothy, their housemates, Blanche and Rose, played by Rue McClanahan and Betty White, were not related to them. The hit show presented us with their happy and colorful lives as housemates.

This living situation has many real-life supporters following the “Golden Girls” trend of house sharing. It has many benefits for seniors, including the sharing of expenses, companionship (友情), shared chores (日常事务) and cooking, safety and the ability to age in place.

A 2018 Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies article said that the number of older adults living with unrelated roommates grew greatly between 2006 and 2016. “Over that time, when the older population grew from 38 to 50 million, the percentage of the older population sharing their homes grew from 1. 2 to 2. 0 percent, and the number of older adults in these arrangements grew from about 470, 000 to nearly 988, 000,” the article noted.

Sites, such as Silvernest, Sharing Housing, Senior Homeshares and the Residential Assisted Living National Association, help seniors find senior housemates and available home shares. A 2019 Money article mentioned that people over 50 were the quickest growing age group on the website SpareRoom.

One key to making a real-life “Golden Girls” house work is having a clearly written agreement between housemates on all the details of their house-sharing situation, from money to what happens if someone needs long-term care. For those seniors not quite ready to share a home with others in later life, a Forbes article suggests starting with finding out more activities where you can meet people of a similar age.

8 . High school biology teacher Kelly Chavis knew smartphones were a problem in her class. For one class period, students used a whiteboard to count every Snapchat, Instagram, text, call or other notifications that appeared on their phones.   Chavis   told   students   not   to _________ these notifications.

Teachers around the country have done similar experiments, usually _________ dozens of markings on the whiteboard. Chavis, who teaches honours-level classes, was _________ by the results of her experiment.

Chavis is among a growing number of teachers, parents and health experts who believe that smartphones are now partly to blame for increasing the levels of student _________. The use of electronic devices is so _________ that the National Education Association newsletter said it was a “mental health tsunami (海啸)”.

Tests, after-school activities and problems at home can increase _________ for students. But research now _________ that smartphones and social media are some of the main reasons for the rising levels of uneasiness.

Last year, an editorial in the journal Paediatrics proposed that doctors ask young patients about their social media use as part of routine exams. Three researchers wrote that too much social media use might _________ the development of mental health disturbance in at-risk teenagers, such as feelings of _________, depression and anxiety.

Researchers are still not sure whether phones cause student depression or depression causes phone use. __________ 70 percent of teens see anxiety and depression as major problems among their peers, according to a Pew Research report. Nearly 60 percent of parents said they were __________ about the influence of social media on their children’s physical and mental health.

Schools are starting to take steps to deal with the problem. Many public schools pay outside companies to watch students’ social media activity for signs of __________. Others invite in yoga teachers and comfort dogs to help __________ students. Some schools have organized unplugged events — days in which people do not use their electronic devices. Less than 20 percent of students and school employees took part, __________ the control that technology has over their daily lives.

Some parents are not letting their children get smartphones until they grow up. Deirdre Birmingham of New Jersey __________ a campaign called “Wait Until Eighteenth” because she didn’t think her video game-loving 10-year-old son was ready for a smartphone. The campaign involves groups of parents who have children in the same class. These parents agree not to let their children get phones until they are teenagers.

9 . Every one of us may have been hurt by others—either by their words or actions. The best way to deal with the problem is to “forgive and forget”.

“It is well established that learning to forgive others can have positive benefits for one’s physical and mental health,” Saima Noreen, a scientist at the University of St. Andrews, UK, told the Huffington Post.

Recently, Noreen and her research team have found one more reason that you should stick to this principle—forgiving somebody who has hurt you makes it easier for you to forget the unhappy memory, according to their new study.

In the study, researchers asked volunteers to read descriptions of 40 different situations that contained bad actions such as stealing, lying and cheating. Imagining being the victims (受害者), volunteers then had to decide whether they would be able to forgive. Two weeks later, volunteers took part in a memory test. In the test, they were shown a series of words related to the situations they had read about and then were asked to recall certain ones.

The results showed that people were less likely to remember the details of the unpleasant experiences if they had found forgiveness in their hearts. In contrast, if they hadn’t forgiven the mistake, they could always remember what had happened.

However, forgiving someone who has hurt you is always easier said than done. So Noreen hopes that one day in the near future research will give rise to powerful therapeutic (有疗效的) tools that will enable people to “forgive and forget” more effectively.

10 . Facebook is a social media website that has attracted millions of members. But it seems that some people have something _________ to say about it. To them I have only this to say: _________, please!

A recent article blamed (责备) Facebook’s ability to ruin _________, saying that it limits communication to _________ and encourages people to spend far too much time with friends they have _________ met.

Having used Facebook since its first year, I find these arguments _________. The simple truth is that these _________ are only a symptom (症状) of using Facebook too much. Like many things, it is only _________ to your life and relationships when you overuse it.

Facebook can be_________. You can use Facebook to find friends who may have long ago __________ their e-mail addresses and phone numbers. You can __________ what your old college friends are up to. You can __________ your friends on their latest birthday. You can also __________ articles and pictures you find interesting with your friends.

Sure, I had days when I __________a little more time on Facebook than I should, but I’m not going to blame Facebook for my own __________. If Facebook weren’t there, I would have found something else to waste time.