1 . Plant-based products have been breaking into the foodie mainstream in the United States, after years in which vegan (素食的) burgers and milk alternatives knocked on the market’s door. That is partly because more companies are targeting people who seek to reduce the amount of meat they eat, rather than forswear it altogether.

Now, as fish alternatives begin to attract investment and land at restaurants in the United States and beyond, people who track the fishless fish sector say that it could achieve significant growth.

One reason, they say, is that consumers in rich countries are becoming more aware of the seafood industry’s environmental problems, including overfishing and the health risks of some seafood. Another is that today’s plant-based companies do a better job of approaching fish flavor than earlier ones did—an important consideration for non-vegetarians (非素食者).

“There are a number of people already looking at alternative hamburgers,” said Joshua Katz, an analyst at the consulting firm McKinsey who has studied the alt-protein (替代蛋白) industry. “You might actually say, ‘I should work on something else.’ And seafood is still a massive market with convincing reasons to work on.” People who reduce their consumption of animal proteins for environmental reasons often stop eating red meat, which requires enormous amounts of land and water to farm.

But alt-fish advocates say that seafood also comes with environmental problems. Unsustainable fishing practices have destroyed fisheries (鱼汤) in recent decades, a problem both for biodiversity and the millions of people who depend on the sea for income and food.

“It’s simply a smarter way to make seafood,” says Mirte Gosker, the acting managing director of the Good Food Institute Asia-Pacific, a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes alternative proteins. “Full stop.”

So far plant-based seafood products in the United States account for only 0.1 percent of the country’s seafood sales, less than 1.4 percent of the U.S. meat market occupied by plant-based meat alternatives. But alt-seafood enterprises worldwide received at least $83 million from investors in 2020, compared with $1 million three years earlier. As of this June, 83 companies were producing alt-seafood products around the world, a nearly threefold rise since 2017. All but 18 of those 83 companies focus on plant-based products. A dozen others are developing lab-grown seafood, which is not yet commercially available in any country.

4 . With millions of people visiting China’s mountains every year, keeping them trash-free is quite difficult. That’s where Spiderman cleaners come in.

Spiderman cleaners get their name from the dangerous nature of their job. They dangle (悬荡) thousands of feet above the ground on the side of steep mountain cliffs (悬崖), supported only by ropes, as they try to collect hard-to-reach trash. To show the danger of their work and make tourists think twice before littering, some of them actually exchanged their regular uniforms for Spiderman costumes. This has made them a hit with visitors, who often stop to watch these real-life versions of their favourite superhero, rewarding them with applause and cheers when they complete their task.

Spiderman cleaners really risk their life every time they go after a piece of trash left in popular scenic spots by tourists who never stop to think about the impact their deed may have on nature or the people tasked with cleaning up after them. To them, injuries are frequent and the stress is so great that they sometimes faint (晕倒) on the job. Because of the dangerous nature of the job, few people have the courage to work as Spiderman cleaners and those who do are rewarded generously. For example, the Guimeng Scenic Spot put up an ad for a Spiderman cleaner, offering 10,000 yuan a day, but also mentioned that the work was to be performed “at your own risk”.

Spiderman cleaners all around China pick up tons of litter from the scenic mountains every year. Some of them have been doing it for over a decade and they don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. Luckily, after the job has been reported by the national media during the past few years, more people have begun to think twice before littering. Less and less trash has been found in recent years, which means Spiderman cleaners don't have to risk their life as often as they used to.

So the next time you feel like throwing a piece of trash in a scenic spot, spare a thought for these unsung heroes and how they risk their life to keep the world clean for everybody.

5 . Bullying (欺凌)can happen to anyone. A great many children around the world are bullied every year, but there are things that can be done to help.

What is bullying?

Bullying is when someone makes you feel bad of hurts you again and again. Bullying can happen at school, out of school and online. Bullying includes:

·calling people mean (恶意的)names

·laughing at people

·telling lies about people

·taking someone’s things without permission

·not telling someone play in a group

·hitting people

What is cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying includes:

·sending bad messages online

·sharing photos online without permission

·not letting someone be part of an online group

·spreading lies online

What can you do?

If someone is not kind to you, tell an adult that you know and like. For example, talk to a parent or a teacher.

If you get bad messages, don’t reply. You should save them and give them to your teacher, your family, or the police. Ask an adult for help. Don’t share something before you make sure it is true. That will help stop the cyberbullying.

Talk to your parent or teacher or an adult if you see bullying or if you are worried about a friend.

Say sorry if you are not kind to someone. You can write a message or talk to the person.

And always remember: think about how to be kind in the future.

For more information, visit our home page at www.kidsword.com.

6 . If you were to rate the most walkable cities in the world, what would you look for? Would it be how shaded the sidewalks are? How many benches there are along the way to your destination? Or maybe how close you are to shops or local attractions?

Well, the researchers at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), located in New York. US, wanted to know which of the world’s cities were the best for pedestrians (行人). So, they did just that.

To determine which cities were the most walkable, they rated cities based on factors such as how close citizens were to car-free areas like public parks, how close citizens lived in relation to schools and hospitals, and how short their journeys were overall.

According to the study, they found that the most walkable cities in the world are London, Paris, Bogota and Hong Kong. Overall, London was at the top of the list, outranking (超过) nearly 1, 000 cities around the world on these key factors.

“In order to provide safety and inviting walking conditions for all city residents, it is essential to shift the balance of space in our cities away from cars, providing more travel options for people,” CEO of ITDP Heather Thompson told the magazine Cities Today. She continued, “We have so much to gain-from cleaner air to better health to stronger local economies and deeper bonds within communities, and we all need that now more than ever. ”

Unfortunately, it seems that very few cities make pedestrians a priority, though.

“Our city streets across the planet are already full of cars. If you really want to see the worst for walkability, it is the really sprawling (杂乱无序伸展的) cities of the US, ” commented Taylor Reich, a research associate at ITDP and the primary author of the guide to making cities more walkable.

So, what can cities do to make their streets friendlier for pedestrians?

“There’s no one secret sauce; there’s no one thing you can do to make a city walkable, ” Reich said. “It’s many decisions that are made at all levels from individual streets all the way up to the city design.”

7 . If you’re an Instagram user, you may have recently seen a pop-up (弹出窗口) asking if you want the service to “use your app and website activity” to “provide a better ads experience.” This is an example of a dark pattern; design that manipulates (操纵) or heavily influences users to make certain choices. Instagram uses terms like “activity” and “personalized” instead of “tracking” and “targeting,” so the user may not realize what they’re actually giving the app permission to do. Most people don’t want Instagram to know everything they do and everywhere they go. But a “better experience” sounds like a good thing, so Instagram makes the option it wants users to select more attractive than the one it hopes they’ll avoid.

Harry Brignull coined the term “dark patterns” in 2010. Dark patterns existed in the physical world long before the Internet came along, but the Internet has made dark patterns so much more powerful, Although you may not have heard the term before, you've surely seen countless examples of them and experienced their effects, such as the trial streaming service you signed up for, only to be automatically charged when the trial ends.

Dark patterns have for years been tricking Internet users into giving up their personal data. But if some lawmakers get their way, they may not be able to do that for much longer.

Some of the more obvious and scammy (欺诈的) dark patterns — sneaking extra items into shopping baskets or adding unexpected charges — have been made illegal. But the law isn’t so cut and dried when it comes to privacy and data.

Harry Brignull and a growing number of advocates and lawmakers feel that legislation (立法) is necessary to stop these dark patterns to consumers can use the Internet without constantly being manipulated into spending money, signing up for services they don’t need, or giving up their data.