It’s a harvest that’s almost magical: growing rice in saline (含盐的) soil and making a fortune at the same time.

Wu Zaizhou is     1     local farmer in Da’an, Jilin Province. He says his secret for success is following a     2     (science) recipe that really transforms the saline soil, a kind of soil even the scientists     3     (them) called “problematic”. But by     4     (pull) in opinions from some 1,400 scientists, a way was found to transform that unwanted soil. It’s a comprehensive     5     (solve) that involves treating and improving the soil itself, screening salt-tolerant crop varieties, and employing special planning techniques as well as caring for the overall environment.

“We call it Da’an Model,     6     improves the soil, the seed and the technique in agriculture. It’s proven cost-effective, easily repeatable, and     7     (wide) applicable and good for Jilin’s saline oil area,” said Wu.

Since 2021, lots of land (almost 5,000 square kilometers) in the province     8     (transform). That was previously almost impossible for agriculture, including Wu’s cropland.

Wu said he’s not only expanding his field, but his experience has convinced some of his     9     (neighbor) to join him. “In the new year, we will continue to work     10     (change) the saline land into fertile (肥沃的) land, and we may have a good harvest of rice from here,” he said.

2 . Chocolate makers are expected to raise prices this year because of higher costs of cocoa from exporters like Ivory Coast. The West African country is the world’s largest cocoa producer. Hershey is the largest producer of chocolate products in the United States. It said last month it plans to raise prices on all of its products because of the rising cost of ingredients. Ingredients are the things used to make a food or product.

Demand for chocolate in America increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and cocoa producers in places like Ivory Coast are struggling to keep up with that demand. Experts say one reason for that is climate change.

Harvard University researchers estimate that by 2030 parts of West Africa will be too hot and dry to produce much cocoa. The West African countries of Ghana and Ivory Coast together produce 70 percent of worldwide cocoa supply.

Cocoa farmer Raphael Konan Kouassi recently took VOA to his farm. Huge green and yellow cocoa pods hung from trees. He said his trees are producing less because of rising temperatures and less rainfall than usual.

“Almost all of the young plants die in the high season. If you have not been able to get water to them, you have no cocoa,” Kouassi said.

Kouassi receives government assistance in the form of cocoa trees. But he said the government gives out trees at the wrong time of year. Because of this, the young trees have a difficult time surviving.

Christian Bunn is with the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, a worldwide scientific organization. Bunn said information about how the climate is changing can inform farmers about how to better care for their crops.

“What we’re seeing is that the onset of both dry and wet season can change. It’s less reliable. During the season, there may be breaks in terms of rain during the dry season, or there’s a dry spell during the wet season,” Bunn said.

The data show it may be better for farmers to stop producing cocoa and instead grow a variety of different crops, he said.

But the chief of one Ivorian company that supplies The Hershey Company said higher prices for cocoa could be welcomed by farmers. Olga Yenou said, “My opinion is that these farmers should have better prices, should earn more, because they work hard. Most are poor,” Yenou said.

Her wish appears to be coming true. As climate change continues to have effects on production, prices continue to rise.

5 . How Taking Short Vacations Can Improve Your Well-Being at Work

Without doubt, the nonstop demands of work and life can be bad for your well-being, exhausting your physical resources and cognitive capacities-and possibly resulting in adverse health and performance results.

    1     Research emphatically shows that vacations improve our physical and mental health while also boosting our performance at work. Perhaps surprisingly, they can even increase the likelihood of receiving a pay raise or promotion.

    2     In fact, nearly half of U.S. workers take less time off than their job allows, leaving an average of 9.5 days of paid time off (PTO) on the table, according to a 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center. And for 30 percent of employees, this unused vacation time doesn’t roll over to the next year.     3     taking mini-vacations throughout the year can improve their overall well-being. That means you can just use a long weekend to explore a new small town in your state, go camping in a national park, or do a biking tour of your local wineries.

We know that being on vacation feels good and that it’s good for us.     4     Naturally, there is the expense, and the bill involved in long trips-room, board, airfare, rail, sightseeing, everything-can be daunting.     5     The Pew survey of over 5,900 U.S. workers found that 49 percent of participants indicated they worried they might fall behind at work if they take more vacation time.

No wonder, then, that most people don’t use all their vacation time. And over half (52 percent) of U.S. employees work while on vacation.

6 . Many of us are lonelier than ever. We can go shopping and avoid speaking to a single person. Automated voice son phones and machines suck the contact and relational element out of day-to-day life, so much so that experts say that we are experiencing a loneliness disease.

According to Dr. Lalitaa, loneliness is the feeling we get when our need for rewarding social contact and relationships is not met. But loneliness is not always the same as being alone. Loneliness is a state of mind linked to wanting human contact but feeling alone. People can be alone and not feel lonely, or they can have contact with people and still experience feelings of loneliness.

Loneliness is a universal human emotion that is both complex and unique to each individual. There are many contributing factors to loneliness, such as illness, relationships breaking down, moving country, changing jobs or not being understood by co-workers, retiring, starting university, etc.

We cannot underestimate the impact loneliness can have on our physical and mental wellbeing. According to research, loneliness has comparable health risks to smoking 15cigarettes a day, and people who feel lonely are more likely to die earlier and suffer from heart attacks. Dr. Lalitaa says, “People often say to me, ‘It’s too late to meet new people as an adult.’ Having human connect ion can look different for each person, but this can become a block, stopping them going out, trying new things and connecting with new people. Remember, it is never too late to make good, meaningful connections.”

However, don’t put pressure on yourself. A meaningful relationship takes time. It is not just created overnight. Also, take some time to sit with yourself and venture (冒险) into some of the things that you like doing. “The first thing I would say is not to deny or distance the feeling. Acknowledge it and then you can choose to focus on ways to help yourself,” says Dr.Lalitaa.

7 . For all the talk of helicopter parents and their snowflake children, most parents I know are more concerned with whether their children’s development would be considered normal by experts than whether they are raising a prodigy (天才).

When the teen years arrive, the “Is it normal?” instinct can go into overdrive. Adolescence is marked by many changes, including ones that manifest(显示)physically and, their more challenging counterpart, ones that manifest emotionally. The moods and deep feelings are intense, and make many helicopter parents in a state of extreme panic.

But difficult feelings are often not a cause for concern, according to psychologist Lisa Damour in her new book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents. Not only are sadness and worrying healthy and natural parts of being a teenager, but the ability to experience these feelings(without a parent panicking)and to learn how to cope with them is developmentally necessary.

There is a lot of commercial marketing around wellness that can give people the impression that they are only mentally healthy or their kids are mentally healthy if they are feeling good, calm or relaxed. This is not an accurate definition of mental health. Mental distress is not only inevitable—it is part of mental health and experiencing it is part of how kids grow and mature.

There are many other healthy ways kids regulate emotions besides talking. Listening to mood-matching music is a very adaptive way to regulate as the experience of listening to the music catalyzes the emotion out of them. Teenagers also discharge emotions physically—by going through a run, jumping on a trampoline or banging on drums. Sometimes they will discharge them through creative channels like drawing or making music.

As adults, we should not diminish the value of emotional expression that brings relief, even if it doesn’t come in the verbal form to which we are most accustomed. Don’t join in because what we ultimately want is for our teens to become autonomous in dealing with their hard feelings.

9 . Liu Shuqi broke up with her boyfriend two months ago and has now found a new companion.

The handsome “man” is dressed in a white suit with a stylish haircut. He understands her emotions and feelings perfectly and gives her comfort, encouragement and support. “He is very humorous and offers some comfort when I am in a bad mood,” the 26-year-old bank employee said. The only problem is he is a virtual being and not a real boyfriend.

Liu is not alone in her choice of companion. In a digital era where people are heavily reliant on their smart devices, many of those who live alone increasingly turn to the virtual field to seek companions.

The artificial intelligence-powered digital humans, who are similar to real humans in appearance and behavior, are capable of providing 24-hour online companionship, humanlike conversation and emotional support.

They will likely become an essential part of people’s daily lives, industry experts said. Lin Kaikai and Ye Youyou, two companion-oriented virtual beings, were recently launched by Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc. Powered by Baidu’s Plato, an AI model for dialogue generation that is trained on over 10 billion parameters collected from social media conversations in both English and Chinese, the two digital humans have a smooth, more humanlike interaction.

For instance, they can participate in conversations through various forms such as texts, voice and emojis. They offer customized wake-up call services and learn about the preferences of their users, mainly through increased frequency of chats and interactions, Baidu said.

Other tech companies have also jumped on the companion-oriented virtual being trend.

Xiaoice is an AI-powered chatbot that seems to redefine the conceptions of romance and relationships among young Chinese. It has helped to comfort lonely hearts through more than 17 million virtual “girlfriends” and “boyfriends” in China.

“The rise of digital humans that serve as emotional companions is a result of technological innovation, such as the improvement in appearance, functions and interactive experience of digital humans, fueled by the enhanced deep-learning capacities based on massive user data,” said Chen Duan, director of the Digital Economy Integration Innovation Development Center at the Central University of Finance and Economics.

A set of problems though have also emerged. They include ethics, morals, data security and personal privacy protection in the industry, Chen said, while calling for efforts to formulate relevant laws and regulations on the ownership of digital characters and standardizing their behaviors.

10 . Around 3,000 school-based health centers operate in more than 30 states all around the U.S. offering primary and preventive care for students who live in medically underserved areas. Starting at the centers that treat flu, asthma, diabetes and other common illnesses, they provide vaccinations (疫苗接种) and screen for dental, vision and hearing problems, and some provide mental health care. These clinics bring services to children who need them most and who have the greatest risk of falling behind in school because their health needs go unmet.

The pandemic was hard on existing school-based health centers, and it’s time for government at all levels, to recognize that all children need accessible and affordable health care. As lawmakers draw up budgets, reallocate (重新分配) funds and begin a new school year, existing clinics should be able to operate without budgetary fears, more dollars should go to school-based clinics, and more community partners should participate financially and physically in efforts to bring health care to the kids who lack it.

Yet most school communities that could desperately use such clinics lack them. In 2021 $5 million was appropriated (拨专款) to support new and expanded services at school-based health centers. That money funded 25 facilities only—yet the program got more than 2,000 applications. And fewer than half of U.S. states currently fund school health centers. Although the clinics can also bill Medicaid (医疗补助制度) and insurance for students who have coverage, they need stable funding for operating expenses, including hiring well-trained staff.

Many existing centers had to close temporarily or permanently during the pandemic for lack of funding. One bright spot is that more than 60 percent of the centers began offering telehealth services, broadening their reach. Getting kids the care they need where they need it has always made sense, and it`s more urgent than ever. The time is right to expand school-based health centers to all underserved students.