1 . Going against the tide of flocking to well-known tourist destinations on vacation, a growing number of holidaymakers in China tend to spend their leisure time at lesser-known attractions. Reverse tourism (逆向旅游) has appeared as a   new trend among young holidaymakers in China.

According to data from an online travel agency, the number of rooms booked at hotels in less-traveled cities during the holiday was up 30 percent year-on-year. Bookings for four-star or five-star hotels in less-traveled places all increased ten times at a minimum. Some lesser-known scenic spots posted double-digit (两位数的) growth during the holiday. Baimaiquan Park in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, received 52,100 visits in the seven days, up to 15.78 percent year-over-year.

Besides crowds, some vacationers chose less-traveled places to save on the cost of trips to popular destinations. In addition, lesser-known attractions are not as “commercial” as developed ones and are able to offer more actual experiences and natural encounters.

Essentially speaking, total relaxation is becoming a real expectation for many people when they travel. Changes in demand may be the fundamental reason for the popularity of reverse tourism. COVID-19 is another key factor fueling reverse tourism. As preventive measures continue, traveling has an unpredictable quality. Travelers have thus become more cautious and tend to choose local attractions or places with fewer tourists.

“The rise of reverse tourism is not a bad thing,” said Zhengzhou Daily. It means that vacationers now have more options, which brings more possibilities to the tourism market. More importantly, it noted, the trend is set to force popular destinations to improve themselves instead of resting on their past honor.

Jiang Han, a senior researcher, said that reverse tourism will become one of the future directions for the market. To give a real boost to the tourism market, Jiang suggested that more efforts be made to tap the potential of underestimated, lesser-known destinations. It is necessary to dig deeper into the local customs and highlight the local characteristics to improve the quality of local tourism.

Being nearsighted is far more common than it once was. The case rate of myopia (近视) in Americans     1     (increase) by 66 percent since the early 1970s, according to a study by the National Eye Institute; in China and other East Asian countries, more than half of recent high school graduates are thought     2     (be) the persons who suffer myopia.

Myopia results when eyeballs are     3     (long) than normal, changing the angle at which light enters the eye and the ability to focus     4     distant objects. The disorder     5     (usual) begins before adolescence, when the eye is growing, but it can worsen in early adulthood.

Some experts connect the myopia to the many hours young people spend in staring at     6     (computer) and other screens. But a recent study published in JAMA Ophthalmology suggests that a greater factor may be a side effect of all that screen-watching — it’s     7     (keep) children inside.

This new study shows that a lack of direct sunlight may damage vision. Strong correlations   (关联) were found between current eyesight and     8     (people) lifetime exposure to sunlight. Those     9     had gotten the most sun, particularly between the ages of 14 and 19, were about 25 percent less likely to have developed myopia by middle age. Exposure to sunlight up to     10     age of 30 also brought a protective benefit.

5 . Recently, research on how a new virtual (虚拟的) reality (VR) experience educated primary children about the fire disasters was done. It was developed by the University of South Australia, aiming to educate children to learn how to be safer in a fire.

Focusing on children aged 10-12 years old, the new VR experience presents a situation where children are tasked to look after a friend’s dog just before a fire event begins to spread. They participate in a series of problem-solving activities to help save and protect themselves and the dog.

The findings showed that more than 80 percent of children reported that they felt more confident to calmly assess the situation and make wise decisions to protect themselves from a fire. This isl especially important considering that 91 percent of participants originally lacked any knowledge of fires, and that 67 percent had said that they were too young to make safety decisions in a fire.

The researchers believed such immersive (沉浸式的) VR experiences had real potential (潜力) to attract and educate the young. “As children born in digital times, they are interested in such technology and they can experience events realistically yet within the safe environment.” said Delene Weber, one of the researchers. “Well-designed VR can provide a chance for children to apply newly-acquired knowledge, strengthen their learnt concepts, and enable immediate reaction—all incredibly valuable learning tools.”

Meanwhile, because children have fewer life experiences, aren’t as physically strong, and are less likely to have learned much about fire safety, they’re often most at risk. Yet the ability for children to contribute to fire safety at their household should not be underestimated (低估).

“Children do not need to be passively attacked by disasters and with purpose-built virtual reality experiences such as these, we can help children understand the risks and realize they can help,” said Weber.

6 . We see hundreds of logos on signs, vehicles, websites, and even on the clothes we are dressed in. All these logos are intended to attract our attention.     1     However, recent research supports the idea that remembering what a logo looks like is a very difficult task.

Researchers gave 85 students a simple assignment to draw the logo of a famous company from memory. Surprisingly, only one student could make it.     2     Researchers have developed a theory that they think might help explain this blind spot in our memories.

Logos are typically designed to be simple and easy to recognize with a quick glance. Yet the frequent exposure to these logos can actually make our brains overlook them. This process is known as attention saturation (注意力饱和)     3    

    4     we become familiar with them. This constant exposure leads to the situation where our brains remember the basic idea without all of the details. This general sense of memory has its own benefits. In fact, being familiar with a popular logo can even make people feel more comfortable about buying or using certain products.

Nowadays, logos are everywhere. A fancy design or a thoughtful (体贴的) colour combination may be a good start for a logo concept , but there are some other things to consider.     5     Maybe a clever design is well worth trying.

7 . According to a research, more than 130 billion pounds of uneaten food go to waste in Laura’s county each year. That is about 30% of the yearly food supply (供应). It is a sad fact, especially when you consider how many families and homeless people are in hunger.

When Laura saw her school dining hall throw away food that was not eaten at all every day, she came up with an idea. She started a project to help her school dining hall to give away uneaten food to homeless shelters (避难所) in her community. In the past three years, the same protect has spread to other schools and some fast food restaurants throughout the city. The project is called Feed & Find, which has already fed thousands of people in her city.

How does it work? Through an app, Feed & Find matches local homeless shelters with school dining halls and restaurants that have uneaten food to provide. When dining halls or restaurants have uneaten food left, they can use the app to share the information about the food. A truck driver working for the project is then sent to pick it up and take it to a shelter.

Pretty cool, right? It’s not surprising that people in other cities have got in touch with Laura, to hoping that she could help develop similar projects for their communities.

Some people, however, dread the safety of the uneaten food. They think such food may not be clean enough. Still, this project is a clever way to help solve the problem of food waste and it helps those in need.

9 . How did nearsighted people manage in the pre-glasses past? Have you ever thought about this? Aristotle may have written the first observations of myopia around 350 B.C. Because their eyeballs are too long, people with this condition can see objects that are close by, but distant objects tend to look blurry.

Neil Handley, a museum curator, said not much is known about how people dealt with myopia before the first lenses for nearsighted people were invented in the 15th century in Europe. And he noted that “even in the history of the invention of spectacles, that is a late development.”

There are 13th-century European examples of handheld convex lenses that were used to treat age-related vision loss known as presbyopia. But the technology wasn’t applied to treat nearsightedness for another 200 years.

“Because of the way that lens is held, you can see through it, and the artist has captured the effect that the glass has,” Handley said. Myopia could be something of a modern condition. Rates of myopia have risen sharply in recent decades, and researchers have projected that half the world will be myopic by 2050.

Doctors are still trying to figure out the cause behind this trend. Some have blamed genetic causes or an increase in studying and screen time.

It’s likely that myopia didn’t affect as many people in the past as it does now. Handley said the late creation of nearsighted glasses suggests that treating the small number of people with myopia wasn’t regarded as a priority and that people could have gotten by with this condition by making some adaptations in their lifestyle. Or, maybe there was more of an emphasis on putting people in jobs that were suited to their ability to see, he said.

For example, people with myopia were historically valued in artisan contexts, such as medieval European monasteries, where illuminating manuscripts and painting required making tiny, precise skills.