Top Summer Music Festivals to Travel to

Summer is the best time of a year for music lovers, especially if you love the outdoor concert scene. The festival season is just kicking off, and there is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming months.

Primavera Sound

To kick off the summer, there's no better place than Barcelona. On the concert line-up, you'll find bands and singers like The Zombies, The Arcade Fire, and Bon Iver. Then spend some time tasting the local food and wine.

May 31—June 4; Barcelona, Spain

Music Type: Rock, hip hop

Price: $86—$323

Governors Ball

One of the great summer concerts in New York City is the Governors Ball Music Festival, which takes place in early June at Randall's Island Park. Some of the playing artists and bands include Tool, Phoenix, Lorde, Flume, and Wu-Tang Clan.

June 3—5; New York City, USA

Music Type: Rock, hip hop, pop

Price: $105—$405

Bonnaroo

Bonnaroo is another summer event that draws in crowds of around 60,000 each year. Some of the most well-known musicians and bands will be playing this year, including U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, and Chance The Rapper.

June 8—11; Manchester, Tennessee, USA

Music Type: Rock, hip hop

Price: $210—$554

Firefly Music Festival

Many people haven't thought of going to Delaware for a summer vacation, but mid-June is a great time to plan this trip if you love music. Headliners for this year's show are The Weeknd, Muse, Twenty One Pilots, Chance The Rapper, and Bob Dylan.

June 15—18; Dover, Delaware, USA

Music Type: Blues, rock

Price: $179—$499

It was a cold winter day. A woman drove up to the Rainbow Bridge tollbooth(收费站).“I’m paying for myself,and for the six cars behind me,” she said with a smile, handing over seven tickets. One after another, the next six drivers arriving at the tollbooth were informed, “Some lady up ahead already paid your fare."

It turned out that the woman, Natalie Smith,had read something on a friend's refrigerator: "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty." The phrase impressed her so much that she copied it down.

Judy Foreman spotted the same phrase on a warehouse wall far away from home. When it stayed on her mind for days, she gave up and drove all the way back to copy it down. "I thought it was beautiful," she said, explaining why she'd taken to writing it at the bottom of all her letters, "like a message from above." Her husband,Frank,liked the phrase so much that he put it up on the classroom wall for his students, one of whom was the daughter of Alice Johnson, a local news reporter. Alice put it in the newspaper,admitting that though she liked it,she didn't know where it came from or what it really meant.

Two days later. Alice got a call from Anne Herbert, a woman living in Marin. It was in a restaurant that Anne wrote the phrase down on a piece of paper, after turning it around in her mind for days.

“Here’s the idea,” Anne says. “Anything you think there should be more of, do it randomly." Her fantasies include painting the classrooms of shabby schools, leaving hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor part of town, and giving money secretly to a proud old lady. Anne says, "Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can."

The acts of random kindness spread. If you were one of those drivers who found your fare paid,who knows what you might have been inspired to do for someone else later. Like all great events, kindness begins slowly,with every single act. Let it be yours!

We say that technology is a double-edged sword -while it brings convenience, it also brings new problems. The sword of “social media” even has a gender preference in its damage: It cuts deeper into girls than boys.

Earlier studies have shown that spending too much time on social media is bad for teenagers’ mental health. Constantly watching their friends show off “perfect” lives can hurt their own self-esteem (自尊). That’s not to mention the problems caused by online shaming and bullying (霸凌).

Jean Twenge, a professor at San Diego State University in the US, recently discovered an alarming trend: Since 2010, the number of teenage girls who suffer from major depression – showing signs like self-harm and suicide (自杀) - has increased much faster than that of boys. In an article she wrote at The Conversation, Twenge said social media, again, was to blame.

For starters, girls use social media more than boys. Boys tend to spend their screen time on games, where they talk to their teammates through headphones. This counts as real human contact. Girls, however, simply type and browse through posts, which is a much more isolated (孤立的) experience. “They’re not having a real-time conversation with someone,” Mary Fristad, psychologist at The Ohio State University, told NPR.

And when it comes to online shaming, girls are also more vulnerable than boys. “Girls face more pressure about their appearance, which could be exacerbated (加重) by social media,” wrote Twenge.

Shannon McLaughlin, for example, is an 18-year-old from Blackburn College in the US. She shared with the Guardian how social media made her feel depressed. “I was constantly confronted (面对) by women with skinny bodies who were praised for the way they looked. This was only made worse by the diet fixes and skinny culture,” she said. But McLaughlin found a solution. She started volunteering with the National Citizen Service, where she made face-to-face contact with people. “It’s so easy to forget the importance of real connections when we have hundreds of people that we’re trying to impress at our fingertips,” she told the Guardian. And she hopes that others “look up from their phones and focus more on the world around them”.

Life on Mars: Is it really possible?

Now that Curiosity is beaming back Earth-like pictures of Martian landscape, the old question raises its head: Could man and woman ever go there? The answer is very definitely yes. There are a number of practical challenges to overcome first, however. There are differences between Earth and Mars, but also a number of similarities.     11    

Phobos and Deimos

Unlike Earth, Mars does not have a polar magnetic field. Scientists believe that the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, are little planets.     12    

    13    

For the annual IGEM or International Genetically Engineered Machines competition, students around the world attempt to make living cells perform new tasks. In preparation for the human colonization of Mars, seeds and organic matter would have to be transported from Earth to begin growing plants and establishing a food supply.

Super-sized Bees

Plants need pollinators as well as water, and the best pollinator on Earth is the humble bee-and entire hives would be transported to Mars.     14    However, without natural predators, they could grow very large, indeed.

Overcoming Challenges-Opening Possibilities

There will be other challenges to overcome, for example, the effect on the human body of living in a field with low gravity.     15    Right now, we ought to welcome the challenges. The more challenges we overcome now, the more prepared we will be for moving out of our solar system and into the grand, universal adventure that is ahead of us.

Every culture on the planet has certain topics that people avoid discussing. But the taboos (禁忌) of one culture may be very different from those of another. You may be ______ that people from other cultures say what you can't talk about.

Paying attention to what people don't ______ can teach us something important about their culture. Their taboo topics give us clues about what they value, respect or even fear. Topics that are considered too personal or too controversial (有争议的) may also be avoided.

America is full of taboo topics. Usually, during a polite conversation, Americans will ______ both politics and religion. They also avoid talking about racial issues.

Why? Because these topics can cause strong opinions and ______. Americans believe it's best to avoid them—especially at social gatherings.

Many Americans also do not feel ______ talking about their personal income, age or health. ______, they prefer to make small talks about the weather, sports or common interests.

What do these taboos tell us about American ______? For one, they show that Americans place importance on ______. America certainly isn't the only place that values it. You will find ______ taboos about asking personal questions in many European countries. "This is especially true in Germany," says Hanna Graf, a German living in Shanghai. "In Germany, you are not supposed to ask about other people's personal business," she says. "But there are no ______ rules about what you can't ask; it's just in people's minds."

In Brazil, ______, almost anything seems open to discussion. "Brazilians talk about all kinds of personal issues," says Mark Quinlan, who grew up in Brazil. But of course, even Brazil has its own taboos. In Brazil, soccer is the one topic that can turn friends into enemies. Brazilians love the sport. Saying anything ______ about soccer can cause big trouble. Even expressing preference for one team over another can be ______.

Like Brazilians, Australians talk freely about almost anything. However, they do not talk about their personal or business ______. They prefer to let people judge them by their actions, not their words. Boasting your achievements will only make you the ______ of other people's jokes.

And what about your taboos? The next time you have a conversation, pay attention to what isn't said. You might be amazed at what you learn about your own culture.