You probably know who Marie Curie was, but you may not have heard of Rachel Carson. Of the outstanding ladies listed below, who do you think was the most important woman of the past 100 years?

Jane Addams (1860-1935)

   Anyone who has ever been helped by a social worker has Jane Addams to thank. Addams helped the poor and worked for peace. She encouraged a sense of community by creating shelters and promoting education and services for people in need. In 1931. Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

   If it weren’t for Rachel Carson, the environment movement might not exist today. Her popular 1962 book Silent Spring raised awareness of the dangers of pollution and the harmful effects of chemicals on humans and on the world’s lakes and oceans.

Sandra Day O’Connor (1930-present)

   When Sandra Day O’Connor finished third in her class at Stanford Law School in 1952, she could not find work at a law firm because she was a woman. She became an Arizona state senator and, in 1981, the first woman to join the U.S. Supreme Court. O’Connor gave the deciding vote in many important cases during her 24 years on the top court.

Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

   On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks would not give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. Her simple act landed Parks in prison. But it also set off the Montgomery bus boycott. It lasted for more than a year, and kicked off the civil-rights movement. “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in,” said Parks.

Plan to get to the airport at least an hour early, or two during holidays and other busy times; this will reduce the stress of the flight. If all goes well, you will have time to relax, shop for last-minute items, or have a meal before the flight.

    Flight Delays 

Find out why your flight is delayed. Call the free call numbers. Find out if other airlines are experiencing similar delays. If you believe the delay is due to something other than weather or air traffic problems, then mention your suspicion (怀疑) and ask the airline agent to book you on the next available flight, either on the same air-line or a competing one. This is called “Rule 240”, and all airlines are required to do it.

Flight Cancellations (取消) 

If your flight is canceled, then make a reservation (预订) on the next flight to your destination. Usually, air-line personnel(职员) will try to book everyone on their next flight. Often they will put you on a competitor’s next flight only if you request it.

If on-time arrival is important to you, when you check flights through our reservation system you can rate your choices based on their on-time arrival records. Be sure to also check the weather conditions, as they often affect flight schedules.

Group exercise is one of the most effective ways to improve physical fitness and sustain(保持)a healthy lifestyle.Group exercise is challenging,yet fun and empowering!Of course everyone knows that exercise is good for the body.However,studies have shown that when exercise is performed in groups,it’s not only great for improving physical health but for psychological health.It’s an opportunity to be social,release endorphins(内啡肽),and improve your strength.Additionally,group exercise creates a community feel and the shared common goal motivates participants to work hard.The instrumental support of taking on a fitness journey with others proves more effective than going to the gym alone.

Another beneficial aspect of group exercise is the informational support participants receive from the instructor.Many people fear the gym because they feel lost and don’t want to embarrass themselves.If you feel you can relate,then group training is an even better option for you.It’s a great opportunity to learn more about fitness through the clear instruction and supervision(监管)of a fitness instructor.If you’re tired of wandering around the gym wasting time and becoming bored,you can attend an upbeat group fitness class that’ll keep your workout on track.Don’t let fitness frighten you!

If you’re serious about wanting to live a healthy lifestyle,it’s extremely important to surround yourself with people who’ll provide you with the proper emotional support.I wouldn’t scold anyone for deciding to party on weekends and in turn I wouldn’t expect anyone to give offence to me for focusing on my health.Surround yourself with people who uplift,encourage and understand you!Make fitness even more fun by trying something new or any group fitness class,with a friend.Plan to go for a jog together.Then try a fun healthy restaurant or fresh juice bar!Fitness can be both fun and social!

Surrounding yourself with people who’ll provide you with respect support can be very beneficial while working towards reaching health and fitness goals.First,decide to do it for yourself and work towards staying positive.Then make sure the people you surround yourself with are supportive.Don’t let negativity ruin your motivation.

Suppose you become a leader in an organization. It’s very likely that you’ll want to have volunteers to help with the organization’s activities.To do so,it should help to understand why people undertake volunteer work and what keeps their interest in the work.

Let’s begin with the question of why people volunteer.Researchers have identified several factors that motivate people to get involved.For example,people volunteer to express personal values related to unselfishness,to expand their range of experiences,and to strengthen social relationships.If volunteer positions do not meet these needs,people may not wish to participate.To select volunteers,you may need to understand the motivations of the people you wish to attract.

People also volunteer because they are required to do so.To increase levels of community service,some schools have launched compulsory volunteer programs.Unfortunately,these programs can shift people’s wish of participation from an internal factor(e.g.,“I volunteer because it’s important to me”)to an external factor(e.g.,“I volunteer because I’m required to do so”).When that happens,people become less likely to volunteer in the future.People must be sensitive to this possibility when they make volunteer activities a must.

Once people begin to volunteer,what leads them to remain in their positions over time?To answer this question,researchers have conducted follow-up studies in which they track volunteers over time.For instance,one study followed 238 volunteers in Florida over a year.One of the most important factors that influenced their satisfaction as volunteers was the amount of suffering they experienced in their volunteer positions.Although this result may not surprise you,it leads to important practical advice.The researchers note that attention should be given to“training methods that would prepare volunteers for troublesome situations or provide them with strategies for coping with the problem they do experience”.

Another study of 302 volunteers at hospitals in Chicago focused on individual differences in the degree to which people view“volunteer”as an important social role.It was assumed that those people for whom the role of volunteer was most part of their personal identity would also be most likely to continue volunteer work.Participants indicated the degree to which the social role mattered by responding to statements such as“Volunteering in Hospital is an important part of who I am.”Consistent with the researchers’ expectations,they found a positive correlation(正相关)between the strength of role identity and the length of time people continued to volunteer.These results,once again,lead to concrete advice:“Once an individual begins volunteering,continued efforts might focus on developing a volunteer role identity... Items like T-shirts that allow volunteers to be recognized publicly for their contributions can help strengthen role identity”.

China is embracing an era of sharing economy. After sharing bikes, sharing books are the next trend. The book-sharing program at Sanxiaokou Xinhua Bookstore in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, has been running for several months since its launch on July 16, 2017. Customers are encouraged to borrow up to two books, from all books available in this store, for free via an app, pay 99 yuan online as the deposit and return the books within 10 days.

A survey of 601 app users conducted by the company in late July found that more than 90 percent of the readers said they may want to keep some of the borrowed books permanently, but they don’t want to visit the store again to complete the purchase. When another nine stores joined the book-sharing program in August, the ability to purchase the borrowed books was made available on the app.

Zhao Shiping, a manager of the Sanxiaokou store, said that the daily customer flow in the first week of the book-sharing program was about 7,000 while the figure for the same period last year was 5,000 to 6,000. So, book-sharing will reduce barriers for book purchasing and increase customer flow, which will increase the business value of the bookstore, its brand value and increase its value as a partner for companies outside the book sales sector.

In addition to bookstores, banks have also joined the trend of book-sharing. Two branches of China Everbright Bank introduced book loan service at the end of this July. The service is free for seven days and 0.1 yuan is charged after that and 0.5 yuan after 21 days. Readers can return borrowed books to any branch of the bank.

This book-sharing project, a cooperation between Everbright Bank and an app called Youshugongdu, which translates as "let’s read books together", will be expanded to other outlets to turn each outlet into a small community library with 1,000 to 2,000 books.

①Increasing the customer flow

②Bringing convenience to the bookstores

③Reducing the barriers for book purchasing

④Increasing the brand value of the bookstores

The year 2114 will be an eventful one for art. In May of that year in Berlin, the philosopher-artist Jonathon Keats’ “century cameras” – cameras with a 100-year-long exposure (曝光）time – will be brought back from hiding places around the city to have their results developed and exhibited. Six months after that, the Future Library in Oslo, Norway, will open its doors for the first time, presenting 100 books printed on the wood of trees planted in the distant past of 2014.

As Katie Paterson, the creator of the Future Library, puts it: “Future Library is an artwork for future generations.” These projects, more than a century in the making, are part of a new wave of “slow art” intended to push viewers and participants to think beyond their own lifetimes. They aim to challenge today’s short-term thinking and the brief attention spans of modern consumers, forcing people into considering works more deliberately. In their way, too, they are fighting against modern culture – not just regarding money, but also the way in which artistic worth is measured by attention.

In a similar fashion, every April on Slow Art Day, visitors are encouraged to stare at five works of art for 10 minutes at a time – a tough task for the average museum visitor, who typically spends less than 30 seconds on each piece of art.

Like the Future Library, the century cameras are very much a project for cities, since it’s in cities that time runs fastest and the pace of life is fastest. “Since I started living in a city, I’ve somehow been quite disconnected,” Anne Beate Hovind, the Future Library project manager, who described how working on the library drew her back to the pace of life she knew when she was growing up on a farm in her youth, told The Atlantic magazine.

Do you know electricity can change the way we taste food? Proving this fact is a revolutionary electric fork designed by Japanese researchers that can make any dish taste salty.

According to Hiromi Nakamura, a Post Doc Research Fellow at Tokyo’s Meiji University, the technology can be very useful for people on special diets. Patients with high blood pressure, for instance, can easily go on a low-salt diet and still enjoy delicious food. And with the fork, there’s absolutely no risk of over-salting their food. Luckily, the voltage(电压) is so small that there is no risk of danger either.

The idea of adding electricity to food was first exposed as an experiment at the Computer Human Interaction Conference in Austin, Texas, in 2012. Nakamura and her team connected a wire to a 9-volt battery and passed it through a straw placed in a cup of sweet lemonade. Volunteers reported that the charged lemonade tasted ‘blander’, because the electricity created the taste of salt.

Nakamura has improved the technology to be able to transfer an electric charge to food through forks and chopsticks. “The metallic part of the fork is one electrode（电极）, and the handle is the other,” Nakamura explained. “When you take a piece of food with the fork and put it in your mouth, you connect the circuit. When you remove the fork from your mouth, you disconnect the circuit. So it actually works as a switch.”

Simon Klose, host of food program Munchies, who recently visited Nakamura to try out the fork himself, called this form of ‘food hacking’ one of the greatest eating experiences he’d ever had.

“When I first heard of electric food, it sounded scary,” he said. He later continued to use a charged fork to eat pieces of fried chicken, and found that the saltiness considerably increased as the electricity was connected.

Nakamura has been eating ‘electric’ food for the past three to four years in an attempt to understand it better. “For me, ‘food hacking’ is about strengthening or weakening real food,” she said. “It may seem like we’re cooking but we’re actually working on the human senses.”

Did you know that sixty per cent of your body weight is water? However,

a loss of only two per cent of this water through dehydration(脱水) during exercise can significantly affect your performance. The more you sweat, the more your exercise performance declines, unless you drink enough to replace your loss of fluids.

When you lose too much water, you can overheat quite easily, especially in a warm environment. But this is not the only problem you may face. Dehydration leads to your heart pumping much faster, which means exercise becomes more difficult and requires more effort. Despite these problems, however, many of us simply do not take enough fluids in when we head for the gym or set out on a run.

So why is this? How do we manage to lose so much water without simply drinking more to replace it? Well, itˈs easier than you think. When we are at rest, we quickly become aware that we are thirsty and will put that right by having a drink. When we exercise, on the other hand, our thirst mechanism(结构) does not work as effectively, so we donˈt notice early enough that we are actually thirsty. In fact, we only start to feel thirsty when we have already lost around two per cent of our body weight.

Another problem is that, the more dehydrated we become during exercise, the more difficult it is to prevent further dehydration—because our stomachs become intolerant to fluids and we do not absorb water properly, just when we need it most.

The key thing about fluids and exercise is to manage your intake properly

—regular small amounts are preferable, and some should be drunk before the period of exercise begins. You also need to match your intake to the sort of exercise you are doing. For example, for one hour of exercise, such as taking part in a 10 km run, you need to drink about two extra litres of water. For longer periods of exercise, sports drinks are recommended.

The world itself is becoming much smaller by using modern traffic and modern communication means. Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution. To pollute means to make things dirty. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.

Man has been polluting the earth. The more people, the more pollution. Many years ago, the problem was not so serious because there were not so many people. When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place, man moved to another place. But this is no longer true.

Man is now slowly polluting the whole world.

Air pollution is still the most serious. It’s bad for all living things in the world, but it is not the only one kind of pollution. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us angry more easily.

Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories in the city, and from putting dirty smoke into the air. Pollution by SO₂ is now the most dangerous kind of air pollution. It is caused by heavy traffic. We are sure that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.

The earth is our home. We must take care of it. That means keeping the land, water and air clean. And we must take care of the rise in pollution at the same time.