Orchids: A Project for Those at Home
Not so long ago, orchids were considered rare and exotic(异域的) flowers — difficult to find and difficult to grow. But these days, new growing methods, some kinds of orchids are available in many parts of the world.
Marc Hachadourian is an orchid expert at the New York Botanical Garden, who perceives orchids "the most popular blooming florist crop in the world."
The blooms are long-lasting. Orchid flowers can last for weeks. Orchids offer an easy, low-cost way to brighten up a room. The flowers come in many colors.
the flowers die, however, many people might want to throw the plant away. But not so fast! You might be able to get that orchid to bloom again. In fact, helping an orchid to rebloom is that requires your great efforts while at home because of existing coronavirus restrictions.
With the first flowers gone, Friend-Daniel, an orchid expert at Trader Joe's (sell) plants and flowers like orchids, suggests cutting the stem off at the base and removing the material the plant is growing. Then move the plant to a slightly larger pot filled with fresh moss(苔藓).
Friend-Daniel said that, "New growth should start coming from the middle of the plant within three to four months." It will take 12 months for a fully bloomed flower to show.
Blanche Wagner is another orchid expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Their orchid collection is world-famous and dates back to late 1800s.
She gives a simple suggestion for those wanting to rebloom an orchid:
●Care for them when they are not in bloom. The most important time to care for your plants is right after the flowers die.
●The ideal temperature while waiting for new growth is about 29 degrees ●Celsius. Once there is new growth, (keep) the temperature between 21 to 24 degrees Celsius.
●Never let the roots sit in water. This will cause them to rot, and the plant (die).
● color your new blooms are, Hachadourian said the "take-home message" is a good one: "People are reblooming their orchids more than once."
|
A. eliminated B. impermanent C. juniors D. multidisciplinary E. occupying F. opt G. qualify H. refreshed I. revealing J. self-improver K. suspended |
Plan for Several Careers in a Lifetime
A survey by Investec found more than half of Brits were planning to change career in the next five years.
Thanks to automation and the forces of globalization, working life is and unpredictable, and will only become more so. We are increasingly willing to take control.
For today's business education graduates, especially those on broad-based, programmes such as masters in management, now might be the most delightful period in decades in which to start a career.
Graduates could for a well-paid job in, say, finance. If they are lucky, they can expect to sprint (冲刺,爆发) from their mid-twenties before hitting a career peak in their forties. If they are unlucky, they will be by automation.
Alternatively, and in full confidence that they are making a wise decision as artificial intelligence intrudes on the work of , graduates may decide to take the long view, try a slower route and see if it works out.
They may decide to do both, and this is likely to turn out to be the safest option of all. Recently I met a woman in her fifties who had done just that. She will soon as a lawyer, her fourth career, and was looking forward to a long period. She struck me as unusual for her generation: she was in her early fifties — an age at which many older baby boomers were thinking about retirement.
An early academic career had led to museum work, and by her thirties she was curating (组织，操持) exhibitions at international galleries in London and Berlin. Later, in her forties, she developed a part-time job — teaching the practicalities of entrepreneurship (企业家精神) to art undergraduates. Years later, she is now a trainee for a boutique IP firm in the City of London.
I asked why she had her professional life so often. She had lived with uncertainty, which was a spur, but more important was satisfying her curiosity. One discipline and career was not enough at any one time, let alone for an entire working life. Making a fortune was, by no means, something her. There was no time: she was thinking about her next challenge. She was a constant .
To me, this sounds like a(n) way to approach working life. But for those still discouraged, there is guidance.
No business would welcome being compared to Big Tobacco or gambling. Yet that is what is happening to makers of video games. For years parents have1that their children are "addicted" to their PlayStations and smartphones. Today, however, ever more doctors are using the term literally.
On January 1st "gaming disorder" — in which games are played2, despite causing harm — gains recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO), as the newest edition of its diagnostic manual comes into force.
A few months ago, China, the world's biggest gaming market, announced new rules3children to just a single hour of play a day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and none the rest of the week.
Western politicians worry publicly about some games' similarity to gambling. Clinics are4around the world, promising to cure patients of their habit in the same way they might cure them of an addiction to alcohol or cocaine.
Are games really addictive? Psychologists are5. The case for the defense is that this is just another moral panic. In the old days, some killjoys issued6warnings about television, rock ‘n' roll, jazz, comic books, novels and even crossword puzzles.
As the newest form of mass media, gaming is merely enduring its own time in the stocks before it eventually7to be controversial.8, defenders argue, the criteria used to diagnose gaming addiction are too loose. Obsessive gaming, they suggest, is as likely to be a9(of depression, say) as a disorder in its own right.
The prosecution(指控) retorts that, unlike rock bands or novelists, games developers have both the motive and the means to engineer their products to make them irresistible. The motive10a business-model shift.
In the old days games were bought for a single-use cost. These days, many use a "freemium(免费增值)" model, in which the game is free and money is made from 11of in-game goods. That ties playtime directly to revenue.
Smartphones and modern platforms use their permanent internet connections to send gameplay data back to developers. That allows products to be12and modified to boost spending.
While psychologists argue the finer points of what exactly counts as addiction, and whether gaming's design tricks cross the line, the industry should recognize that, in the real world, it has a problem, and that problem is growing. Now that gaming addiction comes with an official WHO13, diagnoses will become more common.
Clinics are already reporting14business, as lockdowns have given gamers more time to spend with their hobby. The regulatory climate for tech is getting15. And being associated in the public mind, fairly or not, with gambling and tobacco will not do the industry any favors.
I was sure that I was to be killed. I became terribly nervous. I fumbled(摸索) in my pockets to see if there were any cigarettes, which had escaped their search. I found one and because of my shaking hands, I could barely get it to my lips. But I had no matches; they had taken those. I looked through the bars at my jailer. He did not make eye contact with me. I called out to him, "Have you got a light?" He looked at me, shrugged and came over to light my cigarette.
As he came close and lit the match, his eyes unconsciously locked with mine. At that moment, I smiled. I don't know why I did that. Perhaps it was nervousness, perhaps it was because, when you get very close, one to another, it is very hard not to smile. In any case, I smiled. In that instant, it was as though a spark jumped across the gap between our two hearts, our two human souls. I know he didn't want to, but my smile leaped through the bars and generated a smile on his lips, too. He lit my cigarette but stayed near, looking at me directly in the eyes and continuing to smile.
I kept smiling at him, now aware of him as a person and not just a jailer. And his looking at me seemed to have a new dimension too.
"Do you have kids?" he asked.
"Yes, here, here."
I took out my wallet and nervously fumbled for the pictures of my family. He, too, took out the pictures of his family and began to talk about his plans and hopes for them. My eyes filled with tears. I said that I feared that I'd never see my family again, never have the chance to see them grow up. Tears came to his eyes, too. Suddenly, without another word, he unlocked my cell and silently led me out. Out of the jail, quietly and by back routes, out of the town. There, at the edge of town, he released me. And without another word, he turned back toward the town.
My life was saved by a smile, yes, the smile—the unaffected, unplanned, natural connection between people. I really believe that if that part of you and that part of me could recognize each other, we wouldn't be enemies. We couldn't have hate or envy or fear.
Dear students,
The Covid-19 situation is still fluctuating. In order to sustain the satisfactory results of our anti-pandemic measures and keep the situation under control, our College has made the following arrangements for your safe return to the campus for the second semester of the academic year 2021-22. The opening of the College for the second semester of the academic year 2021-22 has been postponed to 14 February 2022.
Registering the date of your return to the campus
To ensure an orderly and safe return to the campus, all students, in principle, are required to make a staggered(错开的) return to UIC during the period of 12-14 February 2022. Starting from 2 February 2022, students are invited to log on MIS Survey (//mis.uic.edu.cn/survey/login.jsp), selecting the item on "registration of returning students" to register their date of return. Students who fail to complete the registration will be unable to enter the College premises. If for any reason, students need to bring forth or postpone the date of their return to the College, please report this on MIS Survey. Student hostels will be opened as of 9 February.
Daily Health Report
During the winter holidays, students are required to submit their daily health report by logging on to MIS Survey (//mis.uic.edu.cn/survey/login.jsp), proactively and factually reporting their health condition and their location or travel plans to the College. Students who fail to submit the required health reports for 14 consecutive days will be unable to enter the College premises.
Different requirements for students returning from areas of different risk-levels.
According to the directives of the local Pandemic Control and Prevention agency, we have different requirements for students returning from areas of different risk-levels. Students are asked to avoid going to high or medium risk areas or hot spots, with a heightened alert for the protection of their personal health. The following are guidelines for reporting your travel history 14 days prior to their return to the College:
|
Category |
Area |
Health Control Measures |
Requirements for Returning to Campus |
|
1 |
Low-risk area |
/ |
Negative Covid-19 test valid for 48 hours |
|
2 |
Medium risk area |
"Four Ones" Health Management +14-day self-health monitor |
Negative Covid-19 test valid for 48 hours |
|
3 |
High risk area |
3-day home health monitor+11-day self-health monitor |
Students may apply to return to the College. But as our dormitories are not equipped with home health monitor facilities, returning students will be accommodated at the Wenhua Lodge of Beijing Normal University as the quarantine quarters (subject to confirmation) at their own expense |
|
4 |
High risk district or country |
14-day home quarantine |
Return to campus is deferred |
|
5 |
Pinpointed medium risk area |
14-day home quarantine |
Return to campus is deferred |
|
6 |
Pinpointed high risk area |
14-day centralized quarantine |
Return to campus is deferred |
Note
After a careful study of the distribution of students in medium to high areas, the College will, without delay, reach out to students who fall into categories 4 to 6 on the above chart and will lose no time in contacting students in category 3 above regarding arrangements for returning to the campus. Please be patient and await instructions from the College. If you have any queries, you may dial 0756-3620491/3620224 during office hours.
The above arrangements may be adjusted in accordance with ongoing instructions from the local Pandemic Prevention and Control Agency. Rest assured that we will notify you of any changes without delay.
Four years ago, Michel Roccati was involved in a motorcycle accident. He suffered what neurologists call a "complete" spinal-cord injury — he lost all sensation below the site of the damage to his spine and he could no longer move his legs. In December last year, however, the young Italian stood up on the streets of Lausanne, Switzerland, and took a short walk.
Mr. Roccati's remarkable steps, supported by a wheeled walking frame, were the conclusion of more than a decade of work by Gregoire Courtine, a neuroscientist at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at Lausanne University Hospital.
The scientists had fitted Mr. Roccati with a device that stimulated nerves in his back that once controlled muscles in his lower body and legs, but which had lain dormant since his accident.
Even after a severe spinal injury, the nerves that control activities such as walking often remain intact below any damaged tissue. In people with paralysis, however, the damaged tissue interrupts or weakens any electrical signals coming from the brain.
Dr. Courtine and Dr. Bloch developed a wafer-thin device with electrodes that could target the dormant nerves. Once implanted into Mr. Roccati's back, the device sent in pulses of electricity that mimicked(模仿) those normally present in the nerves of an uninjured person as they walk.
By doing this, the device acted like an enhancer for any electrical signals coming from Mr. Roccati's brain. Those signals would normally be blocked by his damaged spinal tissue and be incapable of activating the nerves in his lower back. But with the stimulation device in place, Mr. Roccati was able to voluntarily control those once-dormant nerves, allowing him to move his legs and walk.
Mr. Roccati was one of three paralyzed volunteers who took part in a small clinical trial of the device, details of which were published this week in the journal Nature Medicine. The device worked well enough that all three users in the trial were able to stand up and take a few steps almost immediately after they had recovered from the surgery to have it implanted.
This was a marked improvement on previous implementations of this kind of technology, in which scientists had repurposed nerve implants normally used to treat chronic pain. In the few instances where those experiments had been successful, it had taken many months of training for patients to learn to walk again.
Dr. Courtine's and Dr. Bloch's new device can be fixed to fire its electrical impulses in many different patterns, each of which corresponds to a different activity. Patients in the trial were not only able to stand and walk, but eventually also to swim and cycle.
The new device will need approval from medical regulators before it can be used in clinics. Its inventors set up a company called NeuroRestore, which is working with Onward Medical, a Dutch company to commercialize their new device.
The impact of the device on the lives of those in the small Swiss trial, however, has already been dramatic. Mr. Roccati highlights the little things— walking upstairs, for example, or standing in the shower. At a bar, he can stand up to chat with friends. After training, he is now able to walk around for two hours every day. "With the walker," he says, "I am free."
A. That turning point might be Bezos, greatest accomplishment.
B. Amazon executives would tell you: the empty chair, the internal nickname of the figure that rules their lives.
C. Bezos could have done it earlier, but he took over twenty years to complete that target.
D. He set that target without getting pinned down by technical issues.
E. Customers do enjoy quick delivery, quality products and great aftersales service.
F. Even the tiniest delay in loading a webpage isn't insignificant.
Jeff Bezos Reveals His No. 1 Leadership Secret
Amazon has reached what its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos called "an interesting milestone".
The retailing giant so highly associated with books and then music and video, now has tens of millions of products in stock and a majority are non-media goods, from drills to tennis balls to almost anything else that can be shipped.
The 48-year-old has officially transformed Amazon, which he founded in l994, from an online bookstore that sells other stuff to a retailer and business services provider —that once sold mostly books. Amazon's stock is up 397% in the last five years.
So, what's behind the success of the world's largest online retailer? Bezos regularly leaves one seat open at meetings and informs all attendees that they should consider that seat occupied by their customer—the most important person in the room.
Always trying to find out what customers want, Bezos is even stricter about what customers don't want. They hate delays, defects and out-of-stock products, so the company constantly looks to make them as rare as possible. Amazon data show that, a 0.1 second delay in page loading can translate into a 1% drop in customer activity.
But great customer service doesn't fully explain Amazon's extraordinary success. For Bezos, a data-driven customer focus lets him take risks to innovate. Amazon's Kindle, for example, came into being because Bezos believed millions would want an e-book reader that could download any book within 60 seconds. Engineers were free to solve technical challenges as they saw fit, only needing to make it right for consumers.
Efficiency —cheapness, in the eyes of Amazon's critics — is also an important part of the Amazon culture. In fact, Bezos links the two. In 2009, Bezos declared that Amazon had begun fighting against waste. The more he could get rid of needless costs, the easier it would be to deliver rock-bottom prices to customers.
Can a Simple Test Match You With Your Perfect Dog?
A number of programs have begun using personality tests to pair pets with owners. Human-animal matchmaking may sound fanciful, but it mirrors a renewed scientific interest in animal personality.
Scientists are actively exploring animal personality's implications for everything from daily care to evolution. As John Shivik, the author of Mousy Cats and Sheepish Coyotes, points out, a species' survival depends on variety, including of personality. "If you don't have variation, you will go extinct," he says, noting that characteristics that are advantageous in one situation may not be in another.
Much as psychologists do when studying humans, scientists can identify consistent behavior in animals. To this end, researchers have taken questionnaires designed to measure human personality and refashioned them for animals. One influential early review of animal personality by the psychologists Sam Gosling and Oliver John identified three personality factors in dogs similar to three of the "Big Five" personality factors in people: extroversion(外向), agreeableness, and neuroticism(神经质).
The better that pet owners and zookeepers understand an individual animal, the better they can tailor care to it. One study, for example, notes that highly neurotic cats can benefit from extra hiding places, while relatively extroverted cats may need more toys and more playtime with other animals.
Still other research supports the idea of matching pet and owner personalities. In 2011, an Oklahoma State University researcher surveyed the characteristics and preferences of dogs and their owners, then asked the owners to report how satisfied they were with their pet. Some factors that foretold a happy match were unsurprising — a mutual love of running outside, say. Others were a little more unusual. Owners who agreed with the statement "When I am feeling anxious, I am likely to tear up something" and the statement "My dog tears up pillows and other items" were among the most likely to have happy human-dog marriages.
