Bottled water has become the choice for people who are healthy and thirsty. Bottled water is all over the world. But some say the planet's health, and people's health may be suffering from it.

    The idea that bottled water is safer for humans may not be true. The Natural Resources Defense Council of America said, “There is no promise that because water comes out of a bottle, it is cleaner or safer than water from the tap.” Another New York City-based action group added that some bottled water is “really just tap water in a bottle—sometimes more clean, sometimes not.”

    It is not proven that bottled water is better than tap water. Nick Reeves from the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management said, “The high mineral content(含量) of some bottled water makes them not good for feeding babies and young children.” Also, most bottled water doesn't have fluoride(氟化物), which can make teeth stronger. Kids are drinking more bottled water and less fluoridated tap water, and some say that's behind the recent rise in bad teeth.

    Storing is another problem. Placed near heat, the plastic bottles can produce bad chemicals(化学物质) into the water.

    According to the Environmental Protection Agency, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used worldwide to bottle water each year. The plastic can take between 400 and 1,000 years to break down.

    In terms of energy use, plastic bottles are also not cheap. One report said that if water and soft drink bottlers had used 10 percent recycled materials in their plastic bottles, they would have saved about 72 million gallons of gas.

    So, if you are worried about the effect of bottled water on the Earth, you can take the following steps.

●Drink from your tap. Unless your government warns against this, it should be fine.

●Get a container(容器). Carry your tap water in a steel or a lined drinking container, and clean it between uses.

●Keep it cool. Don't drink from a bottle that has been sitting in the sun, don't store it near chemicals, and don't reuse plastic bottles.

●Choose glass containers over plastic if possible. When finished, recycle!

    The summer before my dad died, we moved house. Up until that point, our family had our own space to spread out. Money was tight, so there was no television set, but we owned a turntable on which my dad's records played constantly. Mostly, it played Bob Dylan. Tracks from The Basement Tapes and Desire became an important part of our new life. My brother and I, aged 8 and 10，climbed trees, built hideaways and learned the words of Clothes Line Saga. We would chant over and over, lost in our own joy.

    It was January when my dad left us forever because of the cancer. He was 36 going on 37 then, the same age as Dylan. Afterwards, our laughter disappeared, but we kept on playing the records, which became our only ritual of remembrance. The two men became so intertwined in my head, I struggled to tell them apart.

    Dylan was my dad's gift to me. What child wouldn't be fascinated by songs full of pirates and seasick sailors? How did it feel to have No direction home? Farewell, Angelina became my party-piece. I would sing this at church cheese and wines to the assembled audience. A lot of donations were made.

    Growing up, I remained a fan of the music, but I wasn't obsessed with Dylan until one day in early 1995, my brother bought us both tickets to see him play at Brixton Academy. London felt like a long way to go. But finally seeing Dylan step out on to the stage brought a sudden rush of excitement.

    I have seen Dylan a couple of times since. My brother is not around so much these days. But he was up for a visit recently. We passed a happy evening laughing and drinking, while his son, aged nine, performed his party—piece Subterranean Homesick Blues for us. He sang it word-perfect. And so it goes on: Dylan's music as a gift, passed down the generations.

    Chicago is considering firm measures to prevent the Asian carp, a giant fish native to the Far East, from coming into North America's Great Lakes in large numbers. Such a move could cost up to$18bn, a heavy economic burden to the city.

    This species, more than a metre in length, was originally introduced to southern US states three decades ago to control weeds in sewage (污水) treatment plants. But they escaped into the Mississippi River and increased in number quickly, making their way north towards the Great Lakes and threatening the native fish species along the way.

    "Dozens of them will often leap out of the water as boats approach." Michael Beecham, a local environmental expert, described how frightening the scene was. "I've gone down the river and seen these fish jump up and hit me in the face. It is a big problem for our native species." he said.

    A meeting has been organized to find a technological solution to the carp problem, one of which involves blocking parts of Chicago's canal system. Listening at the meeting was John Goss, who was worried about the effect that having barriers in the canal system would have on industry. "It would certainly increase the cost of transportation," he told. "It is currently very cheap and efficient to bring materials and finished goods down the Chicago ship canal.''

    Another cheaper option is to eat the fish out of existence. Dirk Fucik is selling carp burger(鲤鱼汉堡包) at his fish shop not far from downtown Chicago. He thinks the carps are a great resource. "To catch it and throw it away is a waste," he says. "Eating them helps solve the problem and also provides jobs." But the idea has not yet caught on. So far, he is the only person in Chicago selling carp burgers.

    Have you ever been to Taiwan, China's biggest island? Do you want to pay a visit there? We'll show you the best of Taiwan is land.

    FOR ALL the technological wonders of modern medicine, from gene-editing to fetal(胎儿的) surgery, health care—with its fax machines and clipboards(资料夹)—is often stubbornly old-fashioned. This outdated era is slowly drawing to a close as, slowly, the industry catches up with the artificial-intelligence (AI) revolution. And it should have happened earlier, argues Eric Topol, a heart doctor keen on digital medicine.

    Dr Topol's vision of medicine's future is optimistic. He thinks AI will be particularly useful for repetitive tasks where errors arise easily, such as selecting images, examining heart traces for abnormal symptoms or recording doctors' words into patient records. In short, AI is set to save time, lives and money.

    Much of this is imaginary—but AI is already defeating people in a variety of narrow jobs for which it has been trained. Eventually it may be able to diagnose and treat a wider range of diseases. Even then, Dr Topol thinks, humans would watch over the rules, rather than being replaced by them.

    The author's fear is that AI will be used to deepen the assembly-line(流水线) culture of modern medicine. If it awards a "gift of time" on doctors, he argues that this additional benefit should be used to extend the time of consultations, rather than simply speeding through them more efficiently.

    The Hippocratic Oath holds that there is an art to medicine as well as a science, and that "warmth, sympathy and understanding may be more important than the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug". That is not just a cliché: the patients of sympathetic physicians have been shown to do better. As Dr Topol says, it is hard to imagine that a robot could really replace a human doctor. Yet as demand for health care goes beyond the supply of human carers, the future may involve consultations on smartphones and measurements monitored by chat robots. The considerately warmed stethoscope(听诊器), placed gently on a patient's back, may become history.

    People all have something to say. Some express their passion (强烈的感情) through clothe, art, or community involvement. Others express themselves with poetry, which has diverse poetic forms to express unique thoughts, experiences, and imagination at the fourth annual People's Poetry Festival held Feb. 28 through March 2.

    "The People's Poetry Festival keeps getting bigger and bigger—it's an event we're really proud of," said Dr Mark Hartlaub, College of Liberal Arts Dean at Texas. The festival covered a wide variety of topics including nature, humor, women and history. From the panels to the open microphone night, the islander's community, along with 43 published poets from around the country, local high school students, and the general public came together to share their love of poetry.

    The panels were full of passionate readings and lively discussion. For the first time ever, musical poetry was performed at the event. The "Homebrewed" panel was made up of all local poets. The "From Page to the Stage" panel focused on slam (抨击) poetry, and the "Humor" panel greeted levels of laughter from the crowd. All the panels were live streamed on the People's Poetry Facebook page. "The poetry and poets were all my students wanted to talk about in class this week," said Dr. Chuck Etheridge, professor of English who attended many of the panel readings.

    Celebrating exceptional writers is another part of People's Poetry Festival. On opening night, the People's Poetry Festival committee named Madeline Ricondo of Tuloso-Midway as the winner of the Robb Jackson Writing Award for high school students. This award honors the late Dr. Robb Jackson, Texas A&M University System Regents Professor and professor of English at A&M-Corpus Christi, whose poetry shared his life experiences and observation of Corpus Christi. Ricondo received a $100 gift card, plus, three poetry books with local ties including a copy of Jackson's "Open Heart". The people's Poetry Festival committee also recognized Juan Manuel Perez, award-winning poet and local history teacher, as the 2019—2021 Poet Laureate (桂冠诗人) of Corpus Christi.