Allow me to introduce you to Terry, a window salesman from England. If I could take you back about 20 years, you'd know Terry as a complete green hand, who was wet behind the ears in just about everything he attempted. A person couldn't sell false teeth to his own Granny, let alone he could compete with the other salespeople in the industry. You know, the kind who could sell snow to Eskimos.

    Terry's boss decided to send him out on a practical field trip on his first day. So off he went, but he was extremely nervous. With his hands and his knees shaking, he approached the front door and knocked at it. And an old woman appeared. After dozens of cups of tea and pieces of biscuits, the woman signed a contract and purchased over $7,000 worth of windows.

    The woman had already talked with 6 excellent salesmen that week, all of whom offered her cheaper ones! That's right—Terry's price was the most expensive and he was also the most inexperienced salesman there ever was.

    So, what happened then? Here comes the secret. The woman said she liked the young lad more than the others. That's all there was to it. She didn't care about the extra expense. Even the other salesmen couldn't persuade her to pay less than this young lad was asking for.

    The truth is that the young lad left on the woman the first impression that shone brighter than any of the salesman's talk. First impressions count, not the sales techniques, not the low prices. The actual “personality” the kid honestly gave was all that was required. If you market your own products and services, consider what impression you are giving to others. If you appeal to them, then you've already done half of the work. If this means redesigning your presentation, then so be it. If this means going out of your way to be polite, helpful and giving the best possible shopping experience to your customers, the so be it.

    You've just come home, after living abroad for a few years. Since you've been away, has this country changed for the better—or for the worse?

    If you've just arrived back in the UK after a fortnight's holiday, small changes have probably surprised you—anything from a local greengrocer suddenly being replaced by a mobile-phone shop to someone in your street moving house.

    So how have things changed to people coming back to Britain after seven, ten or even 15 years living abroad? What changes in society can they see that the rest of us have hardly noticed—or now take for granted? To find out, we asked some people who recently returned.

    Debi: When we left, Cheltenham, my home town, was a town of white, middle-class families—all very conservative (保守的). The town is now home to many eastern Europeans and lots of Australians, who come here mainly to work in hotels and tourism. There are even several shops only for foreigners.

    Having been an immigrant (移民) myself, I admire people who go overseas to find a job. Maybe if I lived in an inner city where unemployment was high, I'd think differently, but I believe foreign settlers have improved this country because they're more open-minded and often work harder than the natives.

    Christine: As we flew home over Britain, both of us remarked how green everything looked. But the differences between the place we'd left behind and the one we returned to were brought sharply into focus as soon as we landed.

    To see policemen with guns in the airport for the first time was frightening—in Cyprus, they're very relaxed—and I got pulled over by customs officers just for taking a woolen sweater with some metal-made buttons out of my case in the arrivals hall. Everyone seemed to be on guard. Even the airport car-hire firm wanted a credit card rather than cash because they said their vehicles had been used by bank robbers.

    But anyway, this is still a green, beautiful country. I just wish more people would appreciate what they've got.

    The past two decades have seen astronomers' catalogue of planets expand over two hundred times, as new techniques and better telescopes have found more than 2,000 of them orbiting stars other than the sun. But in the solar system itself, the list of planets has actually shrunk, Pluto（冥王星）having been downgraded from that status in 2006. The number of the sun's planetary companions has thus fallen from nine to eight.

    Now, a pair of astronomers from the California Institute of Technology think they have evidence that will restore the sun's record to its previous value. Their analysis of objects orbiting in the Kuiper Belt（柯伊伯带）, a ring of frozen asteroids（小行星）that circle beyond the orbit of Neptune (and of which Pluto is now regarded as the largest member), suggests to them that something about ten times as massive as Earth has changed those orbits. If you knew where to look, this planet-sized object would be visible through a suitable telescope. And Konstanin Batygin and Michael Brown believe they do know.

As they write in the Astronomical journal, they have analyzed the orbits of Kuiper Belt objects and found six that behave in a peculiar way. As the diagram shows, the points of closest approach of these objects to the sun, known as their perihelia（近日点）, almost coincide. Moreover, these perihelia all lie near the ecliptic（黄道）—the plane of Earth's orbit and also, approximately, that of the other planets—while the objects' orbits are all angled at 30° below the ecliptic. The chance of all this being a coincidence, the two researchers estimate, is about seven in 100,000. If it is not a coincidence, it suggests the six objects have been guided into their orbits by the gravitational intervention of something much larger.

    A computer analysis Dr Batygin and Dr Brown performed suggests this something is a planet weighing 5-15 times as much as Earth, whose perihelion is on the opposite side of the sun from the cluster, and which thus orbits mainly on the other side of the solar system from the objects its orbit has affected. This planet's perihelion would be 200 times farther from the sun than Earth's, and the far end of its orbit might be as much as six times that distance away. This gives a search zone, and Dr Batygin and Dr Brown are using Subaru, a Japanese telescope, to perform that search.

    Given other demands on Subaru's time, it might take five years for this search to find (or not find) the hypothetical planet. But looking at some existing data from. The Widefield Infrared Survey Explore, a satellite, might also show it, if it is there to be seen.

    Ironically, it was Dr Brown as much as anyone who was responsible for Pluto's downgrading, for he discovered Eris, an object almost as big as Pluto, in 2005.

    That discovery did much to damage Pluto's planetary proof. By his own admission, he was skeptical that the anomalies he and Dr Batygin have investigated actually would point to the existence of a replacement ninth planet. He is a skeptic no longer. Whether he is actually right may soon become apparent.

    The organizing committee of the China International Import Expo has organized 45 city tour routes to help participating merchants gain a better understanding of the city and its industrial strengths. Below are 16 of the routes, with each located within a different district. These routes will showcase the architecture, history, culture, economy, technology and ecological protection efforts within each area.

    Waigaoqiao "6+365" Exhibition Trading Platform

    The "6+365" One-Stop Trading Services Platform aims to promote the operations of the CIIE. Professional services are available at this venue all year round. Among the buildings that can be toured is the International Automobile Exhibition Trading Center.

    The Bund（外滩）

    Apart from its classic architecture and waterfront views, the Bund, one of the most well-known attractions in Shanghai, is home to many major financial organizations.

    Nanjing Road Tour

    Visitors will get to tour this famous commercial street that features high-end shopping options and cultural offerings.

    West Bund Area

    The area is home to major enterprises' artificial intelligence deployments such as Microsoft, Tencent, Xiaomi and NetEase.

    Experience Shanghai Culture

    Visitors will walk along Yuyuan Road, an old street in Changning district that is said to be the most representative of Shanghainese style.

    Fintech Tour

    Here, visitors can explore cloud computing, artificial intelligence and block chain through visits to the Shanghai Science and Technology Financial Cluster Area.

    Shanghai Culture Trail

    This tour allows guests to experience Shanghai culture through visits to many former residences of celebrities.

    Innovation Valley

    Visitors will get to see the Changyang Campus which is well-known for its innovative efforts as well as similar companies and unicorn enterprises.

    Baoshan Riverside & Ecology

    Tour locations include the Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal and the WusongPaotaiwan Wetland Forest Park.

    Minhang Culture

    This tour has a focus on cultural and creative industries where people can learn about traditional handicraft.

    Intelligent Connected Vehicle Tour

    Visitors will get to see the Shanghai International Automobile City in the district.

    A place for paintings

    Fengjing old town is well-known for its farmer paintings.

    Ecological Songjiang

    Visitors can admire the scenes of nature at the Sheshan Natural Forest Park.

    In today's society, almost half of all marriages in America end in divorce, which means many children have divorced parents, and I am by no means a rare case. There are plenty of other people understanding the difficulty of having separated parents and living in two households. Despite this, people who haven't personally experienced divorce really have no idea what it's like.

    My parents have handled divorce and joint custody（监护）well, at least better than expected. Occasionally my parents put up the curtain to block my brother and I from the reality and I will get a glimpse of the not-so-bright-and-sunny reality, the fact that my parents simply don't like each other, let along get along. They try to make sure my brother and I don't overhear the argument and do their best to keep my brother and I out of their issues.

    Last Mother's Day I woke up at my dad's house with a text message from my mom saying," Call me when u can." I rolled out of bed and dated her number. On other end of the phone I could hear my mom's trembling voice." Your dad isn't letting me have you until 7 tonight." I knew Mother's Day was important to her and me. I began to get angry with my dad, but I told myself that getting mad and fueling my mom's anger towards my dad wouldn't help. Later my father told me that he had planned to spend time with my grandma and step-mom for Mother's Day, which I understood and accepted but I also understood why my mom wouldn't accept it.

    While having divorced parents is difficult, I have learned a lot about how to deal with conflict from an early age and I've been blessed with an extremely large family, which is an amazing network of support.

Perhaps you know them as "taters," "spuds," or "Kennebees," or as "chips," "Idahoes," or even "shoestrings. " No matter, a potato by any other name is still a potato - the world's most widely grown vegetable. As a matter of fact, if you are an average potato eater, you will put away at least 100 pounds of them each year. 

That's only a tiny amount grown every year, however. Worldwide, the annual potato harvest is over 6 billion bags. Each bag contains 100 pounds of potatoes, some of them as large as four pounds each. Here in the United States, farmers fill about 400 million bags a year. That may seem like a lot of "taters, " but it leaves the United States a distant third among world potato growers. Polish farmers dig up just over 800 million bags a year, while the Russians lead the world with nearly 

1. 5 billion bags. 

People eat potatoes in many ways-baked, mashed, and roasted, to name just three. However, in the United States most potatoes are devoured in the form of French fries. One fast-food chain alone sells more than $1 billion worth of fries each year. No wonder, then, that the company pays particular attention to the way its fries are prepared. 

Before any fry makes it to the people who eat at these popular restaurants, it must pass many separate tests. Fail any one of these tests and the potato is rejected. For example, only Russet Burbank potatoes are used. These Idaho potatoes have less water content than other kinds, which can have as much as 80 percent water. Once cut into "shoestrings" shapes, the potatoes are partly fried in a secret blend of oils, sprayed with liquid sugar to brown them, steam dried at high heat, then flash frozen for shipment to individual restaurants. 

So, now that you realize the enormous size and value of the potato crop, you can understand why most people agree that this part of the food industry is no "small potatoes. "