More and more Americans are showing an interest in healthy and locally-produced food. As the interest increases, raising chickens has been gaining popularity in some American cities.

 “Look, we get three eggs this time.”

    Collecting eggs is a daily pleasure for the Hurst family. Naomi Hurst says her family started to raise chickens in back of their home in Maryland a month ago.

   “We have wanted to try having backyard chickens for a couple years now. And really just didn't have the time to build my own coop（鸡笼；鸡舍） and  look out where to buy chickens. And then we met Rent a Coop,” said Naomi Hurst. Rent a Coop is a chicken rental business. Tyler Phillips launched the company with a partner 18 months ago. It comes with a mobile coop on wheels, two egg-laying hens, feed, bedding, water bowl, feed bowl, and our 24-hour chicken hotline. You can call with any questions. The price is 185 dollars for four weeks. After the four weeks passed, individuals can extend the rental agreement, return everything or purchase the animals and supplies.

Tyler Phillips designs and makes the coops. He says he wants to do as little damage as possible to the environment.

 “We always try to have as many recycled materials as possible. And I want the coops to be safe for kids. I want the chickens to be comfortable and they have access to the grass while being inside the coop. I want it to be easily movable, light weight,” he said.

Some cities require people have large pieces of land, if they want to raise farm animals. Others require an agreement with neighbors, limit the number of chickens, or, even ban the birds.

  Tyler Phillips expects that would change as interest in small poultry (家禽) coops grows. 

“I see cities around the D. C. area changing laws almost monthly and different cities will change the law to being prochicken(赞成养鸡). That is happening all around the United States,” he said,

He believes that there will be chicken rental businesses in most American cities within five years.

    Justin Bieber is only fifteen years old and has become very popular already. He was raised (抚养) by his mother in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. When he was twelve he won second place in a local singing contest. He started posting (贴) videos of his contest performances on the Internet for his friends and family. Soon these videos had been seen more than ten million times.

    A music manager saw those videos and asked Justin to fly to Atlanta, Georgia, to meet the singer and songwriter Usher. A year later Justin released (发行) his first albumMy World. It sold over a million copies in the first two months. Four singles were released before the album. All became popular. This made Justin Bieber the only singer in the history of the Billboard magazine to have four singles from his first album among the most popular songs before the album's release.

    Justin Bieber performed for President Obama at the White House last December. He was part of a musical show that raised money for the National Children's Medical Center. He was also among the many singers who recorded the song We Are the World. The song was produced to raise money for Haiti. The video has been seen more than seven million times on the Internet. And it was shown during the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

    Justin Bieber's family did not have much money when he was young. He did not have as much so other children did. Justin says he wants to influence young people in a good way. He believes that you can do anything if you put your mind to it.

    If you thought pilots dimmed（调暗）the lights before takeoff to give you some shuteye, think again. Believe it or not, the dim lighting could actually help save your life in case of a plane emergency.

    The dimmed lights before taking off the runway and landing are a flight precaution used to help passengers' eyes adjust quicker during an emergency escape. “Going from a brightly lit environment to one that's completely dark would require some time for our eyes to focus and see the escape slide,” Alice Theriault, service director for Air Canada wrote in a press statement. “Since we need to have all the seconds on our side in the event of an emergency, dimming the lights is one of many steps we take to ensure the safety of our customers.”

    The phenomenon that your eyes see those strange speckles (小斑点) as your sight adjusts to a dark place after being in a light place is called dark adaptation. It normally takes our eyes about 20 to 30 seconds to see best in a dark room. The brighter the lights, the longer it takes for our eyes to adjust, which is why dimming the plane lights could shorten your “dark adaptation” time since you haven't been sitting under fluorescent bulbs (荧光灯) all flight.

    Not only does dimming lights add valuable time to the escape process, but it reduces the tension on your eyes if you need to look outside, or see the emergency lighting along the passage. “It helps keep you in the right direction.” Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and author of Cockpit Confidential told The Telegraph. “It also makes it easier for flight attendants to assess any outside risks, such as fire or debris, that might affect an escape.” So next time a pilot dims the lights, just know it's for your safety, even though it creates a gentle atmosphere for your takeoff into the sky.

    China has announced it's abolishing its one-child policy. What difference has it made, statistically speaking?

    400 million births prevented. The one-child policy, officially in place since 1979, has prevented 400 million births. Parents have faced fines and other punishments for having more children.

    The majority of the decrease in China's fertility(生育)rate happened in the 1970s.It dropped from 5.8 children per woman in 1970 to 2.7 in 1978. Despite the one-child policy the rate had only fallen to 1.7 by 2013. 21:28 baby death rate. Since the one-child policy was introduced, baby girls have become more likely to die than boys.

    In the 1970s, according to the United Nations, 60 males per 1,000 live births died under the age of one. For girls the figure was 53. In the 1980s, after the one-child policy became official, the rate for both was 36. By the 1990s, 26 males per 1,000 live births died before the age of one-and 33 girls. The 2000s saw 21 boys per 1,000 live births dying and 28 girls.

    1.16 boys born for every girl

    Sexually selective abortions have been considered as a major cause of China's unusual sexual imbalance.

    Gietel-Basten, associate professor in social policy at Oxford University, says the births of many girls are not registered if parents have broken the rule by having two children, adding officials often turn a blind eye. It's estimated there are now 33 million more men than women in China.

    4：2：1 families

    With the ageing of China's population and the continuation of the one-child policy, a “4: 2 :1”home is the description given to households in which there are four grandparents cared for by two working age parents, who themselves have one child.

    By 2050, it's predicted that a quarter of China's population will be 65 or older. The predicted decline in the number of people of working age is thought to have persuaded the government to drop the one-child policy.

    Around this time a few years ago, it was common to see videos of friends on social media having a bucket of icy water thrown on them. Known as the “ice bucket challenge”, it was created as a way to raise money for the medical condition ALS. But now, there's a new challenge and this time, no water is involved.

    What is it? Well, think of a fruit that you'd never normally sink your teeth into. Perhaps you've got it: a lemon. While we enjoy using lemons to add flavor to dishes, very few of us would actually eat one as we'd eat an apple or an orange.

    But the horrible taste is the precise reason why the “lemon face challenge” is taking off. Participants bite into a lemon, taking a selfie as they do it before posting the photo online. The fun is all about expression people make as all that citric acid (柠檬酸) hits their taste buds (味蕾). Every expression seems to say, “This is worse than freezing water.”

    The serious side to this trend is the good cause it's all in aid of. The challenge aims to raise awareness of a rare brain cancer that affects young children. It was started by Aubregh Nicholas, an 11-year-old US kid. She was diagnosed with this rare brain cancer herself in September 2017, but has since raised almost $50000 to cover her medical expenses thanks to the challenge.

    If a challenge is going to raise publicity and contributions from people, it has to be something interesting and original. That way the ice bucket challenge took off in 2014 and it explains why so many people are now sharing their lemon faces. There are a lot of stories about the downside of social media these days. The charity challenges, however, show how online culture can unite the world and bring help to the people who most need it.

     At one time, computers were expected largely to remove the need for paper copies of documents because they could be stored electronically. But for all the texts that are written, stored and sent electronically, a lot of them are still ending up on paper.

     It is difficult to measure the quantity of paper used as a result of the use of Internet-connected computers, although just about anyone who works in an office can tell you that when email is introduced, the printers start working overtime. "I feel in my bones this revolution is causing more trees to be cut down," says Ted Smith of the Earth Village Organization.  

     Perhaps the best sign of how computer and Internet use pushes up demand for paper comes from the high-tech industry itself, which sees printing as one of its most promising new markets. Several Internet companies have been set up to help small businesses print quality documents from a computer. Earlier this week Hewlett-Packard Co. announced a plan to develop new technologies that will enable people to print even more so they can get a hard copy of a business document, a medical record or just an online email, even if they are nowhere near a computer. As the company sees it, the more use of the Internet the greater demand for printers.

     Does all this mean environmental concerns have been forgotten? Some activists suggest people have been led to believe that a lot of dangers to the environment have gone away. "I guess people believe that the problem is taken care of, because of recycling," said Kelly Quirke, director of the Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco. Yet Quirke is hopeful that high-tech may also prove helpful. He says printers that print on both sides are growing in popularity.

     The action group has also found acceptable paper made from materials other than wood, such as agricultural waste.