When the Apollo astronauts (宇航员) landed on the Moon in 1969, millions of people were rather sad. The person to blame for this was an artist named Chesley Bonestell. For many years, Bonestell had been creating beautifully detailed paintings of the Moon and planets. Viewers of his artwork were unhappy because the real Moon did not look like Bonestell's pictures of it.

    As a space artist, Bonestell tried to make his drawings look exciting and as true as the Moon is. He worked closely with astronomers and scientists to get the most up-to-date scientific information available. But in the 1940s and 1950s, no one had ever seen another planet up close. Yet Bonestell's paintings looked so real that some people thought they were photographs.

    Even though Bonestell was interested in astronomy, he did not start out as a space artist. As a young man he studied architecture — the art and science of designing and making buildings. In 1938 Bonestell became a special effects artist in Hollywood. It was here that he learned he could improve his paintings by following the methods used in the movies.

    In 1944, a popular magazine published a series of Bonestell's paintings of the planet Saturn. He drew Saturn as if it were seen by someone standing on each of the planet's moons. The results were dazzling. Within a few years, Bonestell's artwork was appearing regularly in magazines and books on astronomy and space flight.

    Many of Bonestell's artworks had been right all along. But the biggest surprise was the Moon. Someone asked Bonestell what he was thinking when he saw the first pictures from the Moon. “I thought how wrong I was!” he said. “My mountains were sharp (陡峭的), and they aren't on the Moon.”

    But he shouldn't have felt bad. No space artist had ever before taken so many people to so many faraway worlds. In the years just before the first manned space flights, Bonestell's artwork prepared people for the amazing space adventure to come.

Last year I ruined my summer vacation by bringing along a modern convenience that was too convenient for my own good: the iPad. Instead of looking at nature, I checked my e-mail. Instead of paddling a small boat, I followed my Twitter feed (推特简讯). Instead of reading great novels, I stuck to reading four newspapers each morning. I was behaving as if I were still in the office. My body was on vacation, but my head wasn't.

So this year I made up my mind to try something different: withdrawal (退出) from the Internet. I knew it wouldn't be easy, since I'm bad at self-control. But I was determined. I started by giving the iPad to my wife.

    The cellphone signal at our house was worse than in the past, making my attempts at cheating an experience in frustration (沮丧). I was trapped, forced to go through with my plan. Largely cut off from e-mail, Twitter and my favorite newspaper websites, I had few ways to connect to the world except for the radio—and how much radio can one listen to, really? I had to do what I had planned to do all along: read books.

This experience has had a happy ending. With determination and the strong support of my wife, I won in my vacation struggle against the Internet, realizing finally that it was I, not the iPad, that was the problem. I knew I had won when we passed a Starbucks and my wife asked if I wanted to stop to use the Wi-Fi. “I don't need it,” I said.

However, as we return to post-vacation life, a harder test begins: Can I continue when I'm back at work?

There are times when the need to know what's being said right now is great. I have no intention of giving up my convenience completely. But I hope to resist the temptation (诱惑) to check my e-mail every five minutes, which leads to checking my Twitter feed and a website or two.

    I think a vacation is supposed to help you reset your brain to become more productive. Here I hope this one works.

    About twenty of us had been fortunate enough to receive invitations to a film-studio(影棚) to take part in a crowd-scene. Although our "act" would last only for a short time, we could see quite a number of interesting things.

    We all stood at the far end of the studio as workmen prepared the scene, setting up trees at the edge of a winding path. Very soon, bright lights were turned on and the big movie-camera was wheeled into position. The director shouted something to the camera operator and then went to speak to the two famous actors nearby. Since it was hot in the studio, it came as a surprise to us to see one of the actors put on a heavy overcoat and start walking along the path. A big fan began blowing tiny white feathers down on him, and soon the trees were covered in "snow". Two more fans were turned on, and a "strong wind" blew through the trees. The picture looked so real (that it made us feel cold).

    The next scene was a complete contrast (对比). The way it was filmed was quite unusual. Pictures taken on an island in the Pacific were shown on a glass screen(幕).An actor and actress stood in front of the scene so that they looked as if they were at the water's edge on an island. By a simple trick like this, palm trees, sandy beaches, and blue, clear skies had been brought into the studio!

    Since it was our turn next, we were left wondering what scene would be prepared for us. For a full three minutes in our lives we would be experiencing the excitement of being film "stars"!

    It is quite reasonable to blame traffic jams, the cost of gas and the great speed of modern life, but manners on the road are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men would become fierce tigers behind the wheel. It is all right to have a tiger in a cage, but to have one in the driver's seat is another matter altogether.

    Road politeness is not only good manners, but good sense too. It takes the most cool-headed drivers great patience to give up the desire to beat back when forced to face rude driving. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of quarrelling and fighting. A friendly nod or a wave of thanks in answer to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of good will and calm so necessary in modern traffic condition. But such behaviors of politeness are by no means enough. Many drivers nowadays don't even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.

    However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. Typical examples are the driver who waves a child crossing the street at a wrong place into the path of oncoming cars that may be not able to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they want to. It always amazes me that the highways are not covered with the dead bodies of these grannies (奶奶).

    An experienced driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if drivers learnt to correctly join in traffic stream without causing total blockages that give rise to unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately, modern drivers can't even learn to drive. Years ago, experts warned us that the fast increase of the car ownership would demand more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.

    On a hot summer weekend, Jorge Ayub saw the public beach north of Boston already crowded with nearly 1 million people drawn to the annual sand sculpture festival. Traffic on the nearby road was heavy, bands played music loudly, and later that night fireworks would light up the beach.

    And on the sand were four pairs of tiny shorebirds. These chicks(小鸟) were still too young to fly and a precious addition to the national endeavor to save a bird once down to 139 pairs in Massachusetts. It was Mr. Ayub's job. "Everyone made it," Ayub, a coastal ecologist reported at the end of the long weekend over the nests.

    Once common, piping plovers(笛鸻) were hunted and then squeezed out of their habitats(栖息地) by coastal development until, in 1986, the federal government listed the Atlantic Coastal birds as threatened. The bird's recovery has been halting. After three decades, the Atlantic population stands just under the 2,000-pair goal set by federal law.

    But the star has been Massachusetts, which has seen plovers increase to 687pairs from 139 pairs in 1986. One reason for that: "chick-sitting" in which conservationists sometimes spend all day watching over the birds.

    That progress has made Massachusetts the only East Coast state that decided to relax some Endangered Species Act restrictions: for example, to reduce the fenced-off areas and vehicle limits that have annoyed residents(居民).

    “Look at the stretch(一片土地), "Anyb says. "We had six nesting pairs between here and that bathhouse 600 yards away. By regulation, each nest should have 100 yards of fencing. We could have put up fencing and closed the beach all the way to the bathhouse."

    Instead, the plovers are surrounded in much smaller areas by "symbolic fencing". None of the 52 seawall entrances to the beach are closed. "If we put up too much fencing, people will be upset, and they are going to destroy it or walk right through the nesting areas," Ayub says. "By opening the beach, people are happier and the species does better."

The demographic landscape of the globe is witnessing a notable transformation characterized by an increase in the proportion of individuals who are in their senior years: it is anticipated that by the year 2025, individuals who have reached or surpassed the age of 60 will constitute a significant 20 percent of the total global populace. The advancements in socioeconomic progress have resulted in a scenario where a considerable number of individuals are attaining their later years in a state of better health, financial stability, and educational attainment compared to the generations that preceded them.

This burgeoning cohort of older individuals, endowed with considerable economic clout and unique requirements, is increasingly being recognized as the most rapidly expanding consumer segment across the globe. This presents lucrative opportunities for growth in numerous major industries. The market, which caters to the needs of individuals who are over the age of 50 and is colloquially referred to as the "silver economy," is currently valued at an impressive $15 trillion on a global scale. It is anticipated that this valuation will experience a dramatic surge as the demographic of older individuals continues to expand.

Crucially, the "silver economy" holds the potential to contribute not only to the economic prosperity of a nation but also to its social advancement. This is because when enterprises endeavor to augment their financial gains by devising solutions that address the challenges encountered by the elderly, they can concurrently generate social value by enhancing the living standards of individuals as they progress through their later years.

In the context of China, which boasts the largest elderly population globally with 216.8 million individuals who are 65 years or older, the number is projected to soar to 400 million by the year 2050. Consequently, the "silver economy" in China is expected to experience a threefold increase in value, escalating from $750 billion in 2020 to a staggering $2.1 trillion by the year 2030. It is further projected that this figure could soar to $4.2 trillion, representing a significant 10 percent of China's Gross Domestic Product by 2035.

The recently disseminated document titled "Opinions on Developing the Silver Economy and Improving the Well-being of Older Persons" marks the first instance of a specific policy guideline in China that is dedicated to the advancement of the "silver economy." The trajectory of China's progress over the forthcoming decade is poised to provide invaluable insights for emerging economies, shedding light on the optimal strategies for catering to the needs of an aging demographic while simultaneously capitalizing on the economic development opportunities presented by such a significant demographic shift.