Living among trees, plants and flowers can fill your life with beauty. And if you are a woman, it can also help you live longer. Researchers found that women who live in homes surrounded by plants appear to have lower death rates than women who live in areas with fewer plants.

    Researchers at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health reported the finding. They looked at the information from one of the largest and oldest investigations of the women's health: the Nurse's Health Study. It began 40 years ago. It now has information on nearly 200,000 women.

    For the new study, the team looked at the death rates of more than 100,000 women between the years 2000 and 2008. Then the researchers compared the death rates of these women to the plants around their homes. The researchers also considered other things, such as the age of the women, money they earn and race. They also looked at whether or not the women smoked.

    The study found that the death rate among women who lived in the greenest spaces was 12% lower than those from the least green areas. The researchers were surprised to find such a strong connection between high vegetation levels and low death rates.

    The study suggested that living among trees, flowers and other plants lowered levels of depression. Researchers said women in greener areas spent more time with other people and exercised more. It is common knowledge that plants can help the environment in many ways. The new finding also suggested ways to the government and the city planners to grow even healthier living areas.

    Flying for a long time, you finally arrive at the place where you can relax—your hotel room. Now you throwyour bag on the bed, turn on the TV and watch an international news programme on a satellite channel probably from UK or the USA.

    The main international broadcasters are BBC World and CNN. With an audience of over 1.5 billion people, these are popular channels that offer good-quality news programmes. In both companies, the journalists are experienced writers that produce journalism of a high standard.

    However, there are alternative news channels which people watch because they want a less traditional or non-Western view on world events. Russia Today and Al Jazeera International, an Arabic company, are international channels that broadcast in English. Both companies say they give a fresh view on big stories, and their experienced journalists often report from places where Western journalists do not work, and so they give us stories that we don't normally see.

    The Internet offers more variety. OneWorldTV is an Internet site where you can find stories about the developing world and human rights, rather than the usual stories about US politics and business. The writers for this company are often local people who write the stories for free. This non-professional journalism is increasing, and it certainly offers more choices.

    This increase in citizen journalism means that you can write the news, too. Main news broadcasters often use photographs and stories that members of the general public send to them, especially when there is a dramatic breaking news story. Besides this, some blogs are popular sources of news, and the website NowPublic lets you write stories using information you can get from anywhere, including sites like Youtube, Flickr and Twitter.

    Sports can help us a lot. Taking exercises can make us strong. In collective（集体的）sports like basketball, volleyball or football, we will learn the importance of cooperation(合作). And sports can also help us relax after work or study.

    However, as the saying goes, “there are two sides of everything.” Sometimes we may hurt other players or ourselves if we are not careful enough when participating(参加) in sports activities. What's more, too much or hard practice can be bad for our health.

    Sports can make us healthy both physically and psychologically(心理地). It is also a good way for people to know each other and can improve friendship between people. So long as we are careful enough, sports can do us nothing but good.

    Considering that Sundarbans National Park is situated in thetropics, Septemberto March is the ideal time to come here. April, May and June are too hot while July andAugust often bring heavy season winds that limit travel and don't make for avery pleasant sightseeing experience. You can really enjoy doing lots ofcharming things in the Sundarbans during September to March.

    Take a river tour

    Most tourists who explore the Sundarbans arrive in KhulnaCity first. Fromthere, youcan join a boat tour that travels south along the Ganges River through miles ofpreserved forest all the way to Kotka, where there is a beautiful beach alongthe Bay of Bengal.

    Visit a bird habitat

    This bird habitat is a nesting place for dozens of tropicalbirds found in the Sundarbans. The best way to observe these birds isclimbing up the Sajnekhali Watchtower. If you're lucky, you'll also catch the famed BengalTiger making its rounds through the swampy jungle.

    Visit the Mangrove(红树林)Interpretation Centre

    If you wish to spend some time indoors out of the sweatyheat, goto the Mangrove Interpretation Centre. This place is very educational withmany posters, mapsand exhibits showing the wildlife and varieties of mangrove plants found withinthe park. You'llalso get to see crocodiles in a small pool.

    Take a tour of local villages

    Experience village life that has largely remained unchangedfor centuries. Inthis vast tropical region, there are villages made up of variousethnic groups who rely on fishing, farming and working in the localthrough growing tourist industry for their livelihoods. The Sundarbans is a UNESCO worldheritage site where you can visit villages and talk to locals,who will gladly sharetheir culture with you.

    Without proper planning, tourism can cause problems. For example, too many tourists can crowd public places that are also enjoyed by the inhabitants of a country. If tourists create too much traffic, the inhabitants become annoyed and unhappy. They began to dislike tourists and to treat them impolitely. They forget how much tourism can help the country's economy. It is important to think about the people of a destination country and how tourism affects them. Tourism should help a country keep the customs and beauty that attract tourists. Tourism should also advance the wealth and happiness of local inhabitants.

    Too much tourism can be a problem. If tourism grows too quickly, people must leave other jobs to work in the tourism industry. This means that other parts of the country's economy can suffer.

    On the other hand, if there is not enough tourism, people can lose jobs. Business can also lose money. It costs a great deal of money to build large hotels, airports, air terminals, first­class roads, and other support facilities needed by tourist attractions. For example, a major international class tourism hotel can cost as much as 50 thousand dollars per room to build. If this room is not used most of the time, the owner of the hotel lose money.

    Building a hotel is just a beginning. There must be many support facilities as well, including roads to get to the hotel, electricity, sewers to handle waste, and water. All of these support facilities cost money. If they are not used because there are not enough tourists, jobs and money are lost.

If there was one good thing to come out of lockdowns, it was improve book sales and rates of reading, especially among children. A survey of 70,000 children and young people by the National Literacy Trust, however, has found this gain is now gone: figures are now equal to just before the pandemic (疫情), when the trust recorded the lowest levels of reading enjoyment (just under 50%) since it first asked the question 17 years ago. Another study of 8,000 five-to eight-year-olds at the same time found that nearly one in five did not have a book at home.

These questions are not about basic literacy (读写能力) but about the habit of reading: the children surveyed spoke of books giving them subjects to talk about; of entertainment and information; of reading helping them to understand people unlike themselves; of finding in books a place of escape; of aid in dealing with difficulty. "It helps me in learning about what I'm feeling. That .That is because I have a hard time expressing my emotions and would rather not bother anyone," as one child put it.

Children who read at home are six times more likely to be able to read above expected levels, while one study of 160,000 adults from 31 countries found children whose homes held least 80 books, books, but whose schooling ended at 13 or 14, were as literate, numerate and technologically intelligent in adulthood as university graduates who grew up with only a few books. Another found these children also went on to earn more.

It is not that most parents and carers don't understand this. A reason often cited for the lack of books at home is the cost of living. Almost a fifth of Britain's public libraries have closed in 10 years, while one in eight primary schools in England, rising to one in four in disadvantaged communities, do not have a s, do not have a library or designated (指定的) reading space. Compared with other problems this country faces, providing varied reading materials relatively straightforward to fix. We owe it to children to do so.