Go Green  Enjoy tap water

(1)IT'S THE RESPNSIBLE CHOICE

Producing plastic bottles and transporting water require a lot of energy and resources(资源)…just to land in the waste!

(2)  IT SAVES MONEY

Bottled water costs money. Tap water is free for you!

Go Green  Eat responsibly

 (1)                           

Shorter distance(距离) requires less transport fuels(燃料)…and less chemicals needed to keep food fresh.

(2)EAT LESS MEAT

Meat production needs a lot of resources.

(3)AVOID PACKING

Packaging requires energy and resources just to end up in the waste…

Go Green  Keep it on the screen

…and if printing cannot be avoided remember to:

PRINT DOUBLE-SIDED and in black-white.

Set the printer/copy machine to ENERGY SAVING model when done

REUSE single-sided printed paper for internal documents(内部文件) or as not paper…

Go Green  E-communicate

Reduce what gives out quite a lot of Greenhouse Gas(温室效应气体):instead of traveling, make use of VIDEO MEETING, WEB MEETING, and the good old phone.

  For more information visit www.greeningtheblue.org.

We've talked about snails (蜗牛) and their slow move. But much of the time snails don't move at all. They're in their shells —sleeping .

    Hot sun will dry out a snail's body. So at the least sign of hot sun, a snail draws its body into its shell and closes the opening with a thin cover. Then it goes to sleep. A snail will die in a heavy rain. So whenever it rains, it goes inside its shell house and goes to sleep. A snail can sleep for as long as it needs to. It can take a short sleep. Or it can sleep for days at a time. And it spends all the winter months in its shell, asleep.

    In spring the snail wakes up. Its body, about three inches long, comes out of from the shell. When hungry, the snail looks for food. It can't see very well. Its eyes, at the ends of the top feelers are very weak. But its sense of smell is very strong. It helps the snail to the new greens. Then the snail's little mouth goes to work.

    A snail's mouth is no longer than the point of a pin(针). Yet it has 256,000 teeth! The teeth are so small that you can't see them. But they do their work. If you put a snail in a hard paper box, it will eat its way out. And if a snail wears out its teeth, it will grow new ones.

    Mostly, a snail looks for food at night .But on cloudy days it eats in the daytime. It eats all day long. A snail can go on eating for hours and never feel full.

    Is your TV connected to the Internet? What about your chair, or your fridge? Probably they are not. But in the future, most things in your home may be connected, thanks to the so-called “Internet of things”.

    The Internet of things may be coming sooner than you think. Earlier this year, Samsung CEO spent a lot of time talking about the Internet things. He said that four years from now, every Samsung product will be part of the Internet of things, no matter whether it's a remote control or a washing machine.

    So, how do household objects that are part of the Internet of things work? Well, think of a common chair. When connected to the Internet, the chair warms up when it knows the user has just walked into the room and is feeling cold.

    An Internet-connected camera could help people feel safer in their homes. It can know people's faces and has an infrared sensor（红外传感器), so even if it's dark it can see when someone passes by and send you a message on your smartphone to let you know who's there. If the person is someone you don't know, it can tell you that, too.

    But according to MIT Technology Review, whether companies are connecting dog food bowls or security（安全）systems to the Internet, there may be some problems. For example, many early connected-home objects don't have much built-in security, which means they could be hacked. Moreover, it could be difficult to get these new machines to work together especially when they are made by different companies. To fight this, many companies have joined the Open Interconnect Consortium, which had 45 members by late 2015.

    So, picture this: you enter your home.The temperature changes to make you feel comfortable. Your favorite music starts playing for you. Do you think that this would be a good thing? It may happen sooner than you think.

    Have you heard about "Face Recognition (刷脸)" technology? It begins to become a popular and exciting development in China. In September 2017, a Kentucky Fried Chicken KPRO restaurant in Hangzhou utilized (利用) this new technology.

    Customers will go through the buffet (自助餐) line and then check out with their food using this "Just look with your face" payment method. When they get to the payment machine, they simply choose the Payment of facial recognition and then stand in front of the screen for 1-2 seconds. They then confirm their account and phone number and finish the payment process—all of it takes no more than 10 seconds!

    Nowadays, the words "Face Recognition" have become popular around China with the development of the ability to pay with facial recognition. Here are several examples of how you might hear the words in daily life in China. In Hangzhou, a high school provides a service where students can pay for meals by facial recognition. However, this isn't the only way we use the words in China! When you combine these characters together you also get another meaning: Jackie Chan got a dinner for free by "brushing his face".

    Do you know more about other meanings of "Face Recognition"? Please tell me more about it by sending an email to Susan2018@126.com or call me at 8524689. We'll talk about the topic next time.

    Each year more than2,500 people die and 12,600 are injured in home fires just in the UnitedStates, with direct property(财产) lossbecause of home fires at about $7.3 billion every year. Every day Americansexperience tile horror(惨状) of fires, but most people don'tunderstand fires.

    To protect yourself, itis important to learn something about home fires.

    In less than 30 secondsa small flame can get completely out of control and turn into a major fire. Itonly takes minutes for thick black smoke to fill a house or for it to be inflames. Most deadly fires occur in the home when people are asleep, lf yourealize a fire, you won't have time to take valuables because the fire spreadstoo quickly and the smoke is too thick. The fire uses up the oxygen you needand produces smoke and poisonous(有毒的) gases that kill. Breathing even small amounts of smoke and toxicgases can make you tired and sleepy, and short of breath. The smoke can causeyou to be a deep sleeper before the flames reach your door. You may not wake upin time to escape.

    Room temperatures in afire can be 100 degrees at floor level and rise to 600 degrees at eye level.Breathing in this super-hot air will burn your lungs. It can melt clothes toyour skin. In five minutes, a mom can get so hot that everything in it startsto burn at once.

    Fires are bright atfirst, but quickly produce black smoke and complete darkness. If you wake up toa fire you may be blinded, confused about where you are or which direction you shouldgo in and unable to find your way around the home you've lived in for years.

    Only when we know thetrue nature of fires can we prepare our families and ourselves.