Dust on furniture may be bad news for waistlines (腰围). But it's far too early to add dusting to a weight-loss plan. Dietary fats and other materials that make up indoor dust can send a signal to human fat cells, telling them to grow. That process, in turn, might slow the body's rate of burning energy. Such changes could add to any weight problems a person might have.

    “We don't know what that means to long-term health and certain diseases yet,” says Heather Stapleton, one of the study's authors. But she notes that her team's findings also raise a question of whether pollutants in dust might play some role in the growing, global problem of obesity (肥胖).

    Stapleton and her colleagues collected dust from homes and offices. Studies found that some materials in the dust could turn on a protein (蛋白质) called PPAR-gamma 1. It's found in many human tissues. Turning this protein on can cause fat cells to grow. Researchers think this protein may be involved in obesity. But a second study now finds evidence that certain fats are mostly to blame. Cooking oils may send out some of these fats into the air, where they eventually find their way into house dust. Or, the authors say, the fats might enter house dust as part of the hair or skin cells shed (脱落) by people or pets.

    “While the findings are amazing,” says Mitchell Lazar, another study author, “these findings need to be taken as very limited.” Indeed, he adds several cautions about how the findings should be understood. “For one thing, people eat these fats in foods all of the time. That is likely to be a lot more than would be consumed from indoor dust,” he said.

    Every people uses its own special word to show its ideas and feelings. Some of these expressions（表达，说法） are commonly used for many years. Others are popular for just a short time. One such American expression is “Where's the beef?” It is used when something is not as good as it is said to be. In the early 1980s “Where's the beef?” was one of the most popular expressions in the United States. It seemed as if everyone using it at the time.

    Beef, of course, is the meat from a cow, and food is more popular in America than a hamburger made from beef. In the 1960s a businessman named Ray began building small restaurants that sold hamburgers at a low price. Ray called this “McDonald's”. Ray became one of the richest businessmen at last in America.

    Other business people watched his success. Some of them opened their own hamburger restaurants. One company called “Wendy's” said its hamburgers were bigger than those sold by McDonald's or anyone else. The Wendy's Company began to use the expression “Where's the beef?” to make people know that Wendy's hamburgers were the biggest. The Wendy's television advertisement showed three old women eating hamburgers. The bread that covered the meat was very big, but inside there was only a bit of meat. One of the women said she would not eat a hamburger with such a little piece of beef. “Where's the beef?” she shouted in a funny way. The advertisement for Wendy's hamburger restaurants was success. As we said, it seemed everyone began using the expression “Where's the beef?”.

    Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman

    This novel tells the story of Shawn McDaniel,a 14-year-old boy with brain disease.He is highly intelligent,yet unable to move his muscles anti communicate.Through his first-person description,he remains positive about his life, even when people treat him like his brain is damaged.This short novel forces young readers to think about the assumptions they make about people with disabilities,and also addresses euthanasia（安乐死）and quality of life as relevant social problems.

     Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

     Frank McCourt's New York Times bestselling memoir（回忆录）tells the story of his life growing up as an extremely poor child in Ireland and how he overcame those circumstances.He wrote the story to inspire young readers to make the most of what they have,and call on them to continue trying and overcome any difficulties they may face.

    The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch & Jeffrey Zazlow

    In 2006,when he was only 45 years old,Randy Pausch suffered from cancer and learned he had only three to six months to live.Inspired by a professor's inspirational lecture,Pausch co-authored a book named The Last Lecture with Jeffrey Zazlow within a few short months.In spite of his disease,the book,is surprisingly encouraging.It encourages young readers to focus on what's truly important in life.

    The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

    This story has become a classic clue to its honest look at the everyday lives of teenagers.Through the eyes of the 15-year-old writer,Charlie,the novel details the daily trails that many teenagers face,but it also deals with social problems like drug abuse.It also focuses on the roles that friendship,family and love play in helping us get through difficult times.

    Imagine a mass of floating waste is two times the size of the state of Texas. Texas has a land area of more than 678,000 square kilometers. So it might be difficult to imagine anything twice as big. All together, this mass of waste flowing in the North Pacific Ocean is known as the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch（太平洋垃圾带）. It weighs about 3,500,000 tons. The waste includes bags, bottles and containers-plastic products of all kinds.

    The eastern part of the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch is about 1,600 kilometers west of California. The western part is west of the Hawaiian Islands and east of Japan. The area has been described as a kind of oceanic desert, with light winds and slow moving water currents（流，流动）. The water moves so slow that garbage from all over the world collects there.

    In recent years, there have been growing concerns about the floating garbage and its effect on sea creatures and human health. Scientists say thousands of animals get trapped in the floating waste, resulting in death or injury. Even more die from a lack of food or water after swallowing pieces of plastic. The trash can also make animals feel full, diminishing their desire to eat or drink.

    The floating garbage also can have harmful effects on people. There is an increased threat of infection（感染）of disease from polluted waste, and from eating fish that swallowed waste. Divers can also get trapped in the plastic.

    Its existence first gained public attention in 1997. That was when racing boat captain and oceanographer Charles Moore and his crew sailed into the garbage while returning from a racing event. Five years earlier, another oceanographer learnt of the trash after a shipment of rubber duckies got lost at sea. Many of those toys are now part of the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.

    In August,2017, a team from the University of California, San Diego became the latest group to travel to it. They were shocked by the amount of waste they saw. They gathered hundreds of sea creatures and water samples to measure the garbage patch's effect on ocean environment.

    As he applied sunscreen to his young daughter's face, Dara O'Rourke, a professor of environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley, found himself wondering if the lotion(霜) was safe. He realized there was no readily available answer. The result—two years, a team of chemists, lots of testing and venture capital(风险投资) later—is GoodGuide. com. Launched in 2008, this is a website with a smart phone app that rates 140, 000 consumer products (only in America) according to their safety, environmental sustainability and the ethics of the firms that make them. Now GoodGuide has created a new “purchase analyzer” app designed to inform consumers not just about the values attached to products, but also about whether they are the virtuous(有信誉的) shoppers they say they want to be.

    Using the new app requires selecting a series of characteristics, which range from whether the user favours organic products to buying only from firms with a good human-rights record. Consumers then scan the bar code on a product with the camera in their smart phones. The app identifies it and checks in a database to score it. Much therefore depends on the quality of the data, which GoodGuide gathers from various sources, including government reports, scientific studies, and research by its own staff. If the product scores badly, the app will recommend an alternative item which is rated more highly. The app also tracks a consumer's purchases to see how well he lives up to his selected values, giving a sort of personal virtue rating.

    So far, GoodGuide has mostly been used by shoppers who are keen to know about any issues connected with products they buy. They are mothers concerned about a child's health, older people facing a chronic(慢性的) illness or supporters of a cause, such as animal rights. The hope behind the app is that the idea of finding out about a product's background will become the mainstream.

    Consumers rarely change their buying habits, even when provided with scientific and other data, says Mr O'Rourke. So he has drawn on insights from behavioral economics, which show shoppers can be greatly influenced by peer pressure and by information passed on to them by people they know. The app tries to take advantage of these pressures. The virtue rating will inform consumers how well they are doing according to the values they espouse(拥护). That measurement encourages them to do better. Soon, the rating will be able to be shared with others on social media sites such as Facebook, which could inspire a shopper to consume more thoughtfully.

Apple Seeds

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Product Description: Apple Seeds is an award winning magazine filled with stories for kids aged from 7 to 9. The cover is very soft, providing durability（耐用性） that allows each issue to be enjoyed for many years to come. Besides, there is a big surprise for you — it's being sold at a more favorable discount than usual.

Better Life

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    Product Description: Designed for those who have a strong interest in personal lifestyle, Better Life is America's complete home and family service magazine. It offers help with food, recipes, decorating, building, gardening, family health, money management, and education.
Humor Times

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News China

    Circulation: 1 Year, 12 Issues

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    Product Description: News China Magazine is the English edition of China Newsweek. The magazine covers the latest Chinese domestic news in politics, business, society, environment, culture, sports and travels, etc. It is the first comprehensive news magazine for readers interested in China.