New discoveries and technological breakthroughs are made every year. Yet, as the information industry moves forward, many people in society are looking back to their roots in terms of the way they eat. A "locavore" movement has emerged in the United States. The movement supports eating foods grown locally and sustainably, rather than prepackaged foods shipped from other parts of the world.

Experts hold that eating local has many merits, and is expected to become a trend featuring sustainability. Erin Barnett is the director of Local Harvest, a company that aims to help connect people to farms in their area. By eating local, she argues, people have a better and more personal understanding of the impact their food consumption has on the rest of the world. "There is a way of connecting the point, where eating locally is an act that raises our awareness of sustainable living," Barnett says.

The United States' agricultural output is one of the highest in the world, says Timothy Beach, a professor of geography and geoscience at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. "There's just no other place on Earth where the amount of input is so productive," Beach says of American agriculture. "Nobody can cut off the food we need."

However, the US food system is not sustainable because of its dependency on fossil (化石) fuels, says Beach. Equipment used on "extremely productive" farms is quickly consuming Earth's natural resources, particularly oil. Additionally, the production of agricultural supplements (补充剂)，such as fertilizer, uses large amounts of energy.

The world has used close to half of the global oil supply, Beach says, and the second half will be consumed at an even faster rate because of the growing population and economic development. Although many businesses are experimenting with wind, solar, and biofuel, Beach says there's nothing that we see on the horizon that can replace it. "There is no way on Earth we are using fossil fuels sustainably. Then we have to reconsider the impact of eating local," he says.

D

With the completion of the Human Genome（基因组）Project more than 20 years ago, and the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA enjoying its 70th birthday last year, you might assume that we know how life works. Think again!

Evolution has a 4bn-year head start on us. However, several aspects of the standard picture of how life works-the idea of the genome as a blueprint, of genes as instructions for building an organism, of proteins as precisely tailored molecular（分子）machines and more-have wildly reduced the complexity of life. 

In the excellent book How Life Works, Philip Ball explorers the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more delicate affair than we have understood. Ball explains that life is a system of many levels-genes, proteins, cells, tissues, and body modules-each with its own rules and principles, so there is no unique place to look for an answer to it. 

Also, How Life Works is a much more appealing title than the overused question of "What is life?". We should be less concerned with what a thing is, and rather more focused on what a thing does. Defining a living thing implies an unchangeable ideal type, but this will run counter to the Darwinian principle that living things are four-dimensional, ever changing in time as well as space.

But it's an idea that is deeply rooted within our culture. Ball points out that we rely on metaphors（比喻）to explain and explore the complexities of life, but none suffice. We are taught that cells are machines, though no machine we have invented behaves like the simplest cell; that DNA is a code or a blueprint, though it is neither; that the brain is a computer, though no computer behaves like a brain at all.

Ball is a terrific writer, pumping out books on incredibly diverse subjects. There's a wealth of well-researched information in here, and some details that are a bit chewy for the lay reader. But the book serves as an essential introduction on our never-ending quest to understand life.

We all know how it feels to get lost in a great book. But what's happening in our brains as we dive into it? How is it different from what happens as we experience real life? Now, a new study led by Dr Leila Wehbe and Dr Tom Mitehell of Carnegie Mellon University have provided partial answers to these questions. 

Since reading comprehension is a highly complex process, earlier studies tried to break that process down and focus on just one aspect at a time: mapping fMRI signatures（特征）associated with processing a single word or sentence, for example. "It's usually not like reading a book, and usually the stimulus（刺激物）consists of out-of-context sentences designed specifically for the experiment"

To address these issues, the researchers developed a computer program to look for patterns of brain activity that appeared when people read certain words, specific grammatical structures, particular characters" names and other aspects of the story—a total of 195 different "story features". In the study, they first asked eight volunteers to read Chapter 9 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and recorded their brain activity using an fMRI scanner（扫描仪）. Then the researchers fed the volunteers' fMRI data into their computer program and had the program identify the responses of different brain regions to the 195 features mentioned above. 

The result showed that when the volunteers read descriptions of physical movement in the story, there was significantly increased activity in the posterior temporal cortex, the region involved in perceiving real-world movement. Besides dialogue was specifically related with the right temporoparietal junction, a key area involved in imagining others thoughts and goals. "This is truly shocking for us as these regions aren't even considered to be part of the brain's language system," Wehbe says. 

Next, Wehbe and Mitchell hope to study how and why language processing can go wrong. "If we have a large enough amount of data", Wehbe says, "we could find the specific ways in which one brain—for example, the brain of a dyslexic（诵读困难的）person—is performing differently from other brains." And this, the researchers think, may someday help us design individually tailored（特制的）treatments for dyslexia and other reading disorders.

Grief ran through the first decade of my career. I photographed stories about terrible topics: immigration, conflict, war. On the cover of my notebook in 2019, I wrote, "Discover the joy again." It was intended to remind me to play more.

Sometimes I'd get a rare assignment where I could breathe — for example, photographing an article on tea for an airline magazine. I took the job hoping to make interesting, almost movie images, but at the end of the day, I found I'd made nothing of the sort. Packing up my camera, I felt like a failure.

On the drive back to the hotel, I noticed heavy steam rising from a building up ahead. Arriving at the scene, I opened the car door — and realized it was a tourist attraction traditionally pulled by a steam engine. Then, out of nowhere, a figure ran toward me. I picked up my camera and quickly made three pictures. One was out of focus. One was poorly composed. But one worked.

When I submitted my pictures to the editor for the tea article, this one wasn't chosen to be published, but I knew it meant something to me. I had been looking for good luck in my own life. This photograph symbolized exactly that.

I was 27 when I first traveled to India after the sudden passing of my father. Over many months, with my best friend, I traversed India with no phone, with limited Internet, and with healing as my compass. I climbed mountains, swam in the sea, and lived in relief entirely.

As I learned to travel to some of the world's cities with the largest population, I began to see life with more color and magic. I permitted myself to walk aimlessly, with no goal but to observe, and each moment became a dance. If this journey taught me anything, it's that what comes next will bring its own magic.

"I'm going to play basketball, Daddy." Lauren flew into my arms when I came in from work. "That's 1 , honey," I replied naturally. I thought she meant outside the house—on the driveway. Into the kitchen, my wife Helen's silence indicated I had 2 something. After a while, she spoke slowly, "Lauren is joining the girls' high-school basketball team."

I 3 my girl's sportsmanlike courage, but 4 was still in my stomach. Lauren was only just 1.55m tall. 5 legs and a heavy body were surely a(n) 6 for her in playing basketball.

Finally, the game day arrived. Lauren and her teammates moved out. Their game faces seemed 7 to win. At first, though not playing, Lauren followed the movement on the court and 8 every play. I could even 9 her shout "No way!" when a referee made an unfair call against a teammate. Sitting on the sidelines, Lauren still enjoyed the game very much.

Suddenly, the announcer's voice boomed, "Number thirty-three, Lauren Wray, in." My heart 10 wildly. What if she got injured or other girls on the team made fun of her? But what I saw was that Lauren made every effort to keep pace with the others. Just before the end of the game, they 11 the ball to Lauren. She caught it. She shot. 12 she scored!

The audience began clapping and 13 . Lauren's brown eyes shone as she wiped her sweaty forehead. Lauren's uplifting spirits and impressive performance, wrapped in a small 14 , struck everyone greatly. I felt enormously 15 to have Lauren as my daughter.

Growing up in poverty in rural Kenya,Nelly Cheboi watched her single mother work tirelessly so she could attend school. 

From an early age,she realized that her family,along with others like hers in their village, was1 a cycle that left them little hope. Cheboi attended college.2 a scholarship in the United States,worked odd jobs to support her family,and discovered her3 for computer science. She4 the success in finding jobs to her computer literacy. She knew she wanted to share it with her5 back home. 

Today,she's giving 4,000 kids the chance for a6 future through her nonprofit, TechLit Africa. The organization uses recycled7 to create technology labs in schools in rural Kenya. 

In 2018,she began8 recycled computers. She started small,carrying the machines to Kenya and9 customs fees and taxes herself. TechLit Africa now works with shipping companies to10 the donated computers so it's more cost11 . The donated hardware is12 to partner schools in rural Kenya,where students aged 4 to 12 receive daily classes and13 opportunities from professionals and gain skills that will help improve their education and prepare them for future jobs. 

"My hope is that when the first TechLit kids graduate from high school,they're able to get a job online14 they will know how to code,"Cheboi said. "The world is your oyster when you are educated. By bringing the resources,by bringing these skills,we are15 the world to them. "