You need some bread and milk. But half an hour later, you leave the supermarket with a trolley（推车）full of food. What games do supermarkets play to make us spend so much money?

    The tricks usually start before you walk in. Outside the supermarket entrance, anybody who walks past can smell warm, fresh bread. That makes us hungry and ready to buy lots of food, not just bread.

    Now you're inside and, of course, a small basket would be fine, but all they have are trolleys. And of course the problem with a trolley is that it looks sad and lonely with just one or two goods inside. So we may fill it with something. In fact, supermarket trolleys are actually getting bigger so that we buy more.

    Of course, many people shop in supermarkets because they think everything is cheaper than in other shops. So supermarkets offer very cheap prices on some things but then have higher prices for other goods. One new trick is to put red stickers（标签）on them. Customers usually connect red stickers with lower prices so the red stickers is easy to be seen, even when there is no reduction! Interestingly, this trick appears to work more with men than with women.

    There is a story behind the position of everything in the supermarket. The most expensive goods are usually at eye-level so you see these immediately. The exception is anything that children might like. These goods are on lower shelves so that kids see them.

    Apart from what you see and smell in a supermarket, what about what you listen to? In most supermarkets they have soft, slow music. It's so relaxing that you slow down and spend more time (and money) in the store. Experts suggest it's better to shop when it's quieter, on a Monday or a Tuesday for example. And be careful with queues at the checkouts（收银台）. These are sometimes on purpose, to make you buy something from the checkout shelves while you wait.

    So, next time you go into your local supermarket, remember these tricks and see if you can come with just the things you went for.

    The FBI is investigating the disappearance of a visiting Chinese scholar from a central Illinois university town as a kidnapping(绑架) as her whereabouts(下落) have remained unknown since Friday.

    Zhang Yingying, 26, was last seen on June 9 near the north end of the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), wearing a charcoal-colored baseball cap, a pink and white top, jeans and white tennis shoes and carrying a black backpack. She boarded a Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District bus and exited the West Springfield and North Mathews avenues at 1:52 pm local time (1852 GMT), police said.

    The FBI has labeled the case as a kidnapping but isn't ruling out anything, said Campus police spokesman Patrick Wade. The suspect appears to be a white male who was in a car and stopped to talk to Zhang on Friday afternoon, the FBI said. Almost one month into a year long appointment at the UIUC campus, Zhang's friends told police that she was heading to an apartment complex in Urbana to sign a lease(租约).

    Security camera footage(连续镜头) on Monday released by university police showed that Zhang talked to the driver of a black Saturn Astra, about five blocks from where she got off a bus in Urbana on Friday afternoon. She entered the car shortly thereafter. Zhang has not been seen or heard from since then and attempts to contact her by phone remain unsuccessful. Authorities have asked the public to help identify that vehicle.

    A massive search has been launched in Urbana in the US state of Illinois since Zhang's disappearance. Police are interviewing with her colleagues, checking local hospitals and coordinating with ride hailing(打车) companies as part of their investigative efforts.

    In an interview with Xinhua through Wechat on Thursday, Zhang Ronggao, father of the ,missing visiting scholar from china's Fujian Province, expressed gratitude to all the people involved in the search and asked US police to accelerate the search.

    Steven Spielberg never fails to blow us away with his imagination.

    The US director's latest film Ready Player One, which was released in Chinese mainland cinemas on March 30, is a story set in the year 2045, when people escape their hopeless everyday lives by putting on a VR mask and entering a virtual (虚拟的) world named Oasis. This fantasy land is filled with characters and settings right out of classic films and videogames like The Shining and Overwatch. It's a feast both for the eyes and mind. And at the age of 71, Spielberg is still “at the top of his game”, wrote reporter Rafer Guzman on Newsday.

    Indeed, Spielberg has always been a gamer himself or rather a game changer. When his thriller Jaws came out in 1975, it struck a chord (引起共鸣) with audiences all over the world and kept people from going swimming for fear. The film was also the first example of what we now know as summer blockbusters.

    “Jaws invented that form of pleasurable entertainment, wrote Stephen Marche on Esquire. It also turned sharks, in the popular imagination, from fish into monsters.”

    And again, in his 1982 film E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial Spielberg challenged people's beliefs that aliens are something to be feared by telling a story about a loving friendship between a space creature and a little boy. “Spielberg redefined popular sci-fi”, wrote Marc Lee on The Telegraph. “Extra-terrestrials no longer had to be a threat to humanity: the universe, he was saying, is also full of awe and wonder.”

    Now comes Ready Player One. When Wade Watts, the film's teenage protagonist (主角), finally prevents Oasis from falling into the wrong hands, he's given ownership of the virtual world by its late designer James Halliday. But Watts makes a decision that he hopes will make people want to appreciate their real lives, instead of spending all their free time escaping reality in Oasis, which is a real-life message that Spielberg is trying to deliver to the audience.

    I was at the chemist collecting my daughter's medication and she asked me to go into the shop next door to get some energy drinks for her.She was about to travel on a train and she tires easily.The shop did not have what she wanted so I went to the garage near my home.As I came out of the garage I could see Margaret across the busy road. I thought to myself she-d just got off the bus and was on her way to her daughter's house which is next door to me.I thought I'd give her a lift to her daughter's house.

    Then from across the busy road I could see the elderly lady I thought was Margaret going in a different direction down a different side street.I was surprised because I was really sure it was Margaret.In fact,I was so sure that I took the trouble of waiting to drive across the busy road to go to Margaret.

    By the time I caught up with the elderly lady she was at the bottom of a dead end and looked confused as she didn't recognize where she was.It was indeed Margaret.Though I have spoken to her before and given her a lift,she needed reminded of who I was.Margaret got in my car.

    We arrived at her daughter's house,it seemed in darkness and I didn't think Julie was in.I told Margaret to go and check.I had to take Lauren to the train station.If Julie wasn't at home I'd bring Margaret back to her own house.I went to my house and Lauren got in the car,then I saw Julie with Margaret.

    Margaret thought I was kind to her today.Truth is though that her thankful words will stay with me for a long time.I'm so happy too that the first shop I went to didn't have what Lauren wanted otherwise I' d never have got this beautiful compliment or more importantly, to help Margaret.

    Have you ever wondered why birds sing? Maybe you thought that they were just happy. After all, you probably sing or whistle when you are happy.

    Some scientists believe that birds do sing some of the time just because they are happy. However, they sing most of the time for a very different reason. Their singing is actually a warning to other birds to stay out of their territory.

    Do you know what a "territory" is? A territory is an area that an animal ,usually the male, claims(声称)as its own .Only he and his family are welcome there. No other families of the same species(物种)are welcome. Your yard and house are your territory where only your family and friends are welcome. If a stranger should enter your territory and threaten you, you might shout. Probably this would be enough to frighten him away.

    If so, you have actually scared the stranger away without having to fight him. A bird does the same thing. But he expects an outsider almost any time ,especially at nesting(筑巢)season. So he is screaming all the time, whether he can see an outsider or not. This screaming is what we call a bird's song, and it is usually enough to keep an outsider away.

    Birds sing loudest in the spring when they are trying to attract a mate and warn others not to enter the territory of theirs.

    You can see that birds have a language of their own. Most of it has to do with attracting mates and setting up territories.

    We've all been there: in a lift, in line at the bank or on an airplane, surrounded by people who are, like us, deeply focused on their smartphones or, worse, struggling with the uncomfortable silence.

    What's the problem? It's possible that we all have compromised conversational intelligence. It's more likely that none of us start a conversation because it's awkward and challenging, or we think it's annoying and unnecessary. But the next time you find yourself among strangers, consider that small talk is worth the trouble. Experts say it's an invaluable social practice that results in big benefits.

    Dismissing small talk as unimportant is easy, but we can't forget that deep relationships wouldn't even exist if it weren't for casual conversation. Small talk is the grease(润滑剂) for social communication, says Bernardo Carducci, director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast. "Almost every great love story and each big business deal begins with small talk," he explains. "The key to successful small talk is learning how to connect with others, not just communicate with them."

    In a 2014 study, Elizabeth Dunn, associate professor of psychology at UBC, invited people on their way into a coffee shop. One group was asked to seek out an interaction with its waiter; the other, to speak only when necessary. The results showed that those who chatted with their server reported significantly higher positive feelings and a better coffee shop experience. "It's not that talking to the waiter is better than talking to your husband," says Dunn. "But interactions with peripheral(边缘的) members of our social network matter for our well-being also."

    Dunn believes that people who reach out to strangers feel a significantly greater sense of belonging, a bond with others. Carducci believes developing such a sense of belonging starts with small talk. "Small talk is the basis of good manners," he says.