If you live in a big city, there are many things to drive youcrazy on your daily route, and it's not just overcrowded subway trains.

Vicky Zhao is a mainlander working in Hong Kong. For her, onething she can't put up with is people standing on the wrong side of theescalator（自动扶梯）in subwaystations. “Escalators help us move faster and save time. It isn't a place torest,” the 24-year-old says. “I often see tourists block the way with theirsuitcases or chatting on the escalators during rush hours. It annoys meto no end.”

Admitting she is not the patient type, Zhao says things are muchbetter in Hong Kong than in cities on the mainland where “stand right, walkleft” signs are often ignored.

The logic behind the “stand right, walk left” escalatoretiquette（礼仪）seems obvious.Even though you may want to catch your breath while you're transported up ordown, you should still consider others and leave enough space for people in ahurry, so that they can run and catch the train.

Many cities' escalators, including London's and Beijing's, usethe “stand right, walk left” system to speed up the flow of people.（Australia isan exception and you should stand on the left side instead.）But somecities discourage people from moving on escalators out of safety reasons. InHong Kong's subway stations there are regular announcements asking people to“stand still” on escalators. Even so, most people in this fast-paced cityobserve the “stand right, walk left” etiquette.

But the people who stand on escalators defend themselves bytelling the walkers not to be so impatient. The BBC quotes one stander assaying：“If the person is in such a rush, why not just take the stairs?Even when the escalator is packed and there's nowhere to move, I see these samepeople complaining about not being able to pass.

Whatever the escalator etiquette is in the place you live orvisit, do what most people are doing and always be mindful of others: leaveenough space between each other, don't stay at the end of the escalator, and ifsomeone is blocking your way, a simple “excuse me” is enough.

    French writer Frantz Fanon once said: ＂To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.＂ Since the world changes every day, so does our language.

    More than 300 new words and phrases have recently made it into the online Oxford Dictionary, and in one way or another they are all reflections of today's changing world.

    After a year that was politically unstable, it's not hard to understand the fact that people's political views are one of the main drives of our expanding vocabulary. One example is ＂clicktivism＂, a compound of ＂click＂ and ＂activism＂. It refers to ＂armchair activists＂ — people who support a political or social cause, but only show their support from behind a computer or smartphone. And ＂otherize＂ is a verb for ＂other＂ that means to alienate (使疏远)people who are different from ourselves — whether that be different skin color, religious belief or sexuality.

    Lifestyle is also changing our language. For example, ＂fitspiration＂ — a compound of fit and inspiration — refers to a person or thing that encourages one to exercise and stay fit and healthy.

    The phrase ＂climate refugee＂ — someone who is forced to leave their home due to climate change—reflects people's concern for the environment.

 According to Stevenson, social media was the main source for the new expressions. ＂People feel much freer to coin their own words these days,＂ he said.

    But still, not all newly-invented words get the chance to make their way into a mainstream (主流的) dictionary. If you want to create your own hit words, Angus Stevenson, Oxford Dictionaries head of content development, suggests that you should not only make sure that they are expressive (有表现力的) and meaningful, but also have an attractive sound so that people will enjoy saying them out loud.

    We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices（装置）well after they go out of style. That's bad news for the environment – and our wallets – as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the news ones that do the same things.

    To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life – from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

    As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones. "The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids' room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices – we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions（排放）more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

    So what's the solution? The team's date only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand environment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

    ①About 43.5 million Americans are taking care of aging relatives and friends, sacrificing(牺牲) time, money and sometimes their careers and personal health. They are doing the work of professional caregivers, who spend years training for the job. As baby boomers age, the demand for unpaid caregivers is rising. Meanwhile, the number of them is dropping rapidly thanks to smaller family sizes, higher divorce rates and increasingly demanding jobs. This November, actor Rob Lowe offered to tell his story and send some encouragement to the millions struggling to care for a loved one.

    ②I had my first experience with unpaid care giving fairly early. My father, Charles, was diagnosed(诊断)with lymphoma at age 50. I was 26. Luckily, he was financially successful and had a loving wife, my stepmother. It was challenging, but she was there from taking care of my father.

    ③In my late 30s, my mother, Barbara Hepler, was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. That was when I was introduced to the front lines of what so many millions are experiencing. She did not have a husband or a significant other, so it fell to me and my two brothers to handle everything from her initial diagnosis to doctor shopping, treatment options, driving her to appointments and, finally, the end of life-which was profoundly difficult, obviously.

    ④At the time, I was starring in and producing a network television show, The Lyon's Den. It was fighting for its ratings life. If I took time off, the show would be canceled, I was responsible for 150 crew members, so I had to find a way to do both.

⑤Besides, there is the negotiation of medical coverage, which requires phone calls, weeding through paperwork and talking to insurance companies and doctors. I remember thinking, Jesus Christ, if I were sick and had to do this on my own? I don't think I could get out of bed in the morning.

    ⑥The people we are talking about-the friends and family members who are out there doing important work-are unpaid. Watching a loved one go through an illness, possibly ending in death, is stressful and depressing. Add economic and scheduling burdens, and the load for caregivers is heavy. To them I say, "Don't forget about yourself. When you get on an airplane, the crew says, Secure your own mask first before helping others.” Why? Because without you taking care of yourself, you can't take care of anybody else. That's why I've partnered with EMD Serono andEmbracingCarers.com, where you'll find invaluable information regarding everything you'll be, or are, going through.

When faced with the decision to get out of bed or have a few more minutes of sleep, which do you choose? Believe it or not, that decision could make a world of difference in the rest of your day.

About 85 percent of Americans use an alarm clock to wake up in the mornings, according to sleep researcher Till Roennenber. And while there are no official numbers on snoozing (打盹), a quick survey of social media makes it clear that hitting the snooze button is a popular pastime.

As to how the snooze button will affect your day, scientists have mixed opinions. Some scientists think people who hit the snooze button in the mornings are actually clever, creative and happy while some said that hitting the snooze button will ruin your life, or at the very least your day. "I feel that hitting the snooze button has got to be one of the worst things that ever happened to human sleep," researcher Jonathan Horowitz said. "The chances of you 'snoozing' and actually experiencing a meaningful rest are close to zero."

According to some sleep experts, when hitting the snooze button, you are in fact confusing your body and mind, and throwing yourself into a deep state of being sleepy. The body needs some time to wake up, so, when returning to what will be a light sleep for a brief period of time, you are putting your body back into a sleep mode before waking it again. At that point your body won't know what it wants, resulting in a sort of half awaken state.

If you really want to take advantage of an alarm clock, the key is to form a healthy sleep cycle. Focus your efforts on getting enough sleep each night and waking up at the same time each day so that when your alarm goes off you feel rested.