It used to be a matter of fact when Peter Pan – a character from James Matthew Barrie's 1911 book – said: “All children, except one, grow up.”

    But this “fact” doesn't seem to apply to today's world anymore.

    According to the NPD Group, a US market research company, sales of toys to adults in the UK increased by more than 20 percent in 2016, three times the pace of the children's toy market itself. These toys ranged from puzzles and Lego building sets to vehicle models and action figures. And more than half of the sales came from millennials – people born between the 1980s and 2000s.

    “Adults of the 21st century are channeling (疏导) their inner child, one toy at a time,” commented website Koreaboo. This is also why these adults are sometimes referred to as “kidults”.

    According to Frederique Tutt, an analyst at NPD, the motivation of these grown-ups is to escape the stress of today's fast-paced world. They are driven toward the more immediate pleasures brought by toys than those brought by, say, getting a promotion, which is far less easy to achieve.

    “It reminds me of the playful side of life,” Rob Willner, a 25-year-old PhD student in the UK, told The Telegraph when talking about his love for Lego, which he said brings him both comfort and entertainment.

    Despite this, some social scientists see the trend as disturbing. To Frank Furendi, a professor at the University of Kent in the UK, the fact that so many adults are pursuing “the thrills (刺激) of youth” is the evidence that “adulthood has got nothing attractive about it anymore”, he told The New York Times.u “That's actually quite sad.”

    But scientists are probably just worrying too much. According to Canadian comic book artist Todd McFarlane, collecting toys could simply be a way for people to express their individuality (个性).

    “It's just pop culture stuff. It's stuff that says, 'I like a little of this and I like a little of that',” he told ABC News. “[It's] no big deal.”

    So now that over 100 years have passed since Peter Pan, perhaps it's time to introduce a new “fact”, as stated in the tagline (品牌宣传词) of the UK fashion brand KIDULT: “Growing old is mandatory (强制性的), but growing up is optional.”

    Last week I was riding my special motorbike and then stopped at a convenience store. As I was getting my wheelchair off the back, a man watched me from his car and I noticed a wheelchair in his back seat. We spoke for a moment and I asked him about the wheelchair. He answered that it was for his daughter. "Well, do you think she would like to go for a ride on my motorbike with me?" I asked. He seemed shocked that a total stranger would ask him this. He thought about it for a second and said, "OK, as long as I can follow you."

    He introduced me to Amy and he sat her on my back seat. Her father followed me for a few miles and she talked non-stop about what she wanted for Christmas. As we came back to the convenience store, she said, "This ride is the best Christmas present I could ever receive. I have been in a wheelchair my whole life and didn't know I could do this." I told her about some of the other things I do (ski, travel the world by myself, etc.). As her father was taking her off my bike, she turned to him and said, "Oh Daddy, I'm going to be OK. Mr. Bryant does all kinds of things, and I will too." Her father turned away as a tear of joy rolled down his cheek. He hugged me and said, "I was sitting here praying for a gift for Amy that would encourage her. She often felt that her life was dull compared to other children. God answered my prayer just now. Now I pray that God will bless you for your gift to Amy today." I believed what he said. Being kind and thoughtful to others, we can be an answer to prayer.

    Having a great collection of books at home doesn't really mean that you are a person who loves reading. It may be got from your father or your father's father, and it can just impress people around you with the fact that you are a person of culture.

    From my point of view, reading is very important in our daily life. For example, reading is a way of gaining knowledge in different areas. It can help us have a great imagination, and it makes things easier when it comes to making compositions on different themes. It gives you the possibility to speak about science, even if you don't work in this field. You can express your opinions about a political event because you have read something about that.

    Secondly, reading gives us the possibility to enter the world of imagination. We can imagine what life will be like in the future. Sometimes, we compare ourselves with the people in the stories we read and they can give us some clues to solve the problems and tell us what to do in certain situations. Books are based on real life. Even if writers are considered to be somehow different from common people, they often face the same problems as we all do.

    In short, I would like to say that literature is the perfect way of enriching our culture, expressing correctly, having a rich vocabulary, being able to understand different fields and really being considered to be a learned person.

A planet the size of Jupiter has been discovered and it is one of the hottest ones known to us. This has made scientists think about how planets are formed.

Planets such as Earth have more oxygen than carbon, but what if the composition（组成）is just the opposite? This is a question opened up by a recent discovery of a diamond planet by US and UK scientists. The planet is 1200 light years away from Earth and was observed using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Dr Marek Kukula explained that researchers initially used the Super WASP(Wide Angle Search for Planets) robotic observatories operating continuously, all year around. They detected the planet, then it was observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which detected the heat coming from the planet, and from that heat signature they can tell what this planet is made from.

The planet is very different to Earth. "It's giant planet," explains Dr Kukula, "a gas planet, a bit like Jupiter in our solar system. But the interesting thing that they've discovered is that it has a very different composition to the planets in our solar system. This planet has more carbon than oxygen." This suggests that there is more than one way to make a solar system and the range of planets in the universe could be much wider than previously thought.

Dr Kukula says that if there are smaller planets in the same solar system with a similar composition, rich in carbon, their rocks could be rich in minerals such as carbon and diamonds, unlike Earth which has silica (硅石), the sand that rocks on Earth are made from. "This is where this diamond planet idea comes from; they haven't actually detected a diamond planet yet," explains Dr Kukula.it' s hypothetical (假设的), "but you can imagine strange landscapes with black graphite rocks lying around and the surface could be covered with sticky liquids instead of water".

Anew study suggests that Medicare could spend billions of dollars on screening (拍片检查) smokers for lung cancer that would be better spent on helping them quit and keeping others from starting.

The new study indicated that screening more often supported smokers' beliefs that they could safely continue to smoke. Most participants remained smoking because they believed screening could catch cancer early before it would threaten their lives.

"They compared how hard it was to quit smoking with how easy it was to be screened," said Steven B. Zeliadt, the lead author of the study." They engaged in magical thinking that now there's this wonderful painless external test that can save lives."

He and seven colleagues conducted the study of 37 current smokers who were offered lung cancer screening at Department of Veteran Affairs. After being screened and told the results, they were interviewed about their smoking-related heath beliefs. For about half of those, cancer was not found." Screening lowered their motivation for quitting," the team reported in July in JAMA Internal Medicine. The participants focused only on lung cancer, ignoring other potential harm of smoking.

A national study published four years ago found that annual CT screening for lung cancer three years in a row could reduce deaths among heavy smokers by about 20 percent. In an interview, Dr. Russell P. Harris, a preventive medicine specialist at the UNC-Chapel Hill, noted that" Screening is being believed by people as an alternative to stopping smoking. But stopping smoking would have huge benefits for the individual and society." Furthermore, smoking causes many other cancers.

Dr. Harris agreed that rather than screening, money is better spent on smoking prevention. He suggested providing free stop-smoking aids, sponsoring anti-smoking advertising and raising taxes on tobacco products and the age at which people are allowed to buy them.

What do you do with your old clothes? You might throw them away, or if you want to be more environmentally friendly, you could sell or donate them. No matter what you choose, it's always been your responsibility to deal with them. However, a new California law could shift this responsibility to clothing producers.

This pioneering law, called the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, is targeted to set requirements for producers of clothing, towels and bedding. It requires them to develop and fund a statewide program for reusing, repairing and recycling their products. The law could help address the long-standing pollution caused by the textile (纺织) and fashion industries, noted The Guardian.

Since 1960, the amount of textile waste in the US has grown nearly tenfold, reaching over 17 million tons in 2018, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. A shocking 85 percent of textiles end up in landfills where they send out harmful gases and chemicals into the environment. As a major polluter, the fashion industry accounts for about 10 percent of global carbon emissions (排放), more than international flights and shipping combined, according to the United Nations. The rise of "fast fashion", which produces cheap, low-quality clothing meant to be worn only a few times, has significantly worsened this environmental crisis.

The serious pollution drove Democratic state senator Josh Newman, who drafted (起草) the Responsible Textile Recovery Act, into action. He communicated with all sectors of the textile industry to prevent opposition.

Some worry the law could make shopping more expensive and impact small and medium-sized brands. However, Newman said people shouldn't notice any price increases, estimating it would cost producers less than 10 cents (0.7 yuan) per item.

The program is expected to begin as early as 2028 in the hope of making the industry more sustainable (可持续的). It could also open new opportunities for green production and consumption while creating more than 1,000 green jobs.