Zebra crossings－the alternating dark and light stripes on the road surface－are meant to remind drivers that pedestrians may be trying to get across. Unfortunately, they are not very effective. A 1998 study done by the Department of Traffic Planning and Engineering at Sweden's Lund University revealed that three out of four drivers maintained the same speed or even speeded up as they were approaching a crossing. Even worse, only 5% stopped even when they saw someone trying to get across.

    Now a mother-daughter team in Ahmedabad, India has come up with a clever way to get drivers to pay more attention－a 3-D zebra crossing with an optical illusion (视错觉).

    Artists Saumya Pandya Thakkar and Shakuntala Pandya were asked to paint the crosswalks by IL&FS, an Indian company that manages the highways in Ahmedabad. The corporation was looking for a creative solution to help the city's residents to cross the busy accident-prone  (易出事故的) roads safely. Thakkar and Pandya, who had previously seen images of 3-D zebra crossings that gave drivers the illusion of logs(原木)of wood on the streets in Taizhou, China, decided to test if a similar way would work in India.

    Sure enough, in the six months that the 3-D crosswalks have been painted across four of the city's most dangerous highways, there have been no accidents reported! The artists say that while it may appear that the zebra crossing could cause the drivers to brake suddenly and endanger the vehicles behind, such is not the case. Because of the way the human eye works, the illusion is only visible from a distance. As they get closer, the painting looks just like any other ordinary zebra crossing. The creators hope that their smart design will become increasingly common throughout India and perhaps even the world. So let's look forward to it.

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    If a stranger offered you money to keep a suitcase in your spare room，would you accept? How about the other way round：if you had too many belongings，would you consider trusting someone you met online with their safekeeping? Anthony Paine believed enough of us would answer “yes” to these questions to launch his own startup(新兴公司)，Stashbee．His business links people with space to those who need it．

    And it's just one player in the booming “sharing economy”，an industry that relies on people renting out things like their beds，bikes and even parking spaces．Airbnb，a company valued at 200bn RMB，provides a platform for those renting property short-term．DogVacay pairs holidaymaking pet owners with pet-friendly hosts，and aims to be profitable by 2017．

    All their business models revolve around one simple word：trust．So，how does Stashbee measure up? BBC journalist Dougal Shaw decided to try it out for himself．He had some odds and ends to store while renovating his house，and met a host through the site who could keep them for 475 RMB for two months．All relatively smooth and painless．

    Heavyweights(行业巨头)in the traditional storage industry，such as Big Yenow and Access，aren't convinced．A representative from Access told Shaw he was skeptical about storing with “amateurs”．He considered 24／7(全天候) access to the items and better security as the main advantages of his service.

    Stashbee agree that dealing with security concerns is important，but say business success depends more on people overcoming a distrust of strangers we've been taught since childhood. They aren't alone．Companies such as Costockage，Roost and Spacer all run similar storage businesses，and are all relying on a shift in consumer attitudes．

    And the concept of social storage doesn't stop there．CityStasher believe there's a gap in the market for those who want to store things for extremely short periods of time．

    Would you try it out? It's a question of trust．

    Taylor Swift added another great honor this year—the first-ever Taylor Swift Award—at the 64^th yearly BMI Pop Awards.

    Held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, the ceremony honored the writers and publishers of the most-performed pop songs during the past year. The Taylor Swift Award was a recognition（认可）of both Swift's musical influence and creative gift.

    In her acceptance speech, Swift said that she was happy to get the award named after her. “It is really a relief that BMI decided to give me the Taylor Swift Award, because if they had chosen somebody else to give it to, I'd be like kind of angry about it.” the singer joked.

    This eponymous（同名的）award marked only the second time in BMI's history that the organization has presented an award in an artist's name. Michael Jackson, a legendary（传奇的）artist, was the first to get that honor in 1990.

    “Taylor Swift is one of the most popular singers in US. She has shown pop culture through her songs,” said Barbara Cane, BMI's Vice President of Writer/ Publisher Relations, “She has had a deep influence, not only musically, but also through her personal belief and commitment to create a standard that values and respects music for everyone. We felt it suitable to award Taylor with an honor that is an special as she is.”

    Swift also claimed four of the year's most-performed songs to earn the honor of Pop Songwriter of the Year.

    One of the newest words on the coffee stage is “shade grown coffee”. Shade grown coffee isn't new. In fact, until only a few years ago, shade grown coffee represented the major coffee beans sold on the world coffee market. The coffee plant is a natural shade lover, growing best in the shade afforded by an overgrowing canopy (树冠) of rain forest plants. That canopy protects the coffee plant from sunlight that reduces its production and kills it.

    Shade grown coffee is, however, more expensive to grow, at least in the short run. Growing coffee in the shade means that coffee growers also have to spend time working on the protectors. It means that less land is left to produce coffee beans. The arrival of technically engineered coffee plants that grow well in the sun represented a major development in coffee industry. Because there was no need to grow shade trees to protect the coffee trees, farmers could use more and more land to grow coffee trees, increasing their productivity and leading to more money for the coffee plantations (种植园) and farmers.

    However, it was not a good idea to move away from shade grown coffee. The sheltering canopy provided more than just shade for the coffee trees. Those plants provided shelter for birds and other animals who feed on pests.

    They help to fix nitrogen in the soil, and nitrogen is a natural fertilizer which makes plants grow more successfully. The increase in land used to grow sun loving coffee trees also had an unexpected effect on the law of supply and demand. The increased production resulted in a huge amount of coffee beans coming to the market, which brought down prices.

Moreover, most experts agree that shade grown coffee is better in taste than coffee grown in full sun. Plants grown in shade take longer to develop. The slower growing time helps to improve the coffee's taste. You can buy a can of shade grown coffee to replace your usual sun coffee. One cup of coffee a day—it's a small price to pay for a better world.

    Overheated property markets in major cities have started to cool down after authorities took measures against speculative buying and a potential home market bubble. However, a long-term effort is needed to make the market stable and sustainable, analysts said.

    Last month, new home prices dropped in seven cities, compared with six in September, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, which monitors housing prices in 70 cities nationwide. In Shenzhen, where housing prices rocketed by more than 30 percent in the past several months, prices declined by 0.5 percent in October.

    “After first-tier cities and some key second-tier cities launched cooling measures, home prices have obviously become stable,”Liu Juanwei, NBS senior statistician, wrote in a note posted on the NBS website.

    Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Xiamen and Zhengzhou began to see home prices switching from rising to dropping in the second half of October, with average prices down by between 0.1 percent and 0.4 percent compared with the first half of the month, he noted.

    Housing authorities in more than 20 cities have launched various measures against speculative buying to curb rapid home price growth, including setting stricter requirements for qualified buyers and limits on buying second and third homes.

    Yan Yuejin, an analyst with property research agency E-House China R&D Institute, said the residential property market is “digesting these policies and measures gradually, and it is likely for the market to have rational and stable prices in the near future.”

    Ma Junwei, an analyst with Deyi Realty in Shanghai, said it will require a long-term effort by regulators and local authorities to battle speculative buying while keeping supplies stable for buyers with solid demand, including those who plan to buy their first home or upgrade their housing.

    In Shanghai, real estate agents said that they have noticed that homebuyers have become more rational. “Buyers are starting to take their time and study their options. They will compare prices, designs and locations and bargain with sales representatives,”said Luo Dingjun, sales manager at Jinyu Property Marketing.“This was not the case two months ago, when they rushed to buy for fear that if they hesitated, prices would grow too fast and they would no longer be able to afford. ”

    On October 23, 2016, David Pologruto, a high school physics teacher, was stabbed by his smart student Jason Haffizulla. Jason got straight A's and was determined to study medicine at Harvard, yet this was his downfall. His physics teacher gave Jason a B, a mark Jason believed would undermine his entrance to Harvard. After receiving his B, Jason took a butcher knife to school and stabbed his physics teacher.

    How can someone as smart as Jason do something so dumb? Studies show there is little or no connection between IQ and emotional intelligence.

    During my early university years, I regarded myself as an intelligent guy. I got good marks in mathematics, physics, and other subjects. I thought such skills would surely give me a bright future. After one year of study with decent marks, I began to see two major classes of students. The first category of students turned up to few lectures, partied every weekend, enjoyed a great social life, and did minimal work to pass courses. The second category of students were intelligent and hard workers who got good grades and were very focused on their studies. Surely would these intelligent and hard-working students find the great jobs before the other lazier class of students?

    Not so. Students are often shocked upon graduation that their qualifications are not as important as they once thought. Graduates enter the workforce only to realize that co-workers hate them and less intelligent people are the ones receiving promotions (晋升).

    Educational skills are useless in some industries when interpersonal skills are absent. You can have great ideas, theories, and solve complex problems, but if you cannot effectively communicate with your colleagues, you will face difficult situations. It's not that people dislike you because of your intelligence; it's that people dislike you because you're rude and not understanding. The intelligent person with poor communication skills is unaware of others' emotions.