You're in a department store and you see a couple of attractive young women looking at a sweater．You listen to their conversation：

    “I can't believe it－Lorenzo Bertolla! They are almost impossible to find．Isn't it beautiful? And it's a lot cheaper than the one Sara bought in Rome．”

    They leave and you go over to see this incredible sweater．It's nice and the price is right．You've never heard of Lorenzo Bertolla, but those girls looked really stylish．They must know．So, you buy it．You never realize that those young women are employees of an advertising agency．They are actually paid to go from store to store, talking loudly about Lorenzo Bertolla clothes．

    Every day we notice what people are wearing, driving and eating．If the person looks cool, the product seems cool, too．This is the secret of undercover marketing．Companies from Ford to Nike are starting to use it．

    Undercover marketing is important because it reaches people that don't pay attention to traditional advertising．This is particularly true of the MTV generation－consumers between the age of 18 and （3）It's a golden group．They have a lot of money to spend, but they don't trust ads．

    So advertising agencies hire young actors to “perform” in bars and other places where young adults go．Some people might call this practice misleading, but marketing executive Jonathan Ressler calls it creative．“Look at traditional advertising．Its effectiveness is decreasing．”It is true, because everyone knows an ad is trying to persuade you to buy something．However, you don't know when a conversation you overhear is just a performance．

    Recently, I experienced a wonderful lesson in how little things still mean a lot. My brother, mother and I live in a very rural district of Hawaii. Our farm is at least a dozen miles from the most basic of services. Therefore, I take weekly trips to COSTCO to get supplies. About a month ago, I finished loading up the car and was about to leave, when a piece of paper caught my eye. I picked it up and read it carefully.

    It was a receipt(收据) from the State Motor Vehicle Division, recording the owner's payment of her Vehicle's Registration fees. At first I thought that I could find the owner. So I waited there for about an hour. Although the receipt had been borne (由……携带) on the wind, where in the busy, crowded parking lot would I find the owner? I looked over the receipt for contact or any personal data, perhaps a license tag(牌照)or telephone number. I checked the date, the fees paid, noted the name of the owner and pocketed the paper. I concluded that the best and easiest step to take was to put the receipt in an envelope and send it to the owner first the next morning.

    By the end of the week, I received a beautiful thank-you letter from a very grateful and happy woman containing a handwritten message and a gift card. In the letter, the woman explained how the wind snatched(夺去) her receipt from a pocket in her car's passenger door. She had searched everywhere for quite some time before giving up.

    It felt great to know I'd helped someone avoid a loss by doing something that at first glance(一瞥) seemed little or even unimportant.

    Nations in the UN have agreed that the world needs to completely stop plastic waste from entering the oceans. The UN resolution(决议) has no timetable. But ministers at an environment summit believe it will set the course for much tougher policies and send a clear signal to business.

    Under the resolution, governments would establish an international task force(特遣小组) to advise on fighting what the UN's oceans chief has described as a world crisis. One controversial issue is the wish to include businesses on the global task force. Ministers say the problem will not be solved without business, but green groups point out that some firms in the plastics industry have been against restrictions for decades. Vidar Helgesen, a leading voice in the talks, told BBC News, “Business is listening to markets and seeing how marine litter(海洋垃圾) is a growing popular concern. It's possibly the fastest－growing environmental problem and it's therefore a fast－growing problem for business. We need to bring on board those companies that want to change things, and then look at taxes and regulations to make more companies act.”

    Certainly, there has been resistance from plastics firms to the bans. One UN delegate, who did not want to be named, stated that journalists in some countries were being paid by the plastics industry to write stories about job losses following the plastic bag ban. But they did not mention the jobs being created in alternatives, such as labour－intensive basketwork, which provides work for the rural poor. But some governments are standing firm, and the meeting has witnessed individual nations declaring tougher action against single－use plastic bags.

    The UN's spokesman Sam Barratt told BBC News, “Of course we would have liked to have gone further, but this meeting's made real progress. There's now a sense of urgency and energy behind the issue that we haven't quite seen before. What is obvious, though, is that the UN can't solve this problem on its own. We need to do it in partnership with governments, businesses and even individuals.”

    You can use your smartphone to get pretty much anything delivered directly to your door almost immediately. The hardest part is the process of trying to work out if you should tip and if so, doing the quick math before you get to the door. And, you know well that you should tip about 15-20% at restaurants, but do the same rules apply to delivery drivers?

    The co-founder of Grubhub, Matt Maloney, pretty much set the standard for tipping delivery people in a Facebook post. He's a strong supporter of tipping, and Grubhub's website suggests a $5 or a 20% tip. Maloney also said this number should go up if you order during, say, a snowstorm.

    However, most other delivery services say on their websites that tipping is not required. Some services, like Door Dash, do suggest no tip on their checkout window. Many, like Amazon Prime Now, allow customers to change their tip amount after their delivery has been received to reflect the quality of service. These companies help customers save money but delivery drivers are upset. They deal with bad weather, heavy traffic, extreme tiredness, and more, all for a $1 tip. Many feel that if you'd tip your pizza boy or girl, you should tip your delivery driver.

    The Emily Post Institute (EPI)'s official suggestion falls in line with Maloney's: “10-15% of the bill, or $2-5 for pizza delivery depending on the size of the order and difficulty of delivery.”

    Just like servers in a restaurant, delivery drivers almost always rely on your tips for their income. Tipping is a long-standing cultural tradition in America. So, until drones (无人机) can deliver hot dogs straight to your door, it's best to tip the people riding through the city at all hours to bring you hot fresh food.

    If a person who lived 200 years ago was treated for a seizure(癫痫)today, they would be surprised by the treatment's freshness. That's because doctors in the 1800s were influenced more by original medical beliefs than science.

    Rather than thinking the brain caused seizures, people in the 1800s still thought they were the result of strange forces. They associated seizures with the work of evil spirits. Others felt that the seizures had a cosmic or lunar cause. They believed that the cycles of the moon and stars could make someone have a seizure.

    During a process to treat a patient who has seizures, doctors would force the patient to pray for the grace of the God. They thought if the patient did this, then the patient would rid themselves of the evil spirits causing the seizures.

    The arrival of modern psychiatry(精神病学) occurred during the 1800s. At that time people who suffered from seizures were placed in psychiatric hospitals. They were treated like they were mad. However, none of the out-of-date treatments worked.

    It wasn't until the late 1850s that the causes of seizures were understood. We know today that these causes are related to the brain. Misfired signals from the brain cause a jerking reflex(反射) in the body. These usually occur when someone is very tired.

    Once the causes of seizures were known, definitive treatments were developed. Today, treatments range from taking pills to having surgery. Treatment is personalized according to the type of seizure the patient has.

    Even today, some people are unsure about seizures. Their most common mistake is thinking that a person having a seizure will swallow their tongue. They often push some implement roughly in the person's mouth. However, this doesn't help. The implement often blocks the airway and prevents the person from breathing. Yet most of the public no longer fear people who have seizures. Instead, they can now help and comfort a person if they have a seizure.

    During the two and a half years since I settled down in Germany, I've caught a cold several times and gotten to experience how different German cold remedies (疗法)are from the Chinese ones.

    Back in Taiwan, whenever I had a streaming nose and a dry throat, I'd rush to the hospital to get prescribed medicine. For a fever, I would receive a red pill, which I now know is a type of antibiotic (抗生素).

    Another thing I know now is that the criminal behind my cold is a virus. The drugs I used only relieved the symptoms. When I went to a German hospital intending to get some medicine to treat my cold, I got nothing more than a pat on my shoulder and words from the doctor, saying that I should get some really good rest. The first time this happened, I was shocked. I wondered how I could put up with my sickness without the help of medicine. But the longer I stayed in Germany, the better I knew how to self-medicate as other Germans do.

    I learned to take vitamin C to build up my resistance. But what I like the most is drinking "Erkaltungstee". For German people, Erkaltungstee is what their grandmother gives them when they catch a cold. It's a tea bag mainly made of lime flower and orange rind. Another popular cold remedy in Germany is chicken soup. During my first winter in Germany, I got a really bad cold. My neighbor brought me a bowl of chicken soup to make me feel better. It contained a lot of ginger, onion, garlic, carrots and celery. Germans believe these ingredients are perfect for helping your body recover.