Recently, a cartoon created by studentsfrom China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes selfie in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobilephone. A chain of similar events eventually leads to the destruction of theworld.

    Although the ending sounds overstated the damage phubbing can bring is real.

    Your health is the first to bear the effect and result of it. “Constantly bending your head to check your cellphone could damage your neck,” Guangming Daily quoted doctors as saying. “the neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching.” Also, staring at cellphones for long periods of time will damage your eyesight gradually, accordingto the report.

    But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. At reunions with family or friends, many people tend to stick to their cellphones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.

    It can also cost you your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.

    Salt plays an important role in our daily diet. Even a small reduction(减少) in salt in the diet can be a big help to the heart. A new study used a computer model to predict -how just three grams less a day would affect heart disease in the United States.

    The result: Thirteen percent fewer heart attacks. Eight percent fewer strokes（中风）. Four percent fewer deaths. Eleven percent fewer new cases of heart disease. And two hundred forty billion dollars in health care savings. Researchers found it could prevent one hundred thousand heart attacks and ninety-two thousand deaths every year．

    The study is in the New England Journal of Medicine. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo at the University of California San Francisco was the lead author. She says people would not even notice a difference in taste with three grams, or one-half teaspoon, less salt per day. The team also included researchers at Stanford and Columbia University.

    Each gram of salt contains four hundred milligrams of sodiu(钠), which is how foods may list their salt content．

    The government says the average American man eats ten grams of salt a day. The American Heart Association advises no more than three grams for healthy people. It says salt in the American diet has increased fifty percent since the nineteen seventies, while blood pressures have also risen. Less salt can mean a lower blood pressure.

    New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is leading an effort called the National Salt Reduction Initiative. The idea is to put pressure on food companies and restaurants. Critics call it government interference(干预).

    Mayor Bloomberg has already succeeded in other areas, like requiring fast food places in the city to list calorie information. Now a study by the Seattle Children's Research Institute shows that the calorie information on the menu can influence what parents order for their children. Ninety-nine parents of three to six year olds took part. Half had calories between the two groups for foods that the parents would have chosen for themselves. McDonald's menus clearly showing how many calories were in each food. Parents given the counts chose an average of one hundred two fewer calories when asked what they would order for their children. Yet there was no difference in calories between the two groups for foods that the parents would have chosen for themselves.

    Study leader Pooja Tandon says even small calorie reductions on a regular basis can prevent weight gain over time. The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.

    Home to me means a sense of familiarity and nostalgia(怀旧). It's fun to come home. It looks the same. It smells the same. You'll realize what's changed is you. Home is where we ran remember pain, live, and some other experiences; We parted here; My parents met here; I won three championships here.

    If I close my eyes, I can still have a clear picture in mind of my first home. I walk in the door and see a brown sofa surrounding a low glass-top wooden table. To the right of the living room is my first bedroom. It's empty, but it's where my earliest memories are.

    There is the dining room table where I celebrated birthdays, and where I cried on Halloween-when I didn't want to wear the skirt my mother made for me. I always liked standing on that table because it made me feel tall and strong. If I sit at this table, I can see my favorite room in the house, my parents' room. It is simple: a brown wooden dresser lines the right side of the wall next to a television and a couple of photos of my grandparents on each side. Their bed is my safe zone. I can jump on it anytime - waking up my parents if I am scared or if I have an important announcement that cannot wait until the morning.

    I'm lucky because I know my first home still exists. It exists in my mind and heart, on a physical property(住宅) on West 64th street on the western edge of Los Angeles. It is proof I lived, I grew and I learned.

    Sometimes when I feel lost, I lie down and shut my eyes, and I go home. I know it's where I'll find my family, my dogs, and my belongings. I purposely leave the window open at night because I know I'll be blamed by Mom. But I don't mind, because I want to hear her say my name, which reminds me I'm home.

    St Moritz, the showiest of Switzerland's Alpine resorts (旅游胜地), is no ordinary ski town. It's responsible for winter tourism as we know it today. It was a small band of English holidaymakers that changed Switzerland forever. In 1864 a bet took place between hotelier Johannes Badrutt and the vacationers on a damp September evening in St Moritz. As they sat around the fire at the Engadiner Kulm Hotel, concerned about returning to the foggy London winter, the Swiss manager saw a golden opportunity.

    “You holiday here in summer,” he challenged them over a bottle of red wine. “Why not enjoy the mountains year-round? Winter is so pleasant that on fine days you can even walk without a jacket.” Attracted by the promise of clean skies against a backdrop of towering peaks, the Englishmen were pleased to accept it; up until then, St Moritz had been a modest hiking destination in July and August. But if Badrutt's promise proved false, the hotelier would pay for their journey and winter-long stay. How could they lose?

    Come mid-December, the group of men returned to Switzerland. Towards the end of their week-long journey, sitting on a horse-pulled sledge and wrapped head-to-toe in furs, they went through the 2,284m Julier Pass in southeastern Switzerland. But by the time of their arrival in St Moritz, the skies had cleared, they were sweating abundantly, and Badrutt, jacketless and with his shirt sleeves rolled up, was there to greet them.

    Of course, Badrutt won the bet. Word quickly spread throughout Britain about St Moritz's distinctive climate—dry and sunny with a high degree of snow certainty. Year-round tourism landed the Alpine town of St Moritz.

    That Badrutt almost single-handedly marketed this undeveloped winter wonderland is a little unbelievable. The first tourist office in Switzerland had been established in the same year as the bet. Other resorts like the ones in Davos and Grindelwald were also popping up then. The story of St Moritz is, in some ways, also a tale of social transformation. But what Badrutt did made the Swiss mountains accessible in a way that no one else had done before, so his role as pioneer cannot be downplayed.

    Grandma Pugh sized up the baby like a pig at the farmers' market. There was a pause and then she pronounced. "He's got nice long legs." She clapped her hands once in approval. But then she frowned and leaned forward. Everyone waited anxiously. The baby had opened his eyes and was staring up. "But those cross eyes won't do," she declared firmly, shaking her head in disappointment.

    That had been Freddie Pilcher's first meeting with Grandma Pugh. Since then, ten years had passed. Much to his grandmother's satisfaction, she'd been proven right about the boy's legs. He was a regular beanpole. Grandma Pugh had also been correct about his eyes. Freddie had been wearing glasses to correct his vision since he was two years old. His current pair was thick, and cheap-looking, but at least he could see.

    Freddie not only had poor eyesight, but he was also clumsy. He wasn't good at schoolwork either. But there was one thing that the boy was good at and it was all on account of the length of his legs. He could jump.

    Freddie was the best jumper in school. Not only could he leap the furthest but also the highest. At break times, he entertained the little ones by leaping over the school wall into Mrs. Hobson's garden and then rapidly jumping back. She had been up to see the head teacher several times because somebody had been crushing her vegetables.

    It was badgers (獾), Freddie suggested, when questioned by Miss Harpy—definitely badgers; no doubt about it. His dad had terrible problems with badgers. Only last week he had lost two rows of carrots. Freddie had woken one night and heard them tearing through the garden, a whole herd of them. They rooted up the lawn and dug up the vegetables. Terrible things, badgers. All the other children nodded their heads wisely. There was a moment's pause in Class Three as everyone thought about the dreadful damage that badgers could do.

Imagine a school where students are taught by the best teachers in every subject, regardless of location. Imagine a school where students could go on safe field trips to the Amazon rainforest or Everest base camp. Well, such schools are already being built: in virtual(虚拟的)reality. 

Last year, Optima Academy Online, an all-virtual school, delivered courses that aim to improve the hearts and train the minds of young people. These courses are of different levels, attracting 170 full-time students from all over Florida. In the progress of home-schooling, students use headsets for about three hours a day for formal lessons and then do course work independently with digital check-ins. 

Future versions(版本)of VR will doubtless be widely used in education, but the only questions are: for what purpose and at what speed? There are enough reasons to doubt whether VR schools represent the future of education. Sticking a child in their bedroom with a heavy VR headset fastened to their face and no physical social interaction with other kids will fill many of them and their parents with horror. 

A recent report concluded that digital education could significantly improve the quality and equality of schooling systems. But if managed poorly, it could have the opposite effect, turning a digital divide into an educational one. There is growing evidence to suggest that is happening. In Mexico, only 24 percent of 15-year-old students in poor schools have access(使用)to a home computer for schoolwork compared with 87 percent in rich ones. 

Used properly, technology can be great for enabling self-motivated students to access learning resources and connect with fellow students and teachers all over the world, says Beeban Kidron, a member of the UK's Digital Futures Commission. The trouble is that Edtech is too often seen as a shiny new toy that will solve all problems and save money rather than being viewed as a different way to learn, she adds.