China Daily—Last week, the Beijing municipal government released a list of 192 areas in the capital where spring blooms, including peach, magnolia, apricot and winter jasmine, can be enjoyed from March to May.  The recommended spots cover an area of 22 square kilometers.  Apart from admiring blooms, folklore performances, botany exhibitions and other activities will be put on. 20 travel routes for tourists looking to appreciate floral beauty in the countryside are issued in Hubei, too.

    South Korean drama Descendants of the Sun《太阳的后裔》 has collected more than 200 million views on iQiyi, the Chinese streaming website said Tuesday.

    "Descendants of the Sun", the first Korean show to premiere simultaneously in South Korea and China (中韩同步首播), is a love story between an Army captain (Song Joong-ki) and a doctor (Song Hye-kyo) who find themselves in a fictional war-torn country called Uruk, where both try to save lives.

    "The show has become the talk of the town everywhere. Some shows even had live phone conversations with viewers to discuss its popularity," a Chinese entertainment official said.

    To put things into perspective, a f ifth of South Korea's population is 10 million people. Just a little over that number tuned in to watch Descendants of the Sun.

    Enthusiastic customers snapped up(抢光) the first batch of tickets in just five minutes on Monday for the opening day of the Shanghai Disneyland park on June 16, temporarily crashing the official website.

    "Within half an hour, clicks on the website (www.shanghaidisneyresort.com) reached more than 5 million. The massive volume resulted in our ticketing system temporarily malfunctioning."

    Following news of the potential for life on the recently-discovered TRAPPIST-1 system, there may be another competitor ready to take its place.

    With the help of the Cassini spacecraft, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) scientists have picked up the first evidence that chemical reactions are taking place deep below the surface of Enceladus, Saturn's (土星的) sixth-largest moon. This means that there could be life in Enceladus' warm underground seas.

    An early study found that liquid oceans exist miles below Enceladus' surface. But to reveal what is happening down there, scientists must rely on the plumes (股) of water that spray (喷射) through cracks in Enceladus' icy surface. In October 2015, NASA sent Cassini into a deep dive into one of the plumes.

    Cassini's findings, published on April 13 in the journal Science, showed that hydrogen (氢) not only exists on Enceladus, but is also responsible for a chemical reaction between hot rocks and water in the ocean beneath its surface.

    This same process on Earth provides energy for entire ecosystems around volcanic vents (火山口). There, tiny creatures are able to survive without sunlight, using hydrogen and carbon dioxide as fuel in a process known as “methanogenesis (甲烷生成)”.

    The discovery of this chemical energy source on Enceladus means it could be a very good candidate to host life.

    “Confirmation (确认) that the chemical energy for life exists within the ocean of a small moon of Saturn is an important milestone (里程碑) in our search for habitable (可居住的) worlds beyond Earth,” Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA, told the Daily Mail.

    Alien life was once only thought possible on habitable planets within the “Goldilocks zone” – far enough from our sun not to be a fireball, but not so far as to be freezing.

    Research on Enceladus is still in its early stages, but the recent findings have important meanings for future exploration.

    “At present, we know of only one genesis (诞生) of life, the one that led to us,” David Rothery, professor of planetary geosciences (行星与地球科学) from the Open University in the UK, told The Telegraph.

    “If we knew that life had started independently in two places in our solar system, then we could be pretty confident that life also got started on some of the tens of billions of planets and moons around other stars in our galaxy,” he said.

    The associates I hired in my bicycle and lawn mower shop like myself were never perfect; however, they were excellent. Working with them as they improved taught me new ways to show forgiveness, understanding, and patience.

    One day the placement officer asked me to interview a young man who was having trouble finding a job. He told me that David was a little shy, did not talk much and was afraid to go on with interviews. He requested that I give David an interview just for practice. He plainly told David that I had no positions open at the time and the interview was just for practice.

    When David came in for the interview, he hardly said a word. I told him what we did at the bicycle shop and showed him around. I told David to keep showing up because the number one thing an employer wanted in an associate was dependability. David was very quiet (he was evaluated as a slow learner in school).Every ten days or so, for weeks after the interview, David walked into the bicycle shop and stood by the front door. He never said a word, just stood by the door.

    One day, shortly before Christmas, a large truck came to the shop, packed with 250 new bicycles. It had to be unloaded right away or the driver would leave. It was raining. Some of my workers (without physical limitations) chose not to brave the weather to get into work, so I was short-handed. It seemed everything was going wrong and on top of it, David came in the front door and just stood there. I looked at him and shouted,“Well, all right! Fill out a time card and help me unload this truck!”

    David worked for my bicycle shop for eighteen years. He came to work every day thirty minutes early. He could talk; however, he rarely chose to. He drove my truck and made deliveries. The customers would praise David, saying,“He doesn't talk, but he really shows you how to operate a lawn mower!”

    It's said that you don't know a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. And you also don't know what it's like for older people to travel until you accompany one on a trip.

    After flying with my elderly father from Washington, D.C. to L.A. in July, I began to realize that a companion has important tasks that can make a journey easier for older people. I booked nonstop tickets on JetBlue to avoid tiring, confusing connections, and we flew directly into small, manageable Long Beach Airport. Even though my father could walk, I arranged with the airline for wheelchair assistance, which meant we got on board first.

    When I took him back to the airport for his return flight to Washington, I got permission from JetBlue to wait with him at the gate instead of saying goodbye at the security checkpoint. I wished he'd had a first-class seat and access to a comfortable airline club. Better yet, I wish I had flown with him both ways. As I watched the attendant wheel him to the lift that took him from the tarmac (飞机跑道) to the plane, I felt like an anxious mom sending her child to school for the first time.

    I didn't need to worry about my father wandering away; at 82, his mind was sharper than mine. But his hearing was poor, so I worried about what would happen if he missed an important announcement. Fortunately, everything went just fine. Careful planning made the trip successful.

    Next time I travel with a senior, I'll know better. I hope there will be a next time.

    It's nice to have people of like mind around. Agreeable people boost your confidence and allow you to relax and feel comfortable. Unfortunately, that comfort can hinder the very learning that can expand your company and your career.

    It's nice to have people agree, but you need conflicting perspectives to dig out the truth. If everyone around you has similar views, your work will suffer from confirmation bias (偏颇).

    Take a look at your own network. Do your contacts share your point of view on most subjects? If yes, it's time to shake things up. As a leader, it can be challenging to create an environment in which people will freely disagree and argue, but as the saying goes: From confrontation(冲突) comes brilliance.

    It's not easy for most people to actively seek conflict. Many spend their lives trying to avoid arguments. There's no need to go out and find people you hate, but you need to do some self-assessment to determine where you have become stale(疲沓的) in your thinking. You may need to start by encouraging your current network to help you identify your blind spots.

    Passionate, energetic debate does not require anger and hard feelings to be effective. But it does require moral strength. Once you have worthy opponents, set some ground rules so everyone understands responsibilities and boundaries. The objective of this debating game is not to win but to get to the truth that will allow you to move faster, farther, and better.

    Fierce debating can hurt feelings, particularly when strong personalities are involved. Make sure you check in with your opponents so that they are not carrying the emotion of the battles beyond the battlefield. Break the tension with smiles and humor to reinforce the idea that this is friendly discourse and that all are working toward a common goal.

    Reward all those involved in the debate sufficiently when the goals are reached. Let your sparring partners (拳击陪练) know how much you appreciate their contribution. The more they feel appreciated, the more they'll be willing to get into the ring next time.

    College graduation brings both the satisfaction of academic achievement and the expectation of a well-paid job. But for 6, 000 graduates at San Jose State this year, there's uncertainty as they enter one of the worst job markets in decades. Ryan Stewart has a freshly-minted (新兴的) degree in religious studies, but no job prospects.

    "You look at everybody's parents and neighbours, and they're getting laid off and don't have jobs," said Stewart. "Then you look at the young people just coming into the workforce... it's just scary."

    When the class of 2003 entered college, the future never looked brighter. But in the four years they've been here, the world outside has changed dramatically.

    "Those were the exciting times, lots of dot-com opportunities, exploding offers, students getting top dollar with lots of benefits," said Cheryl Allmen-Vinnidge of the San Jose State Career Center. "Times have changed. It's a new market."

    Cheryl Allmen-Vinnidge ought to know. She runs the San Jose State Career Center, sort of a crossroads between college and the real world. Allmen-Vinnidge says students who do find jobs after college have done their homework.

    "The typical graduate who does have a job offer started working on it two years ago. They've postured (定位) themselves well during the summer. They've had several internships (实习)," she said. And they've majored in one of the few fields that are still hot, like chemical engineering, accounting, or nursing, where average starting salaries have actually increased over last year. Other popular fields (like information systems management, computer science, and political science) have seen big declines in starting salaries.

    Ryan Stewart (he had hoped to become a teacher) may just end up going back to school. "I'd like to teach college some day and that requires more schooling, which would be great in a bad economy," he said.

    To some students, a degree may not be a ticket to instant wealth. For now, they can only hope its value will increase over time.