Apple Seeds

    Circulation : 1 Year, 9 Issues

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    Product Description: Apple seeds is an award winning magazine filled with stories for kids aged from 7 to 9. The cover is very soft, proving durability that allows each issue to be enjoyed for many years to come. Besides, there is a big surprise for you—it's being sold at a more favorable discount than usual.

    Better Life

    Circulation : 1 Year, 12 Issues

    Cover Price: MYM 44.55

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    Product Description: Designed for those who have a strong interest in personal lifestyle, Better Life is America's complete home and family service magazine. It offers help with food , recipes, decorating, building, gardening, family health, money management, and education.

    Humor Times

    Circulation : 1 Year, 12 Issues

    Cover Price: MYM 36.00

    Price For You: MYM 1.95

    Product Description: Humor Times Magazine is for those who love to laugh! Full of cartoons and humor columns, it shows up in your mailbox once a month and keeps you smiling all year round! In today's world, you need a reason to laugh. So let's find it in humor Times.

     News China

    Circulation : 1 Year, 12 Issues

    Cover Price: MYM 47.88

    Price For You: MYM 19.99

    Product Description: News China magazine is the English edition of China domestic news in politics, business, society, environment, culture, sports and travels, etc. It is the first comprehensive news magazine for readers interested in China.

    My three-year-old granddaughter, Tegan, went with her parents to a family gathering at the home of her other grandparents. Everyone was having a wonderful time visiting and catching up on all the latest family news.

    Like most children, Tegan was having a good time playing with all the toys that were different from her own and that were kept for children to play with at her grandparents' house. In particular, Tegan had found a little tea set and had begun pretending that she was having a tea party. She set up all the place settings and arranged her table with the great care and elegance that only a three-year-old can create. Meanwhile, her Daddy concentrated on conversation, and as he continued to chat with his family, Tegan would hand him a cup of "tea". Her Daddy, who always tries to participate in her games, would pause for a few seconds from his conversation, and say all the proper words and gestures for her tea party which would thrill Tegan. He would request two lumps of sugar. He would tell her how wonderful her tea tasted, and then he would continue his adult conversation with his family.

    After going through this routine several times, her Daddy suddenly awoke to reality as he had a flash of concern in his mind: "She is only three years old, where is she getting this 'tea' that I've been dutifully drinking?" He quietly followed her, without her knowing, and his fears were growing stronger as he saw her turn and go through the bathroom door. Sure enough, there she was stretching up on her tippy toes reaching up to get her 'tea' water out of the container of water that grandpa used to soak (浸泡)his false teeth!

    Feelings often run high where insects are concerned, with many people even sick when seeing them, let alone touch or swallow them. And yet insects present a huge nutritional opportunity as an increasing global population seeks more sources of food and feed.

    Insects have generally high levels of animal protein and key micronutrients with lower environmental footprints than traditional alternatives, and they can be raised on leftovers. But cultural, social and economic problems remain, reports an article published today in Nutrition Bulletin.

    “Insects present a nutritional opportunity, but it is unclear how their nutritional quality is influenced by what they are fed,” says Darja Dobermann, a researcher at the University of Nottingham. “In ideal conditions, insects have a smaller environmental impact than most traditional western forms of animal protein; less known is how to raise insect production while maintaining these environmental benefits.”

    “Studies overall show that insects could make valuable economic and nutritional contributions to the food or fed systems, but there are no clear regulations in place to bring insects into such supply systems without them turning into a more expensive version of poultry（家禽）for food,” says Dobermann.

    The article highlights how insects have been a source of food for hundreds of years in more than 100 countries with over 2,000 species that can be eaten; in central Africa, up to 50% of dietary protein has come from insects, with their market value higher than many alternative sources of animal protein.

    Insects need to be large enough to make the effort of catching them worthwhile and easy to locate, preferably in predictably large quantities. They are consumed at various life stages, as raw, fried, boiled, roasted or ground food.

Unusual incidents are being reported across the Arctic. Inuit(因纽特人) families going off on snowmobiles to prepare their summer hunting camps have found themselves cut off from home by a sea of mud. There are also reports of sea ice breaking up earlier than usual, carrying seals beyond the reach of hunters. Climate change may still be a rather abstract idea to most of us, but in the Arctic it is already having great effects—if summertime ice continues to shrink at its present rate, the Arctic Ocean could soon become almost ice-free in summer. The knock- on effects(连锁反应) are likely to include more warming, cloudier skies, and higher sea levels. Scientists are increasingly eager to find out what's going on in the Arctic.

    For the Inuit the problem is urgent. They live in unsteady balance with one of the environments on earth. Climate change, whatever its causes, is a direct danger to their way of life. Nobody knows the Arctic as well as the locals, which is why they are not content simply to stand back and let outside experts tell them what's happening. In Canada, where the Inuit people are trying hard to guard their hard-won autonomy in the country's newest land, Nunavut, they believe their best hope of survival in this changing environment lies in combining their ancestral knowledge with the best of modern science. This is a challenge in itself.

    The Canadian Arctic is a vast, treeless polar desert that's covered with snow for most of the year. Adventure into this area and you get some idea of the hardships facing anyone who calls this home. Farming is out of the question and nature offers few pickings. Humans first settled in the Arctic a mere 4,500 years ago, surviving by taking advantage of sea first. The environment tested them to the limits: sometimes the settlers were successful; sometimes they failed and disappeared. But around a thousand years ago, one group appeared that was uniquely well adapted to deal with the Arctic environment. These Thule people moved in from Alaska, bringing dogs, iron tools and the like. They are the ancestors of today's Inuit people.

    Life for the descendants(后代) of the Thule people is still tough. Nunavut is 1.9 million square kilometers of rock and ice, and a handful of islands around the North Pole. It's currently home to 2,500 people, all but a handful of them Inuit. Over the past 40 years, most have abandoned their nomadic(游牧的) ways and settled in the area's 28 isolated communities, but they still rely heavily on nature to provide food and clothing.

    Supplies available in local shops have to be flown into Nunavut on one of the most costly air networks in the world, or brought by supply ship during the few ice-free weeks of summer. It would cost a family around ￡7,000 a year to replace meat they obtained themselves through hunting with imported meat. Economic opportunities are few, and for many people state benefits are their only income.

    Disease, poverty, hate, love — Charles Dickens' stories opened his readers' eyes to the most important themes of his age. Two hundred years later, his stories still speak volumes across the world, proving that Dickens' legacy (遗产) was far greater than just "great-literature".

    February 7 marks the 200th anniversary of the writer's birthday. To mark this date, BBC writer Alex Hudson listed six things Dickens gave the modern world. Let's take a look at two of them.

    A White Christmas

    Dickens is described as "the man who invented Christmas"— not the religious festival, but the cultural aspects that we associate with the festive season today.

    In the early 19th century, Christmas was barely worth mentioning, according to critic and writer Leigh Hunt. The committee which ran the Conservative Party even held ordinary business meetings on Christmas Day — unthinkable in the West nowadays, when everyone but the most necessary workers takes at least three days off.

    Many people believe that Dickens' popular descriptions of the festive period became a blueprint for generations to come. In his classic novel, A Christmas Carol, he not only put forward the idea of snow at Christmas, but also painted a picture of glowing warmth —“home enjoyments, affections and hopes".

    In his biography of Dickens, Peter Ackroyd wrote:" Dickens can be said to have almost single-handedly created the modern idea of Christmas."

    "Dickensian" poverty

    Dickens was one of the first to take an honest look at the underclass and the poor of Victorian London.

    He helped popularize the term "red tape" to describe situations where people in power use needless amounts of bureaucracy (官僚作风) in a way that particularly hurts the weaker and poorer members of society.

    "Dickensian" has now become a powerful word for describing an unacceptable level of poverty. In 2009, when the president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in the UK wanted to talk about poverty in some areas of Britain, she did not use words like "terrible" or "horrific", but rather described it as "life mirroring the times of Dickens".

    Which kind of diamond is better for the environment and the world we live in: a diamond from a traditional mine or one made in a laboratory?

    Some recent reports suggest the answer may not be so clear. At the very least, these reports provide evidence of tensions between two different sectors of the diamond industry.

    Lab -grown diamond companies say they are more ethical and cause less harm to Earth's environment. The traditional diamond sector notes that its businesses help the communities where they operate mines. It says they provide jobs, help build roads and other infrastructure and make investments in conservation.

    Some companies, such as De Beers, work on both sides. De Beers sells natural and man-made diamonds. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission(FTC) investigates reports of deceptive, or misleading, advertising. In April, the commission sent warning letters to eight lab-grown diamond companies. One of the FTC's concerns was the use of the word 'eco-friendly', and similar terms, to describe diamonds made in a laboratory. The lab-grown process requires very high temperatures and uses a lot of energy. Trucost is a company that estimates the costs of using natural resources. Asked by the Diamond Producers Association to study the issue, Trucost found the carbon intensity of natural diamonds was lower than lab-grown diamonds.

    The Trucost report did note that diamond miners should reduce their effect on the environment by using more renewable energy, such as wind power and sunlight.