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    Suppose you're in a rush, felling tired, not paying attention to your screen, and you send an email that could get you in trouble.

    Realisation will probably set in seconds after you've clicked “send”. You freeze in horrors and burn with shame.

    What to do? Here are four common email accidents, and how to recover.

    Clicking “send” too soon

    Don't waste your time trying to find out if the receivers has read it yet. Write another email as swiftly as you can and send it with a brief explaining that this is the correct version and the previous version should be ignored.

    Writing the wrong name

    The sooner you notice, the better. Respond quickly and briefly, apologizing for your mistake. Keep the tone measured: don't handle it too lightly, as people can be offered, especially if your error suggests a misunderstanding of their culture(i.e. incorrect ordering of Chinese names).

    Clicking “reply all” unintentionally

    You accidentally reveal(透露)to entire company what menu choices you would prefer at the staff Christmas dinner, or what holiday you'd like to take. In this instance, the best solution is to send a quick, light-hearted apology to explain your awkwardness. But it can quickly rise to something worse, when everyone starts hitting “reply all” to join in a long and unpleasant conversation. In this instance, step away from your keyboard to allow everyone to calm down.

    Sending an offensive message to its subject

    The most awkward email mistake is usually committed in anger. You write an unkind message about someone, intending to send it to a friend, but accidentally send it to the person you're discussing. In that case, ask to speak in person as soon as possible and say sorry. Explain your frustrations calmly and sensibly—see it as an opportunity to clear up any difficulties you may have with this person.

    The world consumes hundreds of billions of single-use plastic bags each year. They are difficult to recycle, wasteful and damage the nature. Environmental activists want to ban plastic bags or—as many communities have done —charge a fee for them. But the plastic bag industry defends their use, saying people reuse plastic bags, and industry officials argue recycling is a matter of personal responsibility and should not be forced.

    City officials say New Yorkers use 5.2 billion plastic bags each year. They are offered free with nearly every supermarket, or convenience store purchase. Many people like them, even if they sometimes feel guilty about using them. But what happens to those bags after they've been used in a huge environmental problem. They are found on beaches. They are caught in trees. They are swallowed by marine life.

    Plastic bags are made of petroleum products and natural gas, and do not biodegrade (分解). And they are difficult to recycle. So New York City spends nearly $ 10 million dollars a year to send 100—thousand tons of plastic bags to landfills out of state.

    In Washington, D.C., a five percent charge on all single-use bags led to about a 60 percent reduction and in Los Angeles County in California , a 10 cent charge on single-use bags led to a 95 percent reduction. With a 10 cent charge on bags, customers are much more likely to stop and think about whether they need a bag or not. And that's really all that these laws are doing.

    Studying the DNA of 300 mice has flagged up genes which have been linked to hereditary (遗传的) sight loss for the first time. Researchers say because mice's genes are so similar to humans', their findings could lead to the treatment of more genetic diseases.

    Scientists at the University of California, Davis studied information from a data bank of mice's genetic material. They found 347 genes linked to eye problems, with just 86 of them having been studied in the past.

    Only around 50 to 75 percent of hereditary eye diseases in human can be explained with present science. The researchers believe these hundreds of new genes found in mice could be a key to explaining-and therefore being able to treat the other 25-50 percent.

    "This is extremely valuable for people with hereditary eye disease," said researcher Professor Ala Moshiri. "All researchers are going to start using these data. In the past, we knew the problem was there but we didn't know where to look. Now eye centers can call back patients and screen them for these new genes. We expected that more and more of these genetic diseases will be treatable." Also, the fact is that more than 60 percent of eye problems at birth are ones resulting from the baby's parents!

    Thanks to data from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC), which is trying to work out what every single gene in a mouse is responsible for, with the aim of translating it to humans, scientists are moving closer to figuring out all genetic causes of blindness. To do this, scientists separate a single gene from other ones at a time and then observe what effect it has on the mouse for a long time. This has so far been done more than 7,000 times and has achieved great success. Researchers are now working alongside eye care centers in Texas and Iowa in order to compare the mice's genes to those of patients.

    I am afraid of heights but two summers ago I climbed to a high place. Most of our high school had come along on a day trip to a beautiful beach village in Peru. After eating our lunches, many of us wanted to make the climb to an area around the village.

    Do I turn back? "Yes!" Will I regret (后悔))it later? I really want to get to the top, but... At last, I decided at least to have a try.

    My friend Tom was in front of me. Then, suddenly, he slipped (滑倒))and was about 10 feet back! My heart was beating faster until he stopped himself. Knowing that my friend Seth would be right behind me, I began the climb. I was soon past the first challenge safely, but not feeling much better about the rest of the climb. Looking down, I saw rocks everywhere. My breathing sped up, and my heart beat even faster, growing loud in my ears.

    My friends kept climbing. But they did not forget me. Someone was always behind me to help hold my feet when necessary, and someone else was always in front to offer a hand up. With friends helping me by words and actions, I slowly gained ground.

    Then we came to the worst part. The climb looked very close to vertical (垂直的). To me, the wise choice was to go back down. Melody encouraged me to go on and she made it safely first. I stopped, unsure of my footing. "You can do it, Jean! I'm right here," Melody called. She waited patiently, not asking me to hurry. I took a few deep breaths and kept climbing.

    With no more mistakes, we came to the top finally. I was dirty and tired. But it didn't matter. I was at the top! I had never felt so alive.

    For 63 percent of Americans, coffee is one of their daily essentials. This number has been this high since 2017, according to the National Coffee Association. The rise of coffee is due to its numerous benefits like preventing DNA damage, but it works best if you do this simple thing first: Eat.

    "Drinking coffee on an empty stomach, or early in the morning before you've had breakfast, can raise the level of cortisol (皮质醇) in your body. From the moment you open your eyes in the morning, your body starts releasing cortisol. It's a hormone (激素) that's responsible for ruling your immune response, metabolism (新陈代谢), and stress response," says Dr. Nikola Djordjevic, MD.

    "If you pump your body with caffeine(咖啡因) when your cortisol is at its peak," Djordjevic says, "you'll be forcing your body to bear even more stress." In a study that evaluated preference for caffeinated drinks among medical students, it's shown that 25 percent of students drank coffee in the morning on an empty stomach.

    These students are at an increased risk of mood changes and possible long-term effects on their health, as explained in the study. "Drinking coffee on an empty stomach can greatly encourage the acid in your stomach, producing a more acidic environment," says Dr. Jamie Long, a licensed clinical psychologist. Thus, a full stomach is important to control the amount of stomach acid produced.

    Since coffee increases your stomach acid, you're highly likely to experience heartburn and even develop gastric ulcers (胃溃疡), Djordjevic says. Clearly, drinking coffee on an empty stomach affects physical health. But it does harm to mental health, too. The overproduction of acid in the stomach can cause mood swings, nervousness, shaking and other withdrawal symptoms (症状). "And if you've already had the sign of experiencing anxiety, you're even more possible to be attacked by the effects of coffee," says Long.

    Base line: Know your limits so you can fully experience what coffee can offer, because here's exactly what happens to your body when you drink coffee daily.

This winter, the U. S. state of California received unusually large amounts of rain and snow. Now, people worry that some areas will flood as the snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains melts (融化).

Ron Caetano lives about half-way between the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. He is preparing to leave in case his community, called the Island District, floods.

More than 100 years ago, the Island District area was under a large lake named Tulare Lake. At one time, Tulare Lake was the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. But reservoirs (水库) and watering systems for agriculture caused it to disappear. However, in very rainy years, farmland can still get covered with water.

Experts say reservoirs near the area will likely receive three times more water than they can hold this year. That means officials must increase the amount of water they release (释放) from the reservoirs. If too much water is released, the area might flood.

The Island District has organized a community network to help prepare for floods. People are placing sandbags close to elderly neighbors' houses to block possible flooding. And they are looking at reports from water officials, county officials, and from each other.

California has had very dry weather in recent years. Both cities and farm communities acclaimed this year's winter rains. If the weather gets warmer slowly, the snow will not melt quickly and there may be little or no flooding. But if the weather gets hot quickly, that will bring trouble from too much melting snow.

Officials announced plans to close parts of Yosemite National Park because of threats of flooding. The park is about 270 kilometers east of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Nicholas Pinter is with the University of California, Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. He said the lake's size has always changed because of California's weather. He described the surrounding area this way. "It has been an engineering problem all along," he said. "This is a bathtub (浴缸) with no way out."