More and more people like bicycling and it is no surprise. It is fun, healthy and good for the environment. Maybe that's why there are 1.4 billion bicycles and only 400 million cars on roads worldwide today. Bikes can take you almost anywhere, and there is no oil cost!

    Get on a bicycle and ride around your neighborhood. You may discover something new all around you. Stopping and getting off a bike is easier than stopping and getting out of your car.

    You can bike to work and benefit from the enjoyable exercise without polluting the environment. You don't even have to ride all the way. Folding (折叠) bikes work well for people who ride the train. Just fold the bike and take it with you. You can do the same on an airplane. A folding bike can be packed in a suitcase. You can also take a common bike with you when you fly. But be sure to look for information by getting on airline websites. Not all airlines are bicycle-friendly to travellers.

Health Benefits of Bicycling:

    It helps to prevent heart diseases.

    Bicycling helps to control your weight.

    A 15-minute bike ride to and from work three times a week burns off five kilos of fat in a year.

    Bicycling can improve your mood (心情).

    Exercise like bicycling has been shown to make people feel better, more relaxed and self-confident.

    Bicycling is healthier than driving.

    When Dee Dee Bridgewater learned that she would become a 2017 NEA Jazz Master, a series of thoughts and feelings flooded her mind. “It was so far out of my orbit and just my whole sphere of thinking,” she said in a conversation at NPR this spring, hours before she formally received her award.

    She's 66-far from retirement age in jazz, and on the extreme forward edge of the NEA Jazz Masters people. So she was aware of her relative youth in the field She also recognized that there haven't been many women in the ranks of NEA Jazz Masters: fewer than 20, out of 145. That idea led her to reflect on her predecessors (前任): legendary singers like Betty Carter* who was seated back in 1992, and Abbey Lincoln, who received the nod in 2003.

    Bridgewater sought inspiration and advice from both Carter and Lincoln, as she recalls in this period of Jazz Night, which features music recorded during the season opener for Jazz at Lincoln Center. On a program called “Songs of Freedom”, organized by drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr., Bridgewater sang material associated with Lincoln as well as Nina Simone: an extremely angry song of the civil rights movement, like “Mississippi Goddam”.

    A separate concert, “Songs We Love”, found Bridgewater singing less politically charged (but still exciting) fare like “St. James Infirmary”, which appears on her most recent album. In words as well as music, this period reveals how seriously Bridgewater takes that responsibility, seeing as how it connects to her own experience in the jazz lineage. But maybe “seriously” isn't the right word when it comes to Dee Dee, whose effervescence (欢腾) shines through even in a reflective mood. Join her here for a while; she's excellent company, no more or less so now that mastery is officially a part of her resume.

    A few years ago, Darla Hoff painted a pumpkin face onto a round straw bale(捆)at A1 and Karen Goldman's farm in Idaho Palls to advertise her U-pick pumpkin field. While Darla has stopped growing pumpkins, the annual tradition of straw bale art lives on at the farm and has drawn friends and neighbors to participate in it. Past creations have included an owl, Minions, tractors and a teddy bear.

    To make the tractors, A1 baled round straw bales in two different sizes smaller ones for the tractor's front tires and larger ones for the rear(尾部). Large square bales made up the bodies. Jerry Kienlen used his farming equipment to arrange the bales in the shape of two tractors. Then it was time to bring the tractors to life. Karen and her daughter. Lana Hedrick, secured some green paint, and A1 got some red paint. Darla's husband, James, sprayed the creation with a paint gun. For the finishing touches, Steven donated two shiny exhaust stacks (排气管),and A1 and Karen donated two steering wheels from their farm parts.

    The farm's annual straw bale art projects have now become a way for everyone to celebrate the end of another growing season. It's just something fun to do together after harvest. This neighborhood has always been close. Generations of these families have grown crops in this soil. Raised on the farms where they live now, they grew up together as their elders did before. A1 and Karen are truly super neighbors. Every year they also grow about two acres of corn to give away. Anyone can pick some, or A1 and Karen will even deliver. And during long Idaho winters, everyone gathers at the farm to enjoy fresh coffee and cookies.

    This year's straw hale creation theme is Straw Wars. And all eyes will be on A1 and Karen's farm as their creation takes shape.

    According to a team of researchers, an animal's ability to perceive(感知) time is linked to their pace of life.

    “Our results lend support to the importance of time perception in animals where the ability to perceive time in a very short time may be the difference between life and death for fast moving creatures.” commented lead author Kevin Healy from Trinity College Dublin.

    The study was done with a variety of animals using phenomenon based on the maximum speed of flashes of light an individual can see before the light source is seen as constant. Dogs, for example, have eyes with a refresh rate higher than humans.

    One example of this phenomenon at work, the authors say, is the housefly and its ability to avoid being hit. The research showed flies “observe motion in a shorter time than our own eyes can achieve,” which allows them to avoid being hit.

    Professor Graeme Ruxton of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who worked jointly on the research project, said in a statement, “Having eyes that send updates to the brain at much higher frequencies than our eyes do is of no Value if the brain cannot process that information equally quickly. Thus, this work highlights the impressive abilities of even the smallest animal brains. Flies might now be deep thinkers, but they can make good decisions very quickly.”

    In comparison, the tiger beetle (虎甲虫) runs faster than its eyes can keep up, basically becoming blind, which requires it to stop periodically to re-evaluate its prey's(猎物) position.

    Our results suggest that time perception offers an as yet unstudied dimension along which animals can specialize and there is considerable range to study this system in more detail.

    Do you have a spare room in your house? What about a driveway for your car? Both of these can help you make money. Many people who are feeling the pinch are taking advantage of what's been called the “sharing economy”.

Perhaps the best-known example of a company in this field is Airbnb—an American web business which allows you to rent out your spare room to holidaymakers. It says it operates in 34,000 cities and it has over 1,500,000 listings.It seems to have concerned the market!

A British company is doing something with parking spaces. JustPark's founder, Anthony Eskinazi, says,“When I had the original idea, Ispotted a driveway close to a sports stadium. It would have been so convenient if I could have just parked in that driveway rather than in commercial car park.” And he has a big clientele（客户）:around 20,000 people have advertised their spaces on the site, and he says around half a million drivers use it. There are other sites doing very similar things, like Uber and Lyft—these let drivers share their cars with other passengers. Any driver knows how valuable a place to park is .A church near Kings Cross in central London has apparently made over £200,000 by renting out space in its yard to travelers!

    Because this is a new business world, those rules aren't there yet and many people are happy to share...as long as it pays!

    But the sharing economy has its critics: the competitors of these new companies. People who run things like traditional B&B, commercial car parks and taxi services are afraid of ending up out of pocket. And there is another issue: regulations on these new business are unclear. How will renting out your driveway affect your neighbor?

    Last summer, after finishing my work in China, I took the trip of a lifetime on the Trans-Siberian Railway (西伯利亚铁路). Leaving Beijing early on a Wednesday morning in July, my wife and I travelled through some awesome (令人惊叹的) countryside before we arrived in Moscow the following Monday.

    The first part of the journey took us past the Great Wall and through the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. At the Mongolian Republic border, we had a delay(耽搁)while the wheels were changed because the railway is different.

    On our way to the capital, Ulan Bator, we saw herdsmen (牧人) on horseback looking after their cattle. There was a great thunderstorm as we crossed a vast open plain. Later we had a quick tour of Ulan Bator.

    Next, the train took us into Siberia. After a stop at Irkutsk, a popular holiday resort(度假胜地), where a tour group left the train, we passed the great Lake Baikal. Later, we saw some lovely wooden houses in pretty, sunny countryside. This surprised us, as we had imagined Siberia as being covered with thick snow.

    Over the next few days, we passed through Novosibirsk, Omsk and other cities in the heartlands of the Russian Federation. By now, our body clocks were losing their sense of time. We wanted to sleep and eat at the wrong time!

    At last we reached Moscow. We were so tired that we slept for 16 hours that night. The next day we went sightseeing. We saw the Dremlin and some other magnificent (宏伟的) buildings in the Russian capital. Then, all too soon, it was time for us to return to our home in London.