A young woman sits alone in café sipping tea and reading a book. She pauses briefly to write in a nearby notepad before showing her words to a passing café waiter: “Where are the toilets please?” This is a familiar scene in Tokyo's so-called “silent cafes”, where customers are not allowed to speak, and only communicate by writing in notepads.

    The concept rises by a desire to be alone among young Japanese, a situation brought by economic uncertainly, a shift in traditional family support structures and the growing social isolation. The phenomenon is not limited to coffee shops but covers everything from silent discos, where participants dance alone wearing wireless headphones connected to the DJ, to products such as small desk tents designed for conversation-free privacy in the office. One Kyoto company even offers single women the opportunity to have a “one woman wedding” – a full bridal affair, complete with white dress and ceremony, and the only thing missing is the groom. The trend has its own media expression – “botchi-zoku”, referring to individuals who consciously choose to do things completely on their own.

    One recent weekday afternoon, Chihiro Higashikokubaru, a 23-year-old nurse, travelled 90 minutes from her home, to Tokyo on her day off in order to enjoy some solo time. Speaking quietly at the entrance of the café, Miss Higashikokubaru said: “I heard about this place via Twitter and I like the idea of coming here. I work as a nurse and it's always very busy. There are very few quiet places in Tokyo, and it's a big busy city. I just want to come and sit somewhere quietly on my own. I'm going to drink a cup of tea and maybe do some drawings. I like the idea of a quiet, calm atmosphere.”

    The desire to be isolated is not a new concept in Japan, home to an estimated 3.6 million “hikikomori” – a more extreme example of social recluses（隐士）who withdraw completely from society.

    You eat food and drink water, right? Skipping Rocks Lab is changing how you and your future generations will have water. Have you ever thought you could eat water? Think again, this is actually happening somewhere in the world.

    The group at Skipping Rocks Lab has made a water bottle you can eat. The product is called Ooho. Unlike plastic bottles, Oohos are neither tall nor hard. They look more like bubbles, or small, round, clear balls. They can hold liquid inside. People who drink Oohos can be surprised: the outside bursts in the mouth.

    Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez is with Skipping Rocks Lab. He explains that the outside, or the membrane, of Ooho is made of seaweed, a plant that grows in the ocean. “It's a membrane made of seaweed that can contain water or any kind of liquid. It's made from an extract (汁) of the brown seaweed.”

    The Ooho membrane is tasteless, and you can eat it. The company says even if you throw away the membrane, it will break down in about four weeks. Gonzalez says the membrane is strong, and good for the environment.

Every year, billions of plastic water bottles are thrown away, polluting land and waterways around the world. The typical water bottle made of plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade.

    Lise Honsinger is also with Skipping Rocks Lab. “Most people just grab a bottle of water, hold it for five minutes, drink it, and throw it away. How can that then exist for 700 years? So, yeah, this is absolutely a solution to that. We are very purist: we don't want to see this packaged in plastic.”

    There are limits to the Ooho. It cannot be refilled. Each bottle is small. And Oohos do not store for more than a few days. The Skipping Rocks Lab is working on those issues. “We're still working on things like extending the shelf life, looking at different options in terms of thickness, if we want to make one that stands up more, or more flexible for marathons where people just want to eat it whole.”

    Right now, Skipping Rocks Lab can make only a few thousand Oohos a day. But it is developing new technology that could increase that number to hundreds of thousands.

    I'm Caty Weaver. Kevin Enochs wrote this story. Anne Ball adapted it for Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

    I was raised in a house where my sisters and I weren't trusted by our mother to manage our own appearance. As a result, there were rules, and trends were largely ignored. A few years ago, I was home for a visit when my mom, now in her early 70s, called me into her bedroom. We were about ready to leave for dinner. “I don't know what to wear” she complained “You girls always look so good. ”

    I paused in the doorway and looked at her, wondering if I'd misheard. “What do you mean?” I asked her. “You know what to wear" No. ”she answered. “I don't. Can you pick something?” I was so surprised.

    This was the same woman who, in 1989, told my younger sister she wasn't allowed to leave the house wearing a pair of ripped(有破洞的)jeans；the same woman who, in high school, called me while l was out at a party to ask if my hair was up. “You look better with it down, ”she told me, before I could answer I realized, suddenly, that my mother—always so strong—not only wanted my opinion, but needed it. I pulled a pair of blue jeans from the closet and a light blue sweater from her drawer “Wear this with your black shoes, ”I told her. She did My mother certainly doesn't need anyone to take care of her. In fact, she still cares for my grandmother who lives with her. But with that one question, my mother and I started the role reversal(转变)that happens with all parents and all children, from caregiver to receiver.

    Now, if I'm visiting or we're together, it's rare for her to wear anything without checking with me first. But every so often, it seems like she asks me just to be able to disagree with my answer and pick out something on her own. And when she does, I just tell her what I think of the way she looks. Sometimes it's “great”. And sometimes it's "awful."

    Breakfast is not only the most important meal of the day, but also the most neglected. Common reasons for not eating breakfast include lack of time, not feeling hungry, traditional dislike for breakfast, and dieting.

    Breakfast simply means "break the fast". Your body spends at least 6 to 12 hours each night in a fasting state. In the morning your body needs energy for the day's work ahead.

    A good breakfast should provide up to 1/3 of your total calories needs for the day. On average(平均)we eat 400 less calories for breakfast than for dinner. If breakfast doesn't attract you in the morning, try eating a lighter for the breakfast in the morning.

    If you aren't hungry in the morning, start with something small like juice or toast or have a nutritious mid-morning snack alter when you are hungry.

    So, you say you're on a diet. Some people fear eating breakfast will make them hungrier during the day and they will eat more. It is true that eating breakfast is likely to make you eat more. That's because your body is working all day long, in fact, you are probably not.

    Not eating breakfast can also cause you to overeat, since a fall in blood sugar often makes you feel very hungry later. To make matters worse, since your body is in a slowed state it will not be able to burn those extra calories very quickly. If you feed your body healthy snacks and meals through the day, you are less likely to become hungry and fill yourself as soon as you begin to eat. Since breakfast is the first and most important meal of the day, choosing the right fuel is important. The best breakfast foods are fruits, juice, lean meat, and grain products such as bread, rice, noodles and cereals(谷物).

    In some countries where racial prejudice is acute, violence has so come to be taken for granted as a means of solving differences that it is not even questioned. There are countries where the white man imposes his rule by brute force; there are countries where the black man protests by setting fire to cities and by looting and pillaging. Important people on both sides, who would in other respects appear to be reasonable men, get up and calmly argue in favor of violence—as if it were a legitimate solution, like any other. What is really frightening, what really fills you with despair, is the realization that when it comes to the crunch (关键时刻), we have made no actual progress at all. We may wear collars and ties instead of war-paint, but our instinct remain basically unchanged. The whole of the recorded history of the human race, that tedious documentation of violence, has taught us absolutely nothing. We have still not learned that violence never solves a problem but makes it more acute. The sheer horror, the bloodshed (流血), the suffering mean nothing. No solution ever comes to light the morning after when we dismally contemplate the smoking ruins and wonder what hit us.

    The truly reasonable men who know where the solutions lie are finding it harder and harder to get a hearing. They are despised mistrusted and even persuaded by their own kind because they advocate such apparently outrageous things as law enforcement (执行). If half the energy that goes into violent acts were put to good use, if our efforts were directed at cleaning up the slums and ghettos, at improving living standards and providing education and employment for all, we would have gone a long way to arriving at a solution. Our strength is sapped by having to mop to the mess that violence leaves in its wake. In a well-directed effort, it would not be impossible to fulfill the ideals of a stable social programme. The benefits that can be derived from constructive solutions are everywhere apparent in the world around us. Genuine and lasting solutions are always possible, providing we work within the framework of the law.

    Before we can even begin to contemplate peaceful co-existence between the races, we must appreciate each other's problems. And to do this, we must learn about them: it is a simple exercise in communication, in exchange information. "Talk, talk, talk" the advocates of violence say, "all you ever do is talk, and we are none the wiser." It's rather like the story of the famous barrister who painstakingly explained his case to the judge. After listening to a lengthy argument, the judge complained that after all this talk, he was none the wiser. "Possibly, my lord," the barrister replied, "none the wiser, but surely far better informed." Knowledge is the necessary prerequisite to wisdom: the knowledge that violence creates the evils it pretends to solve.

    A dog spent the last four years of his life waiting a crossroad in the Thai city of Khon Kaen as if waiting for someone. People originally thought the dog had been abandoned, but then realized that he looked healthy, so people asked around about him. It turned out that the dog had indeed been spending most of his time around that crossroad, but a woman had been coming round regularly to bring him food and water.

    One day, while photographing the dog everyone called Leo, a reporter met the woman who had been taking care of him. She had come to drop off some food. After learning the story about the dog and the woman, the reporter decided to share the story on social media. The post soon went viral and the photos of Leo got shared hundreds of times. And the photos reached the eyes of Leo's former old owner.

    Nang Noi Sittisarn, a 64-year-old woman from Thailand's Roi Et Province, almost had a heart attack when her daughter showed her a photo of the beloved dog named BonBon she had lost during a car trip. When she learned that he had been waiting for her in the same spot for the last four years，her heart melted(融化).

    Auntie Noi told her daughter to drive her to where the dog was waiting. When she got there and called his name. BonBon, the poor dog started wiggling(扭动)his tail and came to her, but when she tried to take him home with her, he was unwilling to follow. She didn't want to force the dog to come with her, so she agreed to leave him with his new master. However, she and her daughter will come to visit him regularly.