More and more comment(评论) sections are being shut down online.

    Autumn Phillips had had enough. On August 19, the executive editor of the Quad-City Times in Iowa, and Illinois, US visited her website, qutimes. com, and saw a story about a man who had been shot to death. When she got to the readers' comments section at the end, she was shocked by what she saw. Below the story was a growing string of comments—a racist remark about democratic( 民主的) voters, a negative comment about police...So Phillips decided to do something she had been thinking about for a long time: she shut down the comment section.

    Phillips was not alone in making such a move. Last week, NPR announced it too was closing its online comments section. The decisions don't mean that the news outlets are no longer interested in what their audiences are thinking. Both stressed their eagerness to hear from readers and listeners on social networks. But both agreed that comments had deviated from their original intention. And so they had.

    In the early days of digital journalism, comments were seen as a key part of the new media, a wonderful opportunity for strengthening the dialogue between news producers and their audiences. It was a welcome change, given that for long many news organizations were far too separated from their readers. Much more back and forth conversation seemed like healthy and welcome evolutions. Sadly, that's not the way things turned out. Rather than a place for exchanging ideas, comments sections became the home of ugly name-calling, racism and anti-women language. Besides their poisonous quality, comments seem out of place today.

    “Since we made the announcement, I've received an outpouring of responses from our readers,”she says. “I've heard from parents whose children were hurt by our online comments. I've heard from people who said they wouldn't send in letters to the editor because they were attacked so fiercely by comments, and it wasn't worth it.”

    UK is becoming a popular destination for people who wish to study abroad. However, Britain is quite an expensive place to study and live in. Tuition fees have now reached £ 9,250 a year and students also face some of the highest living costs in the world.

    Fortunately, there are a number of countries where universities offer degree programs entirely in English, along with the chance to learn the local language while you live there. Here are three of the options.

    Tianjin University

    Moving to China is not for the faint hearted. Undergraduate degree courses at Tianjin last four years. Living costs are only around £ 400 a month and tuition fees are £ 2,300 a year. Flights will cost £ 3,600 over the four years. The total cost, at £ 28,800, is still around half that of a three-year degree in Britain. Tianjin is one of the world's latest cities and is only a half-hour train ride from Beijing. Three undergraduate programs are offered in English: Chemical Engineering, Environment & Energy and Pharmaceutical Science.

    University of Amsterdam

    The Dutch capital is not a cheap city to live in, but standard tuition fees of £ 1,800 a year make it significantly cheaper than a British degree. There are 14 bachelor's degrees on offer that are taught in English, including Political Science, Economics & Business Economics and Actuarial Science. Nearly all Dutch people speak English, making it an easy country to get by in.

    University of Milan

The University of Milan's fees range from £ 140 to £3,650 a year. The one bachelor's degree offered entirely in English—Political Science is a three-year course. While living costs in Milan are high, the significantly lower fees make it a cheaper option than a British university.

    You probably know who Marie Curie was, but you may not have heard of Rachel Carson. Of the outstanding ladies listed below, who do you think was the most important woman of the past 100 years?

    Jane Addams (1860-1935)

    Anyone who has ever been helped by a social worker has Jane Addams to thank. Addams helped the poor and worked for peace. She encouraged a sense of community(社区) by creating shelters and promoting education and services for people in need. In 1931, Addams became the first American women to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

    Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

    If it weren't for Rachel Carson, the environmental movement might not exist today. Her popular 1962 book Silent Spring raised awareness of the dangers of pollution and the harmful effects of chemicals on humans and on the world's lakes and oceans.

    Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-present)

    When Sandra Day O'Connor finished third in her class at Stanford Law School in 1952, she could not find work at a law firm because she was a woman. She became an Arizona State Senator(参议员) and in 1981, the first woman to join the US Supreme Court（高等法院）. O'Connor gave the deciding vote in many important cases during her 24 years on the top court.

    Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

    On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks would not give up her seat to a white passenger. Her simple act landed Parks in prison. But it also set off the Montgomery bus boycott. (抵制行动) It lasted for more than a year, and kicked off the civil-rights movements. "the only tired I was, was tired of giving in." said Parks.

    I can proudly say that last year I broke the record for the oldest person in the world to ride a roller-coaster. I'm 105, but I feel younger. Even the doctor agrees I'm in good condition. I'm a bit deaf and my legs feel weak, but they are the only issue.

    I rode the Twistosaurus at Flamingo Land, which spins you round quite fast. I didn't choose to go on that. I'd have preferred a really fast one that went upside down. But I was told I couldn't ride something like that, because my blood pressure could drop and I might have some danger.

    I wasn't nervous — I don't get frightened of anything. I was securely fastened, so I knew I wouldn't fall out. The roller-coaster ride went on for three or four minutes, and it couldn't be a better experience. And I raised a lot of money for the Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance fund, which was fantastic.

    People were saying I'd got a place in the Guinness World Records. Later, someone came to present me with the certificate. I had it on the wall in my living room, with another one that got a year earlier.

    My record-breaking ways really began a couple of years ago, with the ice-bucket challenge. It turned out that I was probably the oldest person in the world to do it, and the video was very popular. After that, I stared to think about what else I could do to raise money for different charities.

    I'm not sure if anyone admires all the fun I'm having. They just say I'm daft and that's about it. But I've had many good days and many exciting times. I've had a really good life. I don't think I've wasted any of it.

When we meet someone for the first time, we usually get a vague sense of what kind of person they are by the way they shake hands, talk, or walk. In the age of social networking, however, first impressions are sometimes made even before we actually meet someone in person—that is, by looking at their profile photo.

    According to a recent study, these social images say a lot about our personality. In the study, presented in a paper at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, a group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in the US used software to analyze the profile pictures of 66,000 users of US social platform Twitter and 3,200 of their tweets. At the same time, about 434 participants were asked to complete a survey about their personality type. The researchers wanted to find out if there was a connection between personality traits—like openness, extroversion, and neuroticism(神经质)—and a person's profile picture.

    According to the results, open people are more likely to pose in an unusual way and use objects such as glasses or a guitar in their profile photo because they enjoy new and exciting experiences. Meanwhile, neurotic people often hold back their negative emotions. They try to avoid showing their face；Instead, they use an image of something like a pet, a car or a building.

    Apart from the objects in profile pictures, the colors used in them also give us some hints about the photo's owner. For example, extraverts were found to have the most colorful profile images, as they want to emphasize their personality and show themselves off, the researchers wrote.

    Although social media photos "usually represent an extension of one's self, they also allow a user to shape his or her own personality and idealized view," according to the researchers. So, when choosing a profile photo, maybe we should ask ourselves first what kind of image we'd like to convey. After all, first impressions always last.

    It was the final climb on his search to reach the highest top on all seven continents. When Christopher Kulish finally reached Mount Everest's 29,035-foot peak, he joined an elite group known as the "Seven Summits Club"(七峰俱乐部). But the 62-year-old Colorado attorney died suddenly Monday after returning to the first camp below the mountain's summit. He's the second American to die in the past week after reaching Everest's highest point. His family believes the cause was a heart attack, according to theDenver Post. "He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth," his brother, Mark Kulish, said in a statement to the Denver Post. "We are heartbroken at this news."

    Last week, 55-year-old Donald Lynn Cash of Utah collapsed and died just after reaching the Everest peak. He too had reached the highest point on all seven continents. Including Christopher and Cash, at least 11 people have died on Mount Everest this year.

    The deaths come among reports of overcrowding on the popular mountain. The Nepali government granted a total of 381 permits to climb Everest this year, a number that doesn't include guides who are on the mountain as well. For some climbers, that traffic has meant longer wait times — some told the Himalayan Times the wait has been over two hours between the last camp and the peak. Mountaineer Vanessa O'Brien, who has also climbed the seven summits, said when there's a crowd, being a more experienced climber won't help you. "It doesn't matter if you're the best racecar driver in the world. If you're stuck in traffic, you're stuck in traffic," she said in an interview.

    And when a climber is stuck in that traffic, "their body is starting to deteriorate(恶化)." O'Brien, who set a record as the fastest woman to reach the highest peak on every continent, also said the descent(下降) is often harder than the climb.

    Climbing expert Alan Arnette said there's no simple explanation for the string of deaths. He said weather that has led to a shorter climbing season is one factor causing overcrowding. He also said the cost to climb Mount Everest has decreased, which means more people are making the journey. He urged the governments in charge of granting(同意)permits to limit how many people can be on the mountain at once.

    Still, Christopher was no beginner. His family said he'd been mountain climbing for five decades. He arrived at the base camp nearly two months before his climb so he could give himself time to adapt to the conditions. When he made his journey, his family said he was climbing with a small group in almost ideal conditions after some of the overcrowding had cleared.

    His brother described being a lawyer as a "day job" for Christopher. Climbing was his love. "He was an inveterate climber of peaks in Colorado, the West and the world over," Mark Kulish said. "He passed away doing what he loved."