I was living a life in my screen and hardly noticed what was around me. So when my friends invited me to go camping for a long weekend without the cell service, I thought this was exactly what I needed. Here's how keeping away from my phone for 48 hours changed me.

    I realized my bedtime routine was usually centered on one thing: my phone. Right before I went to sleep, I browsed through news websites and checked my emails. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I did the same thing. The problem with this was I felt anxious every night. I felt free without my phone at that weekend camp. I felt asleep listening to the sound of crickets.

    When I had my phone, I was always checking the time and thinking of future plans. My thought was: “Who's going to text me now? What will I do next?” Without my phone, I truly savored what I was doing in the moment, sitting by the river, riding a bike, or singing the old songs. There was no need to rush through any of it. I listened to what my body wanted instead of what my phone was telling me to do.

    You know that moment when you're hanging out with a group of people and no one has anything to say? The typical response: Everyone immediately pulls out their phones. So what did we do without a phone to avoid embarrassing silences? We actually talked to each other. Instead of burying our faces in our screens, we looked one another in the eye, had a moment of pure human connection and then continued talking. And you know what? People actually listened.

    So, now what? Now I'm back to the real world.

    A 16-year survey on the arctic Norwegian island of Svalbard found the reindeer（驯鹿）there have declined in weight by an alarming 12 percent. The reduction in average body-mass is being blamed on global warming.

    In research presented lately at a meeting of the British Ecological Society in Liverpool, scientists will explain how rising temperatures are making female reindeer difficult to obtain nutrients during important periods of being pregnant.

    Snow in Svalbard typically covers the ground for eight months of the year, which, combined with low temperatures, limits grass growth to June and July. But as summer temperatures have increased by around 1.5℃, grasslands have become more productive, allowing female reindeer to gain more weight by the autumn and therefore to conceive（孕育）more calves.

    However, warmer winters have brought with them greater rainfall which freezes when is settles on the snow, therefore locking out the reindeer from the life-supporting food below. As a result, female reindeer are becoming starved, causing them to give birth to much lighter young. The average mass of an adult reindeer in 1998, when the survey began, was 55kg, but by 2016 IT had dropped to 48kg.

    Professor Steve Albon, an ecologist at the James Hatton Institute in Aberdeen , said that, because the mammals have a relatively high surface-area-to-volume ratio（表面积与体积比）, they are no particularly energy efficient.

    Reindeer can often access the inadequate food sources beneath the snow by clearing IT away with their antlers（鹿角）, but they cannot break through the hard ice. Without access to the food in winter, calves are being born far lighter than they should be. Numbers of reindeer have also increased rapidly in the past 20 years, meaning that those which are born are facing greater competition for food. “The implication（含义）are that there may well be more smaller reindeer in the Arctic in the coming decades, but possibly at the risk of catastrophic die-offs because of increased ice on the ground,”said Professor Albon Despite the gloomy findings, reindeer appear to be suffering less from the impact of climate change than some other arctic species.

    From The 12 Days of Christmas to See You in the Cosmos, these children's books are ideal for holiday giving.

    The 12 Days of Christmas by Greg Pizzoli

    It's a classic Christmas reading material! It's a counting lesson! It's a crazy tale of elephant love. Have you ever wondered how all those calling birds, turtle doves and French hens fit in one room? Pizzoli, a Theodor Seuss Geisel Award winner has your answer. ($ 15.99, ages 3—5) Amazon. com

   Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers

    Yes, this book by the illustrator (插画家) of the great hit “The Day the Crayons Quit” is for kids ages 3—7, but don't let that fool you.     Inspired by the birth of Jeffers1 first child, this is a father's “welcome to the earth” letter to his baby, filled with the heady wonder of parenthood .A great gift for new parents. ($ 19.99. ages 3—7) Amazon. com

    Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, illustrated by Charles Santoso.

     When a towering oak tree learns that she may be cut down, she starts getting extraordinarily involved in the lives of the humans below her, particularly a girl who is being escaped due to her ethnicity (种族). A lovely tale about common ground and the power of community. ($ 16.99, ages 8 —12) Amazon. com

     See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng

    Eleven-year-old Alex is too busy trying to communicate with space aliens to worry about his troubled family life. When Alex runs away from home to launch his homemade rocket, he finds himself sidetracked by new friends and hints of a family secret. ($ 16.99, ages 10 and up) Amazon. com

    We are all busy talking about and using the Internet, but how many of us know the history of the Internet?

    Many people are surprised when they find that the Internet was set up in the 1960s. At that time, computers were large and expensive. Computer networks didn't work well. If one computer in the network broke down, then the whole network stopped. So a new network system had to be set up. It should be good enough to be used by many different computers. If part of the network was not working, information could be sent through another part. In this way computer network system would keep on working all the time.

    At first the Internet was only used by the government, but in the early 1970s, universities, hospitals and banks were allowed to use it too. However, computers were still very expensive and the Internet was difficult to use. By the start of the 1990s, computers became cheaper and easier to use. Scientists had also developed software that made "surfing" the Internet more convenient.

    Today it is easy to get on-line and it is said that millions of people use the Internet every day. Sending e-mail is more and more popular among students.

    The Internet has now become one of the most important parts of people's life.

    We often ask these questions: Are African wild dogs really dogs? What's the difference between African wild dogs and the dogs we know as pets? For one thing, African wild dogs, which live in Africa, only have four toes, while domestic(驯养的）dogs and wolves have five. But you won't want to count for yourself, because they are truly wild animals.

    “Wild dogs are not somebody's domestic dogs that ran away and didn't come back, although some people used to think that,” explains Dr. MeNutt, who studies these animals at Wild Dog Research Camp in the African country of Botswana. “They are actually Africa's wolves, and just like wolves, and they do not make good pets. They need to be out in the wild doing what they are supposed to do — find the food they need to survive and feed their babies.” In fact, they travel so far that researchers have to use radio collars (颈圈) to keep track of them. The collars send out radio signals that tell people where the dogs are. No two wild dogs have the same pattern of coats, so it is easy to tell them apart.

    African wild dogs are smart and sociable, like pet dogs. Adult wild dogs, male and female, are willing to take good care of young ones.

    Millions of domestic dogs live on the planet, but there are probably fewer than 6000 African wild dogs left. Humans hunt them and farmers who don，t want them to go after cows and sheep poison them. Humans are also destroying the wild, natural habitat (栖息地) they need to survive in. Fortunately, today more farmers are finding other ways to protect their cows and sheep from African wild dogs instead of killing the animals.

    Some people will do just about anything to save money. And I am one of them .Take my family's last vacation .It was my six-year-old son's winter break from school, and we were heading home from Fort Lauderdale after a weeklong trip. The flight was overbooked, and Delta, the airline ,offered us $400 per person in credits to give up our seats and leave the next day .I had meeting in New York, So I had to get back . But that didn't mean my husband and my son couldn't stay. I took my nine-month-old and took off for home.

    The next day my husband and son were offered more credits to take an even later flight. Yes, I encouraged一okay, ordered-them to wait it out at the airport, to "earn" more Delta Dollars. Our total take: $1,600. Not bad, huh?

    Now some people may think I'm a bad mother and not such a great wife either. But as a big-time bargain hunter, I know the value of a dollar. And these days, a good deal is some-time thing few of us can afford to pass up.

    I've made living looking for the best deals and exposing (揭露) the worst tricks .I have been the consumer reporter of NBC's Today show for over a decade. I have written a couple of books including one titled Tricks of the Trade: A Consumer Survival Guide. And I really do what I believe in. I tell you this because there is no shame in getting your money's worth. I'm also tightfisted when it comes to shoes, clothes for my children, and expensive restaurants. But I wouldn't hesitate to spend on a good haircut. It keeps its longer, and it's the first thing people notice. And I will also spend on a classic piece of furniture. Quality lasts.