Gold Coast family holidays are always great fun whether you are from Australia or from abroad. There are beautiful beaches, adventure parks, nature parks and so much more.

    There are so many sights to see here. It is a pity to drive in a car and you'll miss a great part of it. Australia is home to many animals and birds that can only be seen when moving slowly and going into the areas that they live.

    When you are on a bicycle, you have the advantage of being able to stop whenever you want to see an interesting animal or bird that you have never seen before. It is a quieter mode (方式) of transportation as well, so you might even be able to take a picture. When you are on the beach, you can breathe that clean air and view the beauty of the water and sand. It is a totally different experience from either simply sunbathing or passing it in a car.

    There are many choices of hiring a bicycle to experience the Gold Coast attractions. There are stores that will fit a bike perfectly to your size. These bikes for both adults and children are in many styles and colors to please any taste. If you have ever wanted to try a tandem bike (双人单车), now is your chance, because they have those too.

    A bicycle hire on Gold Coast is something that everyone should try at least once. This is a wonderful chance for anyone who likes to cycle and it is also a cheap way to travel with your family.

                                                                     The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place

    Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically.

    Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale(秤)instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.

    On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don't have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.

    The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients. Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemicals that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.

    Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological and physical harm that comes from using them.

    Pizza is a pretty universal treat, but where did it start? Here are three things you probably didn't know about pizza.

    1: Pizza's Origins Are Half-Baked.

    The Neapolitans（那不勒斯人）in Italy are proud of saying they invented pizza, but it's probably more accurate to say, they perfected it. The idea of putting toppings on a flatbread and baking it started in the 6th century B. C. But the people of Naples were the first to put tomato on a flatbread in the 16th century. From its start, pizza was a food of the poor, as it was cheap, filling and easy to eat on the run. In Italian, the word “pizza” refers to anything that is made and then pressed flat.

    2: Pizza Margherita Is Not Exactly a Symbol of Italy.

It was said some day in 1889, a local baker named Raffaele Esposito created three pizzas for Queen Margherita when she was on a tour of Italy. The queen loved the version that had tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese— and just happened to match the colors of the Italian flag. So Esposito named the pizza after her.

    But Pizza historian Scott Wiener points out that Italy was unified in name only in 1889 so it was unlikely any Neapolitan baker would want to celebrate “the Northern conquerors.” Further, the letter of gratitude for the pizza from the royal household that Pizzeria Brandi displays appears to be a fake（赝品）and may just have been a marketing plan.

    3: Hawaliian Pizza Invented by a Canadian.

    Sam Panopoulos, from Greece originally moved to Canada at the age of 20. In 1962, he decided to put some ham and pineapple on a pizza at one of his restaurants in Ontario.

    “We just put it on for fun to see how it was going to taste,” he told the BBC in 2017. Panopoulos named it the Hawaiian pizza after the brand of canned pineapple he used. The mix of sweet and savory toppings caught on with a certain part of the pizza-loving public. The inventor died in 2017.

    There's a word of wellness I've loved for years. It's HALT: the idea that if you want to be calm and content, never let yourself get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Researchers are increasingly looking more closely at the "L" in "HALT", with one report presented to the American Psychological Association finding that long-term loneliness might be a greater public health risk than obesity.

    Loneliness is a problem with many faces. Some people are alone most of the time—data collected by the United Kingdom found that 200, 000 people over the age of 75 had not had a conversation with a friend or a relative in more than a month. But some people feel lonely even in a crowded room, disconnected from meaningful relationships even though their days are filled with people.

    To me, walking a positive path means walking alongside others—people who lift our spirits, share our values, challenge us to grow and learn and bring us joy. But social satisfaction doesn't come automatically or even easily to too many people. And in our age of individualized electronic devices, social media and text-based communication, it can be harder than ever to feel truly connected to others.

    I was so heartened to read that recently the British Parliament (议会) has created a "Minister for Loneliness" position to promote research, education and principles so as to cure what some researchers call "the loneliness disease". More and more doctors in America are also screening adult patients for loneliness at annual physical examinations, which is another promising sign.

    With proper social support and community participation, loneliness can be prevented from happening. If you are feeling lonely, make a list of your daily routines and ask yourself how you could add more social interactions to each day. Try reaching out for volunteer opportunities, clubs and organizations to join and old friendships to renew. If you are struggling, ask a consultant to help you identify your social obstacles and overcome them.

Beijing is the capital city of China. It {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (cover) an area of around 17, 000 square kilometers, in which there are different kinds of bird habitats (栖息地), {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (include) grassland, scrubland (灌木丛林地), wetland, and also agricultural land. Researchers call these areas "service stations," where migrating (迁徙) birds stop {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (rest) and feed. But the birds ‘"service stations" re {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (rapid) closing in Beijing, as the city considers scrubland, grassland and old agricultural land to be "dirty" and "ugly". 

The loss of grassland and scrubland is already having a major influence {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Beijing's bird life. In the north of Beijing, the land around Miyun used to be visited by thousands of cranes (鹤). Now, much of that land is covered with man-made forest and {#blank#}6{#/blank#} number of cranes there has greatly fallen. 

"Cranes are rare and valuable animals in China. At Miyun, a festival {#blank#}7{#/blank#} (hold) to celebrate the migration of cranes every year," one researcher, Townshend, says. "Because it is Beijing, we can attract many people—both local people {#blank#}8{#/blank#} visitors."

"More cooperation (合作) between {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (country) is needed," Townshend adds. "Migratory birds are a shared natural heritage (遗产), and with this comes a common {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (responsible) to protect them and the places they need," he says.

A new study examines possible harm caused by microscopic pieces of plastic that end up inside people's bodies. These materials -known as microplastics and nanoplastics - can enter the body through the air or in food or drinks.

One new study suggests the buildup of such plastics inside the body can increase the risk of a stroke, heart attack or death. But the researchers noted the evidence presented cannot prove a direct link between tiny plastic materials and heart problems.

The study involved 257 people who had medical operations to clear blocked blood vessels （血管） in their necks. Italian researchers examined the fatty buildup the doctors removed from the carotid arteries, which supply blood and oxygen to the brain. Using two methods, they found evidence of plastics-mostly nanoplastics that cannot be seen-in the artery plaque（动脉斑块）of 150 patients. No evidence of plastics was seen in 107 patients.

The team followed these people for three years. During that time, 30 individuals, or 20 percent of the group with plastics, had a heart attack, stroke, or died from any cause. These rates dropped to about eight percent among those with no evidence of plastics. Research results were recently published in a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers admitted their study was very small. For example, it only looked at people with narrowed arteries who were already at risk for heart attacks and stroke.

Steve Nissen is a heart expert at the Cleveland Clinic in the state of Ohio who was not part of the study. He told the Associated Press he thinks the team's estimate that the risk of heart attack, stroke or death was four times greater seems too high. "It would mean that these microplastics are the most important cause of coronary heart disease （冠心病） yet discovered. And I just don't think that's likely to be right," Nissen said. "Maybe, it's just a wake-up call that perhaps we need to take the problem of microplastics more seriously." Nissen added.