In a Station of the Metro

    The apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet, black bough.

    This is the only Ezra Pound poem that many people will read in their lives. Why? One obvious reason is that it's just two lines long. The poem, which can be understood as “A man sees a bunch of faces in the subway and thinks they look like flowers on a tree branch,” is an exercise in shortness. Pound wrote it after having a spiritual experience in a Paris metro (subway) station.

    In 1916, the US poet originally thought he could best describe his vision in a painting. Unfortunately, he wasn't a painter. So he wrote a thirty-line poem, which he didn't like. He dropped the long version in the waste bin. Six months later, he wrote a shorter poem, but didn't like that one either. Finally, a full year after the experience, he had been reading short Japanese poems called haikus, and he figured he would try this style. The result, which was published in 1913, is one of the most famous and influential works in modern poetry.

    This poem is one of the monuments (纪念物) of the 20th-century artistic movement known as “Imagism”. Basically, Pound and his friends thought that images (意象) weren't just decoration: they were the highest form of speech. By finding the right image, the poet can express the true, spiritual reality of a thing, which is more important than using a bunch of adjectives to describe its physical appearance. Thus, “In a Station of the Metro” is a poem that consists of one image expressed with absolute (绝对的) exactness and nothing else.

    To the imagists, the best way to describe an experience is not to use more and more words; the best way is to find exactly the right words. Have you ever told a beloved one that “words can't express” how much you love them? Well, Pound would say that you're just being lazy. In his view, words can express anything, even if it takes an entire year to find the right ones.

    There's a new frontier in 3D printing that's beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook, and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn't stopping there.

     Food production

    With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that — it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to "re-create forms and pieces" of food that are "exactly the same," freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed, rather than farm to table.

    Sustainability(可持续性)

    The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydrocolloids (水解胶体) from plentiful renewables like algae(藻类) and grass to replace the familiar ingredients(烹饪原料). 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock "food" that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.

    Nutrition

    Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, "Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday's bread from the supermarket, you'd eat something baked just for you on demand."

    Challenges

    Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing, the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste(糊状物) before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are skeptical about 3D food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurants than homes and high-end restaurants.

A Teenage Inventor

    The world could be one step closer to quick and inexpensive Ebola detection thanks to a teenager from Connecticut.

    Olivia Hallisey, a junior at Greenwich High School, was awarded $50,000 in the Google Science Fair for her new method that detects Ebola, a virus that causes bleeding from different parts of the body and usually causes death. Olivia's method is to ask patients to put their saliva (唾液) onto a testing card. The card changes color if the person is catching Ebloa. Present Ebloa tests take up to 12 hours and cost $1,000. Olivia's method, however, can be done just in 30 minutes for about $25. Besides, the sample (样本) doesn't have to be put in a refrigerator thanks to the silk material Olivia uses to produce the testing cards.

    Olivia was inspired to deal with this global problem after watching the news that more than 10,000 people died from Ebola in West Africa. She was particularly worried about the fact that, while the acts of involvement can improve survival rates, present detection methods are costly, time-consuming and require complex tools. Olivia got help from her science research teacher. She drew out directions from past research, and figured out detection systems that have proven to work with other diseases, including Lyme disease and yellow fever.

    "What affects one country affects everyone," Olivia told CNBC. "We have to work together to find answers to the huge challenges which cause harm to the global health." The Connecticut's teen, who hopes to become a doctor one day, was named the Google Science Fair winner in the competition of 20 competitors from across the globe. The fair is open to young people between the ages of 13 and 18 in most countries.

    Olivia hopes her success will inspire other girls interested in science and computers. "I would just encourage girls to try it in the beginning, and remind them that they don't have to feel naturally drawn or feel like they have a special talent for maths or science," she told CNBC, "but just really look at something they are interested in and then think how to improve something or make it more enjoyable or relate it to their interests."

    Stay-at-home kids are named “generation nini” in Spain. They are those adults who still live at home and are neither working nor studying. But the problem is not limited to Spain. It is a worldwide problem.

    In Italy, they are known as “bamboccioni” or big babies. There are nearly 60 percent of 18-34-year-old adults still living in their parents' home, up from almost 50 percent since 1983. Once kept there by the love for their mama's home-cooked food, the economic crisis(经济危机)has seen a rise in adults left unable to hold down a steady job or afford a home of their own. Last year, an Italian government minister admitted that his mother washed his clothes and made the bed for him until he was 30. He demanded a law forcing young Italians to leave their parents' home at 18 to stop them becoming hopelessly dependent on their parents.

In the UK, the government has made the term NEETS—not in employment, education or training for these children. In England alone the percent of NEETS aged 19-24 surged to 18.8 percent of the age group-in the last quarter of 2010, up 1.4 percent on the same period a year before. The number of British men in their 20s living with their parents has risen from 59 percent to 80 percent in the past 15 years, while the number of women has risen from 41percent to 50 percent. The average age of the first-time house buyers is now 38.

    In the US, the problem is known as the “full nest syndrome(综合症)”. Adults there are left struggling to support adult children who have stayed at home with student debts and facing few job opportunities in a weak economy. A recent study showed almost a third of American adults aged 34 and under are living with their parents

    Yesterday I cleared up my house and I mean really cleared up my house. The room that gave the most results was my husband's "office". There I found: one right-footed shoe, size 10 (he lost the other one somewhere), a set of Star Wars videos and two small china cats someone gave me last birthday. I collected these "finds" and took them downstairs and logged (登录）on to eBay: the answer to all our rubbish.

    What is eBay? It aims to provide a global trading platform where almost anyone can trade almost anything. The idea came from Pierre Omidyar. Born in Paris, Omidyar moved to Washington when he was still a child. At High School he became very interested in computer programming and after graduating from Tufts University in 1988, he worked for the next few years as a computer engineer. In his free time he started eBay as a kind of hobby, originally offering the service free by word of mouth. By 1996 there was so much traffic on the site that he had to upgrade and he began collecting fees. Joined by a friend, Peter Skoll and in 1998 by his dynamic CEO, Meg Whitman, he has never looked back. Even in the great dot-com crashes of the late 1990s eBay went from strength to strength. It is now one of the ten most visited online shopping sites on the Internet.

    If you think about it, it's a perfect Internet idea. All you have to do is take an e-photo, write a description, fill out a sales form and you're in business; the world is your market place.

    Some of the more bizarre goods up for offer have been a piece of French bread, partially eaten by Justin Timberlake, advertising space on a man's head, and a pair of used false teeth.

    One week later I am proud of having a clean and tidy home and € 110 in cash. Someone even bought the shoe.

    Amsterdam, the capital and most populous city in the Netherlands, is one of the most popular travel destinations in the world, famous for its beautiful canals, top art museum, cycling culture, and Red Light District. Here are some of the key points to remember as you plan your trip to Amsterdam.

    Must-See Attractions

    Most visitors begin their Amsterdam adventure in the Old Centre, which is full of traditional architecture, shopping centers, and coffee shops. You'll also want to check out Amsterdam's Museum Quarter in the South District, which is great for shopping at the Albert Cuyp Market and having a picnic in the Vondelpark. The top museums to visit are the Rijksmusuem, the Ann Frank House, and the Van Gogh Museum. The Canal Ring is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was originally built to attract wealthy home owners and is a popular place for celebrity spotting and nightlife today.

    Transportation

    Travelers should be aware that Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is one of the busiest airports in the world. This airport is located about 15 kilometers southwest of city center. You can catch a train from Schiphol to Amsterdam Central Station, which has many connecting routes. It's typically not a good idea to drive a car to the city center because traffic is heavy and parking is difficult to find. Cycling is incredibly popular here, and it's easy to find cheap bike rentals around town. Amsterdam has a flat terrain (地形) and is a great city to explore on foot.

    Money Saving Tips

    Unless you really want to see the tulips (郁金香) blooming, avoid booking between mid-March and mid-May. This is when hotel and flight prices rise.

    Look for accommodations in Amsterdam's South District, where rates are generally cheaper than in the city center.

    Buy train tickets at the machine instead of the counter to save a bit of money.

    Instead of hiring a tour guide, hop on a canal boat. They're inexpensive and will give you a unique point of view of the city.

    Check out our homepage to view price comparisons for flights, hotels, and rental cars before you book.