How would you like to have been born without any ability to feel pain? There are such people. One of them is being studied by doctors at a hospital in New York City. He is a 22-year-old clerk who really does not know the meaning of pain. But he wishes he did.

    Not long ago a packet of matches flared up(骤然烧起) in his hand. Luckily the burn was not serious. It caused large blisters(水泡) but still did not bother him. He said the burn felt like a fly crawling(在……上爬行) on his fingers. It has been the same story as far back as he can remember. He has never had headaches or sore(疼痛的) muscles. Bee stings, cuts and bruises(疼痛的) do not hurt.

    Being free from pain is not as wonderful as you may think. The young man has had to have rotted teeth pulled because he never felt toothache warnings. A sudden attack of appendicitis(阑尾炎) could be deadly. Life without pain is as risky as trying to run a cruise ship without fire alarms.

    Businesses are witnessing a difficult time, which has in turn produced influence on consumers, desire to go green. However, shoppers are still laying stress on environmental concerns.

    Two thirds of customers say that environmental considerations inform their purchases to the same degree as they did a year ago, while more than a quarter say that they are now even better aware of the environmental effect on what they buy.

    This may help to influence how shops store goods on their shelves. And the companies should still make efforts to become more environmentally friendly. Two out of three people think it is important to buy from environmentally responsible companies, with about one in seven saying that they had even decided to take their custom elsewhere if they felt a company's environmental reputation was not good enough.

Harry Morrison, chief executive (主管) of the Carbon Trust, sympathizes: "I understand this situation where survival is very important now. But from environmental considerations, the clock is ticking—we don't have much time. In addition, cutting carbon has an immediate effect as costs drop and a medium-term benefit for the brand."

    Larger companies have an extra motivation to look at reducing their carbon footprint, as new rules next year will require businesses to buy carbon allowances to make up for their emissions (排放). Those that have taken early action will have a head start. More than two thirds of consumers are not clear about which companies are environmentally responsible. This suggests that firms that are able to relay clearly their message to the public will be in a pole position to attract shoppers.

The Carbon Trust believes that it can help by informing customers about the good work companies are doing. "When companies are granted (授予) the standard, they can use a logo (标识) in all their marketing which makes it clear that they are working towards cutting emissions," Mr. Morrison said.

    Over 500 dogs being delivered to a butcher house were saved by a Chinese animal protection organization.

    The incident then triggered a debate among Chinese netizens about the necessity of pouring so much money and efforts into saving dogs.

    On Friday, a truck loaded with over 500 dogs were stopped by volunteers from animal protection organization on Jingha Expressway Beijing section. Beijing Times reported these dogs were being delivered to slaughter houses in the city of Changchun, northeast Jilin Province and would be eventually served on dinner tables. After negotiations with the truck driver, pet service provider Leepet Holding Corp. and a philanthropic foundation, Shang shan Foundation purchased these dogs, each paying 50,000 yuan. Dogs were then delivered to the headquarter of China Small Animal Protection Association (CSAPA), being taken care of and waiting for adoption.

    After the "dog saving mission" was reported, Chinese net users debate over whether saving dogs is worth so much efforts and money while there are still many poor and needy people in China lacking assistance. Some net users argue the "dog saving mission" is placing overattention to animals while lots of needy people are still left unattended. A microblogger "Xiaowulaitajie" said on China's twitter like website, weibo.com, "Dogs are saved, adopted and they attracted media spotlight. We'd better spend such money and take such efforts in helping the needy people." Another microblogger, Liluping, said "We poured such huge sum of money into saving dogs. I would rather the money was spent on disaster relief."

    Some applaud volunteers' actions and show eagerness of offering their helping hands to those saved dogs.

    Still many disapprove those "saving dogs" critics, but they argue that such act nonetheless promotes social progress.

    A microblogger named "broken bridge" said, saving dogs does not run counter to taking care of people. Such enthusiasm in public affairs will help raise social awareness in helping the needy.

    I think people and animals are created equal. Attention should be paid to people as well as animals.

    Chinese researchers say they have come up with a simple way to find out a person's biological age —how much the body has aged physically – through a urine (尿) test.

    Their findings will help researchers conduct numbers of ageing studies and even predict a person's risk of age-related diseases, according to a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Ageing Neuroscience.

    Another paper by researchers at the Beijing Hospital and the West China Hospital in Chengdu, Sichuan province, said on Tuesday that people aged at different rates due to changes in their genetic make-up and their environment.

    Chronological age – which is based on one's birth date —was not an exact measure of biological age so a more exact method was needed, the team said.

    Ageing is driven by the lifelong gradual accumulation(积累) of a broad variety of molecular (分子) faults in the body's cells. The team said they had identified a matter 8-oxoGsn that indicated increases in oxidative (氧化性) damage in urine as people's bodies aged.

    Cai Jianping, a co-author at the Beijing Hospital, said: “As we age, we suffer increasing oxidative damage and so the levels of oxidative matters increase in our body.” The team tested the levels of 8-oxoGsn in urine samples from 1,228 Chinese people aged two to 90 and concluded the marker helped accurately determine the stage of biological ageing in adults.

    They had previously found that 8-oxoGsn levels also increased with age in the urine of animals such as mice.

    The team has also developed a rapid analysis technique called ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography(层析法), which can process up to 10 urine samples an hour, according to the study.

Once a blind man fell flat on his face, which was awful but finally harmless. His service dog, however, was trained lo tum to an adult if the owner had an epileptic seizure (癫瘤发作). While the dog did what it was taught, the first person it found was merely annoyed but not alarmed. Thankfully, the dog's owner was not in the situation of medical emergency. But the experience inspired him to share this information on social media, "If a service dog without a person approaches you, it means the person is down and in need of help," the owner explained. "Don't get scared, don't get annoyed, and follow the dog! If the first person doesn't cooperate, it moves on.

Referring to the accident, a TV presenter asked a dog trainer, Olivia, some basic questions about service dogs, including how humans should react if an unaccompanied service dog approaches them.

"What they're going to do is sniff and gently push your leg," the trainer explained, specifically noting that service dogs are not usually trained to jump or bark. "If you see a dog in a vest without a person around it, follow it." When asked if one should say something to indicate they're prepared to follow the dog, Olivia said," there's no clear command. Just start walking wherever the dog leads."

Olivia concluded the TV show by adding that those who rely on service dogs could train their companions to move along to someone else, if the first person the dog came upon reacted negatively to its request. Doing so could finally save the owner's life.

90 percent of the world's fireworks are produced in China. The biggest importer is the US, which {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (ship) in more than US $650 million worth in 2021.

The details of fireworks' invention are lost to history, but {#blank#}2{#/blank#} folk tale tries to fill in the gap. It goes that monk named Li Tian created fireworks around 1400 years ago by packing gunpowder into bamboo tubes {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (scare) off evil spirits.

An explosive mixture of gun-powder and chemical compounds (化合物) is {#blank#}4{#/blank#} makes fireworks flash in pretty colours and fun shapes. The images they make depend on the placement of these compounds inside the shell of the firework. Crowd {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(favorite) include "comet", featuring a long trail of sparks; "peony", a flower-like burst; and "strobe", which produces a blinking effect.

The single biggest firework shell ever shot was part of a 2020 winter-carnival display in Colorado, US. {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (weigh) 1268 kilograms, it rose more than a kilometre into the sky {#blank#}7{#/blank#} bursting, turning the night sky red.

For centuries we had to light firework {#blank#}8{#/blank#} hand, but since the 1980s, there's been another option: computer-controlled lighters, which made music at displays more {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (precise) timed and safer. An even greener alternative recently {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (adopt) is using drones to trace flashy patterns in the sky. The future of fireworks, like so much else, may be robotic.