Since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Mount Everest, Mount Qomolangma's peak is no longer a lonely place and is turning into a trash heap.

    So far, more than 350 climbers have successfully reached the peak. And they have complained about waiting for hours in the bottlenecks (狭窄路段) on the way to the peak, a situation that isn't just uncomfortable — it's cold and windy up there — but downright dangerous. If bad weather strikes, climbers can and do die.

    As a matter of fact, the dangerous crowds aren't the only problem on Qomolangma. All those climbers need to bring a lot of gear—and much of them ends up being left on the mountain, sometimes even the peak itself. Mount Qomolangma is becoming the world's largest dump. Here's mountaineer Mark Jenkins writing in National Geographic about the state of Qomolangma: “The two standard routes, the Northeast Ridge and the Southeast Ridge, are disgustingly polluted with oxygen cans and torn tents everywhere.”

    But the good news is that some mountaineers are taking it upon themselves to clean up Qomolangma. Mountianeer Paul Thelen and his friend Eberhard Schaaf are part of the annual Eco Everest Expedition, which has been cleaning up rubbish from base camps to the peak since 2008. So far they've collected over 13 tons of garbage.

    Some of that rubbish is even being used for a higher purpose. As part of the Mount Everest 8844 Art Project, a group of 15 artists from Nepal collected 1.5 tons of garbage brought down the mountain by climbers. They've transformed the cans and oxygen tanks—and in one case, part of the remains of a helicopter—into 74 pieces of art that have already gone on exhibition in Nepal's capital. Part of the profit from sales will go to the Everest Peakers Association, which has helped collect tons of rubbish on the slopes of the mountain.

Londoners are great readers. They buy vast numbers of newspapers and magazines and of books — especially paperbacks, which are still comparatively cheap in spite of ever-increasing rises in the costs of printing. They still continue to buy "proper" books, too, printed on good paper and bound（装订）between hard covers.

    There are many streets in London containing shops which specialize in book-selling. Perhaps the best known of these is Charring Cross Road in the very heart of London. Here bookshops of all sorts and sizes are to be found, from the celebrated one which boasts of being "the biggest bookshop in the world" to the tiny, dusty little places which seem to have been left over from Dickens' time. Some of these shops stock, or will obtain, any kind of book, but many of them specialize in second-hand books, in art books, in foreign books, in books on philosophy, politics or any other of the countless subjects about which books may be written. One shop in this area specializes only in books about ballet!

    Although it may be the most convenient place for Londoners to buy books, Charring Cross Road is not the cheapest. For the really cheap second-hand books, the collector must venture off the beaten track, to Farringdon Road, for example, in the East Central district of London. Here there is nothing so impressive as bookshops. The booksellers come along each morning and pour out their sacks of books onto small hand carts. And the collectors, some professionals and some amateurs, have been waiting for them. In places like this they can still, occasionally, pick up for a few pence an old one that may be worth many pounds.

    China dropped its decades-long, one-child policy last year to allow each family to have two children. This change has put 270 million married women of childbearing age in the position of choosing between family and work. The employers also face big challenges as more female workers will have two maternity leaves(产假) for a total of seven to eight months.

    In a survey published by classified advertising website Ganji.com, career women who might be considering having a second child were asked what kinds of pressure they might expect. More than 76 percent of the women who were questioned mentioned concerns about the financial burden of raising two children, while more than 71 percent said it would be difficult to balance career and family. In addition, nearly 56 percent said that having a second child would definitely have a negative effect on their career.

    Another survey conducted by Chongqing-based human resources website job.cq.qq.com found that over 70 percent of job seekers believe that having a second child would make females less popular in the job market, although two-thirds of the employers said the policy will make no difference in their employment of staff.

    Feng Lijuan, s senior expert on human resources at 51 job.com, a leading Chinese job finding platform, said she would not say “there is prejudice against career women.” Feng said Chinese women shoulder more family responsibility. “It is not only about maternity leave; a female employee might only fully get back to work after three to five years after having her first child.”

    Wang Yixin, a senior employment adviser, said the positive side is that more companies are trying to attract more talents by providing support to career women. “Different from before, it is not only employers choosing employees. Many talents, including professional career women, also choose employers.” said Wang. “According to our survey, many large companies are very open to their employees' choice of having a second child.”

    Outside, it's a cold winter's day. Inside a large shopping center, people are hanging around. But then, without warning, a pop song starts to play loudly. A teenager boy walks lazily to the center of the open space, and dances crazily to the music. He's joined by two of his friends, then some of the old people. Within the space of a few seconds, more than sixty people are dancing to the music - all in time and all in step. At first, onlookers are baffled, then they start smiling and clapping. They now know what they're seeing: a flash mob （快闪）.

    According to Wikipedia, the term "flash mob" was created by Bill Wasik, an editor at Harper's Magazine, in 2003. Within a year, the phrase had entered the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Since then, hundreds - possibly thousands - of flash mobs have been carried out around the world, in almost every kind of public space imaginable!

    Each flash mob has its own style, but most flash mobs follow a similar formula （方案）. Often, the organizers search for willing participants using social media. Instructions and dance moves are given through email or video download. There are usually several rehearsals （排练） before the big day.

    While it's happening, a few lucky passers-by watch it live. Most people who watch it, however, will see it later online. Some of the most popular flash mobs on YouTube have been watched more than 10million times. A famous example is MP3Experiment Eight, a flash mob that took place in New York City in July 2011 with over 3,500 participants. This event differed from normal flash mobs in that much of it was completely silent - and there were no rehearsals.

    Flash mobs provide the participants, onlookers and online viewers with a lot of enjoyment and pleasure. For this reason alone, they're a modern, popular art form that should be celebrated.

    How to eat healthfully can be especially complex for working women who often have neither the desire nor the time to cook for themselves (or for anyone else).Registered dietitian(营养专家) Barbara Morrissey suggests that a few simple rules can help.

"Go for nutrient dense foods that contain a multiple of nutrients," she suggests, "For example, select whole wheat bread as a breakfast food, rather than coffee and cake. Or drink orange juice rather than orange drink, which contains only a small percentage of real juice——the rest is largely colored sugar water. You just can't compare the value of these foods, the nutrient dense ones are so superior," she emphasizes.

    Morrissey believes that variety is not only the spice of life; it's the foundation of a healthful diet. Diets which are based on one or two foods are not only virtually impossible to keep up the strength, they can be very harmful, she says, because nutrients aren't supplied in sufficient amounts or balance.

    According to Morrissey, trying to find a diet that can cure your illnesses, or make you a super woman is a fruitless search. As women, many of us are too concerned with staying thin, she says, and we believe that vitamins are some kind of magic cure to replace food.

"We need carbohydrates(碳水化合物) protein and fat—they are like the wood in the fireplace. The vitamins and minerals are like the match, the spark, for the fuel," she explains, "We need them all, but in a very different proportion. And if the fuel isn't there, the spark is useless.”

    Portland, Oregon, just got another reason to call itself "Bike City USA".

UPS has started a trial program to deliver packages there using an electric-powered bicycle. The environmentally friendly Cargo Cruiser is a tricycle with a large brown box on the back. Like any electronic bike, the Cargo Cruiser can be powered by foot, motor, or a combination of both.

    UPS began testing e-Bikes in Hamburg, Germany, in 2012, but this is the first time the technology has been used for package deliveries in the United States.

The e-Bikes support UPS's efforts to reduce its carbon emissions, ease urban noise levels, and improve air quality. The amount of energy to be saved by using e-Bikes hasn't been quantified, but the test vehicle in Portland "will probably displace about two gallons of fuel every day", said Scott Phillippi, UPS's engineering manager.

    Phillippi says that one e-Bike alone won't create a huge difference in UPS's carbon emissions, but he describes it as “a piece of our overall strategy” as far as environmental impacts and efficiencies.

    It also ties into the company's broader strategy to settle a problem that troubles Portland and other cities around the world: traffic jam. According to UPS, traffic jam costs it hundreds of millions of dollars a year in additional operating costs. The time when the average UPS delivery truck is stuck in traffic is about 16 minutes a day, slowing its deliveries and increasing the company's carbon emissions.

    The pilot program is in its early stages and already has hit its first stage: ice storms pulled trees and branches down all over the city, blocking bike lanes and making travel dangerous. How do e-Bikes deal with it?

    If the trial proves successful, you may be able to see UPS delivery people wearing bike shorts in other places around the country, "Other cities have expressed some interest," Phillippi said.