Because of the financial crisis in the US and UK, college students are beginning to struggle to find ways to pay their tuition fees and accommodations.

    Recently, two major US student loan (贷款) lenders, Citibank and JPMorgan Chase, announced they were leaving the student loan industry altogether. Because banks currently have a lack of credit, they are reluctant to offer students low-interest loans that need a several-year wait for any return of interest.

    In the US, many undergraduates fill up their financial needs with a private loan, although the majority can get government-funded loans. In the 2015-2016 academic year, $ 17 billion in private student loans was used to finance higher education. The lack of private funding has yet to be covered and will hit many US students hard.

    Across the Atlantic, UK students have been less troubled by the crisis. Most undergraduates in the UK cover their university expenses with government-funded loans and grants. Their biggest concern is a sudden increase in student rent.

    Most young professionals now rent houses, since 80 percent of UK mortgage schemes (按揭计划) have disappeared—a direct result of the credit crisis. This has boosted the house rent market.

    In large cities, UK students are paying almost 6.5 percent more in rent than the previous year. Figures from the UK organization Accommodation for Student show students in big cities such as London paying an average weekly rent of $ 203.

    Yet, despite students' suffering, the number of this year's university applications is expected to grow. During economic slumps, people regard further education as a way to survive tough job market.

    Pat O'Burke was a poor Irishman with a large family, and one morning, waking up very early from cold and hunger, he decided to go shooting in a wood near his cottage. The wood belonged to Lord Northwood, a rich gentleman, Pat had no right to go there, but in it there were swarms of rabbits and flocks of birds that were good to eat, and Pat determined to take the risk. Suddenly he saw the owner, with a group of friends, coming towards him in the wood. There was a look of anger on Lord Northwood's face as he caught sight of the gun in Pat's hands. Pat's heart sank with fear, but he saw there was no hope of escape, so he walked boldly(大胆) up to the company and said to Lord Northwood, “Good morning, sir, and what has brought you out so early this morning?” Lord Northwood, rather surprised, said he and his Mends were taking a little exercise to get an appetite(食欲) for their breakfast. Then, looking at Pat with suspicion(怀疑), he said, “but why are you out so early in the morning?” “Well, sir” said Pat, “I just came out to see if I could get a breakfast for my appetite.” The whole crowed burst into laughter at Pat's ready wit(机智), and with a smile Lord Northwood walked on, leaving Pat to try his luck with the rabbits.

    Teenagers who spend hours in front of the television may have a poorer diet as young adults.

    A study, which included nearly 1,400 high school students, found those who watched TV for five hours or more per day had less healthy diets than peers(同龄人）five years later. Why does this happen? Should the parents take any measures?

    On the one hand, people who spend a lot of time in front of the TV, especially teenagers, may snack more, and that may affect their long-term diet quality.

    On the other hand, TV ads for fast food, sweets and snacks tempt teenagers to eat more of those foods. And TV time might also replace exercise time for some kids.

Lead researcher Dr. Daheia J. Barr-Anderson, of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, told Reuters Health a clear correlation between TV time during high school and diet quality in young adulthood. While the heaviest TV viewers were eating the most junk food , those who'd watched less than two hours per day had the highest intake(吸收)of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and high-calcium food. In her opinion, parents should limit and monitor TV viewing.

    As far as I am concerned, children should watch no more than two hours of television per day. And parents should set a good example by eating right, being physically active and curbing their own TV time.

    Dujiangyan is the oldest man­made water system in the world, and a wonder in the development of Chinese science. Built over 2, 200 years ago in what is now Sichuan Province in Southwest China, this amazing engineering achievement is still used today to irrigate over 6, 000 square kilometers of farmland, take away floodwater and provide water for 50 cities in the province.

    In ancient times, the region in which Dujiangyan now stands suffered from regular floods caused by overflow from the Minjiang River. To help the victims of the flooding, Li Bing, the region's governor, together with his son, decided to find a solution. They studied the problem and discovered that the river most often overflowed when winter snow at the top of the nearby Mount Yulei began to melt as the weather warmed.

    The simplest fix was to build a dam, but this would have ruined the Minjiang River. So instead Li designed a series of channels built at different levels along Mount Yulei that would take away the floodwater while leaving the river flowing naturally. Better still, the extra water could be directed to the dry Chengdu Plain, making it suitable for farming.

    Cutting the channels through the hard rock of Mount Yulei was a remarkable accomplishment as it was done long before the invention of gunpowder and explosives. Li Bing found another solution. He used a combination of fire and water to heat and cool the rocks until they cracked and could be removed. After eight years of work, the 20­metre­wide canals had been carved through the mountain.

    Once the system was finished, no more floods occurred and the people were able to live peacefully and affluently. Today, Dujiangyan is admired by scientists from around the world because of one feature. Unlike modern dams where the water is blocked with a huge wall, Dujiangyan still lets water flow through the Minjiang River naturally, enabling ecosystems and fish populations to exist in harmony.

    Why don't quiet carriages work, and how might they be make to? Quiet carriages on trains are a nice idea: travelers voluntarily make their phones silent, turn stereos off and keep chatter to a minimum. However, in reality, there is usually at least one silly babbler (喋喋不休的人) to break the silence.

    A couple of problems prevent peaceful trips. First, there is a sorting problem: some passengers end up in the quiet carriage by accident and are not aware of the rules. Second, there is a commitment problem: noise is sometimes made by travelers who choose the quiet carriage but find an important call hard to ignore.

    The train operators are trying to find answers. Trains in Queensland Australia, are having permanent signs added to show exactly what is expected; a British operator has invested in some technology to prevent phone calls.

    Microeconomics suggests another approach. Fining people for making a noise would surely dissuade (劝阻) the polluter and is a neat solution in theory, but it requires costly monitoring and enforcement. Another way would be to use prices to separate quiet and noisy passengers—in effect, creating a market for silence. A simple idea would be to sell access to the quiet carriage as an optional extra when the ticket is bought. Making the quiet coach both an active choice and a costly one would dissuade many of those who don't value a peaceful ride.

    Charging may also solve the commitment problem. This is particularly tricky, as attitudes to noise can change during the journey. Some passengers would pay the quiet premium but still chatter away when some vital news arrives. Schemes that reward the silent—a rating system among fellow passengers, for example—could help. The idea is that losing your hard-won reputation offsets the short-term gain from using the phone. But such a system also fails the simplicity test.

    A 2010 book by George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton argues that "norms"—feelings about how everyone should behave—also play a role in decision-making. Charging a price, even if just a token amount, means the quiet carriage becomes a service that fellow passengers have bought, not just a preference they have expressed. Perhaps different norms would come into play, encouraging calm. If not, a personal bubble is always an option: noise-canceling headphones start at around $50.

In our magazine's document room, from the June 1920 issue, I discovered a piece, What Editors Do, by Hazel Miller. What she talks about caught my eye: The first World War and its ending just two years before.

"During 1917 and 1918, when the World War was going, there was a huge demand for war material," Miller writes. "Most magazines were carrying practically nothing but war stories. When the War ended in November, 1918, some editors still had a goodly supply of war fiction and articles—for which they had paid real money—on their hands, which most people by now are fed up with."

Her words have stuck with me for the past 12 months as we've weighed which COVID-19 stories to run and which to hold. I'm writing these words with thick snow outside my window, but they will reach you in the green of spring. Will you be vaccinated(接种疫苗) and tired of reading about COVID-19 then?

We say writing is an art, and publishing is a business, but I worry we forget that publishing is also a gamble(赌博), Except for the immediate publication, everyone in the industry—agents, acquiring editors, magazine and journal editors, etc.—are betting on a story's success in a future we cannot see. As is the nature of fortune telling, we are not so sure we will not occasionally lose: The 1920 editors sitting on a store of war stories no one wants, for example.

With so many factors outside your control, and so much uncertainty in the industry, isn't it better to have stories written from the heart that you are truly enthusiastic about rather than some to please an ever-changing publishing market?

My future reader, it's my hope that this issue finds you this spring doing just that: Writing the stories you need to tell—and the ones that will delight your own future readers for years to come.