I considered an active social life as basic human necessity. Yet when it dawned on me just how much time I was spending socialising, I realised I may be taking it to an extreme. I calculated that, on average, I was spending 22 hours or more each week on social activities. So, to see what would happen to my work output, health and wellbeing, I decided to try and cut out my social life entirely.

    I knew, at times, I filled my schedule simply out of fear of missing out (FOMO), but also as a way to shift focus away from my work. For one month, I declined all in-person activities with friends: going out for drinks; dinners; parties and non-work related events, to see if it would make me more productive, improve my focus and career prospects.

    On day one of the month-long experiment, I had to fight some anxiety over missing out. But as the days passed, I started to relax. I only had one option to consider for Saturday night—to stay home—and this limitation left me more satisfied in my decision. I felt more content working, reading or watching TV.

    While I found more time to work, I also noticed a change in my overall health. I found myself cooking more at home, doing daily exercise, getting to bed earlier each night, reading, and enjoying moments of rest and boredom throughout the day.

    Having no social life left me more free time than I'd imagine. Such idle moments are vital for creativity, and mind wandering has been linked to creative problem solving. During the experiment I found myself regularly brainstorming new ideas and reimagining existing projects.

    Of course socialising is an important way to build work contacts. While one month of no social life did not impact my relationship with existing clients, if I had continued, it may harm my ability to build new ones.

    Another thing an astronaut has to learn about is eating in space．Food is weightless, just as men are.

    Food for space has to be packed in special ways．Some of it goes into tubes that a man can squeeze into his mouth．Bite-sized cookies are packed in plastic.

    There is a good reason for covering each bite．The plastic keeps pieces of food from traveling in the spaceship．On the earth very small pieces of food would simply fall to the floor．But gravity doesn't pull them to the floor when they are out of the plastic in a spaceship．They move here and there and can get into a man's eyes or into the spaceship's instruments．If any of the instruments is blocked, the astronauts may have trouble getting safely home.

    As astronauts travel on longer space trips, they must take time to sleep．An astronaut can fit himself to his seat with a kind of seat belt. Or, if he wants to, he can sleep in a sleeping bag which is fixed in place under his seat．But be careful he must put his hands under the belt when he goes to sleep．This is because he is really afraid that he might touch one of controls that isn't supposed to be touched until later.

    Japanese researchers say they have developed a new type of glass that can heal itself from cracks and breaks. Glass made from a low weight polymer (聚合物) called “polyether-thioureas” can heal breaks when pressed together by hand without the need for high heat to melt the material.

    The research, published in Science, by researchers led by Professor Takuzo Aida from the University of Tokyo, promises healable glass that could potentially be used in phone screens and other fragile (易碎的) devices, which they say are an important challenge for sustainable (可持续的) societies.

    While self-healing rubber and plastics have already been developed, the researchers said that the new material was the first hard substance of its kind that can be healed at room temperature. The new polymer glass is “highly robust mechanically yet can readily be repaired by compression (压紧) at broken surfaces”.

The characteristics of the polyether-thioureas glass were discovered by accident by a graduate school student named Yu Yanagisawa, who was preparing the material as a glue. Yanagisawa found that when the surface of the polymer was cut, the edges would adhere to each other, healing to form a strong sheet after being manually compressed for 30 seconds at 21℃. Further experiments found that the healed material regained its original strength after a couple of hours.

    Yanagisawa told NHK that he didn't believe the results at first and repeated his experiments several times to confirm the finding. He said, “I hope the repairable glass becomes a new environment-friendly material that avoids the need to be thrown away if broken.”

    This is not the first time a polymer has been suggested as a healable screen for devices such as smartphones. Researchers at the University of California suggested the use of polymer that could stretch to 50 times its original size and heal breaks within 24 hours.

    Smartphone manufacturers have already used self-healing materials in devices. LG's G Flex 2 shipped in 2016 with a coating on its back was capable of healing minor scratches over time, although failed to completely repair heavier damage.

    According to the research conducted by repair firm iMend, over 21% of UK smartphone users were living with a broken screen, with smashed displays being one of the biggest issues alongside poor battery life.

    Teenagers in America know that they'll possibly need technical skills to find good jobs, but a new survey reveals that interest in technology-related careers may be decreasing.

The percentage of boys aged 13 to 17 who are interested in science, technology, engineering and math —or STEM —careers dropped from 36 percent in 2017 to 24 percent this year, according to a survey by Junior Achievement USA. The amount of girls interested in STEM careers stayed unchanged at II percent.

    But the 1, 000 survey participants still named technology as one of two key skills that will be necessary to prepare them for their future careers.

    "Kids don' t understand how technology can be applied to careers in addition to computers, and maybe robotics, "said Tammera L. Holmes, president of aviation consulting firm AeroStar Consulting （航空资询公司）.“That's all they know, so they can't really translate that interest to career pathways."

    When Holmes was in high school, her mom sent her to an event that featured (以......为专题)the pilots from World War II. One of the pilots took her for a ride and let her take the wheel immediately that was the career for me." she said.

    Women remain outnumbered(超过) by men in fields like technology. For people working to increase the number of women in these areas, the lack of growth in girls interest in STEM careers is concerning.

    Teenage girls are more interested than their male classmates in running after careers in which they can help others, said Ed Grocholski from Junior Achievement. Even with all the programs aimed at increasing girls' interest in STEM, "I don't think we really talk that much about how we improve people's lives through STEM," Grocholski said.

    Society needs to do better at making those connections for kids, said Katherine Latham, founder of an engineering firm. She used civil engineering as an example of a career that will continue to be important.

    However, the fact that students know they will need tech skills in their future careers is encouraging.

    The second skill they said they need is relationship-building.

    "That's going to be the new type of engineers," Latham said.

    The market for products designed specifically for older adults could reach $30 billion by next year, and startups (初创公司) want in on the action. What they sometimes lack is feedback from the people who they hope will use their products. So Brookdale, the country's largest owner of retirement communication, has been inviting a few select entrepreneurs just to move in for a few days, show off their products and hear what the residents have to say.

    That's what brought Dayle Rodriguez, 28, all the way from England to the dining room of Brookdale South Bay in Torrance, California. Rodriguez is the community and marketing manager for a company called Sentab. The startup's product, Sentab TV, enables older adults who may not be comfortable with computers to access email, video chat and social media using just their televisions and a remote control.

    "It's nothing new, it's nothing too complicated and it's natural because lots of people have TV remotes." says Rodriguez.

    But none of that is the topic of conversation in the Brookdale dining room. Instead, Rodriguez solicits residents' advice on what he should get on his cheeseburger and how he should spend the afternoon. Playing cards was on the agenda, as well as learning to play mahjong(麻将).

    Rodriguez says it's important that residents here don't feel like he's selling them something. "I've had more feedback in a passive approach." he says. "Playing pool, playing cards, having dinner, having lunch, all work better than going through a survey of questions. When they get to know me and to trust me, knowing for sure I'm not selling them something—there'll be more honest feedback from them."

    Rodriguez is just the seventh entrepreneur to move into one of Brookdale's 1,100 senior living communities. Other new products in the program have included a kind of full-body blow dryer and specially designed clothing that allows people with disabilities to dress and undress themselves.

    "First and foremost, the residents love it." says Smith. "It also provides Brookdale the opportunity to learn about and experience new technologies quickly and inexpensively and to make sure that we understand what residents want and need."

    Mary Lou Busch, 93, agreed to try the Sentab system. She tells Rodriguez that it might be good for someone, but not for her.

    "I have the computer and FaceTime, which I talk with my family on." she explains. She also has an iPad and a smart phone. "So I do pretty much everything I need to do."

    Rodriguez takes it pretty well.

    "I'm not going to lie to you, I would've liked a more positive response." he says. But "if people don't need it or want it, it's up to us to change, adapt it or make it more useful."

    To be fair, if Rodriguez had wanted feedback from some more technophobic (害怕技术的) seniors, he might have ended up in the wrong Brookdale community. This one is located in the heart of Southern California's aerospace corridor. Many residents have backgrounds in engineering, business and academic circles.

    But Rodriguez says he's still learning something important by moving into this Brookdale community: "People are more tech-skilled than we thought."

    And besides, where else would he learn to play mahjong?

    Most people know something about the greenhouse effect. Factories send gasses such as carbon dioxide, or CO₂, into the atmosphere, the air around the earth. In the past, this wasn't a problem because trees absorbed the CO₂. But now people in many countries are cutting down billions of trees all around the world. At the same time, factories are sending more CO₂ into the atmosphere. It's difficult to believe, but factories put billions of tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere every year. One ton is over 2000 pounds, so it is a lot of pollution. There is too much CO₂ and there aren't enough trees, so the world is getting warmer. In other words, we have a greenhouse effect. This is terrible for the environment.

    What can we do about this? Firsts we can stop using so much coal and oil. We can learn to use different kinds of energy: the sun, wind, steam from volcanoes, and heat from inside the earth. Second, instead of cutting down trees, we should plant more trees. One tree can absorb ten pounds of carbon dioxide every year.

    The trees are good for the earth's atmosphere and for Guatemala (拉丁美洲国家危地马拉).In small towns and villages in Guatemala, most women are poor and have hard lives. Trees help them in three ways. First, the Connecticut factories pay them to plant the trees. Their pay is com, not money. The com is good for their children. Second, these women know a lot about their environment. They know where to plant when to plant, and what kinds of trees to plant. For example, they plant many fruit trees. The fruit gives them vitamins for their families^' diets. Other trees are good for firewood. In a few years, the women won't spend so much time looking for firewood. Third, all these trees are good for the soil. Now rain can't wash the soil down from the mountains so easily.

    This plan isn't enough to stop the greenhouse effect. However, it's a start. The woman of Guatemala are helping themselves and helping their environment.