I told my friend Graham that I often cycle two miles from my house to the town centre but unfortunately there is a big hill on the route. He replied, "You mean fortunately." He explained that I should be glad of the extra exercise that the hill provided.

    My attitude to the hill has now changed. I used to complain as I approached it but now I tell myself the following. This hill will exercise my heart and lungs. It will help me to lose weight and get fit. It will mean that I live longer. This hill is my friend. Finally I comfort myself with the thought of all those silly people who pay money to go to a gym and sit on stationery exercise bicycles when I can get the same value for free. I have a smile of satisfaction as I reach the top of the hill.

    Problems are there to be faced and overcome. We cannot achieve anything with an easy life. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to gain a university degree. Her activism and writing proved inspirational. She wrote, "Character cannot be developed in ease. Only through experiences of suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved."

    One of the main determinants of success in life is our attitude towards adversity （逆境）. From time to time we all face hardships, problems, accidents and difficulties. Some are of our making but many are no fault of our own. While we cannot choose the adversity, we can choose our attitude towards it.

    Douglas Bader was 21 when in 1931 he had both legs cut off following a flying accident. He was determined to fly again and went on to become one of the leading flying aviators in the Battle of Britain with 22 aerial victories over the Germans. He was an inspiration to others during the war. He said, "Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't do this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind, you'll never use crutches （拐杖） or a stick, and then have a go at everything. Go to school, and join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible."

    The biographies （传记） of great people are full of examples of how they took steps to overcome the difficulties they faced. The common thread is that they did not become depressed. They chose their attitude. They chose to be positive. They took on the challenge. They won.

    Nevertheless, there is still the problem of how you change your attitude towards adversity.

    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.

    Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, the largest global gaming provider and the operator of QQ, an instant messaging software service, has launched a series of scientific exploration events aimed at encouraging young people to explore the outside world, instead of being continuously absorbed online.

    “QQ has been in the market for 18 years, but it is not aging, and its application has become younger and trendier. We hope that more young Chinese can use the app to connect with different people and views worldwide. We never worry about losing game players. Instead, we hope that players can actually go out to learn more,” said Li Dan, general manager of marketing department of the social network group at Tencent.

    China's gaming market netted (净赚) sales revenues of 218.96 billion yuan ( $33.75 billion) in 2017, jumping 23.1 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, the number of mobile gain players in China reached 462 million, adding 10 percent over the last year. According to Tencent the number of active users of QQ, who are 21 years old or younger, has been increasing, and they tend to use the app for a longer time.

    Starting May 22 of last year, QQ organized free trips for young people to Galapagos, Namibia, Spain and the Antarctic, but it didn't reveal the specific amount it contributed to those trips. During each trip, it selected three to four participants from those who uploaded videos and made specific travel plans online. The finalists stand out with their clear video statements and their enthusiasm about going on adventures.

    “Tencent's approach appears to be contradictory with its own interests. But, in fact, this is consistent with the company's long-term growth strategy and will promote its business by establishing a good social image,” said Neil Wang, president of consulting firm Frost & Sullivan in China.

    Plastic sludge(污泥)and garbage is a disaster for the world's oceans. A film crew traveled the globe to document the rubbish. And Julie Andersen of the Plastic Oceans Foundation says what we see is just the tip of the problem. “Half of the waste actually sinks to the bottom, and that remains on the surface actually breaks down. ”

    The filmmakers found rubbish in ocean gyres, the circulating currents that trap large concentrations of pollution in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacifc Oceans, home of what some have plastic. What we found was a plastic smog that spread throughout all the water. And in some parts of the oceans, scientists have found more plastic than plant. ”

    The pieces of the plastic garbage infect the food chain, sometimes visibly, and more so at the microscopic level, where the plastic particles interact with other pollutants. “There are heavy metals, medicines, industrial waste in the sea, while it acts like magnets(磁铁). These poisonous substances absorb on the plastic, and then when seafood absorbs the plastics, those poisonous substances enter the fatty tissues. ”To be consumed by other sea life and by people at last.

    China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are the worst plastic polluters. The United States, although a leader in recycling, is one of the world's 20 since it produces and consumes so much plastic. There are efforts around the world to address the problem, including at this newly opened recycling center in Lebanon(黎巴嫩). But Andersen says there is more that people can do. “Cut back on single-use plastics, straws, plastic cups, plastic water bottles, plastic bags and find alternatives like reusable materials.” She says healthy oceans are essential to our survival.

    Feelings often run high where insects are concerned, with many people even sick when seeing them, let alone touch or swallow them. And yet insects present a huge nutritional opportunity as an increasing global population seeks more sources of food and feed.

    Insects have generally high levels of animal protein and key micronutrients with lower environmental footprints than traditional alternatives, and they can be raised on leftovers. But cultural, social and economic problems remain, reports an article published today in Nutrition Bulletin.

    “Insects present a nutritional opportunity, but it is unclear how their nutritional quality is influenced by what they are fed, "says Darja Dobermann, a researcher at the University of Nottingham.“In ideal conditions, insects have a smaller environmental impact than most traditional western forms of animal protein; less known is how to raise insect production while maintaining these environmental benefits.”

    “Studies overall show that insects could make valuable economic and nutritional contributions to the food or feed sys tems, but there are no clear regulations in place to bring insects into such supply systems without them turning into a more expensive version of poultry（家禽）for food,” says Dobermann.

    The article highlights how insects have been a source of food for hundreds of years in more than 100countries with over 2,000 species that can be eaten; in central Africa, up to 50% of dietary protein has come from insects, with their market value higher than many alternative sources of animal protein.

    Insects need to be large enough to make the effort of catching them worthwhile and easy to locate, preferably in predictably large quantities. They are consumed at various life stages, as raw, fried, boiled, roasted or ground food.

Plants, and the insects which rely on them, are the living foundations of our planet. But these foundations are under stress because we have a tendency to replace fields and forests with decorative trees and shrubs imported from around the world. Adding to the problem, our obsession (痴迷) with perfection leads us to use a lot of pesticides (杀虫剂).

These actions are part of the reason global biodiversity is crashing. There are over three billion fewer wild birds in North America than there were in 1970. Recent research shows that insect numbers, even in nature reserves, have fallen, and 40 percent of all insect species may be extinct within a few decades. This is discouraging news; however, there are actions we can take to help bring at least some species back.

The first step is to redefine our concept of "garden" to include more than just plants. We need to intentionally share our space, and not just with the birds, bees and butterflies that visit our flowers, but also with the little insects that may eat a part (very rarely all) of our plants. Therefore, we must limit pesticide use. It's crucial to support nature's recovery, and it's much better for everyone: no doctor has ever recommended long-term exposure to pesticides.

Many drought-tolerant plants brought in from across the planet are being passed off as ecofriendly. However, mostly they're not. Yes, you're saving water, but these foreign plants can become disasters when they escape our yards. Helping the environment can be about more than saving water. Even in drier areas, like the American West, the selection of attractive native plants to choose from is vast. If dry is your style, there are native wildflowers, flowering bushes and trees that allow you to save water and nature.

Xeriscapes (节水型园艺) leave many gardeners thirsting for green, and there's an important alternative that has been largely ignored. For those disenchanted with dry landscaping, using underappreciated and water-loving native plants to make your garden a real-life oasis (绿洲) could be lifesaving to wildlife. In nature, this unsung group of native plants is limited to riparian zones, the narrow belts of green along water bodies, but if consumers demand them, nurseries will increasingly carry these riparian species, and the presence of such plants in the garden will provide for many animals including not just butterflies and their relatives but also colorful birds.

The ideal garden would offer a combination of drought-tolerant native plants and a few species that need a little more water, providing options for little guests and the bigger ones that will come to eat them. As more creatures stop by to share our yards, we will be making nature, and us all, a little healthier.