Today, many people use plants from other places to design their yards. Well, do they have any influence on animals living nearby? As we know, plants supply food for things like insects and plant-eating animals. In turn, birds and meat-eating animals feed on these insects and plant-eating animals. It is easy to see how important plants are.

    Although foreign plants may look beautiful, they can cause problems when there are too many of them. I live in Virginia, USA, and sometimes see a plant—commonly known as Kudzu—that seems to cover everything in the area, even climbing over whole trees and houses.

    Kudzu is an unbelievable plant since it grows very fast. It was first brought to the United States from south-east Asia around the 1870's as a crop that farmers could grow. However, Kudzu quickly came to be considered harmful throughout the southern United States.

    Since Kudzu grows fast in many different environments, it can completely cover areas of land quickly. The plant is also not eaten by any insects or birds in the United States so it can grow unchecked. Kudzu can cover trees, bushes, and even houses. It costs the United States 500 million dollars a year to just keep Kudzu from growing too fast. The plant is a perfect example of what scientists call an invasive (侵略性的) species, which grows more quickly than other native plants.

    All foreign plants have the possibility to spread quickly. Not only are they costly, but planting them in gardens actually takes away food from insects. If everyone filled their garden with plants native to where they live, many lovely butterflies and other native creatures would be attracted to their backyards! So, take a look out of your window — how does your garden grow?

    Pound for pound, healthy food is cheaper than junk food, according to a new research from the U. K.

    The Institute of Economic Affairs found that the average cost for a “wide range” of healthy foods was about £ 2 per kilogram, compared with £ 3 a kilogram for less-healthy products such as processed and ready-made foods.

Still, study after study finds that cost is often a barrier when it comes to healthy eating. Convenience drives consumers to care about habits more than prices, the U. K. study concluded. Taste and convenience often play a larger role in people's food choices than price or nutritional quality.

    “Processed foods are extremely expensive, especially when it comes to the nutrient value. Some of the healthiest, most inexpensive foods aren't so attractive. Beans cost next to nothing, especially when bought dry and in great amounts. They take time and some skills to prepare. ” said Ciara Foy, a nutritionist.

    Instead, busy parents reach for the chicken. “You might be getting something that has enough calories to fill you up but you're actually not getting any nutrients, so your body's going to keep wanting more and more food,” said Foy. “And that's why in North America we, re overfed and undernourished (营养不良的).”

    Makers tend to try to promote their product based on perceived health benefits, which makes consumers confused at times with what is a healthy product and how much you should pay for those benefits. The most expensive items, healthy or not, are the ones that end up in the trash. “A lot of people waste a lot of food,” Foy said. It's estimated that more than $ 30 billion of food is wasted in Canada every year. Foy recommends taking a look in your fridge to see what needs to be used up when planning for the next night's meals. “If you actually cut down on the waste you'll find that you can afford healthy food,” Foy said.

    The death of the plastic credit card could be a step closer as high street names including McDonald's and the Co-op prepare to test a breakthrough finger-scanning payment technology.

    FingoPay, developed by British start-up Sthaler, uses a biometric reader to scan the veins of a shopper's finger, building up a “map” that is unique to each individual.

    By connecting this pattern with a credit card or bank account, the company plans to let shoppers pay simply by placing their finger in a pocket-sized scanner, doing away with cash and credit cards.

    Sthaler, founded by former music industry executive Nick Dryden, will begin testing the technology next month in Proud, a London nightclub. Mr. Dryden said McDonald's is experimenting with a pilot of the technology, and that Sthaler is also planning a project with Co-op's food stores.

    It comes amid growing interest in using biometric identification in payments, which backers believe are more secure and efficient than passwords and PINs. Apple Pay, which uses the iPhone's fingerprint technology, launched in the UK in 2015 and was followed by the Android equivalent in May 2016.

    Hendrik Kleinsmiede, the director of Visa Europe's innovation arm Collab, which is backing Sthaler, said the Fingopay technology was less immune to problems such as wet and dusty fingers or fraud. “People are ready to accept biometrics as a secure authentication mechanism,” he said.

    Sthaler says the chance that two people have the same vein structure is 3.4bn-to-one, making it virtually impossible to crack. The vein scanner, developed by Hitachi, is already being used by Barclays to identify business customers as well as in cash machines in Japan, but Sthaler has the unique rights to license it to retailers.

    In the trial at Proud set to begin in September, the technology will be used to speed up waiting times at the bar both by cutting down on cards and by being able to suggest drinks based on what a patron has previously ordered.

    It is true that world population is growing, but this is not the cause of our current and future global problems. Believing this will cause us to ignore the real problem and risk long-term damage to our planet.

    Let me start by explaining why overpopulation is a myth. For one thing, the UN Population Division regularly predicts population growth but provides a low variant (变量), medium variant, and high variant to factor in various possibilities. In the 2010 revision, their high variant suggests that the world population will be almost 16 billion in 2100, but the low variant predicts it will peak（达到顶峰） at 8 billion and decrease to just over 6 billion by 2100. In most cases, it is the low variant that has come true in the past, suggesting the same will be true of their future population predictions. In addition to this, the size of families is actually decreasing.

    For another, if the Earth is overpopulated, there needs to be insufficient (短缺) food, water, and space for humans to live. However, Indian economist Raj Krishna estimates that India alone is able to increase crop produce to the point of providing the entire world's food supply. The World Food Programme confirms that there is sufficient food grown to feed the world and there is the same amount of fresh water on the planet now as there was 10,000 years ago. So how is it possible that the number of people in the world is affecting our planet?

    Therefore, it is not an increase in population but an increase in consumption that is a severe threat. Materialism and overconsumption are facts of life for everybody in the western world, as possessions reflect a person's status in society and people strive to obtain happiness through owning the latest fashionable goods. Not only that, but waste is a common occurrence which has a huge effect on our resources. It is a sad truth that 80% of the world's resources are currently used by just 20% of the world's population.

    Our overconsumption must be addressed now to make our lives more sustainable and avoid continuing the terrible damage to the environment we are causing. The key is education. If we do not work towards this but instead focus on the wrong issue, we may find ourselves living on a planet that can no longer sustain human life.

    I first began experiencing depression (抑郁) at the age of 14 .At first depression would come and go, but later it became a continual part of my life.

    I was so strongly determined to find the way to overcome my depression that I tried everything from when I was in college, special teas, yoga (瑜伽), and advice given by doctors. However, I still felt I hadn't even come close to managing the problem.

    But one afternoon, I saw an article in a magazine that talked about how dogs were able to help people with depression. The next day, I decided to get a dog—a corgi (柯基犬).

    When I bought my little corgi, Buddy, home, I didn't realize how much he would change my life. One morning, I woke up with those familiar feelings again. I didn't want to get out of bed. I turned to pull the covers back over my head and give up. That's when I saw Buddy. He started jumping all over me, licking (舔) my face, letting me know that it was time to go outside. It was as if he were saying, "There's no time to be sad. The world is amazing!" And for the first time in my life, on a day when my depression were strong, I got out of bed. I put on my winter clothes and went for a walk in the snow with my new friend. I realized at that moment, walking down the street in winter, my life was changing. I really was a new person. This was my new beginning.

    It's been more than a year since that day, and I've never spent another morning unable to get out of bed. I've not cried myself to sleep or spent my days filled with fear and regret. Sure, I still have days when I feel sad or anxious. But with Buddy by my side, I've finally learned how to manage these feelings.

On Nov 11, an Australian jockey (骑师) got hurt after his horse "broke down" during a horse race in Hong Kong. Though the jockey is safe now, his horse was not so lucky. Since the horse's leg injury would have led to its death, vets euthanized (实施安乐死) it in front of the audience on the spot. Falling off a horse at high speed has a big risk of injury. You can say it's the jockey's choice to take part in the sport. But what about the horses?

This is not the first time that animals have been harmed because of animal entertainment-related sports. For example, about 180,000 bulls (公牛) are killed in bullfights around the world, with many more injured in bullfight events every year, according to Human Society International, an organization promoting the human-animal relationship globally. Hunters shoot more than 800 lions in South Africa, reported World Animal Protection.

To help these animals, animal lovers have started many campaigns , which seem to be taking effect. In June, Churchill Downs, the site of the famous Kentucky Derby in the US, stopped all horse racing, originally set to run until July 

3. Circuses using animals have been banned by many countries around the world in recent years due to animal welfare worries, according to the website Four Paws.

Animals play an important part in our lives and are more than tools for sports and entertainment. The human-animal bond can be seen in all kinds of places. Service animals can help people in their jobs and animals are also used to help and care for people with illnesses and who have experienced abuse or mental illness. "We can have our sports, drinks, lively parties, and beautiful hats  but we can leave animals out of it," reported Vox.