Many people trying to sell homes find that an increase in home prices has turned the market in their favor. But sellers can still get the short end of the deal if they aren't careful. Here are a few tips for you:

    Don't test your luck. Of course you think anyone who moves into your lovely home should be willing to pay top dollars, especially if you've recently invested in some improvements. But listing a home at a price that's too high above the market price could turn away some buyers.

    Buyers noticing that the home still hasn't sold may begin to assume there's something wrong with the house and use that as a reasonable excuse for offering a lower price. And if a home hasn't received any offers after two weeks, it might be time to reset the price.

    A price that's too low can bring about an undesired outcome. Listing your home at or slightly below the market price can have the effect of drawing in a large group of buyers and increase the chances that a home will receive multiple offers. But setting the price too low comes with several risks. One possibility is that buyers will get skeptical of the home that is listed for $ 15,000 to $ 20,000 less than similar homes in the area, especially if it's not properly marketed. Once again, people might assume there is something wrong with the home and may not bother to look at it.

    Spy on the competition. Going to other people's open houses can give you a better sense of how your home compares to others on the market. Check out the decoration in their kitchens, the size of their backyards and use the information to figure out where your home should fit in the range of the price. But don't set your pricing just on what you see elsewhere.

Foreign visitors to the UK might be disappointed when they learn that not everyone there speaks like Harry Potter and his friends. Usually, there's an assumption by many non-Brits that everyone in Britain speaks with what's known as a Received Pronunciation (RP, 标准发音) accent, also called "the Queen's English". However, while many people do talk this way, most Britons speak in their own regional accents.

    Scouse, Glaswegian and Black Country – from Liverpool, Glasgow and the West Midlands – are just three of the countless non-RP accents that British people speak with. There are even differences in accents between towns or cities just 30 kilometers apart. What is even more disappointing is that not speaking in a RP accent may mean a British person is judged and even treated differently in their everyday life.

    In a 2015 study by The University of South Wales, videos of people reading a passage in three different UK accents were shown to a second group of people. The group then rated how intelligent they thought the readers sounded. The lowest-rated accent was Brummie, native to people from Birmingham, a city whose accent is considered working class.

    However, there is no need to be disappointed though you are not speaking in an RP accent. In fact, doing the opposite may even give you strength.

Kong Seong-jae, 25, is an internet celebrity from Seoul. After studying in the UK, he picked up several regional accents. He's now famous for his online videos, where he shows off the various accents he's learned. "British people usually get really excited when I use some of their local dialect words, and they become much friendlier. I think it makes a bit of bond between local people and foreigners to speak in their local accent," he said.

    So if you're working on perfecting your British accent, try to speak like someone from Liverpool, Glasgow or Birmingham. You may not sound like Harry Potter, but you are likely to make more friends.

    Mandara seemed to know something big was about to happen. So she let out a yell, caught hold of her 2-year-old daughter Kibibi and climbed up into a tree. She lives at the National Zoo in Washington D. C.

    And on Tuesday, August 23rd, witnesses said she seemed to sense the big earthquake that shook much of the East Coast before any humans knew what was going on. And she's not the only one. In the moments before the quake, an orangutan（猩猩）let out a loud call and then climbed to the top of her shelter.

    “It's very different from their normal call,” said Brandie Smith, the zookeeper. “The lemurs（monkeylike animals of Madagascar）will sound an alarm if they see or hear something highly unusual.”

    But you can't see or hear an earthquake 15 minutes before it happens, can you? Maybe you can—if you're an animal. “Animals can hear above and below our range of hearing,” said Brandie Smith. “That's part of their special abilities. They're more sensitive to the environment, which is how they survive.”

    Primates weren't the only animals that seemed to sense the quake before it happened. One of the elephants made a warning sound. And a huge lizard（蜥蜴）ran quickly for cover. The flamingoes（a kind of birds）gathered before the quake and stayed together until the shaking stopped.

    So what kind of vibrations（震动）were the animals picking up in the moments before the quake? Scientist Susan Hough said earthquakes produce two types of waves—a weak “P” wave and then a much stronger “S” wave. The “P” stands for “primary”. And the “S” stands for “secondary”. She thinks the “P” wave might be what sets the animals off.

    Not all the animals behaved unusually before the quake. For example, Smith said the zoo's giant pandas didn't jump up until the shaking actually began. But many of the other animals seemed to know something was coming before it happened. “I'm not surprised at all,” Smith said.

    When we talk about famous UK writer Agatha Christie, it seems that her famous detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are must-reads. So, of course, are her best-selling novels Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and Death on the Nile (1937).

But when the readers around the world were asked to name their favorite Christie novel to mark her 125th birthday on Sept 15, And Then There Were None (1939) topped the list, reported The Guardian.

    It may surprise you to learn that it is a crime novel without a detective. What it does have is suspense (n.悬念) and a very sinister (adj.邪恶的) atmosphere. It is “on a knife edge”, as Mathew Prichard, Christie's grandson, told the newspaper.

    Ten people get an invitation to come to a house on a small island near Devon in South West England. Nobody refuses these invitations since each one promises something the person wants: a job, a holiday, a chance to meet up again with an old friend.

    These people are all responsible for deaths. Some are directly responsible, others are responsible because of what they did not do. Anthony James Marston, for instance, killed two children while driving dangerously. He did not feel guilty and actually complained when he was banned from driving. Another, Emily Caroline Brent, is a harsh person who threw out a young servant for becoming pregnant while unmarried. The servant later killed herself.

    When they arrive at the house they are played a recording. The voice gives details of the wrongdoing of each of the guests. Starting with Marston, each is killed in a way that fits their crime. The series of deaths is completed with a hanging, “and then there were none”, as the title suggests.

    Christie can be quite a predictable writer. Some of her stories are a little unoriginal. But this book is full of clever writing. Look it up to find out what this hugely successful mystery writer, the “Queen of Crime” as she was called, could do at her best.

    We spend a lot of time studying what we eat, but it turns out that when we choose to eat the very last meal of the day may also matter.

    Recent studies found that food was processed by the body in different ways depending on what time of day it's consumed. This might be because of physical activity, changes in body temperature, biochemical reactions and absorption and digestion of food.

    The best time to eat dinner depends on when you get up and go to bed, as well as if and when you eat your other meals. "Breakfast sets you up for success," Planells, a nutritionist, says. "If you don't eat breakfast, by lunchtime you're starving, and by dinner any healthy eating plans are out the window."

    Researchers also found that meal timing had an influence on human metabolism(新陈代谢). They studied a small group of people carrying extra weight and found that those who ate their last meal by mid­afternoon had increased fat burning at night.

    Eating early also seems to be the perfect time for blood sugar control. "Starting around 3 pm, blood sugar control is worse than it is in the morning, meaning that if you ate the same meal at 3 pm as you did for breakfast, your blood sugar levels would rise higher, despite the fact that you ate the same amount of food," Planells says.

    A 10­week study of "time­restricted feeding" looked at what happens to body fat when people limited their meals to a shorter window of time. Researchers found that people who ate breakfast 90 minutes later than usual and ate dinner 90 minutes earlier than usual lost more than twice as much body fat on average as those in the control group, who ate their meals as they normally would.

    It's not easy being a teenager– nor is it easy being the parent of a teenager. You can make your child feel angry, hurt, or misunderstood by what you say without realizing it yourself. It is important to give your child the space he needs to grow while gently letting him know that you'll still be there for him when he needs you.

    Expect a lot from your child, just not everything. Except for health and safety problems, such as drug use or careless driving, consider everything else open to discussion to help them grow up more independently. If your child is unwilling to discuss something, don't insist he tell you what's on his mind. The more you insist, the more likely that he'll clam up. Instead, let him attempt to solve things by himself. At the same time, remind him that you're always there for him should he seek advice or help. Show respect for your teenager's privacy (隐私). Never read his mail or listen in on personal conversations.

    Teach your teenager that the family phone is for the whole family, which can make them more mature. If your child talks on the family's telephone for too long, tell him he can talk for 15 minutes, but then he must stay off the phone for at least an equal period of time. This not only frees up the line so that other family members can make and receive calls, but teaches your teenager moderation (节制). Or if you are open to the idea, allow your teenager his own phone that he pays for with his own pocket money or a part-time job.