One of the most recent social changes taking place in the world is social networking. Social networking has been in existence for at least 150 years, and probably longer than that. In the times before the invention of the computer and the World Wide Web (WWW), social networking was done in person. People who had similar likes and interests would gather together to share experiences, make new friends, and improve their businesses.

    On the Internet, social networking websites made their first appearances during the late 1990s. The first major social networking website in the United States was MySpace. MySpace allowed its users to exchange messages, share pictures, and make new friends in a way that was never thought of in the past. With MySpace, people who did not go out much could reach out to others from their own homes.

    In 2004, Facebook was created. It was first a website created for use by Harvard University's students and teachers, but it soon expanded to include just about everyone. It is now larger than some of the largest companies in the world. It is a website that is changing all the time. Facebook has completely changed the way people stay connected with each other and the rest of the world. The way it works is simple. Users can set up a new account (账户) easily. All a new user needs is an email address to start. Once a person has created an account and his friend also has his own Facebook page, he can invite his friend by sending a request out to him. Once you get started, making new friends will come easily.

    Music icon Bob Dylan will not attend the Nobel ceremony in December because he has other commitments(承诺), the Swedish Academy said on Wednesday.

    “The Swedish Academy received a personal letter from Bob Dylan yesterday where he explained that he could not make himself available in December …,” it said in a statement.

    “He wishes that he could accept the award personally, but other commitments make it unfortunately impossible. He said that he felt very honored by the Nobel Prize,” it added. The Swedish Academy said it respected Dylan's decision, but that it was “unusual” for a Nobel laureate(获得者) not to come to Stockholm to accept the award in person. Nobel laureates are honored every year on December 10 ─ the death anniversary of the prize's founder Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist，inventor and philanthropist.

Several other literature prize winners have skipped the Nobel ceremony in the past for various reasons —- British writer Doris Lessing because of ill health, British playwright Harold Pinter because he was under treatment in the hospital and Austrian p laywright and novelist Elfriede Jelinek due to social phobia(社交恐惧症).

“We look forward to Bob Dylan's Nobel lecture, which he must carry out — it is the only requirement — within six months starting from December 10,2016,” the academy said.

    Tenzing left his home when he was ten to work and help his mother, who was looking after their 2-acre ancestral farm after his father's death. He did temporary jobs for the first few years and then joined a Malaysian construction firm, where he learnt to drive, repair machines, work on the Internet and even speak English fluently.

    “In those 13 years, I learnt everything—driving, mechanic work, and how to set up a small factory. This made me gain much confidence to do almost all jobs,” says Tenzing.

    However, as his mother was getting older, on December 12, 2006, Tenzing returned to his hometown in Assam. Having visited several farms, he came to know that tea could be easily exported and many tea companies were buying tea; so he also decided to grow tea on his farm. But as his family had never grown tea, he had no idea how to do it.

    Being a green hand in this field, Tenzing went to meet with many tea experts and followed their instructions. But whenever he sprayed pesticide (农药)on his farm, he'd get a headache and feel indisposed. So he started looking for alternatives. Tenzing did his research online and finally in 2007, he connected with people from a Canadian non-governmental organization and invited them to his farm, where they trained him. Thus, Tenzing started growing tea organically.

    Today Tenzing has 25 acres of land, of which 7.5 acres is used for tea planting, and he grows almost all types of fruits and vegetables. His success inspired many, and farmers from other parts of the country also started coming to his farm to learn organic farming. He has trained about 30,000 farmers so far. Every year almost 100 tourists visit his farm from various parts of the world like the UK, Australia, Germany, etc.

    The University of Tokyo has eight museums covering various fields such as medicine, agriculture and art. Click the names of the museums below to read brief introductions about their histories and exhibits.

    The University Museum

    Having accumulated over three million academic materials for its collection since the University of Tokyo was founded in 1877, the University Museum is the largest museum of its kind in Japan. From the time of its reorganization into an independent entity in May 1996, the Museum has held exhibitions over 60 times.

    The Museum of Health and Medicine

    The Museum of Health and Medicine seeks to provide information about health and medicine to the general public and advance education for students studying medicine. The Museum features both a permanent and a temporary exhibition space and a temporary exhibition space, with the latter focusing on topics related to medical care and the study of medicine.

    The Agricultural Museum

    The Agricultural Museum displays materials from the collection of the University's Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Science, Notable items on display include the documents and portraits of scientists affiliated (隶属的)with the University, internal organs of Japan's famous dog Hachiko, and drawings illustrating German agriculture and the varieties of Japanese cows.

    The Farm Museum

    The Farm Museum opened in 2007 within a renovated dairy bam. The bam was built in 1934 as part of the moving of the University of Tokyo's farm from Komaba to Tanashi, an area in Western Tokyo. The Museum features both permanent and temporary exhibitions. Permanent exhibitions include European farming equipment used on the Komaba Farm, tools for agricultural experiments, agricultural machinery, American tractors and drawings illustrating German agriculture.

    (The New York Times, Oct.7) The 2019 Nobel Prize in physiology(生理学) or medicine was jointly awarded to three scientists — William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza — for their work on how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. The Nobel Assembly announced the prize at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday.

    Their work established the genetic mechanisms(机制) that allow cells to respond to changes in oxygen levels. The findings have implications(启示) for treating a variety of diseases.

    Why did they win?

    "Oxygen is the lifeblood of living organisms(生物体)," said Dr. George Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School. "Without oxygen, cells can't survive." But too much or too little oxygen can be deadly. The three researchers tried to answer this question: How do cells regulate their responses?

    The investigators uncovered detailed genetic responses to changing oxygen levels that allow cells in the bodies of humans and other animals to sense and respond to fluctuations(波动), increasing and decreasing how much oxygen they receive.

    Why is the work important?

    The discoveries reveal the cellular mechanisms that control such things as adaptation to high altitudes and how cancer cells manage to hijack(攫取) oxygen. Randall Johnson, a member of the Nobel Assembly, described the work as a "textbook discovery" and said it would be something students would start learning at the most basic levels of biology education.

    "This is a basic aspect of how a cell works, and I think from that standpoint alone it's a very exciting thing." Johnson said.

    The research also has implications for treating various diseases in which oxygen is in short supply — including anemia, heart attacks and strokes — as well as for treatment of cancers that are fed by and seek out oxygen.

    In San Francisco, where the number of the homeless has risen by 7% in the last decade, a non-profit organization is putting bathrooms on wheels and driving them to those in need. The group, Lava Mae, is improving retiring city buses and bringing them into different neighborhoods, currently providing about 200 showers each week.

    Doniece Sandoval, the founder of Lava Mae, first became interested in the issue in 2012, when she passed a young woman under an overpass near the San Francisco Design Center who was repeating to herself that she'd never get clean. "It made me wonder what her chances were," said Sandoval, who was then inspired to research exactly how many public shower stalls（淋浴间）existed in the city. Her findings were disheartening.

    So Lava Mae came together when she heard the city would be retiring cold city buses. "I told myself, I want those buses!" she said.

    Each bus has two private bathrooms, one of which is wheelchair accessible. Along with the basic shower, sink and toilet, the spaces have soft lighting, digital controls for water, and hair dryers.

    "Though you're only going to be on the bus for 20 minutes or so, it's 20 minutes of complete privacy," Said Sandoval.

    The buses are parked near agencies that already serve the homeless. "If we can reduce the amount of time people have to run from place to place to get essential services, we'll be able to make things better," said Sandova.

    What's next for lava Mae? The group is starting a program so that others can mimic their process. " What we're hoping to do is to get people to follow what we do, so they can recreate it." she said.