Daylight-powered germ-killing equipment（杀菌设备）may someday help protect health workers from deadly virus like Ebola virus. That is a finding from a study published in the journal Science Advances.

    Study organizers say they've developed membranes（薄膜）that produce very small amounts of hydrogen peroxide（过氧化氢）when left in daylight. Membranes are thin plastic, structures that can serve as barriers. They let some things pass through, but other things art blocked. Hydrogen peroxide, a liquid sold in drug stores, works as a disinfectant（杀菌剂）.

    Nearly 500 health workers were infected and died in 2014 when Ebola spread through parts of West Africa. Caregivers wear full-body protective suits when they come into contact with patients with infectious diseases. But the process of removing the suits is a time when infection can spread if the surface is covered with virus. “If there's any live bacteria or virus on the surface, it's still transmissible and could cause infection,” said Gang Sun of the University of California. He is one of the researchers that worked to develop membranes that could cover the outside of protective equipment.

    When the chemical molecules（分子）on the surface of these membranes are put in sunlight, they react with oxygen in the air to produce small amounts of hydrogen peroxide. Gang Sun explains that the process creates less hydrogen peroxide than what you would use to remove dirt on clothing, for example. But it is still enough to kill organisms.

    Rohan Tikekar is a food scientist with the University of Maryland. He described the development as “quite novel,” or new and different, Tikekar was not involved with the recent study. He said others have developed materials that produce disinfecting chemicals. But most only work under high-energy ultraviolet（U V）light, and not usual daylight. The new membrane also works in the dark for at least an hour or two because of chemical properties that can recharge its germ-killing powers. Tikekar called that an important improvement.

    Gang Sun said the new membranes, though still Far from perfect could be used for things other than protective equipment for health workers. They could also be added to packaging for fruits and vegetables to keep foods fresher and reduce the risk of being polluted. Some versions of the material use natural chemicals' Sun says that one of the next steps is to make it safe to sat

For some people, music is no fun at all. About four percent of the population is what scientists call "amusic". People who are amusic are born without the ability to recognize or reproduce musical notes (音调). Amusic people often cannot tell the difference between two-songs. Amusics can only hear the difference between two notes if they are far apart on the musical scale.

As a result, songs sound like noise to an amusic. Many amusics compare the sound of music to pieces of metal hitting each other. Life can be hard for amusics. Their ability to enjoy music sets them apart from others. It can be difficult for other people to identify with their condition. In fact, most people cannot begin to grasp what it feels like to be amusic. Just going to a restaurant or a shopping mall can be uncomfortable or even painful. That is why many amusics intentionally（故意地）stay away from places where there is music. However, this can result in withdrawal and social isolation. "I used to hate parties," says Margaret, a seventy-year-old woman who only recently discovered that she was amusic. By studying people like Margaret, scientists arc finally learning bow to identify this unusual condition.

    Scientists say that the brains of amusics are different from the brains of people who can appreciate music. The difference is complex, and it doesn't involve defective hearing. Amusics can understand other nonmusical sounds well. They also have no problems understanding ordinary speech. Scientists compare amusics to people who just can't sec certain colors.

Many amusics are happy when their condition is finally diagnosed. For years. Margaret felt embarrassed about her problem with music. Now she knows that she is not alone. There is a name for her condition. That makes it easier for her to explain. "When people invite me to a concert, I just say, 'No thanks. I'm amusic,'" says Margaret. "I just wish I had learned to say that when I was seventeen and not seventy."

    I came to study in the United States a year ago .Yet I did not know the real American society until I was injured in a car accident because after the accident I had to see a doctor and go to court.

    After the accident .my roommate called a doctor for me. I was very grateful and determined to repay him one day. But the next day, he asked me to pay him $200 for what he had done. I was astonished. He had good reason to charge me, he said. And if I wanted to collect money from the person who was responsible for my injury, I'd have to have a good lawyer. And only a good doctor can help me get a good lawyer. Now that he had helped me find a good doctor, it was only fair that I should pay him.

    But every day I went to see the doctor, I had to wait about 50 minutes. He would see two or three patients at the same time, and often stop treating one so as to see another. Yet he charged me $115 each time .The final examination report consisted of ten lines, and it cost me $215.

    My lawyer was all smiles the first time we met. But after that he avoided seeing me at all. He knew very well the other party was responsible for the accident, yet he hardly did anything. He simply waited to collect his money. He was so irresponsible that I decided to dismiss him. And he made me pay him $770.

    Now I had to act as my own lawyer. Due to my inexperience, I told the insurance company the date I was leaving America. Knowing that, they played for time…and I left without getting a cent.

    Olympic National Park, with its temperate rainforests and breath-taking views, exerts a natural pull on many Pacific Northwestemers. But Seattle writer Rosette Royale found it repellent. To Royale, the park seemed like a damp, dirty and unpleasant place. "I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to carry a 50-pound pack into the wilderness and camp there for days," he said. "It didn't make sense."

    Then he met Bryant Carlin, a vendor (小贩) for Real Change, the Seattle weekly sold on the street by vendors who are homeless or low-wage earners. He was also a skilled outdoorsman and a nature photographer who would take weeks-long photographic journeys to the park. The two men connected in the fall of 2011 when Royale interviewed Carlin for a feature story in Real Change about Carlin's photography.

    That first time they met—and for years afterward—Carlin invited Royale to go camping with him. Each time, Royale said "Thanks, but no thanks." Until one day, in the spring of 2015, Royale surprised himself by saying yes. "Little did I know," said Royale, "that saying 'yes' would change the course of my life."

    Royale and Carlin went on five separate journeys to the Olympic wilderness. They camped in spring, summer, fall and winter. For Royale, the trips were exhausting and terrifying. But the trips were also inspiring, and helped Royale—a black, strange man—to develop a relationship with the outdoors that he had never experienced before.

    For Carlin, the trips were an opportunity to throw off the label of "homeless". In Olympic National Park, sleeping outside just means you're a camper. But there was one aspect of Carlin's life in the city that he couldn't escape: alcohol abuse. While he never brought beer on their camping journeys, the effects of years of drinking weren't so easy to leave behind.

    A first-year undergraduate student in Chengdu, recently complained online that her mother refused to raise her monthly allowance to 4,500 yuan ( $ 633) even when she said her current allowance 2, 000 yuan was not enough to cover her expenses, sparking a debate on how much money a college student needs per month. One expert shares his views on the issue with China Daily: Students should pursue education, not comfort.

    Even for a college student studying in a first-tier city in China, 2,000 yuan is enough to cover all his or her monthly expenses. In fact, for a college student in Chengdu a monthly allowance of 2,000 yuan is more than enough. According to a survey conducted by a bookkeeping platform, the average monthly expense for an undergraduate in cities other than Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou was less than 2,000 yuan in 2019； for Chengdu, it was 1,900 yuan.

    Claiming that she can hardly afford new clothing and cosmetics with her 2,000 yuan monthly allowance, the undergraduate student in Chengdu criticized her mother for refusing to raise her pocket money. Her "meager" allowance, she said, prevented her from buying branded goods that her hostel-mates enjoyed.

    By the time a person enters a college, she or he should have developed a healthy consumption habit. And a youth should adjust her or his consumption according to her or his family income. On a deeper level, the money they spend in college should depend on how much they value their parents' hard work. Besides, some college students could take UP part-time jobs to meet their monetary needs if they feel their parents don't or can't send them enough money. In this way they can also learn to meet the requirements of life in the future and develop healthy consumption habits. More importantly, they should always bear in mind that education is their top priority in college