The college entrance examination is just around the corner. Homework and tests will keep many of you up late at night, and you may plan to make up for your lost sleep during the weekends. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} is it useful? A study published in the journal Current Biology completely has changed {#blank#}2{#/blank#} people used to think. It shows that the habit of sleeping in on weekends doesn't fix the damage done by a lack of sleep during the week. Even {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (bad), it may damage your health.

Anyone who has never been to China Braille Library will draw to mind various images of the place.They would wonder how the library works all the way.In fact, the library offers readers a pleasant space with several broad reading rooms on the third floor,and has 18,269 kinds of books, including 3,523 kinds of braille books, 809 kinds of braille journals, 419 kinds of books written in both braille and visible language, and 142 kinds of children's ordinary books.

The library is open to the 17 million visually impaired people in China. This library has an arrangement with China Post, under which it has manufactured a special kind of mailing bag with cards where the address of the library is printed on one side.The borrowers can make phone calls, or send WeChat messages or emails to the librarian, listing the books they are seeking. The librarian then fishes out these books, puts them into the mailing bag, fills in the address of the borrower on the other side of the card and waits for a postman to pick up the bag.Whenever the borrower finishes reading, he or she needs to put the books back into the bag, turn the address card around and put it into a postbox for the books to return to the library.

In the age of multimedia, books have taken various forms. That applies to the world of the visually impaired, too.CBL offers its readers a smart listening device that looks like an old-fashioned cellphone. Guided by a recorded voice, a user has to just press a few buttons to gain access to 20 terabytes of audiobooks stored on the CBL website.The smart listening device is part of a Digital Reading Project for the Blind launched by China Disabled Persons' Federation in 2017.

As part of the program, the government purchased 200,000 such devices and distributed them to the over 400 Braille libraries and barrier-free reading rooms nationwide for lending to the visually impaired. Now, 80 percent of them are still in use, which means more than 160,000 visually impaired people are benefiting from it.

Machines work well at a constant speed —and the faster the better.Whether they are spinning cotton {#blank#}1{#/blank#}dealing with numbers,regular,repetitive actions are what they excel at.

Increasingly,our world is being designed by machines and for machines.We adapt to machines and hold ourselves to their standards:People {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(judge)by the speed at which they respond, not the quality of their response."Always on"becomes something to take pride {#blank#}3{#/blank#}.When I ask people {#blank#}4{#/blank#} they are doing,they almost always answer "busy".Ticking things off the "to do"list becomes{#blank#}5{#/blank#}means of defining ourselves. {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (occupy)if not with work then with family or our social networks,most of us feel exhausted.

A few years ago,I became very interested in what it meant {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(pause).I started to notice where pauses show up in my own work and life.For example,I realized when I was writing,a short walk was a(n) {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(effective)way to focus than concentrating harder.The small walk acted as a pause, {#blank#}9{#/blank#}(enable)me to rest,reflect or refresh,appreciate and break a block in my {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(creative).I realized that pause is not nothing!

A minute eating ice-cream is not the same as a minute doing push-ups.Even time itself isn't a uniform raw material —as the physics of Einstein shows.

New discoveries and technological breakthroughs are made every year. Yet, as the information industry moves forward, many people in society are looking back to their roots in terms of the way they eat. A "locavore" movement has emerged in the United States. The movement supports eating foods grown locally and sustainably, rather than prepackaged foods shipped from other parts of the world.

Experts hold that eating local has many merits, and is expected to become a trend featuring sustainability. Erin Barnett is the director of Local Harvest, a company that aims to help connect people to farms in their area. By eating local, she argues, people have a better and more personal understanding of the impact their food consumption has on the rest of the world. "There is a way of connecting the point, where eating locally is an act that raises our awareness of sustainable living," Barnett says.

The United States' agricultural output is one of the highest in the world, says Timothy Beach, a professor of geography and geoscience at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. "There's just no other place on Earth where the amount of input is so productive," Beach says of American agriculture. "Nobody can cut off the food we need."

However, the US food system is not sustainable because of its dependency on fossil (化石) fuels, says Beach. Equipment used on "extremely productive" farms is quickly consuming Earth's natural resources, particularly oil. Additionally, the production of agricultural supplements (补充剂)，such as fertilizer, uses large amounts of energy.

The world has used close to half of the global oil supply, Beach says, and the second half will be consumed at an even faster rate because of the growing population and economic development. Although many businesses are experimenting with wind, solar, and biofuel, Beach says there's nothing that we see on the horizon that can replace it. "There is no way on Earth we are using fossil fuels sustainably. Then we have to reconsider the impact of eating local," he says.

It's always exciting to receive a letter in the mail. Even today, when the world is digitally connected, receiving an actual letter in your mailbox from a distant land is a great way for children to make new friends. 

The Peaceful Pen Pals Project is a beautiful initiative that combines global connection and self-expression. The project is part of the nonprofit Kids for Peace, founded by Jill McManigal and Danielle Gram in California, in 2006. Letter writing is most certainly hands-on and helps strengthen relationships throughout the world. 

The Peaceful Pen Pals Project is open to all children, ages 2 through 17. To date, there are 1500 children from 17 countries participating in the program. Each child is assigned a pen pal of a similar age. This establishes a point of connection right off the bat for the children and promotes a stronger bond. If the letter writers are in the same grade, they can chat about their schools, teachers, and what they are studying. They can also compare and contrast what different states or countries learn about and how the dynamics of the classroom are, whether socially or academically. 

Children may be more inclined to write about their issues if they feel like they are speaking to a peer in a similar situation. They also write about the local weather, who the letter writer lives with, and their favorite things to do at home. This will give the pen pal a good sense of the writer's home life, and they may relate to certain aspects, such as their parents, the number of siblings, or if they share a room. Although pen pals may live in different countries, they may find common ground according to this information. 

"Hearing first-hand stories from an international pen pal can encourage teens to take someone else's perspective and to think outside of themselves," writes Rebecca Fraser-Thill on Very Well Family. "It can also encourage interest in geography, politics, and history, and promote many key skills, including reciprocation, empathy and mutual concern. "

When it comes to having fun in the sun, it's easy to lose track of time. If you're not careful, this can be quite dangerous.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}But it can easily be prevented—all you need is a little sunscreen.

{#blank#}2{#/blank#}People have been using chemical pastes to protect themselves from the sun for centuries. But the first modern sunscreen sold on the market was offered by French company: L'oreal in 1935.

Several other companies were quick to release their own sunscreens. Perhaps the biggest advancement in the world of sunscreen came in the 1970s, when scientists started looking at the sun protection factor, or SPF.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

The advantages of using sunscreen are obvious. It limits the painful effects of sunburn.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}Millions of people have died from skin cancer caused by ultraviolet rays from the SUITL. Remember to apply sunscreen 30 minutes before going outside.

Unfortunately, there are many mistaken ideas about sunscreen.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Some also think you only need to put it on once for a whole day's protection or that you don't need it on cloudy days. None of these things are true. Experts say you should apply sunscreen every two hours when outside in the daytime, no matter how dark your skin is or what the weather is like.

A. And it can even save your life.

B. Sunscreen is not exactly a recent invention.

C. Choosing a sunscreen isn't as simple as it used to be.

D. In direct sunlight, sunburn can occur in less than 15 minutes.

E. This rating is a number that shows how effective a sunscreen is.

F. It's believed that you don't need much sunscreen if you have dark skin.

G. Some think a good method is to cover as much as possible with protective clothing.