Many people who work in London prefer to live outside it, and to go in to their offices or schools every day by train, car or bus, even though this means they have to get up early in the morning and reach home late in the evening.

    One advantage of living outside London is that houses are cheaper. Even a small flat in London without a garden costs quite a lot to rent (租住). With the same money, one can get a little house in the country with a garden of one's own.

    Then, in the country one can rest from the noise and hurry of the town. Even though one has to get up earlier and spend more time in trains or buses, one can sleep better at night and during weekends and on summer evenings, one can enjoy the fresh, clean air of the country. If one likes gardens, one can spend one's free time digging, planting, watering and doing the hundred and one other jobs which are needed in a garden. Then, when the flowers and vegetables come up, one has the reward of sharing the secret of Nature.

    Some people, however, take no interest in country things：for them, happiness lies in the town, with its cinemas and theatres, beautiful shops and busy streets, dance halls and restaurants. Such people would feel that their life was not worth living if they had to live it outside London. An occasional walk in one of the parks and a fortnight's (two weeks) visit to the sea every summer is all the country they want: the rest they are quite prepared to leave to those who are glad to get away from London every night.

    We may not be aware of it, but ordinary family homes in the U.S. and the rest of the world are not energy-efficient.

    Most of their energy goes to heating and cooling, and a lot of it is wasted, as warm air and cool air escape through fireplace chimneys and thin or poorly fitting windows and doors. A passive house loses almost none."Imagine a thermos(保温瓶),"said housing developer Brendan O'Neill."You have insulation(隔绝) everywhere, and it's basically completely sealed. And so the idea is to build a house like a thermos. So the windows are sealed. There's insulation completely surrounding the building. We make it as sealed as possible."

    A 147-square-meter passive house, presented by O'Neill Development Corp. as a demonstration unit just outside Washington, was brought to the site in two boxes. "Once it's set and put together, it takes about four weeks to complete the outside construction, to put down carpets," O'Neill said. "If everything is set in place, you put a house like this together in about four months.”The total cost of building it was $325,000, or about 17 percent more than constructing an ordinary house. But its utility(公用事业) bill is only around $20 monthly, or one-tenth the amount for the average house of the same size.

    While passive houses have been around for a long time, the idea has never taken root in the U.S. There was no driving force to push it.

    However, David Peabody, an architect who designs passive houses said, "I think climate change is now becoming a larger issue. And I think building standards are catching on to that. So people are becoming more aware of energy."Peabody said the cost of building passive houses could come down."What really makes sense for truly affordable housing," he said, "is to build multi-storey buildings."

    Dust on furniture may be bad news for waistlines (腰围). But it's far too early to add dusting to a weight-loss plan. Dietary fats and other materials that make up indoor dust can send a signal to human fat cells, telling them to grow. That process, in turn, might slow the body's rate of burning energy. Such changes could add to any weight problems a person might have.

    “We don't know what that means to long-term health and certain diseases yet,” says Heather Stapleton, one of the study's authors. But she notes that her team's findings also raise a question of whether pollutants in dust might play some role in the growing, global problem of obesity (肥胖).

    Stapleton and her colleagues collected dust from homes and offices. Studies found that some materials in the dust could turn on a protein (蛋白质) called PPAR-gamma 1. It's found in many human tissues. Turning this protein on can cause fat cells to grow. Researchers think this protein may be involved in obesity. But a second study now finds evidence that certain fats are mostly to blame. Cooking oils may send out some of these fats into the air, where they eventually find their way into house dust. Or, the authors say, the fats might enter house dust as part of the hair or skin cells shed (脱落) by people or pets.

    “While the findings are amazing,” says Mitchell Lazar, another study author, “these findings need to be taken as very limited.” Indeed, he adds several cautions about how the findings should be understood. “For one thing, people eat these fats in foods all of the time. That is likely to be a lot more than would be consumed from indoor dust,” he said.

    Two of the saddest words in the English language are “if only". I live my life with the goal of never having to say those words, because they convey regret, lost opportunities, mistakes, and disappointment.

    My father is famous in our family for saying, “Take the extra minute to do it right." I always try to live by the “extra minute" rule. When my children were young and likely to cause accidents, I always thought about what I could do to avoid an “if only" moment, whether it was something minor like moving a cup full of hot coffee away from the edge of a counter, or something that required a little more work such as taping padding (衬垫) onto the sharp corners of a glass coffee table.

    I don't only avoid those “if only" moments when it comes to safety. It's equally important to avoid “if only" in our personal relationships. We all know people who lost a loved one and regretted that they had foregone an opportunity to say “I love you" or “I forgive you." When my father announced he was going to the eye doctor across from my office on Good Friday, I told him that it was a holiday for my company and I wouldn't be here. But then I thought about the fact that he's 84 years old and I realized that I shouldn't give up an opportunity to see him. I called him and told him I had decided to go to work on my day off after all.

    I know there will still be occasions when I have to say “if only" about something, but my life is definitely better because of my policy of doing everything possible to avoid that eventuality. And even though it takes an extra minute to do something right, or it occasionally takes an hour or two in my busy schedule to make a personal connection, I know that I'm doing the right thing. I'm buying myself peace of mind and that's the best kind of insurance for my emotional well-being.

    LONDON­Britain prepares for a vote Thursday that will decide whether it leaves the European Union. The debate has centered on immigration and economic security. Both sides have lowered the tone of their arguments after a three­day suspension(暂停) of campaigning that followed the murder of an anti­Brexit lawmaker, an incident that polls(民意调查) suggest has shocked many previously undecided voters who now say they will vote to remain.

    These are uncertain times in a nation whose economy is the second largest in the European Union. The risks are huge. There are warnings that leaving the 28­member group may cause the British pound to lose 15 percent of its value and bring the resignation(辞职) of David Cameron, the country's prime minister; his stay or not depends on whether Britain listens to him and votes to remain.

    For months, the Leave campaign has been hitting the streets. Its arguments are based largely on immigration, and the belief that Britain has handed control of its borders(边界) to a European super state: "The U.K. has lost control over migration. We have to accept anyone into this country if they have an EU passport, no matter if they have a criminal record or not. We are not allowed to say 'no' to people and that is damaging for the security of the U.K., but it is also putting pressure on jobs and opportunities for young people," said Tom Harwood, a Brexit campaigner.

    The murder of Jo Cox, an anti­Brexit, pro­immigrant lawmaker by a far right extremist(极端分子) with a history of mental problems had a serious effect on both campaigns, and on voters.

    Polls since the June 16th murder showed the Leave camp losing ground, but with both sides still very close on a referendum(全民投票) that many believe could change the course of European history.

    It is every kid's worst nightmare(噩梦) and six-year-old Jaden Hayes has lived it twice. First he lost his dad when he was only at the age of four and then last month his mom died unexpectedly in her deep sleep.

    "I tried and I tried and I tried to get her awake, but... I just couldn't," said Jaden.

    No one could imagine how heartbroken Jaden was.

    But there's another side to his sadness. A side he first made public a few weeks ago when he told his aunt, Barbara DiCola, and now his guardian(监护人)after both his parents died, that he was sick and tired of seeing everyone sad all the time. And he had a plan to fix it.

    "And that was the beginning of it," said Barbara. "That's where the adventure began."

    Jaden asked his aunt Barbara to buy a bunch of little toys and bring him to downtown Savannah, Georgia near where he lives, so he could give them away to anyone who will smile to him. "I'm trying to make people smile," said Jaden.

    Jaden targets people who aren't already smiling and then turns their day around. He's gone out on four different occasions now and he is always successful. Even if sometimes he doesn't get exactly the reaction he was hoping for.

    It is just so overwhelming to some people that a six-year-old orphan would give away a toy -- expecting nothing in return -- except a smile.

    "I'm depending on it to be 33, 000," said Jaden. When asked if he thinks he can make that goal, he answered: "I think I can."