Seventy-three-year-old George McNeilon selected his food in Value Mart very carefully. After leaving the cashier, he estimated (估计) that he had saved 80 cents and thought that he had got good value for his money again.

    At the exit, the chilly wind reminded him of his gloves. "Now where are they?" He searched here and there, but nowhere could he find them. He was sure he was wearing them when he entered the store. The worried man made a second search in all his pockets, again including the grocery bag. He was sure they must have been dropped somewhere inside the store.

    George bought the gloves at a 25% discount, for just $30, ten years ago. They were genuine lambskin (小羊皮), soft, warm and durable. Until then, he had worn cheaper man-made material that lasted no more than three years. His impulsive decision to buy the expensive gloves turned out to be a good one, which even promoted his social status on the bus, as passengers stared at him enviously for six months out of the year. He enjoyed being envied.

    Bad luck, George thought, to lose his expensive gloves on New Year's Eve. He reentered the store and followed the same route he had walked before. But several minutes of anxious search turned out to be in vain. "Society has changed. People have changed …" he murmured to himself. "Years ago, if people picked up something lost, they would give it back."

    Back home, George was at a loss. In deep winter, he could not do anything without a pair of gloves. If he bought cheap ones, he would have to replace them very soon. If he bought new leather ones, they would cost forty dollars.

    After the holiday, poor George decided to buy another pair of leather gloves. Before boarding the subway, he stepped into Value Mart again to see if by any chance his gloves had been returned to the lost and found office.

    "What color are they?" the woman in the office asked.

    "Black," he answered.

    She looked into her drawer and drew out a pair of men's leather gloves.

    "Are they?"

    "Yes! Those are mine!"

    With the development of our society, cell phones have become a common part in our lives. Have you ever run into a careless cell phone user on the street? Maybe they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new "species" of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name—phubbers (低头族).

    Recently a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes a selfie (自拍) in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events finally leads to the destruction(毁灭) of the world.

    Although the ending of the film sounds unrealistic, the damage phubbing can bring is real. Your health is the first to bear the effect and result of it. "Always bending your head to check your cell phone could damage your neck," Guangming Daily quoted doctors' words. "The neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching." Also, staring at cell phones for a long time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.

    But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. When getting together with family or friends, many people prefer to play their cell phones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.

    It can also cost your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.

    About three decades ago, China was known as the "Bicycle Kingdom". But later on, bikes were replaced by their fuel-powered competitors.

    But recent months have seen a recovery of the humble bike across China, with an increasing number of people choosing cycling instead of driving to schools, to workplaces or to do sightseeing. The introduction of bike-sharing schemes, pioneered by start-ups like Ofo and Mobike, has brought the trend to a new level.

    People can unlock the shared bikes by simply using their smartphone. The bikes are equipped with GPS and can be left anywhere in public for the next user. They're popular among many Chinese people as they provide an effective solution to the "last mile" problem, which refers to the final leg of a person's journey.

    " In places where the subway doesn't extend, where it's difficult to change from one kind of transport to another, it's so easy to get where you want to go with Mobike," Hu Hong,29,told AFP. She pedals(骑车)to her Shanghai real-estate job.

    However, the schemes have also led to problems such as illegal parking, vandalism(故意毁坏) and theft. Last month, two nurses in Beijing were placed under administrative punishment for five days for putting locks on two shared bikes. And in December, a man who stole a shared bike was sentenced to a 3-month detention(拘留),and fined 1 ,000 yuan by the Shanghai Minhang People's Court.

    " Bike-sharing is a greener method of transportation and provides a user-friendly experience,"said Liu Xiaoming, vice-minister of transport.

    " But it's a combination of online and offline business. Operators are usually strong in online services, but lack offline business experience, which causes problems."

    Now, Chinese service operators are trying to solve the problems. For example, a bike- sharing company called Mobike sets a 100-point credit score for each user, with points taken in the case of bad behavior. Once a score drops below 80, bike rental is increased to 100 yuan per 30 minutes, up from 0.5 - 1 yuan.

    A new study suggests some language learning can take place during sleep. Researchers from Switzerland's University of Bern say they discovered people were able to learn new language words during deep levels of sleep.

    Much of the earlier research found that memories made when awake were strengthened during sleep. This supported the idea that information learned while awake is replayed and deeply embedded in the sleeping brain.

    The researchers theorized that, if replay during sleep improves the storage of learned information while awake, the processing and storage of new information should also be possible during sleep.

    They carried out experiments on a group of young German­speaking men and women, which centered on periods of deep sleep called "up­states". They identified these slow­wave peaks as the best moments for sleep­learning.

    The researchers observed individuals in a controlled environment during brief periods of sleep. Brain activity was recorded as pairs of words were played for the study subjects. One word in the pair was a real German word. The other was a made­up foreign word. For later identification purposes, the German words chosen were things clearly larger or smaller than a shoebox.

    Each word pair was played four times, with the order of the words changed each time. The word pairs were played at a rhythm that is similar to actual brain activity during deep sleep. The goal was to create a lasting memory link between the false word and the German word that individuals could identify while awake.

    When the subjects woke, they were presented with the false language words­both by sight and sound. They were then asked to guess whether the false word played during sleep represented an object smaller or larger than a shoebox. Results of the study found that a majority of subjects gave more correct answers about the sleep­learned words than would be expected if they had only guessed at random.

    The researchers said they measured increased signals affecting a part of the brain known as the hippocampus. This brain structure is very important for building relational memory during non­sleep periods. The researchers also said memory was best for word pairs presented during slow­wave peaks during sleep.

    The study suggests that memory formation in sleep appears to be caused by the same brain structures that support vocabulary learning while awake. The researchers say more studies are needed to support their findings. However, the experiments do provide new evidence that memories can be formed and vocabulary learning can take place in both conscious and unconscious states.

    Good health is the most valuable thing a person can have, but one cannot take good health for granted. It is important to remember that the body needs proper care in order to be healthy. There are three things that a person can do to help stay in good shape: eat right food, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly.

    Proper nutrition (营养) is important for good health. Your body cannot work well unless it receives the proper kind of "fuel"(燃料).Don't eat too much food with lots of sugar and fat. Eat plenty of foods high in protein (蛋白质) ,like meat, fish, eggs and nuts. Vegetables and fruits are very important because they provide necessary vitamins (维他命) and minerals. However, don't overeat. It is not helpful to be overweight.

    Getting the proper amount of sleep is also important. If you don't get enough sleep, you feel tired and easily get angry. You have no energy. Over a long period of time a little amount of sleep may even result in a change of personality (人的个性). Be sure to allow yourself from seven to nine hours of sleep each night. If you do, your body will feel strong and refreshed, and your mind will be sharp.

    Finally, get plenty of exercise. Exercise firms the body, strengthens the muscles, and prevents you from gaining weight. It also improves your heart and lungs. If you follow a regular exercise program, you will probably increase your life-span (寿命). Any kind of exercise is good. Most sports are excellent for keeping the body in good shapes: basketball, swimming, bicycling, running and so on are good examples. Sports are not only good for your body, but they are enjoyable and interesting, too.

    If everybody, were to eat the right foods, get plenty of sleep and exercise regularly, the world would be a happier and healthier place. We would all live to be much older and wiser.

    When I was young, I read many kinds of books, including fairy tales. Most of the books described heroes who were handsome and heroines who were beautiful. So, I believed I had to be beautiful if I wanted to become a great person.

    As I grew up, I began to realize outer beauty was not so important to make someone good. I remember a friend of mine, Janie, who was so beautiful that every classmate wanted to talk with her, but she was very arrogant(傲慢的).

    She believed that she could do everything she wanted because she was so beautiful, but she lost friends one by one. My poor friend! But she learned a good lesson: inner beauty is more important than outer beauty. After she learned that, she changed her attitude and made friends again.

    Whenever I see TV advertisements, I feel that these things make us believe beauty is very important—especially physical attractiveness. Although we say that inner beauty is more valuable, we often look to plastic surgery to make us more beautiful. There seems to be a boom(流行) in plastic surgery. It is surprising to realize the number of people who try it is increasing day by day.

    We know good-looking guys usually get higher scores on job interviews. So, what is real beauty? I want to say that inner beauty is the real one because if someone has beauty in his soul, he looks like a really beautiful person.

    The beauty looked at with eyes doesn't last forever. Instead of concentrating on outer beauty, we should concentrate on inner beauty. The point is that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty. So, if we make the effort to make our minds beautiful, we'll be happier.