My husband hasn't stopped laughing about a funny thing that happened to me. It's funny now but it wasn't at the time.

    Last Friday, after doing all the family shopping in town, I wanted a rest before catching the train, so I bought a newspaper and some chocolate and went into the station coffee shop — that was a cheap self-service place with long tables to sit at. I put my heavy bag down on the floor, put the newspaper and chocolate on the table to keep a place, and went to get a cup of coffee.

    When I went back with the coffee, there was someone in the next seat. It was one of those wild-looking youngsters, with dark glasses and worn clothes, and hair colored bright red at the front. Not so unusual these days. What did surprise me was that he'd started to eat my chocolate!

    Naturally, I was annoyed. However, to avoid trouble — and really I was rather uneasy about him — I just looked down at the front page of the newspaper, tasted my coffee and took a bit of chocolate. The boy looked at me closely. Then he took a second piece of my chocolate. I could hardly believe it. Still I didn't dare to start an argument. When he took a third piece, I felt more angry than uneasy. I thought, "Well, I shall have the last piece." And I got it.

    The boy gave me a strange look, and then stood up. As he left he shouted out. "This woman's crazy!" Everyone stared. That was embarrassing enough, but it was worse when I finished my coffee and got ready to leave. My face went red — as red as his hair — when I realized I'd made a mistake. It wasn't my chocolate that he'd been taking. There was mine, unopened, just under my newspaper.

    Plastic waste has polluted the Arctic. Two new studies have spied bags, fishing rope and tinier bits of rubbish in the Barents Sea. This sea sits north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. It mixes with the Arctic Ocean, which is even farther north.

    Plastic waste in the Arctic could harm wildlife and may hint that large volumes of human rubbish are collecting there, says Melanie Bergmann. She is one of the scientists who spotted the waste. She studies Earth's oceans at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany. She first started counting bits of plastics in the Barents Sea because she kept spotting signs of the stuff there in images taken with deep-sea cameras.

    Bergmann and her colleagues counted pieces of plastic from an icebreaker, a boat designed to break through large blocks of ice in very cold waters. They also tracked plastic pieces they saw during helicopter rides over Arctic waters. The team found 31 pieces of plastic. “That doesn't seem like much, but it shows us that we've really got a problem, one that extends even to this remote area, far from civilization,” Bergmann says. She and her colleagues described their findings October 21 in Polar Biology.

    Another team has also been counting plastics in the area. Those scientists took water from the Barents Sea and counted the number of smaller bits of plastics, called microplastics.

    Plastic in the ocean is dangerous to animals. Some may get caught in rope or bags. And wildlife may swallow bags and other plastic bits. That makes them feel full. But some may eventually starve because they are not getting the nutrients they need to live. Sometimes plastics also may break down in an animal's body and release poisonous chemicals. If another animal later eats the one that swallowed plastic, it too can end up with poisonous chemicals in its body. This, in turn, can travel up the food web, endangering predators (肉食动物) — even people.

    Whenever we see a button, we are eager to press it because we know something will happen. This is true in most cases, for example on a doorbell and on the “on/off” button on the TV. But some buttons are actually fake, like the “close” button on a lift.

    Many people are in the habit of pressing the “close” button because they don't have the patience to wait for the lift doors to shut. But lifts, “close” buttons are a complete scam, at least in the US—the doors will not close any faster no matter how hard you press.

    It started in the 1990s when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in the US, making sure that all lifts stayed open long enough so that people with disabilities could enter. Only US firefighters and repairmen can use the buttons to speed up the door-closing process if they have a code or special keys.

    But to normal lift riders, the buttons aren't completely useless. According to psychologists, fake buttons can actually make you feel better by offering you a sense of control.

    “Perceived (能够感知的) control is very important. It reduces stress and increases well-being,” Ellen J. Langer, a psychology professor, said, “Having a lack of control is associated with depression.”

    Experts have revealed that a lot of buttons that don't do anything exist in our lives for this same purpose. For example, many offices in the US have fake thermostats (温度调节器) because people tend to feel better when they think they can control the temperature in their workspace.

    But psychologists found it interesting that even when people are aware of these little “white lies”, they still continue to push fake buttons because as long as the doors eventually close, it is considered to be worth the effort.

    “That habit is here to stay,” John Kounios, a psychology professor, said, ''Even though I have real doubts about the traffic light buttons, I always press them. After all, I've got nothing else to do while waiting. So why not press the button in the hope that this one will work?”

    A friend is better than fortune. A friend is worse than poison in some cases.

    The two sentences above have opposite meanings and seem to be unreasonable  but they can be explained as follows: the first refers to all good friends who drive us towards good while the second all bad ones who lead us into bad ways.

    My ideal friend is of course a good friend whose goodness is shown below — he has no bad habits  such as smoking and drinking. He lives in frugality (节俭). He studies hard so as not to waste his golden time. At home he honors his parents and loves his brothers; at school he respects his teachers and shares the feelings of his classmates. He treats those truly who are true to him. In a word, he has all the good characteristics that I don't have. I can follow him as a model. With his help I can be free from all difficulties.

    Indeed, if I have such a person as my friend, I shall never fear difficulty and I shall never know the existence of the word "failure".

    Do you have any stress in your daily life and do you know how to reduce your stress?

    Our world is changing with ever increasing speed and many people are finding it difficult to keep up with it. Although no one can control the world at large, people do have the power to control their personal world by controlling stress and their responses (反应) to it.

    Of course a certain amount of stress, both physical and mental is normal and healthy for humans but too much can be fatal. According to a report on the Mayo Clinic's website, "80% of patient visits to their doctors are stress related. Almost 60% of all employee absences from work are related to stress. Over one million people (in the U. S. ) die each year due to diseases related to stress. This includes obesity(肥胖), lung cancer (due to smoking), heart disease and high blood pressure. "

    The result of stress or the way it shows in a person's life is, in part, their reaction to the situation. Some of the ways in which stress "shows up" are signals that need to be recognised, before more serious conditions develop. A few of these are: stomachaches, chest pain, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem (自尊) and impatience.

    The good news is that these reactions can be changed naturally. By using positive suggestions a hypnotist (催眠治疗师) can help us make great changes. A deep, relaxing hypnotic rest is a very safe, pleasant and enjoyable process and stress reduction is a natural by-product.

    If you would like to get the tools to reduce stress naturally, hypnotism can be very helpful. A professional hypnotist not only guides people through stress reducing exercises and offers suggestions for dealing with stress, but also teaches self hypnosis skills which can be used throughout life.

    Notre-Dame de Paris, a cathedral church in Paris, is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. For the French, it represents something immortal, ever- present and unchanging, like a mountain. Built over almost two centuries, the Notre-Dame is, as President Emmanuel Macron said, "where the French lived all their great moments". Soldiers prayed here before leaving for the Crusades; Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned here; it survived the French Revolution, two World Wars and the Nazi occupation. It is where men bend their knees to profess love and thousands of tourists take photos every day.

    A fire, whose cause was not identified yet, engulfed(吞没), on April 15th, the cathedral's upper structure. More than 400 firefighters took part in the 15-hour battle to control the blaze(火苗) that triggered sorrow over the globe. The extent of the damage is still unknown, but the fire destroyed much of the gothic cathedral's wood-timbered roof and spire(塔尖). The cathedral will certainly be restored (the French government promises), but the sight of flames bringing down the spire moved the world in a manner far exceeding its religious significance.

    French Culture Minister Franck Riester on Thursday said the government would draw all the consequences from the huge flames that destroyed the centuries-old Notre Dame Cathedral, adding measures to protect the national heritage were on the table. "Staff from the fire department, the culture ministry and the city town hall rushed to the Cathedral, when the fire started, to protect the main artworks that were inside. The artworks, which include relics such as the Christ's crown of thorns and French king Saint-Louis's 13th century tunic, were first moved to the city town hall and will now be transferred to the nearby Louvre Museum ." the minister told Le Parisian newspaper in an interview without giving details on the possible measures.