Social media is one of the fastest growing industries in today's world. A study conducted by the US Pew Research Center showed that 92 percent of teenagers go online daily. The wide spread of social media has changed nearly all parts of teenagers' lives.

    Changing relationships

    High school student Elly Cooper from Illinois said social media often reduces face- to-face communication. “It makes in-person relationships harder because of people's attention given to their phones instead of their boyfriends or girlfriends,” Cooper said.

    Yet, some people believe social media has made it easier to start relationships with anyone from anywhere. Beth Kaplan from Illinois met her long-distance friend through social media. He currently lives in Scotland, but they're still able to frequently communicate with each other. “I can feel close to someone that I'm talking to via FaceTime,” Kaplan said.

    Wanting to be “liked”

    The rise of social media has changed the way teenagers see themselves. The 19- year-old Essena O'Neill announced on the social networking service Instagram that she was quitting social media because it made her unable to stop thinking about appearing perfect online. Negative comments also can do great damage to a teenager's self-esteem. Teenagers who get negative comments can't help but feel hurt.

    Opening new doors

    However, Armin Korsos, a student from Illinois, takes advantage of the comments he receives over social media to improve his videos on the social networking site YouTube. “Social media can help people show themselves and their talents to the world in a way that has never been possible before,” Korsos said.

    Self-driving vehicles have been proposed as a solution for the rapidly increasing number of fatal traffic accidents, which now cause 1.3 million deaths each year.

    While we have made great progress in advancing self-driving technology, we have yet to explore how autonomous vehicles will be programmed to deal with situations that endanger human life, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

    To understand how self-driving cars might make these judgments, the researchers looked at how humans deal with similar driving dilemmas.

    When faced with driving dilemmas, people show a high willingness to sacrifice themselves for others, make decisions based on the victim's age and turn onto sidewalks to minimize the number of lives lost. Ethical（伦理的）guidelines tend to disagree with human instincts（本能） in this case, saying that no life should be valued above another.

    “The technological advancement and adoption of autonomous vehicles are moving quickly but the social and ethical discussions about their behavior are lagging behind,” says lead author Lasse T. Bergmann from University of Osnabrück, Germany.

    Automated vehicles will eventually outperform their human counterparts, but there will still be circumstances where the cars must make an ethical decision to save or possibly risk losing a human life.

    The study is especially relevant considering earlier this year a self-driving Uber car struck and killed a passenger in Arizona, in an incident widely regarded as the first death resulting from an autonomous vehicle.

    An ethics commission launched by the German Ministry for Transportation has created a set of guidelines, representing its members' best judgement on a variety of issues concerning self-driving cars. These expert judgments may, however, not reflect human instinct.

    Bergmann and colleagues developed a virtual reality experiment to examine human instinct in a variety of possible driving situations. It was based on the well-known ethical thought experiment—the trolley problem.

    In this experiment, there is a trolley running down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up, unable to move, and the trolley is headed straight for them. A person is standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever（操作杆）.If he pulls this lever, the trolley will turn to a different set of tracks. However, there is one person tied up on the side track. Does the person choose to pull the lever and kill one person, or do nothing and let five people die?

    Bergmann recognized that the majority of people would not approve of the proposal made by the ethics commission that a passenger in the vehicle should not be sacrificed to save more people. “We find people chose to save more lives, even if this involves turning onto the sidewalk, endangering people uninvolved in the traffic incident,” said Bergmann, “Furthermore, subjects considered the factor of age, for example, choosing to save children over the elderly.” He also realized further discussion and research were needed. “Driving requires a complex weighing of risks versus rewards, for example, speed versus the danger of a critical situation,” Bergmann explained.

    The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems", according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.

    "It should be of huge concern to all of us, for insects are at the heart of every food web,  they pollinate the large majority of plant species, keep the soil healthy, recycle nutrients, control pests, and much more. Love them or loathe them, we humans cannot survive without insects," said Prof Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex in the UK.

    The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors.

    One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects. A small number of adaptable species are increasing in number, but not nearly enough to outweigh the big losses.

    Matt Shardlow, at the conservation charity Buglife, said: "It is gravely sobering to see this collation of evidence that demonstrates the pitiful state of the world's insect populations. It is increasingly obvious that the planet's ecology is breaking and there is a need for an intense and global effort to stop and reverse these dreadful trends."

    As the temperature rises, sweaty humans are making a response that is further worsening the problem of climate change. At present, the world just has 1.6 billion air conditioning units, but these units use a surprising total of ten percent of all global electricity supply. While less than a third of families globally are so equipped, the most AC-addicted countries are Japan (in 91 percent of families), the US (90 percent) and South Korea(86 percent).

    New research by the International Energy Agency (IEA) guesses that the total number of AC units is likely to increase to over 5.6 billion by 2050－equal to ten new units being sold every second for more than 30 years－with sales driven particularly by India, China and Indonesia. This will make the use of air conditioning one of the world's largest demands for energy.

    "Growing electricity demand for air conditioning is one of the most critical blind spots in today's energy debate," argues Faith Birol, executive director of the IEA. "With rising incomes, air conditioner ownership will skyrocket, especially in the developing world. While this will improve daily lives, it is quite necessary that efficiency performance be prioritized."

    Birol and the IEA stress the need for new efficiency standards to ensure that consumers are at least buying units that require significantly less power to function, therefore decreasing the total energy demand. Variations on the traditional "vapor compression" technology, which has formed the basis for AC units for more than a century, may appear really important. A water-based system was recently developed by researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS), which uses 40 percent less electricity and produces only one by-product: drinkable water.

    "Our cooling system can be tailored for all types of weather conditions, from wet climate in the tropics to dry climate in the deserts," says associate professor Ernest Chua at NUS. "While it can be used for indoor living and commercial spaces, it can also be easily used to provide air conditioning for blocks of buildings in an energy-efficient manner."

Sometimes the toughest thing about feelings is sharing them with others. Sharing your feelings helps you whether your feelings are wonderful or terrible. Sharing also helps you to get closer to people you care about and who care about you. But how?

 You can't tell your friends what's inside our backpack if you don't know what's in there yourself. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Before you can share them with anyone, you have to figure out what feelings you have. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} You can do this in your mind or by writing them out or even by drawing pictures. Is something bothering you? Does it make you frustrated or terrified? Do you feel this emotion only once in a while or most of the time?

 The way a person feels inside is important. If you keep feelings locked inside, it can even make you feel sick! {#blank#}3{#/blank#} It doesn't mean your problems and woes magically disappear, but at least someone else knows what's bothering you and can help you find solutions.

 Your mom and dad want to know if you have problems and what's happening in your life. But what if a kid doesn't want to talk with parents? Then find another adult you trust like a relative or a teacher at school. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

 Once you know who you can talk with, you'll want to pick a time and place to talk. You can talk publicly in your family. But some kids are more private than others and they will feel shy about sharing their feelings. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} A kid doesn't have to share every feeling he or she has.
 

A.Feelings are the same way.

B.Making a list of your feelings can help.

C.And there is always a person you can turn to.

D.Thinking about what you can do is of great importance.

E.Then find a quiet place or write it down on a piece of paper.

F.But if you talk with someone who cares for you, you will almost always start to feel better.

G.Maybe this person can help you talk with your parents about your problem or concern.

As the Chinese saying goes,"Roads lead to riches. "And this is{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Somxay Laolion,a Laotian driver on the China-Laos Railway,has observed over the past two-and-a-half years. 

As a driver travelling{#blank#}2{#/blank#}Vientiane and Boten (border town),he can see more and more houses and factories{#blank#}3{#/blank#}(build)along the route. The 1,035-kilometer railway,{#blank#}4{#/blank#} is a flagship project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative,connects Kunming,the capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province,with the Laotian capital,Vientiane.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} (adopt)Chinese technical standards,the China-Laos Railway is China's first international railway project{#blank#}6{#/blank#}(primary)funded and built by Chinese companies and{#blank#}7{#/blank#}(connect)to China's railway network. 

Since June 2020,the Laos-China Railway Co has recruited and trained Lao trainees and more than 800 Lao employees,or over 90 percent of the trainees,{#blank#}8{#/blank#} (assign)specific positions. 

The China-Laos Railway has opened "a new phase of development"for Laos to transform{#blank#}9{#/blank#}(it)from a landlocked country to a land-linked one. The railway has maintained a positive trend of increasing volume and{#blank#}10{#/blank#}(efficient),as well as thriving passenger and freight businesses. The China-Laos Railway has become a road of development, happiness,and friendship for the Lao and Chinese people.