When Luke went to university he thought he would be on a new journey in life and getting his own place. In the UK, it's common to fly the nest at a fairly young age. Many choose a flat-share; others make plans to get on the property ladder.

    But the current economic situation forced Luke back to his mum's house at the age of 27. And he's not alone: a quarter of young adults in the UK now live with their parents. The Office for National Statistics said more than 3.3 million adults between the ages of 20 and 34 were living with their parents in 2013.

    Lack of jobs and the high cost of renting accommodation made Luke change his plans. He's upset. "There's something very difficult about being an adult living in an environment where you're still a child," he says. "It limits me socially; sometimes I feel it limits me professionally."

    Indeed, many young people have no choice but to stay at "the hotel of Mum and Dad".

    Krissy had to return home after a year away and now lives in rather terrible conditions, sharing the family's three-bedroom house with her sisters. She says they end up getting on each other's nerves when it's time to use the bathroom in the morning.

    Of course, living with your parents is not unusual in some countries. Economic conditions, culture, or family traditions mean many young people stay at home until they get married. Even then, it can be too expensive to rent or buy a house and the married couples continue to live at one of their parents' homes.

    But some parents seem to enjoy having their kids back at home. Janice's daughters are part of what's being called "the boomerang generation". She says, "I get to share their lives with them, and I've got to know them all as adults. We have the sort of conversations that good friends do."

    So for some it's a win-win situation — spending time with your families, and saving money.

    If you read and listen to one article every day, your reading and listening skills can improve fast. You can learn quickly and after some time you will not have to translate it into your own language. You will simply understand. Why should you do this?

    When you listen to your native language, you do not translate. You simply understand. The same has to be in English. When you learn English, you have to learn the whole sentences in the context (语境).

    Students, who translate English texts, do exercises and do tests, are very good at translating, doing exercises and doing tests, but they have problems with understanding English in real life. In real life, nobody waits for your translation. People usually use simple English when they speak but they speak it fast. You have to understand with no translation into your native language. If you translate, you cannot be part of communication because you are thinking about the language too much.

    You also have to hear every new word 5 to 10 times if you want to remember it. That's why we use the same words at one level. If you read and hear the same words again and again, you will understand them and remember them. If you know words from one level perfectly well, you can go to a higher level and learn new words. It is important to go step by step, and read and listen to words which are used in English often.

    We are trying to do everything possible to help you learn English fast and understand it. That's why we prepare easy English news for you. If you can use this website every day, you can learn 5,000 words which you need for communication with anybody. Now click the OK button to start.

    If you're tired of the big city pace and noise, relax yourself by taking a day or a weekend exploring one of these four Georgia small towns：

    Senoia

    About 45 miles from Atlanta, if you want to visit the classic small town, Senoia is the best choice. Built in 1866 as a railroad town, its picture perfection has been filmed for the movies like Fried Green Tomatoes.

    Hartwell

    109 miles from Atlanta

    Named for Nancy Hart, a heroine of the Revolutionary War who served as a spy and captured a group of Tories who threatened her home, Hartwell is known as the "Best city by a Dam Site".

    Tiger

    105 miles from Atlanta in northeast Georgia, this small mountain community sits at the base of 2 856-foot Tiger Mountain, and you can drive Old U. S. 441 right through town and into the countryside any season of the year. The tiny town itself boasts the Tiger Drive-In.

Another attraction is the Tiger Mountain Winery, operating from the site of a five-generation old family farm and winner of three 2017 silver medals in the Los Angeles Wine Competition. Its tasting room is open daily.

    Tallulah Falls

    About 96 miles northeast of Atlanta

    Near the Tallulah River and named for the five falls that flow downward very fast through the gorge, Tallulah Falls had a population of just 168 at the 2010 census.

    It's a fine spot for fishing and picnicking on the town's three lakes，swimming at the Georgia Power Company's Terrora Beach. Come Saturday night in spring，summer and folk stay for live Bluegrass bands on Bluegrass Square in downtown Tallulah Falls. You can even bring your own instrument and join in.

    If you ask most people what water tastes like, they'll probably tell you that water has no taste and they may give you a funny look. But if you were a fruit fly, asking another fruit fly, that question might have a different answer.

    To a fruit fly, water has a taste. Scientists want to know how the fruit fly knows water because this information may help in learning how other animals — or even individual cells — manage to use water in the right way. Water is vital to life, but too much or too little can be deadly to a living creature. So by understanding how the fruit fly tastes water, researchers may learn more about other living things.

    According to the new study, a protein(蛋白质) called PPK28 makes it possible for a fly to taste water. Proteins build cells and tissues, fight disease and carry messages between cells. It's not surprising that a protein is responsible for the fruit fly's ability to taste water.

    The PPK28 protein is part of a larger family of similar proteins. One of these related proteins is used by mammals (including humans) to taste salt. Scientists have not found a protein that enables humans to "taste" water.

    In the experiment, Cameron and his team compared normal fruit flies with fruit flies whose taste cells had been disabled. The fruit flies were given a special chemical that would glow(发光) when the fly used the PPK28 protein. Then the scientists led the flies to water. When the normal flies tasted the water, the PPK28 protein lit up — showing that it was in use.

    The fruit fly in particular is so interesting that some scientists are hard at work creating a complete map of the fruit fly brain. This map will show all of a fly's neurons and help scientists understand how the neurons work together.

Dear editor(编辑),

    Can't your newspaper do something about the custom (习惯) of hitchhiking?

    A short time ago, on a car travel I counted at least 50 people standing beside the road, asking for rides. Many of them were young women.

    Don't they understand how dangerous it is to get into the car driven by a stranger? How much do they know about the driver? Is he a good driver or not? They know nothing!

    Many of these young hitchhikers may come from good families. Don't their parents teach them anything about the world? I always taught my children not to talk to strangers. I never let them take rides from people they didn't know.

    Isn't there enough crime (犯罪) today without asking for trouble by hitchhiking? On the other hand, hitchhiking may bring some traffic trouble. Don't you think what I said is true?

    A Worried Grandfather

A planet the size of Jupiter has been discovered and it is one of the hottest ones known to us. This has made scientists think about how planets are formed.

Planets such as Earth have more oxygen than carbon, but what if the composition（组成）is just the opposite? This is a question opened up by a recent discovery of a diamond planet by US and UK scientists. The planet is 1200 light years away from Earth and was observed using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Dr Marek Kukula explained that researchers initially used the Super WASP(Wide Angle Search for Planets) robotic observatories operating continuously, all year around. They detected the planet, then it was observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which detected the heat coming from the planet, and from that heat signature they can tell what this planet is made from.

The planet is very different to Earth. "It's giant planet," explains Dr Kukula, "a gas planet, a bit like Jupiter in our solar system. But the interesting thing that they've discovered is that it has a very different composition to the planets in our solar system. This planet has more carbon than oxygen." This suggests that there is more than one way to make a solar system and the range of planets in the universe could be much wider than previously thought.

Dr Kukula says that if there are smaller planets in the same solar system with a similar composition, rich in carbon, their rocks could be rich in minerals such as carbon and diamonds, unlike Earth which has silica (硅石), the sand that rocks on Earth are made from. "This is where this diamond planet idea comes from; they haven't actually detected a diamond planet yet," explains Dr Kukula.it' s hypothetical (假设的), "but you can imagine strange landscapes with black graphite rocks lying around and the surface could be covered with sticky liquids instead of water".