Guide to Stockholm University Library

    Our library offers different types of studying places and provides a good studying environment.

Zones

    The library is divided into different zones. The upper floor is a quiet zone with over a thousand places for silent reading, and places where you can sit and work with your own computer. The reading places consist mostly of tables and chairs. The ground floor is the zone where you can talk. Here you can find sofas and armchairs for group work.

Computers

    You can use your own computer to connect to the wi-fi specially prepared for notebook computers; your can also use library computers, which contain the most commonly used applications, such as Microsoft Office. They are situated in the area known as the Experimental Field on the ground floor.

Group-study places

    If you want to discuss freely without disturbing others, you can book a study room or sit at a table on the ground floor. Some study rooms are for 2-3 people and others can hold up to 6-8 people. All rooms are marked on the library maps.

    There are 40 group-study rooms that must be booked via the website. To book, you need an active University account and a valid University card. You can use a room three hours per day, nine hours at most per week.

Storage of Study Material

    The library has lockers for students to store course literature. When you have obtained at least 40 credits(学分), you may rent a locker and pay 400 SEK for a year's rental period.

Rules to be Followed

    Mobile phone conversations are not permitted anywhere in the library. Keep your phone on silent as if you were in a lecture and exit the library if you need to receive calls.

    Please note that food and fruit are forbidden in the library, but you are allowed to have drinks and sweets with you.

    Do you drink water that's been left sitting out overnight or even for another day? Have you noticed it tastes different?

    Tap water that has been left to sit out slowly begins to acquire(获得) off taste. Many people think that this is because of microorganisms. But that's not what makes old water taste not fresh. For that we can thank carbon dioxide. After about 12 hours, tap water starts to go flat as carbon dioxide in the air starts to mix with the water in the glass, lowering its pH and giving it an off taste. But it's most likely safe to drink.

    However, back to those microorganisms. If you use a dirty glass day after day, there is more of a chance of bacteria making themselves known; a risk that increases if you share the glass with another mouth as well. But assuming(假设) you use a fresh glass every few days, you probably won't have a problem unless the glass has been touched by dirty fingers, and especially if those dirty fingers went unwashed after using the bathroom.

    As for plastic water bottles that have been left out in the sun or in the car, step away from the bottle, warns Dr. Kellogg Schwab, director of the Johns Hopkins University Water Institute. "A chemical called biphenyl-A, or BPA, along with other things used to make plastic can leach(过滤) into your water if the bottle heats up or sits in the sun," he explains. BPA, as you probably know, has been linked to everything from heart disease to cancer. Schwab also adds that plastic used for commercial bottled water isn't meant to be washed or refilled, so use only one time and recycle. Or don't buy them at all; use refillable water bottles instead.

Venom(毒液）from a local scorpion(蝎子）in Cuba is being used by Cuban scientists as an effective weapon to fight cancer. The venom, with stopping pain, anti-inflammatory (炎症） and anti-cancer properties, is the active ingredient in the medicine “Vidatox 30 CH“ which can be used to treat liver, brain, lung and other cancers. The treatment has been successfully used for more than four years in humans after being first tested in biological models. Labiofam, a Cuban laboratory, has breeding(繁殖)centers for both the Red Scorpion and Blue Scorpion. Each month, some 30,000 scorpions in Las Minas town, 270 km east of Havana are made to give the venom. After two years, the scorpions are released back into their natural habitat.

Denyer Sanchez, a biologist from Labiofam, explained that the conditions are adjusted for reproduction, proved by the high number of breeding female scorpions. He said when the offspring(后代）becomes able to live in the environment, we release them because they do not have the necessary size yet to remove their venom, said Sanchez. Sanchez also said that there is still much to research on the exploitation process of scorpions, such as female death rate or the ability to survive of the released scorpions.

Cuban research on the scorpion's venom began at the end of 1980s in Guantanamo province, the island's eastern tip, where a group of biologists and doctors became interested in the stories told by the peasants about the venom's benefits. However，the first discovery was made by Cuban biologist Misael Bordier. In 2001, Bordier visited Mexico's National Autonomous University (UNAM) and presented the research progress in a professional journal. Bordier died in 2005, one year before Cuba's Industrial Property Office gave Labiofam the rights to exploit the patent related to the venom.

    The World Health Organization says the widespread use of sugar in food products and drinks is a major concern in many areas. So WHO officials are calling on governments to require taxes on sugary drinks in an effort to limit their usage and popularity. The officials believe the taxes also would reduce the risk of health problems resulting from obesity.

    Obesity is a condition in which the body stores large, unhealthy amounts of fat. Obese individuals are considered overweight. A new report says that in 2014 more than one-third of the adults in the world were overweight, and 500 million were considered obese. The United Nations agency estimates that in 2015, 42 million children under age 5 were either overweight or obese. It says that number represents an increase of about 11 million during the past 15 years. Almost half of these boys and girls live in Asia and one-fourth in Africa.

    The U.N. agency blames unhealthy diets for a rise in diabetes cases. There are 422 million cases of the disease worldwide. WHO says 1.5 million people die from it every year. It says the use of sugar in food products, like sugary drinks, is a major reason for the increase in rates of obesity and diabetes.

    Temo Waqanivalu is with the agency's Department for the Prevention on Non-Communicable Diseases. He told VOA hat taxing sugary drinks would reduce consumption and save lives. Waganivalu noted that Mexico enacted a 10 percent tax on sugary drinks in 2014. He said by the end of the year, there was a 6 percent drop in the consumption of such drinks. Among poor people, the number of people who consumed sugary drinks dropped by 17 percent.

    The WHO says people should limit the amount of sugar they consume. It says they should keep their sugar intake to below 10 percent of their total energy needs, and reduce it to less than 5 percent for improved health.

Soccer is played by millions of people all over the world, but there have only been few players who were truly great. How did these players get that way—was it through training and practice, or are great players "born, not made"?

First, these players came from places that have had famous stars in the past—players that a young boy can look up to and try to imitate (模仿). In the history of soccer, only seven countries have ever won the World Cup. There has never been a great national team—or a really great player—from North America or from Asia.

Second, these players have all had years of practice in the game. Pele, who is often named as the greatest soccer of all time, was the son of a soccer player. He began to play soccer with his father when he was only three. Most players begin playing the game at the age of three or four.

Finally, many great players come from the same kind of neighbourhood—a poor, crowded area where a boy's dream is not to be a doctor, lawyer, or businessman, but to become a rich, famous athlete or entertainer (艺人). For example, Liverpool, which produced the Beatles, had one of the best English soccer teams in recent years. Pele practiced in the street with a "ball" made of rags (破布). And George Best learned the tricks that made him famous by bouncing the ball off a wall (对着墙壁踢球) in the slums (贫民窟) of Belfast.

All great players have a lot in common, but that doesn't explain why they are great. Hundreds of boys played in those Brazilian streets, but only one became Pele. The greatest players are born with some unique quality that sets them apart from all the others.

Bogre Udell, who speaks four languages, met Frederico Andrade, who speaks five, at the Parsons New School in New York City.In 2014, they started a project to make the first public records of every language in the world.They've already recorded more than 350 languages, and plan to hit 1，000 in the coming years.

"When humans lose a language, we also lose greater diversity (多样化) in art and traditions，"said Bogre Udell.Between 1950 and 2010, 230 languages disappeared.Today, a third of the world's languages have fewer than 1，000 speakers left.Every two weeks a language dies with its last speaker, and 50 to 90 percent of them are said to disappear by the next century.

Wikitongues has asked for volunteers in 40 countries to film native speakers talking in the past, present，and future tenses of their mother languages.Native speakers are asked to recall childhood, share their stories, and discuss their hopes and goals.One volunteer in the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu recorded a language that had never been studied by language experts before.Another volunteer found a speaker of Ainu, a language in Japan that has no relation to any other known language, and he also recorded it.However, priceless recording opportunities disappear regularly.Not long ago, one of the last two speakers of a Saami language in the Russian steppes died right before his recording session with Wikitongues.

A lack of protection and globalization are responsible for diminishing language diversity.For much of the 20th century, governments across the world forced some local people to use official languages.More than 100 languages in Australia have disappeared since European settlers arrived.However, most languages die today because of other factors; climate change and urbanization contribute (是……的原因之一) greatly to the disappearance of languages.