It is 2018; e-books are loved by many people. Do you read them?

    An e-book is an electronic book, which can be made from common books and loaded onto an e-reader. The e-reader is a mini-device, just like a cell-phone. It has a touch pad screen and can hold a few hundred e-books. People can read e-books on it just like they do a book. So it is possible for people to read anywhere with an e-reader. This is perfect news for people who love to read books but can't carry many.

    Another great thing is that people can read books on it quickly and there's no need for two hands to hold the book and turn pages. Most e-readers also have a nightlight, so you can read at night and don't wake your partner with a big light on.

    Not all book authors agree to make their books into e-books. The creator of Harry Potter says that her books will never be e-books. However, lots of authors absolutely love the idea and feel it's the next step to keep books alive.

    Nowadays e-books are sold in many websites, from where you can buy and load them onto your e-reader. Those websites look just like ordinary online bookstores and have a list of best sellers and a new book section. There is also a clear price on each e-book to make sure people can buy them like buying common books.

    Meeting people from another culture can be difficult. From the beginning, people may send the wrong signal. Or they may pay no attention to signals from another person who is trying to develop a relationship.

    Different cultures emphasize (强调) the importance of relationship building to a greater or lesser degree. For example, business in some countries is not possible until there is a relationship of trust. Even with people at work, it is necessary to spend a lot of time in "small talk", usually over a glass of tea, before they do any job. In many European countries -- like the UK or France -- people find it easier to build up a lasting working relationship at restaurants or cafes rather than at the office.

    Talk and silence may also be different in some cultures. I once made a speech in Thailand. I had expected my speech to be a success and start a lively discussion; instead there was an uncomfortable silence. The people present just stared at me and smiled. After getting to know their ways better, I realized that they thought I was talking too much. In my own culture, we express meaning mainly through words, but people there sometimes feel too many words are unnecessary.

    Even within Northern Europe, cultural differences can cause serious problems. Certainly, English and German cultures share similar values; however, Germans prefer to get down to business more quickly. We think that they are rude. In fact, this is just because one culture starts discussions and makes decisions more quickly.

    People from different parts of the world have different values, and sometimes these values are quite against each other. However, if we can understand them better, a multicultural environment will offer a wonderful chance for us to learn from each other.

    Held in Valencia, La Tomatina is a tomato-throwing activity that causes the number of people to increase to more than 40,000 in a town of just 9,000 persons.

    The festival takes place on the town's main square. At 11 o'clock, the third Wednesday in August every year, a large pole(杆) with a ham tied to the end of it is raised into the air, and there is a mad climb as people struggle against each other to pull it down. Once this is achieved, a rocket goes skywards and more than 100 tons of ripe tomatoes are tipped from trucks to the waiting crowd. For precisely one hour, until a second rocket is fired, everyone joins in a cheerful tomato battle.

    La Tomatina began in 1945, but it is not known why. Locals have many theories, including the popular tale of angry townsfolk attacking city councilmen(议员) during a town celebration. However, it could also have started because of anything from an anti-France protest or simply a fun food fight between friends. Whichever way it started, the townsfolk of Valencia enjoyed it so much that it was repeated year after year, finally becoming an officially recognized celebration in 1952. Despite being cancelled briefly during the 1970s for having no religious significance, it has returned every year since then.

    Most people come for the day, arriving on the morning train from Valencia and heading back in the afternoon. But if you want the full La Tomatina experience, stay for the week-long celebration which involves music, dancing, parades and fireworks. The night before the fight, a cooking competition is held where women traditionally dress in white, and men without shirts altogether.

    Protection for the fight is recommended—wear old clothes and shoes and a pair of glasses to protect your eyes. What you don't bring to La Tomatina is also important. The crazy tomato-throwers attack each other with all their strength: cameras are seen as positive invitations to throw at the owner.

    The New Caledonia Barrier Reef (新喀里多尼亚堡礁)is located in New Caledonia in the South Pacific, and is the second-longest coral reef in the world, after Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The New Caledonia Barrier reef surrounds Grand Terre, New Caledonia's largest island, as well as the Ile des Pins and several smaller islands, reaching a length of 1, 500 km. The reef encloses(围住) in a lake of 24, 000 square kilometers, which has an average depth of 25 meters. The reefs lie up to 30 kilometers from the shore, but extend almost 200 km to the Entrecasteaux reefs in the northwest. This northwestern extension encloses the Belep Islands. Several natural passages open out to the ocean. The Boulari passage(通道), which leads to Noumea, the capital and chief port of New Caledonia, is noted for the Amedee lighthouse.

    The reef has great species diversity with a high level of endemism(动植物的特有分布), and is home to endangered dugongs, a kind of sea animal, and is an important nesting site for Green Sea Turtle.

    Most of the reefs are generally thought to be in good health. Some of the eastern reefs have been damaged by wastewater from nickel mining(镍开采)on Grand Terre. The waste from mining, agriculture, and grazing(放牧) has affected reefs near river mouths, which has been worsened by the destruction of mangrove forests, which help to keep wastes. Some reefs have been buried under several meters of wastes.

    In January 2002, the French government proposed(提议) listing New Caledonia's reefs as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO listed New Caledonia Barrier Reef on the World Heritage List on 7 July 2008.

    A so-called “smart drug” intended to improve people's cognitive (认知的) function to protect the brain from altitude sickness.

    Visiting high-altitude sites for work, spot, religious pilgrimages and military can result in cognitive effects, including memory loss and attention difficulties. There's little you can do to prevent these symptoms except acclimatize -but this takes time and doesn't always work. A drug called oxiracetam might be the answer.

    ShengLi Hu at the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China and her colleagues studied the performance of male military personnel at altitude. All lived in towns around 1,800 meters above sea level, During the study, they spent eight days at this altitude and then climbed for three days to reach 4,000 meters, where they stayed for up to a month.

    Twenty participants took oxriacetam three times a day for the first 15 days of the study, while another 20 received no intervention. The man did tests of attention and memory at the start and end of the study and 20 days in, by which time they had been at 4,000 meters for nine days.

    While all the participants experienced a drop in cognitive ability at 4,00 meters, those who took oxiracetam showed a much smaller drop than the control group.

    The team found that at high altitude the brain stem, which plays a critical role in supporting basic living functions, received blood at the expense of areas responsible for more advanced cognitive functions. But in people who took oxiracetam, blood flowing throughout the brain rose, thus offering more oxygen to these areas. This may be how the drug seems to lessen cognitive problems like with low oxygen.

    It isn't yet known whether diverting blood in this way could have negative effects in the long run. "The results are striking and imply that oxiracetam may be beneficial for helping to relieve cognitive ability decline caused by altitude." says Timothy Hales at the University of Dundee, UK.

    Environmental experts warn that our planet is drowning inplastic.

    The world's cities produce 2 billion tons of trash everyyear. By the year 2050 that number is expected to rise to 3 billion tons. TheWorld Bank estimates that the largest amount of trash today, about 44 percent,is plastic. But we often have to buy packaged goods. And often that packagingis made of plastic.

    Now, that may be changing. A new environmentally-friendlyshopping model was recently launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland. This shopping model, called Loop, aims to replace throwawaycontainers with reusable ones.

    Loop is the idea of Terra Cycle, an American-based recyclingcompany. Its chief, Tom Szaky told the Associated Press (AP) that "removingplastics from the ocean is not enough." He said the point is to get awayfrom single-use packages. Szaky said that Loop is the future of shopping. Butit comes from an idea of the past.

    He compared it to the "milkman model" of the 1950sin the United States. Back then, someone brought milk to your doorstep in glassbottles and then left with empty bottles. These could be cleaned and used again.The result is zero-waste.

    Jennifer Morgan from the environmental non-profitorganization Greenpeace also joined in the discussion about Loop at Davos. Shesaid that "Greenpeace welcomes the aim of the Loop Alliance to move awayfrom throwaway culture and disposability." But Morgan questioned whethercompanies worldwide are ready to change their business models.

    Loop is set to launch later this year in three eastern U.S.states, and also in Paris, France and some of the surrounding area. Then Loopplans to expand to the U.S. West Coast, Toronto, Canada and Britain by the endof this year or 2020.