Green is not always referring to the color. In some cases, it is the term used for being environmentally friendly. If you've been looking to replace your furniture, consider going green because environmentally friendly furniture offers many benefits. Here are a few tips to get you started on your hunt for the perfect eco-friendly furniture.

    First, environmentally friendly furniture isn't harmful to your health. Also its manufacturing process doesn't cause damage to the environment in any way. Besides, by purchasing eco-friendly products, you prevent deforestation and global warming to some extent in your own way. You do your part in protecting the environment. Environmentally friendly furniture is cost-effective as well.

    The materials that are used in furniture are what make them green. Materials can be good for the environment either because they are materials that are considered renewable resources or they are all natural. A lack of chemicals and toxins (毒素) in green furniture also means it is a better choice for the environment. It may be hard to imagine that a sofa or a table could actually be a green product but they really can be depending on what they're made of.

There are a lot of renewable sources that manufacturers could use when building the furniture, so you should be keeping an eye out for them. Bamboo can be an excellent replacement for wood and can also replace plastics and metals in some furnishing. Cotton is a sofa fabric that is safe for the environment and it can be replenished (补充) often. Hemp is also a renewable source that can be used for fabric and twine.

    Recycled materials also can be made into green furniture. Metals can be recovered and remade into new things such as frames and foundations for sofas. Recycled plastic can also be made into furniture such as tables and chairs. Touching up old furniture instead of buying new items is very cheap way to be green. Yard sales and second-hand stores sell furniture too and buying the used means new things won't be made, so no more damage has to happen to the earth.

    Therefore, when you want to hunt for the perfect environmentally friendly furniture, you should try to know the type of materials which are used in building the furniture.

How Arts Promote Our Economy

    When most people think of the arts, they imagine the end product, the beautiful painting, a wonderful piece of music, or an award-winning performance in the theater. But arts groups bring broader value to our communities. The economic impact of the arts is often overlooked and badly judged.

    The arts create jobs that help develop the economy. Any given performance takes a tour bus full of artists, technical experts, managers, musicians, or writers to create an appealing piece of art. These people earn a living wage for their professional knowledge and skills.

    Another group of folks is needed to help market the event. "If you build it they will come" is a misleading belief. Painters, digital media experts, photographers, booking agents and promoters are hired to sell tickets and promote the event. According to the Dallas Area Cultural Advocacy Coalition, arts agencies employ more than 10,000 people as full-or part-time employees or independent contractors.

    A successful arts neighborhoods creates a ripple effect（连锁反应）throughout a community. In 2005, when the Bishop Arts Theatre was donated to our town, the location was considered a poor area of town. After investing more than $1 million in reconstructing the building, we began producing a full season of theater performances, jazz concerts, and year-round arts education programs in 2008. Nearly 40 percent of jazz lovers live outside of the Dallas city limits and drive or fly in to enjoy an evening in the Bishop Arts District.

    No doubt the theater has contributed to the area's development and economic growth. Today, there are galleries, studios, restaurants and newly built work spaces where neighbors share experiences, where there is renewed life and energy. In this way, arts and culture also serve as a public good.

    Teco Theatrical Productions Inc. made use of Bloomberg's investment of $35,000 to get nearly $400,000 in public and private sector support during the two-year period. Further, Dallas arts and arts-based businesses produce $298 for every dollar the city spends on arts programming and facilities. In Philadelphia, a metro area smaller than Dallas, the arts have an economic impact of almost $3 million and support 44,000 jobs, 80 percent of which actually lie outside the arts industry, including accountants, marketers, construction workers, hotel managers, printers, and other kinds of art workers.

    The arts are efficient economic drivers and when they are supported, the entire small-business community benefits.

    It is wrong to assume arts groups cannot make a profit. But in order to stay in business, arts groups must produce returns. If you are a student studying the arts, chances are you have been ill-advised to have a plan B. But those who truly understand the economic impact and can work to change the patterns can create a wide range of career possibilities.

    Most of us probably dreamed about becoming an astronaut when we were little. But how many of us actually became one, or are at least working toward it?

    The advice “Always follow your dreams” is something that is typically easier said than done.

    But still, this is the one piece of advice that Alyssa Carson wants to share with her peers. This 17-year-old girl from the US has become one of the candidates for NASA's 2033 project to go to Mars. If everything goes well, Carson will be one of the first human beings to ever set foot on the red planet.

    Carson has dreamed of going to Mars since she was only three years old. Watching an astronaut-themed cartoon and learning that humans have only been to the moon but not Mars, Carson decided that she wanted to be the first one to do so.

    Since then, she has worked hard toward this goal. At the age of 12, Carson became the first person to attend all three NASA space camps, and she sat with real astronauts in a NASA panel(座谈会) to discuss the future of Mars missions.

    Now 17, Carson is continuing with her space training while still taking on her high school work like a “normal” teenager, except that she studies all her subjects in four languages – English, French, Spanish and Chinese.

    “I don't think there's anything specific that makes it easier for me or makes it something that others can't do,” Carson said in an interview with Uproxx News. “I've just really focused myself on what I want to accomplish.”

    And Carson is willing to make sacrifices for her dream. She's fully aware of the danger of the mission and the possibility that she might never be able to come back. She also accepts the fact that she can't get married and start a family because any loved ones left on Earth may be a distraction for her and for the mission. But Carson believes that it's all worth it, summarizing her view with this ancient Greek proverb she once quoted, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they'll never sit in.”

    So after all the hard work that Carson has done and all the sacrifices she's made, everything still boils down to the simple phrase, “follow your dreams”. And while some people's dreams may sound out of this world, in Carson's case, they literally(毫不夸张地) are.

    Earth is home to around 7, 000 languages, around half of which are expected to disappear by 2100.

    Languages disappear for many reasons. Sometimes younger generations stop learning a language because parents want children to fit in.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} Native American children of the late﹣19th century were required to attend boarding schools where educators forbade them from speaking their native languages.

    The United Nations ranks endangered languages according to their risk level. For example, a "critically endangered" language is one that even grandparents don't speak often. New York's Onondaga language is an example with only 50 speakers left. An "extinct" language has no speakers. It is gone forever. Alaska's Eyak language is one example.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} In the same way, different languages contribute to cultural diversity. Saving these languages benefits our understanding of other cultures. Languages can show how a society looks at the world and what it values. A language may describe something in a way that is funny, too. In Welsh, it rains not cats and dogs, but old wives and walking sticks.

    The Endangered Language Alliance wants to save languages from disappearing.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} However, its efforts are limited. If an endangered language is going to make a real comeback, it'll probably get its start in schools. For nearly 100 years, public schools in Hawaii did not teach the Hawaiian language. Now students can keep learning in Hawaiian from elementary schools to college and beyond.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} At least one did. In 1881, a Jewish linguist named Eliezer Ben﹣Yehuda brought the 3,000-year-old language Hebrew back to life. Today it is one of the official languages of the country of Israel, with more than 4million speakers.

A. The last person who spoke it died in 2008.

B. Why should we save endangered languages.

C. Various animals and plants benefit our environment.

D. With just 5 speakers left, it is absolutely endangered.

E. Can a language with zero native speakers come back to life.

F. Sometimes societies force minorities to give up their language.

G. The non-profit group finds native speakers and records their stories.

    Before there was the written word, there was the language of dance. Dance expresses love and hate, joy and sorrow, life and death, and everything else in between.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}We dance from Florida to Alaska, from north to south and sea to sea. We dance at weddings, birthdays, office parties and just to fill the time.

    “I adore dancing,” says Lester Bridges, the owner of a dance studio in Iowa. “I can't imagine doing anything else with my life.” Bridges runs dance classes for all ages. “Teaching dance is wonderful. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}It's great to watch them. For many of them, it's a way of meeting people and having a social life.”

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}“I can tell you about one young couple,” says Bridges. “They're learning to do traditional dances. They arrive at the class in low spirits and they leave with a smile. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}”

    So, do we dance in order to make ourselves feel better, calmer, healthier? Andrea Hillier says, “Dance, like the pattern of a beating heart, is life. Even after all these years, I want to get better and better.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} I find it hard to stop! Dancing reminds me I'm alive.”

A. So why do we dance?

B. Dance in the U.S. is everywhere.

C. If you like dancing outdoors, come to America.

D. My older students say it makes them feel young.

E. I keep practicing even when I'm extremely tired.

F. Dancing seems to change their feeling completely.

G. They stayed up all night long singing and dancing.

    If you shower before bed, you've probably wondered whether sleeping with damp hair is a problem. Maybe you've heard it could make you sick, or that it can damage your hair or skin.

    What's the truth? Let's address the "it can make you sick" myth first. "{#blank#}1{#/blank#}" says Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of medicine. While this idea persists, Schaffner says it was long ago disproved. It's true that you're much more likely to catch a common cold during the winter months. But this has to do with the ways respiratory (呼吸的) viruses spread, he says.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Illness-causing bacteria and viruses don't appear naturally, and so you're not going to make yourself ill by getting your pillow a little damp at night, Schaffner says. But there is a possible exception. Some research has shown that pillows—especially those made with synthetic materials—can contain asthma- or allergy-triggering molds (哮喘或致敏菌) and fungus, which tend to do well in damp environments, and so do dust mites, says Dr. Payel Gupta, a spokesperson for the American Lung Association.

    Gupta says there's no evidence that people who sleep with wet hair experience more allergy or asthma symptoms. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} But if you wake up with a stuffy nose, itchy or watery eyes, breathing problems or other allergy or asthma symptoms—or even if you don't—you should wash your pillow cases and sheets in hot water at least once a week to reduce your exposure to any potential irritants (刺激物).

    When it comes to the health of your hair and skin, there may be a few other reasons to worry about wet hair. "Generally, it's thought not to be good for hair to sleep with it wet," says Dr. George Cotsarelis, a professor of dermatology (皮肤病学), "{#blank#}4{#/blank#}"

    It's also worth noting that almost anything you do to your hair—from brushing and blow-drying it to coloring it or exposing it to the sun—can damage it.

A. Hence, any concerns about wet hair are theoretical.

B. In some cases, wet hair may actually be a helpful sleep aid.

C. Over time, it can lead to breakages, as well as a loss of shine.

D. There may be some mild risks associated with going to bed with wet hair.

E. Another wet-hair rumor (谣传) is the idea that harmful bacteria will colonize your pillow.

F. This idea seems to fit into the old bit of custom that getting yourself chilled and wet will cause you to come down with a cold.