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Consumers are becoming more interested in sustainability and want to know for sure where products come from. One way to do this is to use DNA. For example, a supplier in the US grows organic cotton. The cotton is then sprayed with a unique DNA combination. This makes it easy to find out if a final product is made from that cotton. No one can substitute cheaper, non-organic cotton anywhere in the supply chain.

Another concern is labor practices. Consumers want to be sure the workers who produce the goods are treated well. The US has established new rules requiring companies to prove that imported goods were not made with forced labor. If they can't, then the goods are seized at the border. From January to March in 2023, border officials seized almost $1 billion worth of shipments.

The world population has increased for most years over the past 120 centuries. Some notable exceptions were the Mongolian invasions, which reduced the world population by as much as 11 percent in the 13th century, and the Great Plague in the following century, which reduced it from 475 million to about 350 million.

During the early 18th century, advances in science and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution allowed the world population to skyrocket, as child mortality rates plummeted and life expectancy at birth increased gradually.

Have a look at the chart below and discuss what you see with your teacher.

I once took a trip to Yellowstone National Park in America with my dad. The park was incredible—especially the wildlife.

We were driving into the entrance and saw a lot of cars parked on the side of the road so we just parked behind them and looked around. In the distance, a couple of bison were grazing. They look like cows, but with massive heads with fur on top that looks like an afro. They were majestic, like something from a bygone era. 

A little while later, we were walking along a path through the hills. A park ranger was there to keep people moving because some bison had decided to hang out right next to where people were walking. Up close, they were even more impressive. 

When I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s, things were made to last. My husband and I have a waffle iron that belonged to his grandmother—it's about 80 or 90 years old and it still works! My father loved to fix things and taught me to love it, too. So repairing things seems natural to me.

However, these days things are made to break down. It's called "planned obsolescence". Manufacturers make sure their products will stop working after a few years. Some obsolescence is natural as new products are added and technology advances. But planned obsolescence becomes a problem when the manuals and parts for repair aren't made available. Consumers are forced to discard products and buy new ones, creating huge amounts of waste. And small repair shops can't stay in business, hurting local economies.

When I was a kid, my father would drag us out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to watch a rocket launch, on our fuzzy little 9" black-and-white TV. They were momentous occasions. When I was 7, the Apollo 11 mission took us to the moon. I saw that happen! It was awesome.

For years after that, my father would point out satellites as they traveled across the night sky. It was amazing to see them out there. But that was about 50 years ago. Today there are so many satellites that you almost always see one. And with the new mega-satellite arrays being developed, that number is going to explode. SpaceX alone plans to launch more than 30,000 in the near future. While this will make huge advances possible in various technologies, it will also add to a new problem—satellite pollution. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) was part of the Neo-Expressionist movement of the 1980s, led by Andy Warhol. Basquiat's primitive style grew out of his time as a graffiti artist in New York City. People first knew him as part of the anonymous duo SAMO© (pronounced "same-o"), with Al Diaz. They were among the first to use words to communicate thoughts, rather than just tags with names and numbers.

For 3 years, from the age of 17–20, Basquiat sold his art on t-shirts and postcards on the street for a couple of bucks each. Finally, he made it into a group show at an art gallery. People and critics loved his work, and in no time people were paying $50,000 or more for one of his pieces.

The child of a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, Jean-Michel Basquiat brought the Black and Latino experience into the fine art world. His art was angry and harsh, yet also poetic. He was able to express a reality that had long been excluded from elite society.

Ramen is one of Japan’s most popular foods today, with over 10,000 ramen shops in Tokyo alone. However, ramen wasn’t always so ubiquitous in Japanese society. Chinese immigrants introduced it to Japan in the late 19th century. It was originally made with noodles in broth, topped with Chinese-style roast pork. It became an important part of Japanese cuisine in the years immediately after the Second World War.

In December 1945, Japan had its worst rice harvest in 42 years. As a result, the American occupying forces imported large quantities of wheat into Japan, which was used not only for bread, but also to make noodles for ramen, which most Japanese ate at illegal food vendors. Many people relied heavily on the illegal food vendors to survive as the government food distribution system ran up to 20 days behind schedule.

An important study showed that members of a team who listened to rhythmic music together before carrying out a task worked more cooperatively and efficiently than groups who listened to music without a clear beat. People who listened to white noise did the worst. Why is that?

Brain studies have shown that music releases endorphins and dopamine. These neurochemicals cause us to feel pleasure and closeness to others. So when we listen to music together, we naturally feel closer to each other. Playing music together has an even stronger effect. And dancing together to rhythmic music creates the strongest bond of all.

English is a tool you can use to do many things. Since English is a global language, you can use it to learn things from different cultures.

A fun way to learn English is cooking. You have to know how to talk about the ingredients, measurements, textures, times and flavor descriptions, and explain the process. And, if you teach cooking in English, your pronunciation needs to be clear enough for others to understand.

Accordingly, in 2015, two English language teachers in Manchester, UK, set up a program called Heart and Parcel. Karolina Koscien and Clare Courtney gather immigrant women together to cook dumplings. Why dumplings? Because "parceled foods" are universal to all cultures. Women from different countries can all come together with their recipes and share their unique histories with each other. Besides language learning, social connections are formed that help the women thrive in their new home.