There is a time when many Americans question whether a college degree is worth its cost. However, a recent study found Americans who completed college or university are more likely to have friends and are less lonely than those who only finished high school.

Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life, said that in general Americans are experiencing a “friend recession”, meaning a decline in their number of friends. Cox noted “Americans have fewer close friends today than we did in the early '90s. But men and those without a college degree were particularly affected because they seem to have experienced a much more dramatic decline over that period.”

The Center questioned 5,054 people this past summer. It found Americans with a college degree feel more socially connected and are more active in their communities than people who didn't go to college. As a result, those who completed college report feeling less lonely.

Previous research showed that Americans who didn't go to college are less likely to marry. A 2012 study found that college-educated women were much more likely to get married than women who dropped out of high school. A 2013 study of people born between 1957 and 1964 found that both men and women who didn't finish high school were less likely to marry than those with more education.

Today, 65 percent of college-educated Americans over age 25 are married. About 50 percent of people with a high school diploma, or who dropped out of high school, are married. Those numbers were different in 1990, when marriage rates among the college educated were at 69 percent, compared with 63 percent for those who did not go to college, says a Pew research report.

The American Community Life Survey found around 1 in 10 college graduates say they have no close social connections. That number rises among Americans without a degree, where almost 1 in 4 say they have no close friends.

Music festivals are environmental disasters when it comes to the amount of trash generated, and this seems mostly from festival-goers' strange disposable mentality. An estimated 80%of trash generated by music festivals comes from what's left behind by campers, and the Association of Independent Festivals guesses 1 to 2 out of every 6 tents are left behind. They get used for a single weekend and are often abandoned.

After the Isle of Wight Festival in the UK saw a shocking 10,000 tents left behind in 2011,some environmentally-minded people decided to take action. A campaign called" Love Your Tent(LYT)"was started, and its aim is to"make getting up and leaving absolutely everything behind you completely socially unacceptable".

The campaign took over a single campground at the festival and ensured that every person who wanted to camp there signed an agreement including promising to take their gear home. The first year 2012 was a success. Out of 1,500 campers, only 18 tents were abandoned. In 2018,the Isle of Wight Festival saw 1,450 campers staying in the designated(指定的)"Love Your Tent"fields,a nd no tents were left behind.

Unfortunately, it continues to be a frustrating battle. When LYT did a survey of students in 2017,they found that 60%of participants admitted to leaving tents behind in the past, even though86%recognized waste has an impact on the environment.36%were unsure if their behavior would ever change, and a pitiful 35%said their behavior would definitely never change.

While there's no easy solution to this trash disaster, it's clear that music festival organizers need to take responsibility for what their event creates, and demand that campers clean up their act, literally. Organizers could also provide tent-recycling facilities for those who insist on leaving their tents behind. Everyone could at least sign a code of conduct agreement when purchasing tickets.

Participants can also avoid attending festivals with bad reputations for waste management and support those with good policies. Most importantly,create your own zero-waste standards for camping and be an example to others. Camping,which is supposed to be a celebration of nature, should never turn into a garbage dump.

A Rare Spotless Giraffe

A female giraffe was born at Brights Zoo in Tennessee recently—but unlike her mother she was born without any spots an unusual one.

Standing 14 to 19 feet tall, giraffes are the tallest land animals in the world. When mothers give birth, the young giraffes are already 6 feet tall, and other than in especially rare cases, they're born covered in brown spots. Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, announced that it welcomed the birth of a reticulated giraffe (网纹长颈鹿) without any spots on July 31st.

"Giraffe experts believe she is the only solid-colored reticulated giraffe living anywhere on the planet," the zoo said. The zoo's director, David Bright, said zoo staff had been reaching out to zoo professionals across the country inquiring about how unusual the giraffe could be. Zoo officials said the only record of a reticulated giraffe being born without spots was in Japan in the 1970s.

Mr. Bright said that the new giraffe might not have survived if she had been born in the wild. "Being solid-colored, she may not be able to hide quite well," said Bright. He also thought it was likely that the giraffe would be a "key target for illegal hunters" because she's so unusual.

Pictures of the young giraffe can be seen on the Brights Zoo Facebook page. In a picture, she, without her spots, stood next to her mother, a normal giraffe, in stark contrast. The zoo is asking the public to help name the newborn. People can choose one of four names available on the zoo's Facebook page. The names and their meanings are: Kipekee, meaning unique; Firyali, which means unusual or surprising; Shakiri, meaning she is most beautiful; Jamella, which means optimistic.

Bright said that the zoo looked at thousands of names and their meanings before settling on the four available. "Those four are the four the family really loves," Bright said. "So if she's named one of those four, we're very happy."

According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, there are only about 16, 000reticulated giraffes left in the wild — a more than 50% drop from approximately 36,000giraffes 35 years ago. There are about 117, 000giraffes across nine subspecies(亚种).Many of them are endangered or critically endangered.