Chinese people spent more time on leisure activities in 2021 compared with the period before the novel coronavirus hit, according to a recent report by the China Tourism Academy. The academy said that urban residents' leisure time was closely related to their work. They spent more time on leisure activities on weekends in 2021, about 4. 4 hours a day, compared with an average of 3. 82 hours a day on workdays. It said that urban residents^, leisure time increased both at weekends and during holidays in 2021 when compared with 2019. Daily weekend leisure time increased by 0. 91 of an hour and that during holidays by 0. 64 of an hour. The time that people in rural areas spent enjoying leisure activities rose nearly 39 percent compared with 2019, increasing to 4. 36 hours a day from 3. 14 hours before the COVIEM9 pandemic struck.

Shopping at physical stores remained the most popular leisure activity for both urban residents and people in the countryside, followed by activities like facial treatments, hairdressing and manicures (修指甲)."Shopping is my favorite way to give vent to my negative emotions and pressure, also for leisure," said Li Lingli, a 28-year-old financial analyst in Beijing. She said she had quite a heavy workload on workdays and also on weekends, meaning she didn't have much time to enjoy other leisure activities, especially outdoor ones like camping or hiking.

The report said it will be difficult to increase people's leisure time in the future due to the large amount of time they spend working and looking after children.

A recent survey by the academy shows that 50 percent of urban residents worked over eight hours a day and 15 percent worked over 10 hours a day. "Heavy workload is truly a big problem," Li said. "For me， as long as I don't message or email back my clients, it's my leisure time. I sometimes go to museums or exhibitions over holidays. It's also a good form of leisure to appreciate beautiful art pieces. "

Dai Bin, chairman of the academy, said at an online conference that with more rural residents spending time on leisure activities thanks to the nation's rural vitalization (振兴) policy, the tourism market and travel companies will embrace new growth in the future.

Human speech contains more than 2, 000 different sounds, from the common "m" and "a" to the rare clicks of some southern African languages. But why are certain sounds more common than others? A ground-breaking, five-year study shows that diet-related changes in human bite led to new speech sounds that are now found in half the world's languages.

More than 30 years ago, the scholar Charles Hockett noted that speech sounds called labiodentals, such as "f" and "v", were more common in the languages of societies that ate softer foods. Now a team of researchers led by Damián Blasi at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, has found how and why this trend arose.

They discovered that the upper and lower front teeth of ancient human adults were aligned (对齐), making it hard to produce labiodentals, which are formed by touching the lower lip to the upper teeth. Later, our jaws changed to an overbite structure(结构), making it easier to produce such sounds.

The team showed that this change in bite was connected with the development of agriculture in the Neolithic period. Food became easier to chew at this point. The jawbone didn't have to do as much work and so didn't grow to be so large.

Analyses of a language database also confirmed that there was a global change in the sound of world languages after the Neolithic age, with the use of "f" and "v" increasing remarkably during the last few thousand years. These sounds are still not found in the languages of many hunter-gatherer people today.

This research overturns the popular view that all human speech sounds were present when human beings evolved around 300, 000 years ago. "The set of speech sounds we use has not necessarily remained stable since the appearance of human beings, but rather the huge variety of speech sounds that we find today is the product of a complex interplay of things like biological change and cultural evolution," said Steven Moran, a member of the research team.

In an incredible display of compassion and kindness, a man from Turkey was spotted trying to warm a pigeon in the most creative way.

Sabahattin Yılmaz was at home one chilly day. After a rain shower had passed, he noticed something landed on the sill (窗台) outside his window—a cold and wet pigeon. The animal was trembling and soaked; it clearly didn't have the chance to seek shelter before the rain began. Feeling for the poor pigeon, Yılmaz thought of a way to dry him off.

Rather than pick him up and take him inside to warm up, Yılmaz plugged in a hairdryer and used it to dry off the bird. Little did he know that his neighbor captured the whole moment on video. In the video, Yılmaz can be seen leaning out of his window. He was stretching his arm as far as he can so the hot air can reach the pigeon. The bird willingly let the man warm him up, crouching (蹲伏) to let his outer feathers dry.

Yılmaz told the media that he spent about fifteen minutes drying off the bird. He said he had just opened his window when he saw the pigeon around the corner of the sill. He described it as wet and "about to freeze" from the cold and rainy weather.

After fifteen minutes, Yılmaz gave the pigeon birdseed, which he ate happily. However, the bird remained wet still. "I saw that it was still there so I warmed it up again, after the pigeon recovered again, and after eating a good amount of seed, it flew away," Yılmaz recalled.

He also didn't know that he was being recorded at the time and that the video was shared online. He simply did it out of the kindness of his heart. "The pigeon is a living creature and deserved to continue living, that is why I did it," he said.