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In 1939, the typical Japanese person only ate 4 grams of meat per day. Today, the average person eats 130 grams, and their favourite meat is pork, not fish as one might expect. One of the reasons for this significant change was the rise of Western influence in Japan.

Japan was known as a vegetarian country in medieval times. The national religions, Buddhism and Shinto, are both in favor of plant-based eating, but the Japanese couldn't eat meat mainly because of a shortage of arable land. As a way of dealing with this problem, Japan’s rulers banned people from eating meat.

With the arrival of the Dutch in the eighteenth century, things changed. The Japanese came to associate the meat-loaded diets of the Europeans with societal success. And in 1872 Emperor Meiji ate meat in public for the first time, automatically lifting the meat-eating ban.

Nothing smells better than freshly-baked bread. Take it out of the oven, let it cool a little, and cut into it. A puff of steam comes out and fills your house with that amazing aroma.

I've been baking bread for nearly 10 years. I started with a technique called the French knead, or the aptly-named "slap and fold". You pick up the dough then slap it onto the counter. Then turn it, pick it up, and slap it down again. The process is noisy, exhausting, and you end up with tiny bits of dough flying around your kitchen. They stick to the walls and are hard to scrape off. The bread tastes good, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Fast-forward to last month. I've refined my process to near perfection. You just put the ingredients in a bowl, stir them for a minute, cover them, and leave them all for a full day. The bread comes together perfectly. There's no mess, it's dead simple, and it tastes amazing.

I think my bread journey is a metaphor for aging. The things I used to spend so much time and energy doing—finding the right clothes, the right music, worrying what people think—these things that took up my time have been refined. I think, with age comes efficiency.
 

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. 

Finally, back in the parking lot, we were starting to drive away when we see, just strolling through the parking lot, another bison! It was walking between cars, blocking traffic. At this point, we were like, "Okay, that's enough bison." What had started out as very exciting had suddenly become very daunting!

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.

Hence, the Right to Repair movement. In 2013, consumers and independent repair shops created The Repair Association to fight for the right to fix things. Since then, they've made real progress—in America, more than 25 states are considering (or have passed) Right to Repair bills, and changes have been made to U.S. copyright laws, with more to come. Roughly 15 million people and more than 400 companies belong to the Repair Association today
 

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. 

With thousands of satellite arrays in orbit around the Earth, even the darkest night skies far from cities will be littered with them. Stargazing has always been wondrous for me, but I fear the satellites will ruin it. All I will see when I look to the heavens is our own selves blinking back at us.

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.

Sadly, with fame came a serious drug problem—Basquiat became addicted to heroin. At one point, he traveled to Hawaii to try to break the habit. Though he said he was clean when he returned to New York, it didn't last long. On August 12, 1988, he died of a heroin overdose. He was 27 years old.

Basquiat's reputation has continued to grow since his death. In May 2017, a Japanese billionaire purchased the painting above, "Untitled", for $110.5 million, the most ever paid up to that time for a work by an American artist.

Historically, women have struggled to be accepted in the world of the arts. In the art of painting, they were subjects for men's art, or wives and sisters of male artists. Women weren't accepted as artists themselves. But that began to change in the 20th century. Georgia O'Keeffe played an important role in that change.

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1996) was part of the American Modernist movement. American Modernism grew out of the Industrial Revolution and focused on everyday subjects like cities and factories. It used abstract forms and bright colors. Georgia O'Keeffe pushed the boundaries to develop her own style. Her paintings were still abstract and brightly colored, but she added a little realism.

She looked closely at flowers and painted their abstract forms, but the flowers were still easily recognisable. After moving to New Mexico, she painted the desert, cow skulls and bones the same way. No one else was doing that at the time. O'Keeffe persevered in her art for decades before finding success. In 1928, six of her flower paintings sold for $25,000, the most any living artist had made at that point.

Her impact on the art world has earned her the name, "Mother of American Modernism". She became, and continues to be, an inspiration for other women painters to persevere and succeed.
 

If you go to Bangkok during the Thai New Year in mid-April, you might get splashed with water. This is because the Thai celebrate New Year with a water festival called Songkran. It is a holy festival where people bless each other with water. So, in Bangkok, people with water guns take part in huge water fights.

People of all ages take part in Songkran. You should be careful when refilling your water gun since older folks might pour ice-cold water down your back while you’re not looking. The good thing is that it’s very hot in Thailand, so the cold water feels refreshing. Some tourists join in the fun. Others don't. For those who don't, the best place to be is indoors. Anyone on the street will get splashed with water, even if they're driving. Throwing wet powder on each other's faces is also an important part of the festival!

What a fun way to spend New Year!