Have you ever seen the auroras (极光) in the sky? Cosmic radiation (宇宙辐射) creates these pretty lights in the North and South Pole (极地) areas. It seems that cosmic radiation is a beautiful gift from space. But for some people, it can be dangerous.

A 53-year-old flight attendant (空乘) in South Korea, who spent about 1,022 hours flying each year, passed away due to cancer (癌症). A South Korean court (法庭)connected his death to a high level of exposure (暴露) to cosmic radiation. During his career, nearly half of his flights crossed the areas in and around the North Pole, where cosmic radiation is extremely (非常地) strong.

Cosmic radiation from space is hitting Earth nonstop, coming from both the sun and other stars in the Milky Way (银河系). Luckily, our planet is well-protected. Earth’s magnetic field (磁场) and atmosphere (大气层) protect us from most cosmic radiation. The magnetic field is strongest near the equator and weakest at the poles. People living at higher latitudes (纬度), like in Heilongjiang province, are exposed to a little bit more cosmic radiation than those living at lower latitudes, like in Hainan province. Also, when you go higher in an airplane, the thin atmosphere increases exposure to cosmic radiation. For flight attendants crossing polar areas and for astronauts in space, cosmic radiation can create health risks. NASA reported that the radiation exposure faced by astronauts spending six months in space is the same as having 1,000 chest X-rays (胸部X光片).

Although people everywhere seem to enjoy drinking coffee, they don’t all have the same coffee culture. In Europe, for example, coffee shops are common places for people to meet friends and to talk while they drink coffee. However, places like this were not as common in North America in the past. Instead, people in North America liked to drink coffee in their homes with friends. The coffee culture in the USA changed when Starbucks (星巴克) coffee shops spread across the country.

The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in 1971 in downtown Seattle, Washington, the USA. It was a small coffee shop that cooked its own coffee beans. The coffee shop’s business did well, and by 1981 there were three Starbucks stores in Seattle.

Things really began to change for the company in 1981.That year, Howard Schultz met the three men who ran Starbucks. Schultz worked in New York for a company that made kitchen equipment. He noticed that Starbucks ordered a large number of special coffee makers, which caused his great interest. Schultz went to Seattle to see what Starbucks did. In 1982, the original Starbucks owners hired Schultz as the company’s head of marketing (市场营销).

In 1983, Schultz traveled to Italy. The special environment of the espresso (浓咖啡) bars there caught his eyes. Back in the USA, Schultz created a similar environment for Starbucks coffee shops that was comfortable and casual, and customers everywhere seemed to like it. Starbucks began opening more stores across the USA. Then the company opened coffee shops in other countries as well. Today, there are more than 16,000 Starbucks coffee shops all over the world.

However, that does not mean Starbucks has no problems. In fact, many Starbucks stores have closed over the past few years. The main reason is because there were too many coffee shops competing for business in one small area. Another reason is that the coffee culture in some countries did not match with the environment offered by Starbucks.