【推荐2】My twin sister is in therapy (治疗), and I often ask her about it. The other day, she missed an appointment(预约) for no good reason. “My therapist said it was ‘time blindness’,” she told me. Time blindness is just like being unable to tell between red and blue.

I’m living in New York, 3,000 miles away from my twin and we video-chat every day, but I haven’t seen her in person since last Christmas. I know how much time has officially passed, but it feels differently for her.

Time blindness is a term invented by doctors who treat people with ADHD (注意缺陷多动障碍). Psychologist Ari Tuckman says adults typically develop an awareness (意识) of time and an ability to track (追踪) its passing. Some people have what he calls “harder” or sharper time awareness: they know when they’ve been out for lunch too long, or when something hasn’t been in the oven for long enough. Others have much softer time awareness: they can miss appointments and trains. Time blindness can greatly affect someone’s life, if they can’t ever meet deadlines. People with ADHD are often more time-blind than others.

Besides our own time awareness, Tuckman says, context (背景) plays a role: sleep loss, anxiety, being drunk, or anything that might affect how we process the world, can make us feel more time-blind. Without the usual time-marker cues we might use to divide up our days: the school bus arriving, the line at the coffee shop, or weekend nights spent at restaurants with friends, we’re swimming in a sea of sameness.

Sorrow (悲痛) is one of the biggest causes of time blindness, according to Tuckman. Holding onto time is a skill of your mind, like doing math, and sorrow reduces the computing strength. It’s why time goes faster when I talk to my sister when we are not sad. Tuckman says it might be nice for more people to understand time blindness. Talking, even while physically apart, can be a way to keep time. Loved ones are good clocks.

【推荐3】Staying positive through the cold season could be your best defense against getting sick, a new American study suggests.

In an experiment that exposed healthy volunteers to a cold or flu virus, researchers found that people with a generally sunny character were less likely to fail ill.

The findings, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, build on evidence that a “positive emotional style” can help ward off the common cold and other illness.

“People with a positive emotional style may have different immune（免疫的）responses to the virus,” explained lead study author Dr Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “And when they do get a cold, they may interpret their illness as being less severe.”

Cohen and his colleagues has found in a previous study that happier people seemed less likely to catch a cold, but some questions remained as to whether the emotional quality itself had the effect.

For the new study, the researchers had 193 healthy adults complete standard measures of personality qualities, physicals health and “emotional style”.

Those who tended to be happy, energetic and easy–going were judged as having a positive emotional style, while those who were often unhappy, tense and hostile（敌意的）had a negative style.

Afterwards, the researchers gave them nose drops containing either a cold virus or a particular flu virus that causes flu-like symptoms. Over the next six days, the volunteers reported on any aches, pains, sneezing they had. Cohen and his colleagues found that happy people were less likely to develop a cold.

What`s more, when happy folks did develop a cold, their symptoms were less severe than expected based on objective measures.

In contrast, people with negative characters were not at increased risk of developing a cold based on objective measures, though they did tend to get down about their symptoms.

“We find that it`s really positive emotions that have the big effect,” Cohen said, “not the negative ones.”

So can a bad-tempered person fight a cold by deciding to be happy?

【推荐1】Rainbow-coloured rubbish is the colourful waste created by a Swedish city with an unusual recycling(回收利用） system. Like many cities in Sweden , Eskilstuna has an excellent recycling record . It met the EU's 2020 target of recycling 50% of waste many years ago.

Almost everyone who lives here follows strict recycling rules at home. People are expected to sort their household waste into seven separate categories, including food, textiles, cartons and metal. But what really makes the system stand out is the bright colour code.

The reason for this becomes clear at the city's recycling plant. The bags arrive all mixed up because they're collected altogether, once two weeks from outside people's houses. But thanks to those bright colours, scanners can choose the bags and separate them without difficulty. The food waste in green bags is processed on site into mud to make biogas, which powers the city's buses. One of the benefits of this method of recycling is that there is less cross-pollution,so more of the recycled waste can actually be used to make new things.

Like the rest of Sweden, Eskilstuna is devoted to sending zero waste from its citizens to landfill. Waste that cannot be recycled is burnt at a local plant to generate electricity. This reduces dependence on fossil fuels like coal and oil , but does create greenhouse gases .

As countries around the world try to improve their recycling systems, some may look to Eskilstuna as an example to follow-as long as they think they can persuade their citizens to get busy sorting rubbish at home .

【推荐2】REDUCING WATER POLLUTION IN THE LI RIVER

The beautiful Li River and its amazing surrounding scenery is one of the most well-known tourist destinations in China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It attracts millions of domestic and foreign visitors each year. However, its reputation as a top destination has had negative effects on the river’s water quality. This report looks at the problem of water pollution and some actions that have been taken to deal with it.

Previously, water quality in the Li River had suffered greatly from an increasing volumeof tourists, many of whom frequently threw garbage into the river. Many tour boats contributed to the problem too. Kitchens on board were using lots of oil, which was often thrown into the water. The growth in tourism also meant the local population rose rapidly, as well as the number of commercial and industrial enterprises. Water pollution levels increased, with more household and commercial waste ending up in the river. In order to feed more people, more chemicals were used to increase crop production. These chemicals led to severe water quality issues, causing a decrease in the number of fish species. Local officials were concerned that the pollution was damaging the natural environment and felt that urgent steps should be taken to restore the river’s original beauty.

A comprehensive initiative was started, with a number of measures that addressed the issues. The construction of waste water treatment facilities improved the water quality and water conservation. The collection and transport of household waste was also improved. Dozens of polluting enterprises were closed or moved. The local government set up strict regulations regarding further industrial development. New rules were also introduced regarding tour boat routes and garbage disposal methods. Furthermore, the local authorities began to use the media to spread environmental awareness and encourage greater use of clean energy. At the same time, they started to carry out inspections regularly and fine tourist organisations for abuses. With these measures, it is believed that the beauty of the Li River will be preserved for generations to come.

In addition, the ambitious “Water Ten Plan” is also now tackling water pollution across the country. Other initiatives, such as the “River Chief System”, hold senior officials responsible for reducing water pollution. With such campaigns in effect, China’s waterways are heading towards a clean and sustainable future.

【推荐1】Maybe ten-year-old Elizabeth put it best when she said to her father. “But, Dad, you can’t be healthy if you’re dead.”

Dad, in a hurry to get home before dark so he could go for a run, had forgotten to wear his safety belt — a mistake 11.5% of the US population make every day, according to a survey in 2015.

The percentage doesn’t seem so bad, but the big question is why still so many people ignore it when every day there are reports about car accidents and casualties (a death toll of 37461 in 2016 ).

There have been many myths about safety belts ever since their first appearance in cars some forty years ago. The following are three of the most common.

Myth Number One: It’s best to be “thrown clear”of a serious accident.

Truth: Sorry, but any accident serious enough to “throw you clear”is also going to be serious enough to give you a very bad landing. And chances are you’ll have traveled through a windshield (挡风玻璃) or door to do it. Studies show that chances of dying after a car accident are twenty-five times greater in cases where people are “thrown clear.”

Myth Number Two: Safety belts “trap”people in cars that are burning or sinking in water.

Truth: Sorry again. but studies show that people knocked unconscious (昏迷) due to not wearing safety belts have a greater chance of dying in these accidents People wearing safety belts are usually protected to the point of having a clear head to free themselves from such dangerous situations, not to be trapped in them.

Myth Number Three: Safety belts aren’t needed at speeds of less than 30 miles an hour (mph).

Truth: When two cars traveling at 30 mpb hit each other, an unbelted driver would meet the windshield with a force equal to diving headfirst into the ground from a height of 10 meters.

【推荐1】In the age of Amazon and the Internet, the idea of going to a public library to borrow a book may seem ever more unusual and old-fashioned in many parts of the world, but one country, at least, is holding on it tightly:the Czech Republic? There are libraries everywhere you look in the country. There is one library for every 1,971 Czech citizens——four times as many, relative to population, as the average European country, and 10 times as many as the United States, which has one for every 19,583 people.

Why so many Czech libraries? Well, for decades they were mandatory—every community, from a big city down to a tiny village, was required by law to have one. The law was enacted in 1919, soon after Czechoslovakia emerged as an independent country. The library law survived the German occupation and the breakup with Slovakia in the early 1990s. What it couldn't survive was budget pressure. To save money, the requirement was dropped in 2001, when there were about 6,019 libraries in the country；since then, about 11 percent have been combined or closed.

Now, the surviving Czech libraries are doing what they can to stay vibrant (生气勃勃的) and relevant. They serve as local meeting places, They organize reading clubs and art exhibits and offer computer literacy (读写)courses, and they welcome groups of schoolchildren and retirtees during the day. But mostly, they do what 92 percent of Czechs still want them to go on doing: They lend books.

【推荐2】I have a special place in my heart for libraries. I have for as long as I can remember. I was always an enthusiastic reader, sometimes reading up to three books a day as a child. Stories were like air to me and while other kids played ball or went to parties, I lived out adventures through the books I checked out from the library.

My first job was working at the Ukiah Library when I was 16 years old .It was a dream job and I did everything from shelving books to reading to the children for story time.

As I grew older and became a mother, the library took on a new place and an added meaning in my life. I had several children and books were our main source(来源) of entertainment. It was a big deal for us to load up and go to the local library, where my kids could pick out books to read or books they wanted me to read to them.

I always read ,using different voices ,as though I were acting out the stories with my voice and they loved it !It was a special time to bond with my children and it filled them with the wonderment of books .

Now, I see my children taking their children to the library and I love that the excitement of going to the library lives on form generation to generation.

As a novelist, I’ve found a new relationship with libraries. I encourage readers to go to their local library when they can’t afford to purchase a book. I see libraries as a safe haven(避风港) for readers and writers, a bridge that helps put together a reader with a book. Libraries, in their own way, help fight book piracy(盗版行为) and 1 think all writers should support libraries in a significant way when they can. Encourage readers to use the library. Share library announcements on your social media. Frequent them and talk about them when you can.

【推荐3】Dulas is a computer-generated (计算机生成的)character created by Julia Borbolla, a Mexican child psychologist(心理学家). It is one of the several “emotional agents” Borbolla has invented that are being recognized in Mexico City as able of coming into the inner lives of children.

Dulas, like all of these characters, has big eyes and radio antennas(天线). The characters collectively go by the name Antenas because they all have antennas and come from a planet called Antenopolis. Dulas knows nothing about the life on earth, not even what a mother or father is. Wearing rabbit slippers in hospital, he doesn’t like to talk with adults—so children can trust his companionship.

Over the past five years, Borbolla's characters have been used to help 2,000 children from 3 to 14 years old, and have been employed in three Mexico City hospitals and a center for disabilities in another city, Morelia.

Researchers have been using puppets(木偶)to help children express and deal with their feelings for decades. But Borbolla, who has been working with children for 30 years, has taken this kind of work as a step further.

The children meet the characters in a room, without adults present; doctors monitor (监控)with cameras. They have to handle the information carefully. One principle of the work is that a doctor must not make it known that he knows something that was said to an Antenas character privately. This keeps the trust of the child's relationship with the character.

Borbolla originally got the idea to use a drawing of a cartoon character to communicate with children when she was working as a school psychologist in the 1980s. Years later, in private practice, she worked with a puppet maker to develop a software version(版本). She spent six years improving the tool.

So far, Antenas hasn't been carefully studied, and Borbolla is working with researchers to examine its effect. ''I see how powerful it is,'' she told me. ''It can be used to get into the souls of children.''