【推荐2】There’s nothing worse than sitting next to someone whose breath smells bad. In ancient China, people used to eat a special plant to make their breath smell better.     1    

How your breath smells says a lot about your health. Scientists can now tell whether or not somebody has a disease just from a simple breath test.     2    Breath is made up of waste chemicals that the body makes, Scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found that these chemicals are different for each person. In fact, they’re just like fingerprints (指纹) — that’s why scientists sometimes call them “breathprints”.

Compared to other kinds of tests, a breath test is much quicker.     3    Breath tests are also a lot easier to do than regular tests, as people only need to blow into a special machine.     4     It has been useful in finding early signs of problems such as stomach cancer.

    5    And hopefully some day, visits to the hospital will be a quicker and easier for everyone.

【推荐1】What is the place of art in a culture of inattention? Recent visitors to the Louvre report that tourists can now spend only a minute in front of the Mona Lisa before being asked to move on. Much of that time, for some of them, is spent taking photographs not even of the painting but of themselves with the painting in the background.

One view is that we have made tourism and gallery-going so easy that we have made it effectively impossible to appreciate what we’ve travelled to see. In this society, experience becomes goods like any other. There are queues to climb Everest as well as to see famous paintings. Thus, leisure is considered as hard labour rather than relaxation.

In the rapidly developing society, what gets lost is the quality of looking. Consider an extreme example, the late philosopher Richard Wollheim. When he visited the Louvre he could spend as much as four hours sitting before a painting. The first hour, he claimed, was necessary for incorrect impression to be removed. It was only then that the picture would begin to disclose itself. This seems unthinkable today, but it is still possible to organise. Even in the busiest museums there are many rooms and many pictures worth hours of contemplation (沉思) which the crowds largely ignore.

Marcel Proust, another lover of the Louvre, wrote: “It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and know how another person sees a universe which is not the same as our own and whose landscapes would otherwise have remained as unknown as any there may be on the moon.” If any art remains worth seeing, it must lead us to such escapes. But a minute in front of a painting in a hurried, harried (烦扰) crowd won’t do that.

【推荐2】Take the Money and Run

A Latin phrase beloved by every old-fashioned British schoolmaster was mens sana in corpore sano—a healthy mind in a healthy body. Greater physical activity is associated with better mental, as well as physical health. And it might also be linked to greater worker productivity, and thus faster economic growth. That is the conclusion of a new report from a European think tank—RAND.

The RAND study looks at different measures: absenteeism(when workers take time off for illness)and presenteeism(when they turn up for work but are less productive because of sickness). The latter measure was self-reported by employees, who were asked whether their work was negatively affected by health issues. The survey suggests that between 3 and 4.5 working days each year are lost as a consequence of workers being physically inactive. This is between 1.3% and 2% of annual working time. Most of this was down to presenteeism.

Another potential gain from improved fitness is reduced health-care costs. In America, where health care is often provided through employment-based systems, firms could benefit. RAND estimates that total American health savings could be $ 6 billion a year by 2025. But the study's authors conclude that if people met certain exercise targets, global GDP could be around 0.17-0.24% higher by 2050. Nothing to laugh at in a world of slowing growth.

How to encourage workers to become more active? Rewards are useful but only if they have conditions: giving all employees free gym membership does not seem to work. Another RAND Europe study examined an experiment in which workers were each given an Apple watch, payable in installment (分期付款)at a discounted price—but only to those who agreed to have their physical activity monitored. Monthly repayments depended on how much exercise they took.

If they met the targets they ended up paying 10% of the watch's list price; those who took no exercise paid the full price. This approach takes advantage of a fact that people are eager to avoid paying more. On average, those participating in the scheme undertook 30% more exercise than before.

The problem is that many people are too optimistic about their health, ignoring the risks they face. This means that participation in workplace exercise plans tends to be low, around 7% in the sample studied by RAND. Firms are not the only ones that can encourage a healthier lifestyle; friends and families are likely to be more important. But businesses can play a bigger role.

If RAND is right, this may bring them financial benefits. Company taskmasters may yet grow fond of an adapted saying: mens sana in corporate sano.

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【推荐1】In a country known for high-tech ambitions and giant state-owned firms, the suffering of street hawkers (小贩) may seem insignificant. But in China these days, people like Shui Jin, an old lady riding a wooden cart filled with fruit, are in the spotlight.

Faced with rising unemployment, officials have concluded that pavement stands (货摊) can help solve the economy’s problems. Shui Jin, who used to face the danger of heavy fines, may sell her fruit with more confidence as she slowly makes her way through the narrow lanes of Suzhou. Her family needs the money. Both her daughters-in-law recently lost their jobs, among the tens of millions of people in China hurt by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The government’s support for street hawkers is something of an about-turn. For years the authorities pushed out hawkers, trying to tidy up the chaos that once characterized China’s cities. In the name of “civilizing” urban life, they wanted to see dumplings, plastic toys and T-shirts sold inside shopping malls, not from the back of carts. But on June 1st Premier Li Keqiang signalled a change. Stopping by a snack stand in the city of Yantai, he declared that street hawkers and small shops were vital to the economy. “Only when the people are in good shape can the nation be in good shape,” he said.

Mr. Li’s statement has produced a feeling of excitement about the revival (复苏) of China’s “street-stand economy”. At least 27 provinces and cities have announced that they will create markets for hawkers or, in some cases, let them move their things being sold onto the pavement in front of their shops. The shining example is Chengdu, where street stands were banned in the past but now hawkers have set up a number of stands since March. More than 100,000 jobs have been created in the process.

【推荐3】BEIJING/SAO PAULO—Chinese traditions like cockfighting, flying and fireworks have been quite common in Brazil for many years.

“Despite the thousands of kilometers between them, China’s historical and artistic mark on Brazil has existed for about 300 years,” said Brazilian sinologist (汉学家) Jose Roberto Teixeira Leite in his book China in Brazil. “Influences from china can date from the colonial the two countries has existed for a long time,” he noted, adding that incoming ships would fill up Brazilian cities like Salvador, Rio de Janeiro and Recife with Chinese products like porcelain (瓷器), silk and fans. He also found Chinese influence not only in the arts and architecture of Brazil but also in the most diverse areas of Brazilian society, like the economy, medicine and popular culture. “At the end of the 19th century, in Pernambuco (a state in northeastern Brazil), there was a custom that children slept with clothes decorated with Chinese dragons.” Teixeira added.

The book took him about 15 years to finish. “The impact of the book surprised me, though it was published by a university publisher and it had a print run of just 1,000 copies,” he said. “Some have said that the book represents a turning point in Chinese studies in Brazil.”

Besides, the sinologist did research on the mark and presence of China in the architecture and arts of Brazil. “It was through art that China awoke in me, first, curiosity, after that, interest, and finally, passion,” Teixeira said.

In 1992, the sinologist visited Macao to do research for his doctoral thesis about the marks and presence of China in Brazil, and that trip impressed him a lot. In 2013, Teixeira had a chance to visit the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai, and got to know “the past and present of the great country culturally, as well as its incredible material development.”

【推荐1】Declining mental function is widely regarded as a problem of old age, but certain aspects of brain function actually begin their decline in young adulthood, a new study suggests.

The study, which followed more than 2,000 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 60, found that certain mental functions—including measures of abstract reasoning, mental speed and puzzle-solving—started to dull as early as age 27. The dip in memory, meanwhile, generally became apparent around age 37.

On the other hand, indicators of a person’s accumulated knowledge—like performance on tests of vocabulary—kept improving with age, according to the findings.

The results do not mean that young adults need to start worrying about their memories. Most people’s minds function at a high level even in their later years, according to researcher Timothy Salthouse.

“These patterns suggest that some types of mental flexibility decrease relatively early in adulthood, but that the knowledge one has, and the effectiveness of integrating (整合) it with one’s abilities, may increase throughout all of adulthood if there are no diseases,” Salthouse said.

The study included healthy, educated adults who took standard tests of memory and reasoning over a period of seven years. In general, Salthouse and his colleagues found, certain aspects of cognition (认知能力) generally started to decline in the late 20s to 30s.

The findings threw light on normal age-related changes in mental function, which could aid in understanding the process of dementia (痴呆). “By following individuals over time,” Salthouse said, “we gain insight in cognition changes, and may possibly discover ways to slow the rate of decline.”

The researchers are currently analyzing the study participants’ health and lifestyle to see which factors might influence age-related cognitive changes.

【推荐2】Last year, Wolf Cukier, who is 17 years old, spent his summer vacation as few other rising seniors have：he helped discover a planet-TOI 1338b, the newly identified world orbiting two stars which are more than 1, 300 light years away.

Last July， just after he finished his junior year at Scarsdale High school in Scarsdale, New York, Wolf started an internship(实习期) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

During the first week of the internship, as be combed through data that had been flagged by citizen-scientists. he fixed attention on s system that included two orbiting stars. He identified a body in that system that was later proved as a planet about 6.9 times as large as Earth. while knowing this inspiring discovery, his colleagues immediately gave the system a name, TOI 1338b.

According to scientific research, any dip in the brightness of a single star is a good indication that a planet has crossed in front of it. However, TOI 1338b was particularly complicated because it involved two stars-a large star ere the planers track was easy to detect, and a smaller one where the planet's track was so small that it was not observable.

Many people think that wolf is a lucky dog, but as a matter of fact, it is not just a coincidence. When he studied in Junior High School, he had shown great passion on astronomy and was devoted to studying it. Wolf plans to study astrophysics(天体物理学) when he starts college in September. When it came to his contribution to the discovery of the new world. he emphasized it was the team work in the verification process rather than his own effort that counted.

【推荐3】When people see machines that respond like humans, or computers that perform amazing functions, they sometimes joke about a future in which humanity will need to accept robot overlords(霸主). But buried in the joke is a seed of unease. Science-fiction movies have ever shown us about artificial intelligence (AI) that escapes its creators’ control.

Even in the real world, not everyone is ready to welcome AI with open arms. In recent years, as computer scientists have pushed the boundaries(界限) of what AI can accomplish, leading figures in technology and science have warned about the frightening dangers that artificial intelligence may pose to human beings, even suggesting that AI could destroy the human race. But why are people so frightened about the idea of AI?

Elon Musk is one of the famous voices that have raised red flags about AI. In July 2017, Musk told people at a meeting of the National Governors Association, “I have exposure to the very cutting-edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned about it. I keep sounding the alarm bell. But until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react, because it seems so impossible. ”

Earlier, in 2014, Musk had labeled AI “our biggest existential threat”, and in August 2017, he declared that humanity faced a great risk from AI.

Physicist Stephen Hawking, who died on March 14, also expressed concerns about AI, telling the BBC in 2014 that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”

It’s also less than reassuring that some programmers—particularly those with MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts—seem determined to prove that AI can be terrifying.