【推荐1】How to Stop Spam Calls for Good

If you made a list of the little things that bothered you the most, phone call scams would no doubt be at the top. Telemarketers, or more often, automated robot-callers, have tricks for interrupting you at the worst possible moment.     1    

Fact is that robot-callers are never going to stop trying to reach you. Their schemes bring in hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars annually. And unfortunately, older people are more likely to fall prey to these scams.     2    

Sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry

Your first move: Join the Federal Trade Commission’s National Do Not Call Registry. You can get on the list by calling 1-888-382-1222 from the phone number you want to register.     3     To date, the agency has taken 51 legal actions against companies and telemarketers, recovering $112 million.

Use spam-filtering apps and tech

    4     A spam-filtering app can give you a second layer of protection and is a good add-on to your overall smartphone security. The app’s makers maintain a large database of user-reported robocalls. When one of those numbers dials you, the app blocks the phone from ringing and informs you the call is spam. Genius!

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You probably know that a caller who insists you owe money to the IRS or says you’ll be arrested if you don’t settle a debt is a scammer. But your 10-year-old kid and your older parents and grandparents may be tricked. And remember: Knowing how to stop spam calls is just one step toward avoiding scams; don’t forget to explain how to stop spam texts to your loved ones, too.

【推荐3】Are you right-handed or left-handed? Have you ever wondered why?

With 10% of all humans being left-handed, lefties have been looked down upon as being unlucky. In the past, left-handers were thought to be strange, and left-handedness was thought to be caused by how anxious a pregnant (怀孕的) woman was during her pregnancy. However, we might now be closer to discovering the genetic reasons behind handedness.

We know that the human body is made up of cells, each of which contains a nucleus (细胞核). Inside the nucleus are thread-like structures called chromosomes (染色体) which can be stretched out to what is known as DNA. Sections of this DNA are referred to as genes — one section of DNA would show clearly your hair color and others, the shape of your nose!

The University of Oxford research team examined the genomes (基因组) of 400,000 volunteers in the UK Biobank, of whom 38,332 were left-handed. The team discovered four genetic regions, three of which had proteins (蛋白质) that play a key role in the formation of the physical structure of the cells.

By studying the brain scans of 9000 volunteers, researchers noticed that in people who were left-handed, the left and right halves of their brain that dealt with language worked in a much more intentionally matched manner. This led them to conclude that the genetic differences they had observed in left-handed people were responsible for differences in the white matter that connects language regions of the brain.

The team also found that the regions of left-handers’ brains that set them apart from right-handers gave them a slightly higher chance of getting some mental diseases, but a slightly lower chance of getting Parkinson’s disease. This study is the first to find a link between handedness, genes, and the language areas of the brains.

【推荐2】National University of Singapore

Admissions for Chinese High School Students

◇ Notes

1. For applicants who would be sitting for the Gao Kao examination in 2022, please submit your actual results within 3 calendar days upon result release to the NUS Office of Admissions.

2. Application will only be processed upon submission of your Gao Kao results together with an acceptable English Language score by the application closing date. Internet print-out of your Gao Kao results can be accepted provisionally. The print-out must clearly reflect your full name.

3. Senior Middle 3 students who are not sitting for Gao Kao as the graduation examination should apply under ‘Other High School Qualifications, by presenting ACT with Writing or SAT, together with SAT Subject Tests or Advanced Placement Test scores and their latest high school results.

• English Language Requirement for NUS

The medium of instruction at NUS is English. To enable you to benefit from an NUS education, we expect you to have achieved a minimum level of English proficiency. For certain qualifications, you are also required to furnish additional English Language test scores applicants may present any of the following to fulfil the English Language requirement:

【推荐3】A few weeks ago, my 9-year-old daughter was sick. My husband was out of town. And I needed to head to the drugstore—a five-minute walk away—to get some medicine for her. So I made sure my daughter knew where to find our rarely used landline phone, quizzed her on my cellphone number and told her not to open the front door for anyone; then I left. Twenty minutes later I was back home. Both of us were a bit tense as this experience had never happened before, but we were fine.

I had been postponing this moment of independence for my daughter for months, held back by worry about the potential disasters. But I know that this way of thinking is part of a larger social problem that many people have complained of. Fewer children are walking to school on their own, riding their bicycles around neighborhoods or going on errands (差事) for their parents.

There have been several cases of parents actually being accused of allowing their children to walk or play unsupervised (无人监督的). We’re now seeing a backlash to all this pressure for parental supervision: Earlier this year, the state of Utah passed a new “free-range” parenting law that redefined neglect to specifically not include things like letting a child play in a park or walk to a nearby store alone.

Overprotected parenting can do real harm. According to a study published this year in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, the number of children aged 6 to 17 whose . parents said they were currently diagnosed with anxiety grew from 3.5% in 2007 to 4.1% in 2012. And in a 2017 survey of more than 31,000 college students by the American College Health Association, 21.6% reported that they had been diagnosed with or treated for anxiety problems during the previous year. That is up from 10.4% in a 2008 survey.

NYU Langone’s Dr. Berry says children as young as 2 or 3 can start helping with chores, such as carrying a plate to the table and putting clothes in the basket. Most 8-year-olds should be able to make scrambled eggs “with some gentle eyes on them,” while most 10-year-olds can handle a chef’s knife, she says. Parents first need to teach safe techniques, repeatedly, then assist with and monitor the activity before gradually “fading out”.

【推荐2】It’s hard to find a person who doesn’t like traveling. The human’s hopes to explore new areas drive us to visit new countries and discover new places. It’s a pity that it is impossible to explore every corner of the world even if you travel the whole life. So people search travel articles to learn more.

If you want to become a travel writer who helps people to choose a trip, you should know how to create an article about traveling experience. Maybe the following can help you.

Read different resources. Do you want to improve your skills and do great writings? Start by exploring how experts do. Start following famous travel writers and discover how they engage readers, which means you should know how to get readers’ attention. Also, it will help you to know about the latest news in the traveling.

For sure, anyone can create a blog (博客) about traveling. But the top travel writers don’t create articles according to stories of other people. They make every trip by themselves and share their experience in their articles. If you want to become a very successful writer, you should have a large background in traveling. It will help you create original (原创) articles and share your traveling secrets with your readers.

Don’t forget about your opinions when you discover how to write a travel article. If you want to copy someone’s story, you can rewrite it and collect a few points. But if you’re going to become a famous travel writer, you need to create original articles. Feel free to share your opinions and feelings.

Being a travel writer is exciting. You have to travel, explore new areas and share your experience with readers.

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