【推荐1】How do the world’s only flying mammals communicate? Researchers have observed young bats adopting new “dialects” simply by hearing them repeatedly, making them one of the few animals known to have a capacity for vocal (声音的) learning. “These bats may help us clarify the evolution of speech acquisition (习得) skills,” says Yosef Prat, a PhD at Tel Aviv University (TAU).

For one year, researchers raised 14 Egyptian fruit bat pups with their mothers in controlled area, exposing each young bat to two different vocalizations: the natural call of its mother and a separate recording that varied in pitch (音高) or frequency. They found that the pups in each group developed a dialect like the recording. “The general assumption in this field is that most animals develop their born vocalizations regardless of what they hear, and that human vocal learning abilities have developed during evolution,” says Mr Prat. “The finding that bats learn the common dialect in their rest place was unusual.”

Scientists know little about the origin of spoken language, which is believed to have appeared in humans within the past 500,000 years. Dozens of theories attempt to explain the complexity of this skill, but none have done so conclusively.

“Studying vocal communication and vocal learning in animal models is a very useful way to approach the problem,” says Olga Feher, an assistant professor at the University of Warwick in England.

But animal vocalizations and human speech are very different things, says Jamin Pelkey, a professor at Ryerson University. “All species communicate. Unlike other animals, though, human beings are able to use sound patterns for functions that are far stranger—functions that are imaginative, theoretical, and critical. When speech is involved in these stranger functions, that is what we mean by spoken ‘language’.”

【推荐2】You may be surprised to learn that English gets 30 to 45 percent of its words from French. The reason goes back to the year 1066, when Norman forces invaded（入侵）what is now Britain. The Normans were from northern France and spoke French. During the Norman occupation, French became the language of England’s rulers and wealthy class. This lasted for more than 300 years. Other people in England continued to speak English during this period.

Over time, the two languages combined and shared words. Some researchers believe that about 10,000 French words eventually entered the English language. However, although English took many French words, their meanings have not always stayed the same. Sometimes the differences in meanings can be very important, and lead to funny or strange situations if the words are used in the wrong way.

Take, for example, the French word college. In English, college can often be used in place of the word university, or sometimes as a school within a university. However, in French, college actually means “middle school”, or the level of schooling for students in grades five or six through eight.

There are many other similar words in the two languages with completely different meanings. In English, the word chat is a verb which means “to talk casually”; but in French, the word chat is the word for an animal: a cat.

If an English speaker says someone is jolly, that means they are cheerful or friendly. But in French, jolie means someone is good-looking or pleasant to look at. In any case, both are nice things to say to someone.

【推荐3】Some expressions in English sound pleasant but actually are not, one of which is “face the music”.

Imagine a friend asks you to take care of her beautiful red sports car. She gives you the key and says, “Thanks so much for watching my car while I’m away. But please, do not drive it. It is an extremely fast car.” But you do not listen. You want to show off and pretend the car is yours. So, you drive it around the town. As a result, you lose control of the car and drive it into a stop sign. The damage is serious. When your friend returns, you must tell her what you have done and “face the music”. That could mean losing her friendship or paying for repairs to her sports car or both. Whatever the music is, you must face it.

The expression is more than 150 years old. In 1851, the writer James Fenimore Cooper explained “face the music” as theatrical term. In a theater, the orchestra(管弦乐队) often sits in the front of the stage facing the musicians. Many actors are very nervous, a condition called stage fright. “Face the music” came to mean accepting stage fright and not giving in to it.

Word experts also say “face the music” may have come from the military. A soldier who did something terrible could be forced out of the army. When that happened, the army drummers would play slow, sad beat. The soldier would be led away seated backward on a horse and facing the music of the drums.

There are other English expressions that mean the same thing as “face the music.” If someone says, “You made your bed. Now lie in it,” they mean you created a bad situation and now you will experience the result.

【推荐1】Commuting to and from work can be a nightmare. Cars advance slowly in stop and go traffic, crawling from one traffic jam at stoplights to the next. At peak rush hour especially, there is no chance of sailing through a series of green lights. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, German researchers have found a way to reduce time spent at the crossroads.

Called the KI4LSA project and funded by the Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, the innovation is being tested. Scientists first studied algorithms taken from a busy intersection to learn about traffic patterns and where improvements were most needed. Then, the technology, using high-resolution cameras and radar sensors, more precisely captured the actual traffic situation and detected the average speed of the cars and their waiting times. Finally, the AI uses deep enhanced learning algorithms to calculate the best switching behaviour for the traffic lights and determine the best phase sequence to shorten waiting times at the crossroads.

The results are encouraging when it is being tried out at a busy intersection in Lemgo, Germany. The intelligent lights are said to improve traffic flow by 10 to 15 percent, which results in money saved; the EU estimates that traffic jams create economic damage that adds up to 100 billion euros a year. Aside from reducing commuting time, these traffic lights will reduce noise and CO2 emissions from cars waiting at the crossroads.

Another exciting development in this research is the K14PED project, which studies pedestrians crossing the crossroads. Using AI as well as a 3D points cloud, researchers can identify how many people are waiting at a pedestrian crossing and whether some of the disabled or elder people will need extra time to cross the street. Such a needs-based system could reduce pedestrian waiting time by 30 percent, which could then decrease jaywalking (乱穿马路) by 25 percent.

Researchers are optimistic that it will be adopted by many countries after the tests in the German towns of Lemgo and Bielefeld. This technology is exciting news for pedestrians and drivers alike. It encourages safety, protects the environment, and may even give you more time to enjoy your morning coffee before heading off to work!

【推荐3】For much of the 20th century, milk was a simple part of daily life in the U.S., as farmers raised cows, milkmen delivered bottles and children drank it at school. But those days are fading. On January 5 Borden Dairy, the milk processor with a cheery Elsie the cow on its label, announced to be filing for bankruptcy (破产) protection. Borden Dairy, which said it was affected by “market challenges facing the milk industry,” follows Dean Foods, America’s largest milk producer, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November.

America has fallen out of love with drinking milk, as there are more lower-calorie options and people are preferring water bottles to milk cartons (盒子). Americans each drank about 146 lb. of fluid milk-a category that includes products from skim to creamin 2018, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service. That may sound like a lot, but it’s down 26% just since 2000.

The downturn has been tough on milk processors like Borden and Dean, which buy fresh milk from farms and use techniques to create a consumer-safe drink with a longer shelf life. For the past five years, thanks to technology that increased milk production, fresh-milk prices were relatively low, which meant processors could break even although there was shifting demand. But prices went up again last year, squeezing the processors’ already tight profits. “Declining sales in a business with small profit is not a good recipe for success” says Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin.

Milk processors are also facing competition from big retailers (零售商), which have set up their own processing plants. In 2018, Walmart opened a milk-processing plant in Indiana to serve hundreds of stores in the Midwest, taking away approximately 95 million gal. of milk-processing business from Dean Foods.

【推荐1】If you’ve ever found yourself scratching your head over a decision when the answer is obvious, now there’s a scientific reason behind it. “The problem is ‘decision fatigue’ — a psychological phenomenon that influences the quality of your choices after a long day of decision making, causing indecision or poor choices.” says Evan Polman, a leading psychologist.

Physicians who have been on the job for several hours, for example, are more likely to prescribe antibiotics (开抗生素) to patients when it's unwise to do so. “Probably it’s because it’s simple and easy to write a prescription and consider a patient case closed rather than investigate further,” Polman says.

But interestingly, decision fatigue goes away when you are making the decision for someone else. When people imagine themselves as advisers and imagine their own choices as belonging to someone else, they feel less tired and rely less on decision shortcuts to make those choices. “By taking upon the role of adviser rather than decision maker, one does not suffer the consequences of decision fatigue,” he says. “It’s as if there’s something fun and relieving about making someone else’s choice.”

“Getting input from others not only offers a fresh idea and thought process; it often also includes riskier choices. While this sounds undesirable, it can be quite good,” says Polman. “When people experience decision fatigue, they have a tendency to choose to go with the status quo (现状),” he says. “But the status quo can be problematic, since a change in the course of action can sometimes be important and lead to a positive outcome.” In order to achieve a successful outcome or reward, some level of risk is almost always essential. “People with decision fatigue will likely choose to do nothing over something,” he says, “That’s not to say that risk is always good, but it is related to taking action whereas decision fatigue certainly leads to inaction.”

“Just because you can make good choices for others doesn’t mean you’ll do the same for yourself,” Polman cautions. “Research has found that women negotiate higher salaries for others than they do for themselves,” he says, adding that people slip in and out of decision roles.

【推荐2】2019 World Conference on VR Industry was held in Nanchang, China, with the goal of further satisfying people's growing demand for a better life, accelerating the modernization of China's economic system and its transformation into an innovation -oriented country, and promoting breakthroughs in the economic and social development of Jiangxi Province. The theme of the conference is "VR Adorns （装扮）the World - VR + 5 G for a New Era of Perception （观念）” .The virtual reality industry in Nanchang, capital city of East China's Jiangxi province, is expecting a boom when China grows in a new era of 5G this year, experts and industry insiders said at the conference.

The Conference attracted experts, scholars and company leaders from more than 30 countries, including the US, Germany, Britain, Russia, India and Israel, discussing the development and application of VR, especially as 5G, the next generation technology for network on devices like cellphones, unlocks the potential of VR. With a focus on the new era of perception enabled by 5G, this yearns conference showed leading-edge VR technologies and the latest outcomes of the global VR industry.

Miao Wei, head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in the opening address that with China officially getting 5 G commercial licenses on June 6th 2019, the co — development of VR and 5G promises a huge market in future. " China takes the lead in VR innovations. And the wide popularity of high-tech in our country guarantees the potential of this market, said Miao.

China is building its VR industry into one with the most dynamic environments for innovation and entrepreneurship, highest market acceptance, and the greatest growth potential in the world.

【推荐3】It has become a habit for many of us. When you're tired of online shopping, you head to the bathroom to do your best makeup for the perfect selfie(自拍)for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or all of the above. When you're ready, you hold up your phone and, in an instant, snap(拍照)。

But have you ever wondered what's behind your burning desire to self-document?Most people would say that this is a way to express themselves and perhaps make them become more confident of themselves. But the moment you upload that picture, it's no longer yours to judge. Instead, you pass on that power to the online world.

While you may think that your growing collection of selfies attracts people, quite the opposite may be true. A recent study was conducted on a total of 238 people in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. 77%of the people surveyed admitted to regularly taking selfies. Interestingly, 82% of people said that they would rather see fewer selfies on social media. In other words, we like taking selfies but seriously dislike looking at other people's selfies online.

This research finds that there is a big difference between how we see our own selfies and how we judge other people's pictures. It suggests that we are comfortable with the selfies we post since we believe they are obviously not serious or vain, but we think everyone else is an egoist(自我主义者)for doing the very same thing. After all, we are able to separate our own selfies from the sea of them online and naturally think that ours are the only authentic ones.

So, the next time you reach for your phone and take a selfie picture, consider this: The people around you may not   need another carefully planned snap of your face. Instead, you might be better off, giving it a break and calling off the selfie photo today. While you're at it, make sure you never post these pictures on social media either.

【推荐1】Everyone can be angry. But if you take the time to actually examine your anger instead of just “feeling angry” you’ll have a better understanding of yourself. Knowing why you feel so angry can provide you with some surprising answers. These answers can enable you to grow spiritually and mentally.

I can give you a personal example. I went to a meeting once and I was verbally attacked(言语攻击) over an application I supported at my workplace. Various people went on and on about how terrible this system was and that it never worked. That didn’t bother me that much. But I was absolutely furious at the comment, “Your job is pointless.”

I was upset that they would treat me that way. But once I took the time to think about what was really making me so mad, I learned a lot. I realized that the comment was more true than I wanted to admit. In the big scheme of things, my job was pointless. It wasn’t what I really wanted to be doing with my life and this is what frustrated me the most. Here I was pouring part of my heart and soul into a job I didn't even want to do. I was using it as crutch(依靠) because I didn’t have the confidence in myself to take the scary(令人害怕的) road toward what I really wanted to do. As soon as I realized that, a lot of my anger just melted away. I also realized that I needed to start focusing on what I really wanted to do.

I now consider this incident as a great gift. It got me back on track to move in the direction I want to go with my life. I probably wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn’t taken the time to figure out why I was really so angry.

【推荐2】Wealthy people may be likely to be against redistribution of wealth, according to new research. The findings indicate that it is because people use their own neighborhoods and communities as a standard of how much wealth other people have, leading wealthy people to believe the bigger population as being wealthier than it actually is.

“If you're rich, there's good chance for you to know lots of other rich people and relatively few poor people； likewise, if you're poor, you're likely to know fewer wealthy people and more poor ones," says study co-author Robbie Sutton. "Even if people think objectively and follow rules of statistical inference, richer and poorer people may be led by the information available to them, to very different conclusions about how wealthy other people are, on. average, and how wealth is distributed across society. ”

"These results suggest that the rich and poor do not simply have different attitudes to how wealth should be distributed across society； rather, they subjectively experience living in different societies," adds Rael Dawtry, the study's lead author. "In the relatively richer America crowded by wealthier Americans, there is perhaps less need to distribute wealth more equally. " The findings suggest that attitudes toward wealth distribution come from more than just an economic motivation to protect one's self-interest or financially protective political ideologies （意识形态）----the information provided by our living environment also plays an important role.

The research covered over 600 US adults to complete an online survey in two studies. The participants were asked to estimate the distribution of household income for their social contacts and also for the whole US population in two studies—they estimated what percentage of people fell into each one of 11 income groups； then they estimated the average income of people within each income group. Then, the participants were asked how fair they thought income distribution in the US was and how satisfied they were with it. The participants also answered questions testing their attitudes toward redistribution.

To ensure that the findings were actually related to the individual s social circles and not some other psychological bias, the researchers then analyzed data from over 4,000 voters in New Zealand. The data showed that the relationship between voters' income and their perceptions of economic fairness in New Zealand was driven by the level of economic condition in their neighborhood.

"These results show the importance of examining ecological processes, in addition to political ideological or self-interest, for understanding economic preferences, says Dawtry. "Attitudes to redistribution and the economic position appear to be subject to informational biases in the environment as well as biases in the mind. " According to Sutton, the findings may also help to explain the political polarization （两极分化）observed in countries like the United States.

"As richer and poorer people increasingly live separated live, the information available becomes increasingly misunderstood, and increasingly different, he notes. "People are, effectively, living in an informational bubble, surrounded by people with incomes like theirs but unlike many other Americans."