【推荐1】A new color changing ink could aid in health and environment monitoring—for example, allowing clothing to switch colors when exposed to sweat or a woolen blanket that shifts colors if carbon monoxide enters a room. The ink could be printed on anything from a T-shirt to a tent.

Wearable sensing devices like smart watches use electronics just to monitor heart rate, blood sugar, and more. Now researchers at Tufts University’s Silklab say the new silk-based ink can respond to, and quantify the presence of chemicals on or around the body. “Silk’s ability to act like a protective ‘cocoon(茧)’ for biological materials means the necessary sensing and color-changing materials can be added to the ink without losing their function.” says Fiorenzo Omenetto, a biomedical engineer at Silklab.

The researchers improved on an earlier version that worked with inkjet printers, thickening the ink with a chemical to make it capable for screen printing, and then added various reactive substances. With the new ink, they can now easily print a large number of reactive elements onto large surfaces.

The team made the ink by breaking down raw silk fibers into proteins, which the researchers suspended in water. Next they mixed in various reactive molecules (分子) and analyzed how the resulting products changed hues when exposed to changes in their environment. When printed on fabric, pH indicators, for example, could convey information about skin health and a wearer’s tiredness levels. The changes are visible to eyes, but the researchers also used a camera-imaging analysis to continuously monitor the color variations and create a database of values.

Omenetto says that the ink could be adapted to track environmental changes in a room, or to respond to bacteria and follow disease progression. Mechanical engineer Tyler Ray of Hawaii University notes that most of today’s wearable monitors are rigid, fairly large and heavy. “The new ink technology has the potential to transform consumer wearable monitors from entertainment devices into body worn, clinical grade physiological measurement tools providing useful information and making it easier for physicians to operate.” he says.

【推荐1】Being social and emotional from an early age is likely to help children win acceptance by their peers, build better relationships with teachers, and facilitate academic learning. According to research, pretend play is a teaching tool that can be used to stimulate a child's all-round development.

A curriculum based on this approach has been introduced in classes of pupils aged five and six by a research team from the University of Geneva. The study shows that pupils who followed the curriculum increased their emotional recognition capacities and emotional level compared to a control group. The use of pretend play as a teaching tool enables children to acquire emotional skills, with a potential positive effect on their prosocial (亲社会的) behavior and, in the longer term, on their academic success.

“Potential leads for learning do exist,” says Sylvie Richard. “We know already that pretend play promotes the understanding and regulation of emotions together with prosocial behavior in the early stages of schooling.”

Pretend play gives children the opportunity to use their imagination, in particular by means of scenarios (剧本) that they invent and the roles they play. “For instance, they can pretend to be a wizard or a witch who's making a kind of magic water that will send a dangerous dragon to sleep. The child creates the rules, adjusts them to suit their situation, and calls on their imagination,” explains Sylvie Richard.

A total of 79 children took part in the research, with the result showing an improvement in the recognition of emotions, particularly anger. The children also build up their emotional vocabulary. "The results suggest, on the one hand, that it's essential to design a teaching system that takes pretend play into account as areas of knowledge that should be taught. On the other hand, the study shows that using this kind of play helps children experiment," concludes Sylvie Richard. Given its success, the study is continuing with a more extensive curriculum, which is being carried out now in Valais.

【推荐2】Students perform less well in final exams if smartphones are allowed in class, for non-academic (非学业的) purposes in lectures, a new study in Educational Psychology finds. Students who don’t use smartphones themselves but attend lectures where their use is acceptable also do worse, suggesting that smartphone use damages the group learning environment.

Researchers from Rutgers University in the US performed an in-class experiment to test whether dividing attention between smartphones and the lecturer during the class affected students’ performance in within-lecture tests and a final exam. 118 students at Rutgers University took part in the experiment during one term of their course. Smartphones were not allowed in half of the lectures and allowed in the other half. When smartphones were allowed, students were asked to record whether they had used them for non-academic purposes during the lecture.

The study found that having a smartphone didn’t lower students’ scores in comprehension tests within lectures, but it did lower scores in the final exam by at least 5%, or half a grade. This finding shows for the first time that the main effect of divided attention in the classroom is on the length of time in keeping memory, with fewer things of a study task later remembered. In addition, when the use of smartphones was allowed in class, performance was also poorer for students who did not use them as well as for those who did.

The study’s lead author, Professor Arnold Glass, added: “These findings should alarm students and teachers that dividing attention is having a not obvious but harmful effect that is damaging their exam performance and final grade. To help manage the use of smartphones in the classroom, teachers should explain to students the alarming effect—not only for themselves, but for the whole class.”

This is the first-ever study in an actual classroom showing a relationship between losing attention from smartphones and exam performance. However, more researches are required to see how students are affected by using smartphones after school.

【推荐3】French Universities to Offer More Classes in English

France aims to bring more foreign students to its universities by offering more classes taught in English.

France is home to famous universities like the Sorbonne in Paris and several leading business schools.     1     But it ranks(排名)behind the US, Britain and Australia in the total number of foreign students who study there.

    2     The country has seen increased competition from Germany, Russia, Canada and China.

Under the new plan, France will ease student visa requirements.     3     Starting next March, foreigners who have earned a French master's degree will be able to receive a residence visa(居留签证).The change is meant to help recent graduates look for work or set up a business in France.

    4     Currently, students in France ─ including foreign students─pay(about)170 euros a year for a bachelor's degree and 243 euros a year for a master's degree. Officials said the low cost of education in France leads students from other countries to believe that the quality of a French education is lower than what other countries offer. Beginning in September2019, non-European students will pay 2,770 euros a year for a bachelor's degree and 3,770 euros for graduate degrees.    5    

France will use the extra money to build better education facilities and increase the number of scholarships for foreign students.