【推荐1】When I tell people I wrote a book with my dad, they usually say, “It must be nice to think of the legacy (遗产) you created with someone who means 90 much to you.”

This was a beautiful idea, but it was not the way I, or my dad, ever thought about the cooperation. Though we created something we are proud of, “nice” is not the word either of us uses to describe the process.

“It was more confrontation (对抗) than cooperation,” my dad likes to say. I agree.

When we landed a book deal, we began a wring journey that was more difficult than either of us had expected, but also far more rewarding.

For almost three years, we met once or twice a week at my parents’ house and talked daily about the plan and the outline of each chapter. After the meeting, one of would write a rough draft that the other would build on. I wanted the book to focus on positive vices(不良习惯): such as moderate (适度的) chocolate. However, my dad felt the book should include chapters dealing with things like walking and sending time with family Finally, I saw it his way. He said the book was about more than just good advices. It was about encouraging people to enjoy life in healthy ways.

Writing this book was a reminder that our family members share not only our faults but also our strengths. My dad is smart, funny, critical and caring. He has a strong passion for the truth. I hope I share these great qualities. For this book, he researched each topic with an enthusiasm 1 had never seen from him, and he insisted that we constantly question and critically analyze every piece of information-even our own conclusions. He was determined to cooperate on a book，not because he could not write one on his own, but because he believed that we could create something better together than we could alone.

I am not sure if our cooperation led to better writing, but it led to a better writing experience. Writing this book was difficult, sometimes more difficult than past projects, but it was never lonely.

【推荐2】My son has poliomyelitis（小儿麻痹）and he suffered from it a lot. When he was young, my wife and I took him to see so many doctors and got different kinds of treatments. But still, he couldn’t walk like a normal kid. So he was laughed at by his peers for his walking style. His tears burnt our eyes like sulphuric acid（硫酸）. Then, he became afraid of going to school. He wouldn’t go any more.

One night, my wife had a breakdown and shouted at him, “I tell you, my kid, you might be like this forever. you are a freak in other people’s eyes, and perhaps it would never change. But in my eyes, in your dad’s eyes, you are not a freak! You are not! Even if you are, we love you and we will love you forever!” My son spoke nothing for two days. He didn’t eat or sleep. We could read he was hurt. We hoped something wonderful would fall in our family. On the third morning, he struggled to walk to my car, with his school bad in his hand of course. He raised his head high and hugged me, saying “want to go to school. Nothing will beat me.”

You know, from then on, he was never afraid of being mocked or despised anymore. If he couldn’t avoid these looks, he chose to look at them in the eyes. Later, something nice really happened and me son went to MIT. When he was asked how he managed to bear the pressure, he said, “Because of my parents.”

My dear fellow, if you care too much about how other people look at you or what their opinions are, you will never become what you want to be.

【推荐1】Ten minutes of gentle exercise can immediately change how certain parts of the brain communicate and coordinate (协调) with one another and improve memory function, according to an encouraging new study.

The scientists invited 36 people of different ages to the lab and had them sit quietly on a fixed bicycle for 10 minutes or, on a separate visit, pedal the bicycle at a pace so gentle that it barely raised their heart rates. It also was short, lasting for only 10 minutes. Immediately after each session of the sitting or slow pedaling, the people completed a computerized memory test during which they would see a brief picture of, for instance, a tree, followed by a variety of other images and then a new image of either the same tree or a similar one. The people would press buttons to show whether they thought each image was new or the same as an earlier shot. The test is difficult, since many of the images closely resemble one another. It requires rapid, skillful scanning recent memories to decide whether a picture is new or known. Next, the scientists had each person repeat this process — riding or sitting on the bike for 10 minutes and then completing memory testing — but the testing now took place inside an M.R.I. machine (磁共振成像仪) that scanned the people’s brains while they responded to the images.

Then the researchers compared results. The effects of the exercise were clear. The people were better at remembering images after they had ridden the bike, especially when the images most closely resembled one another. In other words, the harder their memories had to do their best, the better they performed after the exercise. The M.R.I. scans showed that memory parts of each person’s brain lit up at the same time with parts of the brain associated with learning, indicating that these physically separate parts of the brain were better connected now than when the people had not first exercised.

【推荐3】AI could help us deconstruct the magic of music

We all know that music is a powerful influencer.     1     Fitness without a warm-blooded song would be boring. But is there a way to quantify these reactions? And if so, could they be reverse-engineered and put to use?

In a new paper, researchers at the University of Southern California mapped out how things like tone, rhythm, and harmony cause different types of brain activity, physiological reactions (heat, sweat, and changes in electrical response), and emotions(happiness or sadness), and how machine learning could use those relationships to predict how people might respond to a new piece of music. The results, presented at a conference on the intersections of computer science and art, show how we may one day be able to engineer targeted musical experiences for purposes ranging from therapy to movies.

    2     “Once we understand how media can affect our various emotions, then we can try to productively use it for actually supporting or enhancing human experiences,” says Shrikanth Narayanan, a professor at USC and the principal investigator in the lab.

The researchers first searched music streaming sites for songs with very few plays, tagged either “happy” or “sad.”     3     Two reliably caused sadness and one reliably caused happiness. One hundred participants who hadn’t heard the songs before split into two groups, listened to all three pieces, and either took a special scan or wore pulse, heat, and electricity sensors on their skin and rated the intensity of their emotions on a scale of 0 to 10. The researchers then fed the data, along with 74 features for each song, into several machine-learning mathematical steps and examined which features were the strongest predictors of responses. They found, for example, that the brightness of a song (the level of its medium and high frequencies) and the strength of its beat were both among the best predictors of how a song would affect a listener’s heart rate and brain activity.

The research is still in very early stages, and it will be a while before more powerful machine-learning models will be able to predict your mental and physical reactions to a song with any precision. But the researchers are excited about how such models could be applied: to design music for specific individuals, to create movie soundtracks easily arousing sympathy, or to help patients with mental health problems stimulate specific parts of their brain.     4     They want to start trying music-based therapies as well.

【推荐1】People often ask which is the most difficult language to learn, and it is not easy to answer because there are many things to take into consideration. Firstly, in a first language the differences are unimportant as people learn their mother tongue naturally, so the question of how hard a language is to learn is only relevant in learning a second language.

A native speaker of Spanish, for example, will find Portuguese much easier to learn than a native speaker of Chinese, because Portuguese is very similar to Spanish, while Chinese is very different, so first language can affect learning a second language. The greater the differences between a second language and our first language, the harder it will be for most people to learn a second language. Many people answer that Chinese is the hardest language to learn, possibly influenced by the thought of learning the Chinese writing system and the pronunciation of Chinese does appear to be very difficult for many foreign learners. However, for Japanese speakers, who already use Chinese characters in their own language, learning writing will be less difficult than for speakers of languages using the Roman alphabet.

Some people seem to learn languages easily, while others find it very difficult. Teachers and the circumstances (环境) in which the language is learned also play an important role, as well as each learner’s purpose for learning. If people learn a language because they need to use it in work, they often learn it faster than people studying a language that has no direct use in their day-to-day life.

No language is easy to learn well, though languages which are related to our first language are easier. Learning a completely different writing system is a huge challenge, but that does not necessarily make a language more difficult than another. In the end, it is impossible to say that there is one language that is the most difficult language in the world.

【推荐2】How often do you talk with someone? How often do you find you can't remember his/her words? Or, perhaps you get distracted (分心) while he/she is speaking and miss his/her messages. Nowadays, modern life is full of distractions: TVs, radios, telephones, and so on, which can make it difficult to listen attentively.

But how can we listen more effectively? John Kabatzin, professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, put forward the idea of mindful(用心的)listening. He said mindfulness means paying attention in a special way, with a purpose, at the present moment and non-judgmentally(不评头论足地).

When we listen mindfully, we many have some difficulties but still remain open to the speaker's ideas and messages. Mindfulness encourages us to focus on the present moment, avoid distractions and ignore physical and emotional reactions(反应)to what people say.

But how can we apply mindful listening to our life? John describes three key elements(要素)which can help improve our listening skills.

First, be present. When we listen, focus on the speaker without distractions. Then cultivate the ability to understand others. When we develop it, we can understand a situation from someone else's point of view. Finally, listen to our own “cues”, such as the thoughts, feelings and physical reactions that we have when we feel anxious or angry.

The rule is simple: just “Listen”! Listen carefully and attentively. Pay full attention to the other person, and don't let other thoughts, like what we are going to say next, distract us.

【推荐3】Many of us have woken up in the night, covered in cold sweat and feeling a deep sense of fear. Terrible images flash through your head as you recall the horrifying things you’ve just experienced. This is often followed a few moments later by a sigh of relief, though. It was all just a bad dream.

Nightmares are vivid dream that tear you out of a deep sleep and leave you with a strong negative emotion. In the past, people thought that nightmares were caused by an evil spirit called a mare, which tormented sleepers with bad dreams — hence the name “nightmare”. Now, however, we know that nightmares can be caused by both psychological and medical factors.

Stress and worry are two of the most common causes of nightmares. Adults may have dreams in which they are unable to escape from danger or are falling from a great height. These kinds of nightmares are usually connected to strong doubts or fears they have at work or in their personal lives. Repeated nightmares can also come after experiencing something particularly scary or upsetting, such as being attacked or witnessing a violent event. People will often relive these events night after night during their sleep, and it can sometimes take professional help to rid them of these bad dreams.

Another reason for nightmares, and one that is easy to avoid, is eating late-night snacks. Eating food late at night means your brain will be more active when you sleep, and so you are more likely to have vivid, realistic and often frightening dreams. Additionally, taking certain types of drugs, especially ones that affect chemicals in the brain such as those that fight against depression, are likely to lead to nightmares.

If you sleep is often disturbed by the same nightmare, there is a simple technique that you can perform to stop it. You should try to think up a happy ending to your nightmare and rehearse it in your mind while you are awake. Think about it again just before you go to sleep, and your mind should replace the frightening ending with the happy one you’ve rehearsed. Sweet dreams!