【推荐3】People have many different ways to relax during break time at work or school. Smartphones are probably the number one choice for a quick mental vacation. Although it might seem like a good time, the result is opposite, according to a recent study from Rutgers University.

For the study, more than 400 students were asked to finish a set of 20 word puzzles. Halfway through the task, the students were divided into three groups. One group was allowed to take a break and use cellphones to buy things online. The second group was asked to have a rest and buy things using a computer. The last group didn’t take any break at all.

Surprisingly, the group that used their cellphones during the break went back to work feeling the most tired and least motivated to continue. They also had the hardest time solving the remaining word puzzles.

Terri Kurtzberg, co-author of the study, explained that they assumed looking at cellphones during a break would be no different from any other break — but instead, the phone may cause increasing levels of distraction(使人分心的事) that make it difficult to focus attention on work tasks again.

"Cellphones may have this effect because even just seeing your phone activates thoughts of checking messages, connecting with people, and more, in ways that are different than how we use other screens like computers and laptops," Kurtzberg said.

This is echoed by a recent study from the University of Chicago. It found that even if cellphones are turned off or turned face down, their mere presence reduces a person’s cognitive capacity.

【推荐1】Prihardinni, from the Indonesian city of Surabaya, is amazed at how traditional Chinese medicine (TCM中医) has continued to develop since she began studying it a year ago.

When Prihardinni was 10 years old, she suffered from serious headaches. So, her mother took her to see a TCM doctor near their home. The doctor checked her pulse, examined her face and tongue, and wrote down a prescription (处方). After several weeks of drinking Chinese medicine, she didn’t have headaches any more.

“His medical skills were like magic,” Prihardinni recalled. The experience of being cured by TCM impressed her and it encouraged her to choose TCM study. Now, she is a freshman at the Gansu University of Chinese Medicine, which has thousands of years of history and widespread international popularity.

“TCM is becoming more and more popular worldwide and has become an important cultural symbol (象征) for China,” said Zhao Zhongting, a professor at the Gansu University of Chinese Medicine. “Many foreign students face difficulties in fully understanding the meaning and function of TCM medical terms because of cultural and language barriers,” Zhao said, adding that in order to help them, the university offers various training courses for freshmen, including chemistry, language study and Chinese medicine culture. Activities between local and international students, lectures and study tours are also provided to help students better understand the courses.

“More people in my country are becoming interested in TCM. Many social media (媒体) are sharing their experiences with Chinese medicine,” Prihardinni said, adding that she plans to return to her hometown after graduation and open a TCM clinic (诊所). “I want to tell my parents and friends that Chinese medicine is also a good and believable choice.”

【推荐3】With a rise in the number of allergies and worries over exposure to chemicals, more people are looking for alternative ways to clean their homes. To this end, some people are turning to the use of garbage enzyme (酶)--a concentrated liquid produced from fruit and vegetable waste. Garbage enzyme can be easily produced in the home, and has many uses, including as a cleansing agent, insect killer and even shampoo.

At the same time, it is hoped that the production and use of garbage enzyme will help reduce household waste and encourage people to take the initiative in sorting their trash.

The concept of using home-produced enzymes entered China several years ago when a special bucket imported from Japan was promoted by some health experts as a means of making healthy drinks. While the effectiveness of the enzyme drink remains unproven, garbage enzyme has been shown to be effective as an agent for cleaning toilets and floors, and as a fertilizer for plants.

Making wet garbage into an enzyme solution has been practiced in Southeast Asian countries for decades, greatly reducing household waste and protecting the environment by reducing the use of bleach (漂白剂) and other strong chemicals. Many people have realized that chemicals do harm to human body and the more garbage enzyme they make, the more good it does to the environment.

Any reduction in the volume of household garbage will benefit the city. Shanghai produces the largest amount of garbage than any other city in China. It is also home to the largest refuse landfill in Asia, the Laogang Refuse Landfill in Pudong New Area, which occupies a total area of about 30 square kilometers. It is struggling to accommodate all of the city's garbage, with a fifth phase under construction. The landfill and its surrounding areas are heavily polluted, something that nearby residents have been complaining about for years. The process of making enzyme solution consumes wet garbage. This means residents don't produce wet garbage after they start to make garbage enzyme. They even find the amount of wet garbage produced by their families is insufficient, so that they have to ask for garbage from their neighbors. Another advantage is that producing garbage enzyme encourages people to think more about garbage separation — something the local government has been trying to encourage but which still is not practiced by some residents.

【推荐1】So long as teachers fail to distinguish between teaching and learning, they will continue to  undertake to do for what only children can do for themselves. Teaching children to read is not passing  reading on to them. It is certainly not endless  hours spent in activities about reading. Douglas  insists that "reading cannot be taught directly and schools should stop trying to do the impossible."

Teaching and learning are two entirely different  processes. They differ in kind and function. The  function of teaching is to create the conditions and  the climate that will make it possible for children to devise the most efficient system for teaching themselves to read. Teaching is also a public activity: It can be seen and observed.

Learning to read involves all that each individual does not make sense of the world of printed language. Almost all of it is private, for learning is an occupation of the mind, and that process is not open to public scrutiny. If teacher and learner  roles are not interchangeable, what then can be done  through teaching will aid the child in  knowledge. Smith has one principal rule for all  teaching instructions. "Make learning to read easy, which means making reading a meaningful,  enjoyable and frequent experience for children."

When the roles of teacher and learner are seen for what they are, and when both teacher and learner  fulfill them appropriately, then much of the pressure and feeling of failure for both is eliminated. Learning to read is made easier when teachers create an environment where children are  given the opportunity to solve the problem of learning to read by reading.

【推荐2】It is widely known that any English conversation begins with The Weather. Such a fixation with the weather finds expression in Dr. Johnson’s famous comment that “When two English meet, their first talk is of weather.” Though Johnson’s observation is as accurate now as it was over two hundred years ago, most commentators fail to come up with a convincing explanation for this English weather-speak.

Bill Bryson, for example, concludes that, as the English weather is not at all exciting, the obsession with it can hardly be understood. He argues that “To an outsider, the most striking thing about the English weather is that there is not very much of it” Simply, the reason is that the unusual and unpredictable weather is almost unknown in the British Isles.

Jeremy Paxman, however, disagrees with Bryson, arguing that the English weather is by nature attractive. Bryson is wrong, he says, because the English preference for the weather has nothing to do with the natural phenomena. “The interest is less in the phenomena themselves, but in uncertainty.” According to him, the weather in England is very changeable and uncertain and it attracts the English as well as the outsider.

Bryson and Paxman stand for common misconceptions about the weather-speak among the English. Both commentators, somehow, are missing the point. The English weather conversation is not really about the weather at all. English weather-speak is a system of signs, which is developed to help the speakers overcome the natural reserve and actually talk to each other. Everyone knows conversations starting with weather-speak are not requests for weather data. Rather, they are routine greetings, conversation starters or the blank “fillers”. In other words, English weather-speak is a means of social bonding.

【推荐3】Pachyrhynchus weevils (球背象鼻虫) are found on most islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean. These weevils could not fly. But why are they so widespread? Wen-San Huang of the National Museum of Natural Science in Taiwan thinks he has the answer.

One theory, which dates back to 1923, is that the beetles float from place to place by a tiny air cavity beneath its outer shell.

Dr Huang began his research into the weevils and discovered that the beetles do float. But he also reports floating in seawater does not do them much good. All 57 adults he tried it with died within two days. Clearly, adult weevils are not good sailors.

Pachyrhynchus weevils have a love for laying their eggs inside the fruit of a plant called the fish-poison tree. This reproduces reminding us of coconut palms. It drops its fruits into the ocean, which carries them away to come up on distant beaches. Coconuts are protected from being eaten on their travels by having a hard, thick shell. Fish-poison-tree fruit are also protected from hungry sea creatures. But in their case, as their name suggests, the protection is chemical.

Given the relationship between weevils and plant, Dr Huang wondered how beetle larvae (幼虫) would fare if they were deep inside a piece of fruit floating in seawater.

So he tested this as well. His experiment suggested that such larvae are 'tolerant of saline (含盐的) conditions.

Specifically, of 18 grubs (蛆) thrown into seawater inside a piece of fruit, two survived for six days. Moreover, these larvae went on to develop into healthy, sexually mature adults. So Dr Huang argues that such numbers would easily support the immigration of weevils to the islands.

He also observes that the Kuroshio Current, which carries water from the Philippines, past Japan and onwards into the Pacific, moves so swiftly that a piece of fruit caught in it could easily travel 90km in a day, enabling the flightless beetle to cover the distance of 400km between the islands effectively.

【推荐1】I took a job as a receptionist in an animal hospital almost five decades ago. As an animal lover, I accepted the job on the condition that I would have to help with injured animals. I couldn’t bear to see them in pain.

At the end of my first week, we were closing the office for the day when a young man ran up to us holding a seriously injured puppy in his arms and begging as to save his life. The four-month-old puppy had been hit by a car.

The doctor and I ran back into the operating room. The doctor worked tirelessly for hours stitching (缝合) him back together again. That was uneasy. The puppy had broken many bones, including his spine (脊椎). If he survived the next few days, we were quite sure he would never walk again.

That day forever changed my life. The doctor taught me, and I became his assistant in all things medical. One of my first jobs was to give that puppy daily physical treatment. I remember moving his tiny legs to try to keep them from getting worse.

Weeks went by until one day, I felt this little fighter push back ever so slightly. And he continued to push back till he could finally use his legs.

A year later, I walked into the crowded waiting room and called the name of the next patient. Suddenly, a huge puppy who had been standing quickly with his owns on the other of the room broke loose and rushed toward me. I found myself stuck against the wall with this great dog standing on his legs, his front paws (爪子) on my shoulders, washing my face with joyful kisses!

I still tear up in amazement at the love and gratitude the dog had for me that day. All those years ago I went on to be an animal doctor for 14 years, and later became a volunteer at a no-kill animal shelter. Through all my experiences, I have never met a dog like that amazing puppy.

【推荐2】The last few days before Christmas passed quickly and it was soon Christmas Eve. That night when everyone went to bed, Bunny couldn’t sleep. He still couldn’t think of what he wanted his Christmas gift to be. He wondered how Father Christmas would know what to bring him if he didn’t know himself.

As he was sitting up in bed, Bunny heard a big noise on the roof (屋顶) and a sound downstairs. It was Father Christmas, he realized. Bunny jumped out of bed and raced down the hall to the stairs hoping to have a look at the old man with his own eyes.

By the time Bunny reached the bottom of the stairs, though, everything was again silent. Beautiful gifts were piled (堆积) under the Christmas tree, but Father Christmas was gone. He looked for him for a few minutes, but it was already too late. Bunny turned to climb back upstairs when he heard a cry.

“Hello, ” said Bunny. “Is somebody there?”

He was answered by another cry. Bunny looked around the big pile of gifts to see what was making the noise. Right under the tree was a funny looking brown animal with big feet and sad eyes. Bunny might have mistaken it for a dog, if it hadn’t been for the antlers (鹿角) on its head.

“Are you a reindeer (别鹿)?” asked Bunny.

“Yes,” replied the animal. “My name is Ralph.”

“And you were pulling Father Christmas’s led (雪橇)?”

“I was until I got airsick (晕机),” replied Ralph. “I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out for the job. Now I’m stuck here and I don’t know how to get back to the North Pole.”

“Well, if you like, yon can stay with us as a friend,” said Bunny. As he made the offer, Bunny suddenly realized the gift he wanted from Father Christmas was a new friend!

【推荐3】I believe in the power of the unknown. I believe that a sense of the unknown pushes us forward in all of our creative activities, from science to art.

When I was a child, after bedtime I would often go to the window and stare at the stars. I had so many questions. How far away were those tiny points of light? Did space go on forever and ever, or was there some edge? And if so, what lay beyond the edge?

Another of my childhood questions: Did time go on forever? I looked at pictures of my parents and tried to imagine their parents, and so on, back through the generations. Does time go on forever? Or is there some beginning of time?

When I grew up, I became a professional astrophysicist. Although I never answered any of these questions, they continued to challenge me, to haunt me, to drive me in my scientific research, and to cause me to live on tuna fish and no sleep for days at a time while I was crazy about a science problem. These same questions, and questions like them, challenge and haunt the leading scientists of today.

Einstein once wrote that “the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the beginning of true art and true science.” What did Einstein mean by “the mysterious?” I don’t think he meant that science is full of unpredictable or unknowable or supernatural forces. I think that he meant a sense of awe, a sense that there are things larger than us, that we do not have all the answers at this moment, and that we can stand right at the boundary between known and unknown.

Scientists are happy, of course, when they find answers to questions. But scientists are also happy when they become stuck, when they discover interesting questions that they cannot answer. That is when their imaginations and creativity are set on fire. That is when the greatest progress occurs.