【推荐2】Anyone who commutes(通勤)by car knows that traffic jams are an unavoidable part of life. But humans are not alone in facing potential backups.

Ants also commute—between their nest and sources of food. The survival of their habitats depends on doing this efficiently.

When humans commute, there’s a point at which cars become dense(稠密) enough to slow down the flow of traffic, causing jam. Researchers wanted to know if ants on the move could also get stuck. So they regulated traffic density by constructing bridges of various widths between a colony of Argentine ants and a source of food. Then they waited and watched, trying to find out at what point they are going to have a traffic jam.

But it appears that that never happened. They always managed to avoid traffic jam. The flow of ants did increase at the beginning as ants started to fill the bridge and then levelled off at high densities. But it never slowed down or stopped, even when the bridge was nearly filled with ants.

The researchers then took a closer look at how the behaviour of individual ants impacted traffic as a whole. And they found that when ants sense overcrowding, they adjust their speeds and avoid entering high-density areas, which prevents jams. These behaviors may be promoted by pheromones, chemicals that tell other ants where a trail is. The ants also manage to avoid colliding(碰撞) with each other at high densities, which could really slow them down.

Can ants help us solve our own traffic problems? Not likely. That’s because when it comes to getting from point A to point B as fast as possible, human drivers put their own goals first. Individual ants have to be more cooperative in order to feed the colony. But the research could be useful in improving traffic flow for self-driving cars, which can be designed to be less like selfish humans—and more like ants.

【推荐1】Learning matters in living a full and rich life. You can take your passing interest in art and explore it more deeply. You can also improve your career prospects by learning new skills.     1    

1. They expand their library of books regularly.

As businessman Jim Rohn remarked, “Some people read so little they have rickets of the mind.” People with non-stop learning are often found browsing for books on Amazon.     2     Lifelong learners also ask friends and family for book suggestions, especially for non-fiction titles.

2.     3    

Deep engagement with learning makes the experience more valuable and easier to remember. Fortunately, this tip is easy to use. Simply take a few minutes during a class break to write down some questions about the material. If you are taking a business course, you can always ask questions about how to apply the material to your career goals.

If you are uncomfortable asking questions in front of other people, there are other options.     4    

3. They learn to earn.

    5     Lifelong learners view their education as an investment with several components. For example, project management professionals are required to pursue ongoing education in three areas: leadership, technical knowledge and management.

If you are seeking to increase your income, consider learning sales and marketing skills. Those skills make a great difference even if you are not in a traditional sales job.

【推荐2】The most popular martial arts (武术)today came from Asia, especially China. Some Chinese fighting styles were invented more than 3, 000 years ago. Many martial arts were invented because people needed to defend themselves or protect others. Nowadays, people learn martial arts as a way of keeping fit or as a competitive sport, but they are still very useful for selfdefence (防卫).

Martial arts are often referred to as either soft or hard. These terms imply a way of dealing with your opponent's (对手的)force. Soft martial arts, such as tai chi, teach you to use your opponent's own force to defend yourself. Soft styles use movements and timing to avoid, deflect and redirect their opponent's attacks (攻击). These martial arts are soft for the defender but not for the attacker! On the other hand, hard styles, such as kung fu, teach you to defend yourself using force. Techniques involve blocking, posturing and powerful punching and kicking. Hard martial arts techniques are more effective(有效的)if you are more skillful, more powerful and faster than your opponent.

Perhaps one of the best known Japanese martial arts today is karate. But did you know that it came from Fujian Province? in the century, a community of Chinese migrants(移民)from Fujian settled (定居)in what was then the kingdom of Okinawa. The Chinese migrants used to gather in a park to .enjoy cultural activities — one of which was kung fu. This soon caught the attention of local youths, who started learning kung fu from their Chinese neighbours.

In fact, Chinese influence in martial arts was not only kung fu. The very first Korean military (军事)training manual was based on a Chinese version. During the Japanese invasion (侵略)of Korea in the 16th century, the Korean army needed an effective way to train a large number of soldiers. They used a training methodology from a Chinese military manual called ji xiao xin shu, written by the famous Chinese general, Qi Jiguang, who had himself defeated Japanese army.

【推荐3】Remember your first day of school? How nervous did you feel when entering the class room? Or what about the first time you rode a bike with all of the excitement coursing through your body?     1     These are known as episodic (片段) memories.

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that certain cells called time cells, make this type of memory possible.     2     As memories are being formed, these time cells put a stamp on the memories. Later, this stamp helps us recount the exact sequence of events and experiences.

The 27 participants in the study had electrodes (电极) placed in their brains, which allowed scientists to measure cell activity in the hippocampus (海马体) and another area involved in the perception of time.     3     Then they were asked to recall the words. During this time, the scientists looked at the activity of different brain cells. They found specific cells that fired signals during each sequence of words.

Gyorgy Buzsaki, a professor at New York University, said the study is important, as it can explain memory problems found in people who suffered damage to their hippocampus. In one experiment, scientists compared the memories of people who had just taken a tour of a college campus.     4     However, those who had suffered damage to this area of the brain were unable to recall the proper sequence of events.

    5     As of September 2019 , around 50 million people worldwide were suffering from dementia (痴呆) and the number will triple by 2050 , according to the World Health Organization. Such studies will help scientists develop better therapeutic interventions (医疗干预) for people suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the cause of 60 to 70 percent of dementia cases.

【推荐1】Lidar, short for “light detection and ranging”, involves directing a rapid series of laser pulses- between 100,000 and 400,000 per second—at the ground from an airplane or a drone. Software captures the time and wavelength of the pulses reflected from the surface and combines it with GPS and other data to produce a precise three-dimensional(三维的)map of the landscape below. These high-tech explorations have revealed long-buried Mayan cities, including Tikal, in the dense jungle of Guatemala, and Caracol, in Belize.

In recent years, lidar exposed an ancient city in western Mexico called Angamuco. The discovery of this long-lost Mexican city is especially significant. Built by the Purepecha, who were enemies of the Aztecs, Angamuco was a major civilization in the early 16th century, before Europeans arrived.

“To think that this massive city existed in the heartland of Mexico for all this time and nobody knew it was there is kind of amazing,” says Chris Fisher, an archaeologist(考古学家)at Colorado State University who led the exploration.

The city extended over ten square miles before it was covered by a lava(岩浆)flow. “That is a huge area with a lot of people,” says Fisher. “You are talking about 40,000 building foundations, which is [about] the same number of building foundations that are on the island of Manhattan.”

Archaeologists were surprised when they saw Angamuco’s city plan. The Purepecha’s monuments were largely concentrated in eight zones around the edges rather than being located in one large center. Why this almost Los Angeles-type sprawl(随意)? Historians want to know the answer to that too.

The revelation of Angamuco is an example of the power and promise of lidar. Archaeologists discovered signs of the buried city in 2007 and initially attempted to explore it using a traditional “boots on the ground” approach. But the team soon realized that with the rugged terrain(畸岖的地形)，it would take at least a decade to outline the entire metropolis.

In 2011, they began using lidar to map nearly 14 square miles, revealing some astonishing features, from pyramids and temples to road systems, garden areas, and even ball courts. This gave them the “map” they needed to know where to explore further. So far, Fisher and his team have verified more than 7,000 architectural features over a 1.5-square-mile area, with digging undertaken at seven locations.

All told, researchers now believe that more than 100,000 people lived in Angamuco from about AD 1000 to AD 1350. That makes it the biggest city in western Mexico at the time―or at least the biggest city we know about so far

“Everywhere you point the lidar instrument, you find new stuff,” says Fisher. ”Right now, every textbook has to be rewritten, and two years from now, they’re going to have to be rewritten again.“

【推荐3】Anger is good for you, as long as you control it, according to new psychology research. A new study from Carnegie Mellon University shows anger may help people reduce the negative impacts of stress and help you become healthier.

“Here getting emotional is not bad for you if you look at the case of anger,” said Jennifer Lerner of Carnegie Mellon. “The more people display anger, the lower their stress responses.”

Lerner studied 92 UCLA students by asking them to count back from 6,200. They must say out loud every thirteenth number. Researchers disturbed them by asking them to count faster or ask them other questions. If they made any mistakes, they had to restart from the very beginning. Many students felt depressed about making so many mistakes or got angry.

Lerner used a hidden video camera and recorded all their facial expressions during the test. The researchers describe their reactions as fear, anger and disgust.

Other researchers recorded the students’ blood pressure, pulse and production of a high-stress hormone (荷尔蒙) called cortisol. People whose faces showed more fear during the experiment had higher blood pressure and higher levels of the hormone. Both can have lasting effects such as diabetes (糖尿病), heart disease, depression and extra weight gain.

When people feel fear, negative impacts increase, but when they get angry, those negatives go down, according to the study.

“Having that sense of anger leads people to actually feel some power in what otherwise is a maddening (令人发狂的) situation,” Lerner said.

Lerner previously studied Americans’ emotional response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks two months after the incident. She found people who reacted with anger were more optimistic. These people are healthier compared with those who were frightened during the event. So in maddening situations, anger is not a bad thing to have. It’s a healthier response than fear.

【推荐1】Parents have worked hard to teach the most important life lessons to their babies. They remind kids to eat with a knife and fork, and not to make noises in public. But there’s one important lesson that parents might forget, and it can’t be covered in a simple conversation. In fact, they’d better teach kids by example.

According to a study, babies receive more than genes（基因）from their parents. They can also absorb good qualities, such as persistence, by watching how adults behave. Researchers at MIT said that babies who watched an adult struggling with and then succeeding in something were more likely to show persistence when given a new task.

The team at MIT studied 262 babies between the ages of 13 and 18 months. They were divided into three groups. In the first group, the lead researcher struggled with two different toys’ problems before solving them, letting the babies watch when she did so. In the second group, the researcher solved the problems but did not struggle with them. And for the third group, she did not do anything.

After that, the researcher left the children playing with a small musical toy. She showed the babies that it could play music but did not teach them how to turn it on. The babies in the first group discovered and pressed the toy’s button many more times than those in the last two groups. In other words, the babies did not copy what they had watched; they learned not to give up, instead.

Now researchers are interested in exploring which ways influence babies most. They wonder if the results can work in the real world, and whether the lesson of persistence might last into adulthood. After all, persistence is one of the most important qualities of the successful people.

【推荐2】During a conversation with someone, you've probably had to compete for their attention with a technological device and lost. Maybe the person in front of you diverted their attention to their latest ''urgent" notifications. They' ve probably even interrupted your conversation to answer a call, answer a text message, or check their social media.

Clinical psychologist and sociologist Sherry Turkle has conducted extensive research on the subject that she shared in her book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age(2015). In this book, she stated that teenagers have reduced their empathetic capacity by 40%，as well as their ability to engage in deep conversation, and that cell phones are to blame.

Nowadays, a large part of social and work related interactions occur through electronic means, such as computers, phones, and tablets. Face- to-face conversations have been relegated to the background, and some people even see them as a waste of time. If you have to solve a business problem, you send an email. If you want to ask for forgiveness, you write a text message.

Since facing conflict or emotional situations can generate anxiety, new technologies offer the possibility of reducing some of it. Young people justify using new forms of communication as an easier and faster way to express their thoughts. They say that mobile devices allow them to rewrite what they want to say, correct mistakes, or avoid tense situations that they wouldn't know how to solve in person.

The problem is that screens don't allow us to enjoy one of the most enriching part of conversation: non-verbal language. We miss out on gestures, intonation, looks, and real emotions. This is quite worrying because, according to experts, 70% of communication is non-verbal.

Human interaction has been replaced with “memes" or emoticons. It's even hard for people to maintain deep conversations for extended periods of time. As a result, humans now have a lot of difficulties in managing their emotions, facing difficulties, and carrying out responsibilities. If you don't share content on the Internet, it's like you don't exist. If you don't share your vacation on social media, people may believe that you didn't actually take it or that you didn't enjoy it, Therefore, what you share is a reflection of who you claim to be, but not who you really are.

Under these circumstances, it's harder to empathize with others and put yourself in their shoes to try to understand their emotions and thoughts. The world is becoming purely visual and superficial.

People build and reinforce their connections during face to-face conversations. This is because you can see how the other person feels and listen to their ideas and concerns. You can empathize with them because you can see their joy or suffering with your own eyes.

Deep, personal conversations awaken emotions inside you. They give you a space to open up and vent, to be heard and respected.

【推荐3】A proposed dam near the Grand Canyon would flood miles of the Little Colorado River Gorge, resulting in severe consequences for sacred Native American cultural sites and local wildlife, an environmental group has warned.

If the plan eventually gets the green light, the 24-story structure will be built across the Little Colorado River about 6 miles upstream from the point where it meets the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon National Park. In fact, the dam’s planned location lies within the Navajo Nation Native American territory.

The dam would measure 240 feet high and 500 feet wide. The plan also involves a second 140-foot-high dam as well as other construction. The developers say the project would be able to produce 3,300-gigawatt(千兆瓦)hours of power.

The permit for the Little Colorado River site has now been accepted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission(FERC), meaning the project is one step closer to becoming a reality. However, environmentalists are concerned about the damage that such a project could cause.

The Center for Biological Diversity(CBD) — a national, non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild areas—has warned that the dam would cause flooding that has the potential to "eliminate" miles of river habitat for an endangered, federally protected fish known as the humpback chute(弓背鲑), which is found in the Grand Canyon.

Meanwhile, the CBD says that the project would “industrialize" lands near two sacred cultural sites of the Hopi Tribe, whose reservation is entirely surrounded by the Navajo Nation territory. Taylor McKinnon, a senior public lands campaigner at the CBD, said in a statement, "This would create profound cultural and biological harm. There will be an enormous effort to stop this dangerous proposal in its tracks."

The FERC says that public will be allowed to comment on or seek to prevent the project until November 22.