【推荐2】If you are a parent of young children who browses parenting websites, you will at some point be invited, through targeted advertising, to enrol your child in a Global Maths Skill Assessment — “to see how they compare to peers globally”. You may be urged to consider the possibility — no, probability — that they are “gifted” in some way, if not in maths, then in music or art. It’s window-dressing (门面粉饰) for subscription (订阅) services, but the other day, a line caught my eye that I haven’t been able to forget. “Talent isn’t everything; the important thing is to teach your child to be kind.”

This positioning of “kindness” as the opposite of “talent” is common once you start looking for it. Kindness is, everywhere: the consolation (安慰) prize, the award for perfect attendance. A few years ago, none of this would have struck me as noteworthy. I believed a tendency towards kindness wasn’t something we were born with, but instead something entirely reliant on cultivation. These days I wonder about that, and about our determination to see it that way.

It brings us to the problem of kindness; not only the fact that, in plenty of settings, it can be a code for weakness or neediness, but the fact that the word itself has been emptied out through misuse. Real kindness is not this. Kindness, I try to tell my children, is strength. My child who is always kind to others is frequently confused by the unfriendliness of others, at which point I have to bite my tongue. “Jessica was rude to you because she’s silly” is not what I’m going to teach my seven-year-old.

Can you teach someone to be kind? Of course, but also only sort of, not entirely. You can discipline them with reason and rewards in the same way you can send them to piano every week and eventually they’ll learn to play Twinkle Twinkle. The fact remains that some people are kinder than others not as a result of external forces but from some inborn ability. The ancient Greek storyteller Aesop said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Two thousand years later, it remains a hard sell.

【推荐1】Children think other youngsters who wear glasses look smarter and are more honest than those who don't wear glasses, according to a U.S. study of 80 children. In addition, the researchers found that children seldom judge peers wearing glasses in terms of appearance.

The study included 42 girls and 38 boys, aged 6 to 10.Of those, 30 wore glasses, 34 had at least one classmate with glasses, and almost two-thirds had at least one parent who wore glasses. The study participants were shown 24 pairs of pictures of children. The children in each pair of pictures differed by gender and race, and each pair of pictures included one child with glasses and one child without glasses. The children were asked a series of questions about each pair of photos. About two-thirds said children wearing glasses looked smarter than those without glasses, and 57 percent said children wearing glasses looked more honest.

These findings may help comfort children as they're fitted for their first pair of glasses, lead author Jeffrey Walline, an assistant professor of optometry at Ohio State University, suggested in a prepared statement. "If the impression of looking smarter will appeal to a child, I would use that information and tell the child it is based on research. Most kids getting glasses for the first time are sensitive about how they're going to look. Some kids simply refuse to wear glasses, because they think they'll look ugly," Walline said.

【推荐2】It’s Time to Stop Hugging Your Chickens

If you’re an urban or suburban chicken farmer, there’s a chance you may consider your egg-producing, feathered friends family. You may have even given your chickens names, and you certainly care about them deeply. But do you hug and kiss them?

So far in 2019, there have been 1,003 cases in 49 states linked to salmonella (沙门氏菌) poisoning from contact with backyard chickens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC). Two people have died from the infection and 175 have been hospitalized.

The outbreak of salmonella can be traced back to chicks, ducklings and other poultry from multiple hatcheries (孵化场) in several states. People who have gotten birds that began life in these hatcheries are getting sick after close contact with the birds. However, the CDC notes, all live poultry can carry salmonella bacteria, regardless of where they were purchased and even if they look healthy and clean.

Of course, not all of those who have gotten ill have kissed their chickens. Any human contact with an infected bird can lead to illness. The CDC explains how:

People can be infected with Salmonella germs when they put their hands or equipment that has been in contact with poultry, in or around their mouth. Children younger than 5 years are more likely to get sick because their immune systems are still developing, and they are more likely to put their fingers and other objects into their mouths.

People can also get sick without actually touching a bird. Germs on your hands can spread easily to other people or surfaces. That’s why it’s important to wash hands immediately with soap and water after touching poultry or anything in the area where they live and roam.

To minimize the risk of salmonella poisoning from live poultry, the CDC recommends always assuming that contamination (污染) can happen and recommends the following:

·After touching live poultry or an area where they’ve been, wash your hands with soap and water. If none is available, use hand sanitizer (消毒杀菌剂).

·Don’t let children under age 5 handle or touch live poultry without adult supervision.

·If you have clothes and shoes soiled from being around poultry, wash your hands after removing them.

·Cook eggs that you’ve collected from backyard hens thoroughly since salmonella can pass to the interior (内部的) eggs.

· Clean equipment and materials associated with the birds.

·Don’t bring live poultry inside your house.

And you might love your chickens, but the CDC specifically points out, “Don’t kiss backyard poultry, or embrace them and then touch your face or mouth.”

【推荐3】A 2012 study coined the term “IKEA effect”, demonstrating that adults who successfully completed tasks valued the completed products more highly than comparable products they did not create themselves.

A new paper, authored by psychologist Lauren Marsh, reports an initial experiment in which 64 children aged 3 to 6 were given the opportunity to interact with two My “monsters” — one that they created themselves following instructions from a kit, and another that they merely held on to while playing a short game. Before creating or holding either monster, the experimenters had each child rate how much they liked each monster, either rating a monster identical to the monster about to be created, or rating the monster the child would go on to hold. These ratings were repeated after creating or holding a monster to assess how much each monster’s perceived value was affected by the previous interaction. If children value objects more highly just because they successfully created the objects — if kids show an IKEA effect—we’d expect kids’ ratings to increase more than for the monster they just held. And this is precisely what the researchers found, but only for the 5- and 6-year-olds. The 3- and 4-year-olds showed no such effect.

Across two subsequent studies, the researchers varied the features of the experiments, including whether creating the monster required lower or higher levels of effort, whether the created monster was owned by the child, and whether the finished monster would be displayed in public. These factors didn’t have any reliable effects on the 5- and 6-year-old participants’ ratings of how much they valued the monsters, even though the children, on average, showed an IKEA effect. This provides some evidence against the idea that these factors are what drives the IKEA effect, at least in young.

It’s always possible that effort, ownership, or signaled competence makes a difference, but the experiments didn’t measure the effects of these factors in an effective way. Marsh and colleagues have their own proposal: beginning around age 5, children come to value their own creations because they “become part of who we are, a concrete representation of self.”

【推荐2】Are plants intelligent？Science is beginning to think so. In 2013, The New Yorker published an article that set the plant sciences world on fire, forever changing the way both the public and researchers looked at and studied the plant kingdom. The “Intelligent Plant” was previously unheard of.     1     But fast forward to 2019, there are now dozens of research papers and hours of video prepared and published by plant biologists discussing so many facts of plant intelligence.    2    

Communication: A lot of evidence suggests that plants, trees in particular, can communicate with one another     3     It is in some ways similar to the Internet we use. The idea of plants forming such a relationship to interact is considered as an evolutionary outcome.

Learning:     4     What if plants can learn from experiences like the dogs？The scientists designed experiments, whose goal was to prove whether plants could learn, an idea that seemed impossible. Ultimately, they succeeded in not only their experiments, but also in proving that plants can actually learn.

Memory: As research and experiment continue into the plant memory, people can’t help but ask the question “how can something without a brain have memories？” Studies have determined that plants can indeed learn and create memories.     5    

Figuring out the “plant brain” question is the logical next step. As more research comes in, the more it seems to indicate plant intelligence as a very real possibility.

【推荐3】Indoor plants are a beautiful way to brighten up your home, especially in the gray months of winter. But there can be a dark side to houseplants if you have children or if children visit your home. I’s important that you know which plants are poisonous to them.

Gardening expert Jessica Damiano often points out houseplants in friends’ homes should be kept out of children’s mouths. “I don’t mind ruining friends’ hopes of a beautiful indoor jungle if it means preventing harm,” Damiano said.

America’s Poison Centers in Arlington, Virginia get an average of 33,000 calls a year from people whose kids put different plants in their mouths. The cases usually involve children under 3 because they would explore their environment and put everything in their mouths. Most accidental exposures aren’t serious. But in some cases a child’s breathing, skin and eyes can be badly harmed.

Damiano recently visited her cousin’s home and saw a dieffenbachia plant in the kitchen. Her cousin told her that her young son, who had just begun crawling (爬), had shown interest in the leaves. Damiano had to explain to her cousin that eating a small amount of the plant’s stem (茎) can cause temporary but severe pain. The plant parts can cause throat and mouth swelling. The plant’s sap (树液) can cause nose, skin and eye pain. Other plants that can cause similar reactions include: caladium, flamingo flower, Swiss cheese plant, peace lily and pothos.

Damiano said that parents should teach their young children not to put non-food plant parts into their mouths. Besides, she urges parents to research whether the plants in their homes are safe to grow around children. She also suggests learning the official botanical names of houseplants so that they’re able to provide that information quickly to a poison control expert, if needed.

Not all houseplants are problematic, of course. Spider plants are nontoxic (无毒的) and are also among the easiest indoor plants to grow. African violets, Boston ferns and Christmas cactus are other safe choices.