【推荐1】Residents(居民) in the poorest areas in the U.S. face a life expectancy(平均寿命) up to decade shorter than those in the wealthiest areas, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Researchers from East Tennessee State University wanted to better understand how socioeconomic status was associated with health outcomes. To find out, they divided the country’s 3,141 areas into 50 new “states” (with 2 percent of the areas in each) based on household income rather than on geography.

The researchers broke down the data by county（郡，县） since they found state-level data may hide some “effect of socioeconomic differences on both the best-off and worst-off counties.” They then examined health data from the wealthiest and poorest “states” (top and bottom 2 percent) to see how residents differed on factors like smoking, clinical care and excessive(过多的) drinking. Researchers found that there was nearly a 10-year gap in the life expectancy of men with an average of 79.3 years in the wealthy counties compared to 69.8 years in the poorest. For women, the difference was slightly less：83 years in the wealthiest counties and 76 years in the poorest.

The study authors were cautious that while they found a connection between socioeconomic status and health outcomes, they did not analyze cause and effect. But they suggest that the data shows how policy makers should not just focus on state-wide initiatives (主动性) but more targeted efforts to help those most at risk. “With limited resources, methods of knowing the poorest areas exactly can be quite significant in the equal distribution (分配)of resources and programs to those communities that are in the greatest need,’’ the study authors wrote.

【推荐2】Figures published by the UK government in 2006 revealed that: 42% of marriages in the UK end in divorce: 24% of children grow up in single-parent families: the average number of children in a British family is 1.9.     1     Is it an endangered species?

With the average number of children in a British family falling beneath an average of 2.0, the population of the UK has been falling for quite a few years. The size of the British workforce is declining and the average age of the workforce is rising.     2    

Why aren’t the British having as many children as they used to?     3     One of them is that British people are now having their children at a much older age than previously, meaning they have fewer years in which they can have children.

    4     Well, houses are incredibly expensive in the UK, so many people are forced to stay with their parents early in their careers. And no one wants to start a new family when they are still living with their parents! So it’s not until people are about 30 years old that they can afford to move out, buy their own home, and then they can start to think about setting down and having children.

So what is Britain doing to try and save the British family?     5     There have been increases in Child Benefit money families can claim from the state. Also, there is an increasing amount of government subsidy (补贴) for nursery schools, so that parents do not need to pay so much for childcare. In addition. there are now laws allowing parents to take more time off work so that they can look after their children themselves rather than having to pay others to do it.

Brazil has become one of the developing world’s great successes at reducing population growth－but more by accident than design. While countries such as India have made joint efforts to reduce birth rates, Brazil has had better result without really trying, says George Martine at Harvard.

Brazil’s population growth rate has dropped from 2.99% a year between 1951 and 1960 to 1.93% a year between 1981 and 1990, and Brazilian women now have only 2.7 children on average. Martine says this figure may have fallen still further since 1990, an achievement that makes it the envy of many other Third World countries.

Martine puts it down to, among other things, soap operas (通俗电视连续剧) and installment (分期付款) plans introduced in the 1970s. both played an important, although indirect, role in lowering the birth rate. Brazil is one of the world’s biggest producers of soap operas. Globo, Brazil’s most popular television network, shows three hours of soaps six nights a week, while three others show at least one hour a night. Most soaps are based on wealthy characters living the high life in big cities.

“Although they have never really tried to work in a message towards the problems of reproduction, they describe middle and upper class values － not many children, different attitudes towards sex, women working,” says Martine. “They sent this image to all parts of Brazil and made people conscious of other patterns of behavior and other values, which were put into a very attractive package.”

Meanwhile, the installment plans tried to encourage the poor to become consumers (消费者). “This led to an enormous change in consumption (消耗、消费) patterns and consumption was incompatible (不相容的) with unlimited reproduction.” Says Martine.

【推荐1】Danish architecture studio Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has designed Terminus AI City Operating System as a campus (园区) in Chongqing, China. BIG has drawn up the plans for the company Teminus Group, which will have its headquarters at the centre of the AI-run city campus. Everything in the city campus will be operated by the artificial intelligence system.

The development will be located in Chongqing Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone and will include Cloud Valley, the campus-style headquarters of Terminus Group. “Over the recent years, we have worked with several of the world’s leading technology companies. We are thrilled to bring our experience to Chongqing,” said Bjarke Ingels, the founder of BIG. “Cloud Valley is considered as a city where people, technology and nature live together in harmony, with spaces designed for all types of life: human life, plant life, animal life and even artificial life.”

BIG’s design for Cloud Valley is intended to demonstrate the environmental goals of the project. Green roof panels will create open-air courtyards throughout the campus. These courtyards will host art exhibitions and sporting events. At night, the underside of the roof panels will be transformed into what BIG has described as “the largest digital display in China.”

In AI City, people will live in homes with automatically adjusting solar panels and have a digital assistant to run their lives. Buildings will have power systems controlled by Terminus Group software.

“As sunlight hits the houses, bedroom windows become transparent to allow the natural light to wake sleepy residents,” said Terminus Group. “Once the light has filled the room, an AI housekeeper selects your breakfast, matches your outfit with the weather, and presents a full schedule of your day using Terminus Group’s smart transportation solution.” AI City will have e-bikes and self-driving cars to cut down on traffic jams.

【推荐2】Welcome to Our Festival

Story Show in Oheron

Adults

8: 00 pm—10: 00 pm

Join us for an evening of true, personal stories about science. Come to the only show where you can hear people—scientists, not-scientists, and half-scientists-tell funny and touching stories about the role of science in their lives.

Cost: $10

Make Your Own iPhone Case through Toysinbox 3D Printing

Families & Teens&. Adults

10: 00 am—12: 30 pm

In this workshop, you will learn to design and make your own iPhone case by 3D printing. First, you will learn how to use a 3D printer. Next, you will design a 3D model for your iPhone case that will have a lovely pattern and your name. Once you create the model, you will print it out on our 3D printers. A 3D-printing worker will guide you through this process step by step. Come and enjoy this fun and unique learning experience!

Cost: $35

DIY Underwater Vehicle Design in MIT Museum Teens

2: 00 pm—5: 00 pm

Dive into the world of ocean engineering by designing and building an underwater vehicle! Test your vehicle in large tanks on the Museum’s floor. Show off your engineering creations and share your design process with Museum visitors.

Cost: $15, Ages 12

Animal Kingdom for Young Ones in Museum of Science, Boston

Families

9: 30 am—2: 00 pm

Join us for a day of hands-on science fun designed especially for pre-schoolers!

Activities include the Museum’s popular “Live Animal Story Time” shows and a talk about baby animals and book-signing by children’s book authors. Take part in special live animal visits and activities in the exhibition halls, as well as design challenges and lab activities—all created with your young scientist in mind!

Cost: $20

【推荐2】Music. We hear it everywhere, every day. Getting into a lift, going around a supermarket or simply relaxing at home, music is our constant companion. And music can have a significant effect on the way we think and feel, so it's worth paying attention to what we're listening to.

Music can have a powerful effect on our moods, in terms of both reducing and increasing stress. Listening to calm gentle music in bed can help us drop off to sleep. Some airlines play smoothing music on board planes at take-off and landing, to calm nervous travelers. Athletes often listen to fast loud music to help them prepare for games. The American swimmer Michael Phelps is known to listen to rap music before important races to help pump him up.

The mood-altering effect of music can be especially acute for the people who actually play the music. Musicians who do not have high self-esteem (自尊心) can suddenly overflow with confidence once they go on stage. It's as though the music gives them a different personality.

And it's not only those who feel ill at ease with themselves who can benefit. Scientists have conducted research into the effect of music on students studying for exams. They found that listening to calm music with a regular beat can actually help students recall facts and improve their performance in exams. Classical music, preferably something by Mozart, seems to have the most beneficial effect. A word of caution, however: it's best not to over-rely on this method, as you won't be able to listen to music in an exam.

For most of us though, music is one of life's great pleasures. And it's a pleasure that endures. Researchers have found that we don't often grow out of the music that we love as teenagers, because our musical tastes are such a huge part of our identity, personality and outlook on life. So don't delete those songs you downloaded when you were fifteen - you'll probably still love them when you're fifty.

【推荐3】For a long time hikers in Japan have considered a bear bell essential. Its tinny ring is said to scare off huge creatures. Nowadays, however, bear bells are increasingly useful on the way to the shops as well as in the wild. “The number of animals - whether bears, boars or monkeys --is expanding, and they are going into villages and towns”, says Hiroto Enari of   Yamagata University.

Japan is home to many species of wild animals, including both black and brown bears. Estimates of their numbers are unstable, but since the 2000s the number of bear sightings has been rising. There were close to 1 3 , 000 in 2018 alone. The reappearance has its roots in the truth : the shrinking of Japan’s population is especially sharp in rural areas, where it is more serious by ongoing urbanization. The reducing quantity of people, in turn, has emboldened (使大胆)animals. Bears are less limited about entering villages in broad daylight if there are few folks around, Mr Enari says. Indeed, the biggest jumps in sightings have been where the population is falling fastest.

Hunting is declining in Japan, too. Government data suggest that the average hunter is now 68 years old. The country’s many forests and mountains provide an expansive habitat for wild animals. Indeed, the true wilderness is growing as foresters and farmers die off. Bears become particularly bold in years when acorns (橡实)are scarce, sneaking into orchards (果园)to steal fruits.

While some welcome their reappearance? others suffer from it. Every year bears injure scores of people, and kill a handful. Deer cause damage to farmland and speed up erosion by, for example, eating up grass. Simple solutions, such as changing the layout around villages or putting up fences, are rarely used. Instead, many bears are captured or killed. In 2013 the government decided to halve the number of certain types of deer, boars and monkeys by 2023. Japan is struggling to adapt to the changing power balance between animals and people”, says Mr Enari.