【推荐1】Undoubtedly, music can comfort the soul for some, and it could also be a temporary reliever for physical pain. Listening to favorite songs could reduce people’s sensibility of pain, according to a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research. And the most effective pain relievers were songs describing bittersweet experiences and causing strong feelings.

The study invited 63 young adults to bring two of their favorite songs, which were required to be at least 3 minutes and 20 seconds long. One selection represented their favorite music of all time, and the other was the song they could use to comfort loneliness. The researchers also had the young adults pick one of seven songs that the team considered relaxing and were unfamiliar to the study participants. Each person experienced 7-minute blocks (隔音) where they were instructed to stare at a monitor screen while listening to their favorite music, or one of the seven relaxing instrumental songs, or a scrambled (打乱) version of both songs and the relaxing song chosen. One 7-minute block had people sitting in silence. All the while, the researchers stuck a hot object to the participants’ left inner forearms. When assessing their experiences, people were more likely to report feeling less pain when listening to their favorite songs compared with hearing the unfamiliar relaxing song or silence.

After interviewing the participants about the song they brought and their rating of pain, the researchers found people who listened to bittersweet and moving songs felt less pain than when they listened to songs with cheerful themes. People who listened to bittersweet songs also reported more chills — the thrill and tremble you get on your skin from listening to pleasurable music. “When people are listening to music they enjoy, by our measurements it can reduce the pain that we’re feeling by 10%,” said Patrick, a professor of biomedical and molecular sciences.

【推荐2】Adele’s new album, “30”, is finally available. Last month, hundreds of millions of us streamed its first single, “Easy On Me.” This song arouses feelings not easily put into words, but we can probably agree it is a sad song.     1     Yet sad music does pull us in and lift us up.

Let’s start with a biological theory. When we experience real-life loss, or empathize (体会) with another’s pain, certain hormones are released within us.     2     They do so by making us feel calmed and supported. Feeling Adele’s pain, or recalling our own, may cause such chemical changes within us.

Psychologically, a key reason we enjoy sad songs is that they profoundly move us. Feeling moved can come from us suddenly feeling closer to other people. Indeed, when we have listened to “30”, we may turn to reaction videos to see how others feel.     3    And it boosts our feeling of being moved and triggers feelings of comfort and belonging.

    4     Adele’s songs allow us to view the pleasure in terms of the meaning she helps us make. Adele takes hard life experiences and makes sense of them. This is what much sad art does. It takes the pain and suffering of the world and gives it meaning. As philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once put it, someone who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Ultimately, we listen to Adele’s songs when we want to recall, reflect, or belong. They let us feel her sadness, share our suffering, and connect with others. To all of us, Adele’s songs say:     5    

【推荐1】A voyage to Timbuktu in a flying car may sound like a magical childhood fantasy. But this week a British adventurer will set off from London on an incredible journey through Europe and Africa, traveling by road and air.

With the help of a parachute and a giant fan motor, Neil Laughton plans to fly over the Pyrenees near Andorra, before taking to the skies again to jump across the 14-km Straits of Gibraltar. Neil Laughton then aims to fly over the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, above the Sahara Desert and, well, wherever else the road runs out.

But forget Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This flying machine is based on proven technology. Designed by a 29-year-old British inventor, the Skycar enables its driver to pilot the vehicle at the mere touch of a button. The team behind it calls the Skycar the world's first road legal biofuel(生物燃料)flying car.

Mr Laughton’s destination is the west African country of Mali and its city of Timbuktu, a place which has had a mystical(神秘的)“middle of nowhere” reputation since the Victorian exploration.

The 42-day expedition will pass 4,000 miles through France, Spain and Morocco, head into the Sahara by way of Mauritania and Mali, before returning home via Senegal. He had also hoped to make the 22-mile flight across the English Channel, but that plan was forbidden by civil aviation officials.

Even Mr Laughton-who has climbed the highest mountains on seven continents and made a difficult journey at the North Pole-admits his latest “boy’s own” adventure is a little strange. He’s been dreaming of creating a flying car since childhood.

“The inspiration came from realizing we can drive and we can fly, so why can’t we do both? The problem all along has been the wing technology, which we think we’ve cracked with the Skycar,” he said.

Sadly some areas on his route are not good and so he must be careful.

【推荐2】It was an early September day, cool and bright and just right for running, and I was in the first few miles of a 10.5-mile race over a course through tiring hills. Still I felt rested and springy; despite the hills, it was going to be a fine run.

Just ahead of me was Peggy Mimno, a teacher from Mount Kisco, New York. She too was running easily, moving along efficiently at my speed. The pace felt comfortable, so I decided to stay where I was: why bother concentrating on pace when she was such a nice pacesetter for me? I would overtake her later on when she tired.

So I was running closely behind her. Then the race was getting tougher. We had four miles left and already it was beginning to be real work. I was breathing hard.

Peggy overtook a young male runner. Apparently she knew him, for they exchanged a few cheerful words as she passed him. Their exchange worried me. You don’t chat during a race unless you are feeling good, and Peggy plainly was, but whatever springiness I had once possessed had left me long since.

Still, I was close enough to overtake her if she tired, so I didn’t give up hope completely. We were approaching a long, punishing hill now and it would be the test. We were a mile from the finish line, so whatever happened on the hill would almost certainly determine who crossed it first.

As I moved up the hill, working hard, my attention wandered for a few minutes. When I looked up, Peggy was moving away—first five yards, then ten, then more. Finally it was clear that there was no hope of catching her. She beat me decisively.

There is an important lesson in that race. Much of what you read about running makes a sharp distinction between the sexes. Women are assumed to be weaker, slower and not nearly as skilled athletically. Yet as Peggy Mimno so clearly demonstrated, the similarities between male and female runners are more important than the differences.