【推荐2】Owning a dog is associated with a significantly lower risk of heart disease and death, according to a comprehensive new study published by a team of Swedish researchers on Friday in the journal Scientific Reports.

The scientists followed 3.4 million people over the course of 12 years and found that adults who lived alone and owned a dog were 33 percent less likely to die during the study than adults who lived alone without dogs. In addition, the single adults with dogs were 36 percent less likely to die from heart disease.

“Dog ownership was especially prominent as a protective factor in persons living alone, which is a group reported previously to be at higher risk of heart disease and death than those living in a multi-person household,” Mwenya Mubanga, a Ph.D. student at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden, and the lead junior author of the study, said in a statement announcing its findings. The link between dog ownership and lower mortality(死亡率)was less pronounced in adults who lived either with family members or partners, but still present, according to the study. “Perhaps a dog may stand in as an important family member in the single households,” Mubanga added. “Another interesting finding was that owners of dogs which were intended originally for hunting were most protected.”

The study, which is the largest to date on the health relations of owning a dog, suggested that some of the reasons dog owners may have a lower risk of mortality and heart disease were because dog owners walk more. “These kind of epidemiological (流行病学的)studies look for associations in large populations but do not provide answers on whether and how dogs could protect their owners from heart disease,” Tove Fall, a senior author of the study and a professor at Uppsala University, said in a statement

“We know that dog owners in general have a higher level of physical activity, which could be one explanation to the observed results,” Fall added. “Other explanations include an increased well-being and social contacts or effects of the dog on the bacterial microbiome(微生物菌群) in the owner.” Fall added that because all participants of dog owners in Sweden or other “European populations with similar culture regarding dog ownership.”

【推荐3】New research in monkeys may provide a clue about how the brain manages vast amounts of information and remembers what it needs.

The researchers found that when monkeys were taught to remember computer clip art pictures, their brains reduced the level of detail by sorting the pictures into categories for recall, such as images that contained "people," "buildings," "flowers," and "animals." The categorizing cells were found in the hippocampus, an area of the brain that processes sensory information into memory. In the experiment each monkey was shown one clip art picture, and after a delay of one to 30 seconds, picked the original out of two to six different images to get a juice reward.

By recording cell activity during hundreds of these trials in which the pictures were all different, the researchers noticed that certain cells were more active when the pictures contained similar features, such as images of people – but not other objects. They found that different cells coded images that fit different categories. The category cells grouped images based on common features – a strategy to improve memory. For example, the same cell responded to both tulips and daisies because they are both flowers."

“While such categorization is a highly efficient memory process, it may also have a downside,” said Deadwyler Ph.D., “ when the trials included more than one picture with people in it, instead of different images, the monkeys often confused the image with a picture of other people." So learning more about how the brain remembers could have far-reaching benefits. "If we can understand in advance how the brain works when decisions are made, we can predict when the brain will make a mistake, and correct it," said Tim Pons, Ph.D., "This finding about how large amounts of information are processed by the brain will help us to ultimately achieve that goal."

【推荐3】Who do you count as your friends? From our BFF (best friend forever) to a work mate, it’s good to have someone to chew the fat with or offer comfort and support. But when it comes to friendship, is it more important to have quantity or quality?

The recent isolation we have endured due to the coronavirus pandemic has made some of us question our friendships. We’ve fallen out of touch with friends and acquaintances, and it may feel awkward, but do we actually have to rekindle every relationship we once had? It might be time to take stock and think about who you kept in touch with, who you missed talking to, and who you didn’t. In short, maybe it’s time to reset your list of real mates.

There’s no obligation to stay friends, and writing for the programme Worklife, Bryan Lufkin says, “While people have known for years that friendships are unquestionably good for your health, experts say it’s only natural for acquaintances and even friends to fall by the wayside as time goes on — and it’s nothing to feel guilty about.”

Of course, it can be hard to choose who’s in your friendship circle. This is what Suzanne Degges-White, professor of counselling at Northern Illinois University, calls our “friendscape”. She says, “In life, as we go through certain stages and ages, our attention shifts, and we want to be around people who are like us.”

So, changing friends is normal, but we still need those special pals who’ve known us long term. These are friendships we invest time in. According to Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, these are your inner circle of friends — your “shoulders to cry on” — and you have to see them at least once a week to keep them in that circle. He adds that the friends that do drift are mostly “friendships of convenience”. But the advice for maintaining a good friendship is to share how you feel with someone you trust — this can help strengthen your friendship as well as giving you both a chance to support each other.