【推荐1】If we want to know where our capability for complex language came from, we need to look at how our brains are different from other animals. This relates to more than just brain size. It is important to know what other things our brains can do and when and why they evolved that way. One thing we can see in the remains of early humans,is the development of the mouth, throat and tongue, which allowed language to evolve.

At some point, our brains became able to make our mouths produce vowel and consonant sounds, and we developed the capacity to invent words to name things around us. These were the basic ingredients for complex language. The next change would have been to put those words into sentences. However, no one knows if the next step — adding grammar to signal past, present and future, for example, or plurals and relative clauses — required a further development in the human brain or was simply a response to our increasingly civilized way of living together.

Between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, we start to see the evidence of early human civilization through cave paintings, though no one knows the connection between this and language. However, human brains did get bigger at this period. Moreover, humans did become more complex and more intelligent. Was it using language that caused their brains to develop, so that human could produce cave paintings? Or did their more complex brains start producing language? It was not clear yet.

More questions lie in looking at the influence of genetics on brain and language development. Are there genes that mutated (突变) and gave us language ability? Researchers have found a gene mutation that occurred between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, which seems to have a connection with speaking and how our brains control our mouths and faces. Monkeys have a similar gene, but it did not undergo this mutation. It’s too early to say how much influence genes have on language, but one day the answers might be found in our DNA.

【推荐2】For hundreds of years, scientists learned about the brain by observing people recovering from injuries. Many with an injury on the left side of the brain had problems understanding or using words. From this, doctors reasoned that the left brain must manage speech and language. They didn’t know, though, if speech and language centers were on this side in everyone. The finding of a new study may be able to tell the answer.

In the new study, researchers used fMRI (功能性磁共振成像) to watch brains in action as 39 children and 14 adults tried to understand sentences. Each fMRI scan (扫描) produced many pictures of the brain. Patches of color in each image highlighted which parts of the brain were getting the most blood. This is a sign that they were turned on and active.

To the researchers’ surprise, the left side of the brain was not the only part that was turned on in the children. Both sides became active when they tried to understand a sentence. That activity in the right brain started to fall in children who were older. By age 19, no activity showed up on the right. All speech-and-language processing now was taking place only on the left. The move from two-sided to one-sided language processing takes place gradually. It starts around the time we learn to talk.

Elissa Newport, who led the study, finds it exciting that children have speech centers on both sides of their brains. “If both sides of their brains can pitch in, this may also explain why left-brain injuries often are not as damaging in young children as in adults,” said she.

Children process language like “mental switch-hitters”. So, the next time you think your parents or older siblings (兄弟姐妹) don’t understand you, give them a break. They could be using just a smaller part of their brains.

【推荐1】There is no doubt that when you receive a compliment, you feel good and when you receive a criticism, you feel upset and want to refuse it.

You shouldn’t be surprised by your reaction to the negative comment, as it’s human’s survival mechanism to avoid being criticized. Clearly, we don’t want to be seen as failures, so we’d rather shut our eyes and cover our ears than have to take any criticisms from others.

Imagine you’re learning to play the guitar, and you have just done your first public performance. Your teacher says, “You did well,” which may not be as useful in helping you improve your performance skills as “Your timing needs some work.” So I believe that criticisms are better than compliments.

No one would argue that healthy nutrition is a bad thing. However, too much food or drink — no matter how healthy they may be — can make us ill. Too many compliments take us away from our original enthusiasm of enjoying an activity. We start doing the activity only for the sake of receiving self-satisfying praise. Without the expectation of praise, our enthusiasm to complete things begins to be lost.

Launched in 2010, Microsoft KIN only lasted on the market for 48 days. It was very obvious that most 15 to 30-year-olds preferred Androids, BlackBerrys and iPhones to the Microsoft KIN. If criticism and feedback from the target group had been received while the phone was in development, Microsoft KIN could have avoided the huge embarrassment and its final failure.

Just to be clear, I’m talking about constructive criticism, which I like to think of as “healthy criticism”. The right kind of criticism is honest feedback that will benefit you. Feedback forces you to reconsider your actions and the way you work. If you use constructive criticism wisely, it can guide you away from bad practices, giving you support and courage to move forward to be a better person in the future.

【推荐2】For many people, it is hard to imagine what it is like to lose their sense of smell. Known as “anosmia”, loss of smell can have a substantial effect on our overall wellbeing and quality of life. But while a sudden respiratory infection (呼吸道感染) might lead to a temporary loss of this important sense, your sense of smell may well have been gradually eroding away for years due to something else- air pollution.

Exposure to PM2. 5 has previously been linked with smell loss, but typically only in occupational or industrial settings. But new research is now starting to reveal the true scale and the potential damage caused by the pollution we breathe in every day. On the underside of our brains lies the olfactory bulb (嗅球). This sensitive bit of tissue is essential for the enormously varied picture of the world we get from our sense of smell. It’s also our first line of defense against viruses and pollutants entering the brain. But, with repeated exposure to PM2. 5, these defenses slowly get worn down.

“Our data show there’s a 1.6 to 1.7-fold increased risk of developing anosmia with sustained particulate pollution (粒状物污染),” says Murugappan Ramanathan, a rhinologist. One Mexican study in 2006, which used strong coffee and orange odors showed that residents of Mexico City which often struggles with air pollution — tended to have a poorer sense of smell on average than people living in rural areas of the country.

So, should we care that air pollution to which we are all exposed -is damaging our sense of smell and causing anosmia? Clearly, the answer is yes. Ramanathan says, “Air quality matters. I think we need tight regulations and control. Many people may not even realize the pollution they are exposed to. But even the everyday, low level air pollution we are exposed to should be taken more seriously.”

【推荐3】Boredom is such a large part of day-to-day existence. Perhaps because it’s common in our lives, scientists have been slow to explore it. John Eastwood is one of the first scholars to take an interest.

One of the most common false views is that “only boring people get bored”. Yet as Eastwood set about exploring the reasons for boredom, he found that there are two distinct types of personality that tend to suffer from the feeling of boredom, and neither are particularly dull themselves.

Boredom often goes among people who are constantly looking for new experiences. For these people, the steady path of life just isn’t enough to hold their attention. The second kind of bored people have almost exactly the opposite problem: the world is a fearful place, and so they try not to step outside their comfort zone. While this might offer some comfort, they are not always satisfied with the safety it offers and boredom results.

Emotions should evolve for our benefit. “The very fact that boredom is a daily experience suggests it should be doing something useful,” says Heather Lench at Texas A$M University. Feelings like fear help us avoid danger, after all, while sadness might help prevent future mistakes. So, if true, what does boredom achieve?

Reviewing the evidence so far, Lench suspects that it lies behind one of our most important characters---curiosity. Boredom, she says, pushes us to try to seek new goals or explore new ideas which stimulate innovation (激发创新).

Eastwood is less enthusiastic about boredom’s benefits, but admits we should be cautious about looking for an immediate escape. “The feeling is so disgusting that people rush to remove it,” he says.“I’m not going to join that war on boredom and come up with a cure, because we need to listen to the emotion and ask what it is trying to tell us to do.”