【推荐2】Researchers say the world has lost more than one fourth of its land-based insects over the past 30 years. The finding comes from a major study of insect populations worldwide. The researchers noted the loss of such insects suggests a more complex problem than earlier research has shown.

Ants, bees, butterflies and other land-based insects have been suffering population drops of about nine percent every 10 years or so. The number of insects on average has declined in the air, in the grass and soil, but not in trees or underground, the researchers found. Some estimates show that land-based insects will face a population drop of 24 percent in the next 30 years. The researchers did not find a link to climate change in the loss of insects. But they did note that widespread effects of growing cities and loss of underdeveloped areas to agriculture.

However，freshwater insects，such as dragonflies and mosquitoes，have been a different story. These insects were found to have experienced a population increase of about 1 percent every 10 years. Freshwater covers only 2.5 percent of the Earth’s surface, so the majority of insects live mainly on land. The researchers said clean-water policies established in recent years were responsible for the increase in freshwater insects.

“The decline across insect orders on land is very surprising,’’ said Nick Haddad，an expert on butterflies at Michigan State University. He was not involved in the study. Ongoing decline on land at this rate will be extremely damaging for ecological systems and for humans, Haddad told the Associated Press. He noted that insects are pollinators (传粉昆虫). They move pollen from part of the flower of a plant to another part. This causes the plant to produce fruit or seeds. Insects also help to break down dead plants and animals. Nick Haddad added that insects also serve as food to many animals, making them very important to the earth’s ecosystems.

Other scientists said the findings made sense. They would go on with the study with more accurate data.

【推荐3】In a lab in London, newborn chicks took the first steps of their life and might become part of solving one of the brain’s big puzzles. Elisabetta Versace, the lead author of the new study and head of the Prepared Minds Lab at Queen Mary, and her co-workers published their findings on Tuesday in Biology Letters.

In a simple test, researchers placed the downy animals, hatched after less than a day in complete darkness, one at a time into a special box. Two screens on the opposite sides of the box played videos of moving orange balls, one moving upward and the other downward. Over the course of 20 minutes, most of the chicks hesitantly walked over to the end of the box with the upward-moving ball.

Biologists call the mechanisms (生物机制) that assist animals in their earliest moments “evolutionary predispositions (进化倾向)” or “priors”. “Studying how predisposition s work in humans is difficult,” says Elisa Raffalla Ferre, co-author of the new study, as babies take time to develop complex skills. By the time human babies can easily move, they have already spent significant time learning. Chicks, however, can perform relatively complex actions very soon after hatching, which makes them ideal candidates for exploring how predispositions function.

Why this preference for objects that move against gravity exists at all remains unclear. “Going against gravity in a consistent way is associated with animate objects in the ecological world,” Versace says, “because usually you see that water flows down or a rock falls down.” Lifeless objects, on the other hand, are unlikely to move consistently against gravity.

The newly released article is consistent with previous research, according to Orsola Rosa Salva, a comparative psychologist at the University of Trento. What Salva wants to see next in this field are experiments that begin to identify what areas of the brain are active when predispositions are launched, so scientists can better understand how the mechanisms work. Versace hopes that future research can offer insights into the way the brain is organized to make sense of the world.

【推荐1】Mexico City is making various strategies to fight against severe water shortage, as a years-long lack of rainfall continues to impact the local water supply. The water crisis is a direct result of falling levels of rain within the Cutzamala System, which supplies the city of nearly 10 million people, and of its primary water source, the Valle de Bravo reservoir. Levels at the reservoir have fallen significantly after years of limited rainfall.

“Mexico currently has a major problem in terms of water due to climate change,” Sandra Lopez, a research er at the public policy research center Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, said. “But it can also be very much linked to the country’s management problems, since we have different factors, such as the fact that not enough resources and financing have been allocated to management.” This, for obvious reasons, means that the population and Mexican society in general is experiencing water stress, which we are only just identifying as a potential problem.

The water shortage affects about one-fourth of the population in the Mexican capital, which is witnessing daily water disruptions (中断) in various areas, making it difficult for residents to undertake essential tasks such as cooking, cleaning and bathing. “In the neighborhood where I am, they start to cut off the water supply at about 1 1 am. It comes very slowly,” Sergio Ramos, a clerk at Navycar car wash in Mexico City, said. The water supply only lasts seven or eight hours a day, he said. Amid the continuing crisis, the federal, state and city governments are urging citizens to conserve water by fixing faulty faucets (水龙头), making use of waste water, and taking shorter showers. These actions, aimed at reducing consumption, could contribute to extending the city’s water supply. With the shortage projected to last until May, water conservation efforts will have to continue for some time.

Some citizens are actively employing measures such as using rainwater or bottled water, while the government is pursuing additional strategies, including reducing water consumption in public buildings, using innovative water-saving devices, and making a plan to augment the city’s water supply. Educational initiatives are also underway to the Cutzamala System.

“The Cutzamala System dams are at low storage levels due to the lack of rain and the drought in the country,” said Mexico City Water System, which manages the city’s drinking water supply. “In this context, at the same time there have been low levels of storage in the tanks that distribute water in the Azcapotzalco district.”

The National Water Commission, or Conagua, explained that there is a 29 percent deficit(缺乏)in the country’s reservoirs, compared with historical data for November.

We need to get back to the natural, built-in mechanisms that we have for self- preservation and health. Laughter is one of them.

Laughter Yoga is a way for people to use laughter without telling jokes and being able to get the laughter to help them feel better. The interesting thing is that it helps ease pain, it can ease depression, it’s a way to move and get into your inner child and it’s a lot of fun. And adults don’t remember necessarily how to have fun

The bottom line of our research is that laughter not only makes us feel good but it has a direct effect on our blood vessels. And our blood vessels control the likelihood of us developing a heart attack or a stroke. So if we keep the blood vessels healthy, then we’re going to be healthy.You can burn up to 40 calories for 5-10 minutes of laughter. But equally important is that the blood vessel opening that we see is the same as going jogging or even taking one of our cholesterol medications. You get the same effect in terms of opening up your blood vessels as you do with a good, deep, belly laugh. Laughing on a regular basis is not only good for our soul, but also great for our heart.

Laughter is a way of communication and that’s why it’s contagious. Because when I’m laughing, you’re looking at me and you’re like “wow, this is a positive energy” and you’re more likely to join me in the laughter.

But laughter’s not present at birth. It appears about 3-4 months of age and it’s one of the most important early means of communication between babies and mothers. A mother will tickle the baby and the baby will smile and laugh. And the mother will do more of that. If the baby does not like it, the baby will fuss or cry and the mother stops. It’s a kind of instinctive language that exists before we learn to talk. Laughter, like speech, evolved to change the behavior of other individuals. Does it have to have other purposes? It probably does, but we’re just now starting to tease out what those differences are. Did the benefits of laughter come from the act of laughing or is it the social context, spending time with friends, family, and lovers? All of these are very difficult scientific issues that haven’t been teased out. But laughter clearly feels good when we do it. Isn’t that enough?

【推荐1】Many people enjoy biscuits at teatime. But people with diabetes have to be careful about eating sweet food.

Diabetes is a metabolic（代谢的）disease. If a patient's blood sugar is not well controlled, serious problems can occur. A patient may experience dizziness and fatigue, but also have kidney failure, blindness and heart disease, according to Medical News Today.

But a new research may make it possible to “treat diabetes by eating biscuits”. Researchers from Peking University and East China Normal University successfully developed a new cell using synthetic（合成的）biology technology. Their study was published in Nature Chemical Biology in November.

In their research, diabetic mice implanted with the cells can increase insulin（胰岛素）levels and lower blood sugar as long as they eat specific amino acid（氨基酸）biscuits. It only takes 90 minutes for the mice to reduce their blood sugar, which amounts to the time after an insulin injection, Liu Tao, one of the authors, told Science and Technology Daily.

This kind of biscuit does not directly lower blood sugar levels, but is a “key” to insulin. The special amino acids in the biscuits help to start the insulin translation process. The end result is controlled blood sugar, according to Ye Haifeng, one of the authors.

“This unnatural amino acid is similar to the ingredients added in many health drinks and is very friendly to the human body, ” Liu told Science and Technology Daily. Maybe one day, people will need to take artificial amino acids before meals, or eat foods containing artificial amino acids suitable for diabetics, so they can control their blood sugar.

Although scientists in synthetic biology have paved the way for possible future treatments, their findings won't be ready for patients anytime soon. “Synthetic biology is still an early-stage discipline compared to the traditional diabetes therapeutic development timeline, with most technologies currently in the preclinical stages in the lab, ” Ira Pastor, CEO of the life sciences company Bioquark, told US News.

【推荐2】In today’s day and age of one click purchases and immediately accessible information, instant gratification (满足) is seen as the norm. The always — on world, with smartphones and Wi-Fi, reinforces that you have to get what you want right away. But instant gratification isn’t always best in fact, impulse control is an essential life skill. When it comes to achieving your goals, delayed gratification is the skill that will get you there faster.

The truth is, it’s not realistic to get everything you want, much less get it immediately. Instant gratification is actually a source of frustration — it creates false expectations. By learning to employ delayed gratification, you buy time to strategize thoughtfully and learn from your failures.

Delayed gratification means resisting the temptation of an immediate reward, in anticipation that there will be a greater reward later. Those with high impulse control typically excel at delayed gratification.

According to Freud’s “pleasure principle”, humans are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. This is why children seek instant gratification. But as we mature, this desire is tempered by the “reality” principle, or the ability of humans to consider risks versus rewards, by which we’re able to delay fulfillment instead of making a poor decision — especially if the later reward is greater than the one we’d get immediately.

The ability to hold out now for a better reward later allows you to save money for a vacation, skip dessert to lose weight or take a job you don’t love but that will help your career later on.

In the 1960s, Stanford professor Walter Mischel tested hundreds of young children by placing each child in a private room, accompanied only by a single candy placed on the table. Researchers then offered each child a deal: If the child refrained from eating the candy while researchers briefly left the room, the child would be rewarded with a second one; otherwise there would be no second one. Some children ate the first candy immediately. Others tried to restrain themselves but eventually gave in. Only a few children managed to hold out for the two-candy reward.

Researchers followed the experiment participants into adulthood over a span of 40 years. Unlike the children giving in to temptation, the children who delayed their reward were far more successful in almost all areas of life. They scored higher on standardized tests, were healthier, responded better to stress, had fewer substance abuse issues and demonstrated better social skills. This delayed gratification example proved that it is crucial to success in almost every facet of life.