【推荐1】Human beings are extremely diverse in many ways. People differ in opinions, races, nationalities, lifestyles and so on. Yet we are all human species, we feel pain and joy despite the differences. Today, it is impossible for any group of people to live without interacting with others outside their group.     1    .

Diversity creates richness in opinion. Some problems can’t be solved by a homogenous (同种类的) group of people.     2     . A diverse group will offer fresh ideas to solve problems. Diverse groups have been found to be creative and thus producing better solutions to problems.

Diversity makes us compassionate (有同情心的) about others. When we interact and try to understand others, we won’t judge them. This instead makes us compassionate about others.     3    . Compassion allows us to realize that all human beings are the same.

Diversity is a growing trend. Today, there is no country in the world that has only natives living there.     4    . In the process, people of different cultural backgrounds often find themselves going to the same schools, working in the same offices and so much more. As citizens of this world, we are therefore left with no choice other than to embrace our diversity.

    5     Through diversity, entrepreneurs (企业家) have been able to reach new markets. Today, we have multinationals setting up offices in different parts of the world. This further creates employment opportunities for people in those parts of the world.

【推荐2】

One of the primary problems of being a human being is: Try as you might to come across in a certain way to others, people often perceive (感知、理解)you in an altogether different way.

One person may think, for example, that by offering help to a colleague, she is coming across as generous. But her colleague may interpret her offer as a lack of faith in his abilities. Just as he misunderstands her, she misunderstands him: She offered him help because she thought he was overworked and stressed. He has, after all, been showing up early to work and going home late every day. But that's not why he's keeping strange hours; he just works best when the office is less crowded.

These kinds of misunderstandings lead to conflict and resentment (怨恨)not just at work, but at home too. How many fights between couples have started with one person misinterpreting what another says and does? He stares at his plate at dinner while she's telling a story and she assumes he doesn't care about what she's saying, when really he is admiring the beautiful meal she made.

Most of the time, Halvorson says, people don't realize they are not coming across the way they think they are. “If I ask you," Halvorson told me, "about how you see yourself—what traits (特点)you would say describe you—and I ask someone who knows you well to list your traits, there's a big gap between how other people see us and how we see ourselves.”

This gap arises from some quirks (习惯)of human psychology. Most people suffer from what psychologists call "the transparency illusion"—the belief that what they feel, desire, and intend is crystal clear to others, even though they have done very little to communicate clearly what is going on inside their minds.

Because the perceived assume they are transparent, they might not spend the time or effort to be as clear and forthcoming about their intentions or emotional states as they could be, giving the perceiver very little information with which to make an accurate judgment. The perceiver, meanwhile, is dealing with two powerful psychological forces that are warping (歪曲)his ability to read others accurately.

Chances are that you "I'm kind of hurt by what you just said” face probably looks an awful lot like your "I'm not at all hurt by what you just said" face. And the majority of times that you've said to yourself "I made my intentions clear," or “He knows what I meant," you didn't and he doesn't.

【推荐3】The flight of butterflies has so far been somewhat of a secret to researchers, given their unusually large and broad wings relative to their body size. Now researchers at Lund University in Sweden have studied the aerodynamics (空气动力) of butterflies in the wind tunnel (风洞). The results suggest that butterflies use a highly helpful clap technique, therefore making use of their unique wings. This helps them rapidly take off when escaping natural enemies.

The researchers studied the wingbeats of freely flying butterflies during takeoff in the wind tunnel. During the upward process, the wings cup, creating an air-filled pocket between them. When the wings strike each other, the air is forced out, resulting in a backward strong stream of air that pushes the butterflies forward. The downward wingbeat has another function: the butterflies stay in the air and do not fall to the ground.

The wings’ striking was described by researchers almost 50 years ago, but it is only in this study that the theory has been tested on real butterflies in free flight. Until now, it has been generally believed that butterfly wings are aerodynamically inefficient. However, the researchers suggest that the opposite is actually true.

“That the wings are cupped when butterflies clap them together, makes the wing clap much more effective. It is an elegant mechanism that is far more advanced than we imagined, and it is fascinating,” says biology researcher Per Henningsson, who studied the butterflies’ aerodynamics. “The results of the study could help inspire improved performance and flight technology in small unmanned aircraft,” he continues.

In addition to studying the butterflies, the researchers designed mechanical wings that are modeled on real ones. The shape and flexibility of the mechanical wings as they are cupped and folded confirm the efficiency. Their measurements show that the pushing force created by the flexible wings is 22 percent higher and the efficiency 28 percent better compared to if the wings had been rigid.

【推荐1】Almost everyone gossips. And a new study finds that people spend about 52 minutes per day, on average, talking to someone about others who are not present

But here’s the surprise: Despite the assumption that most gossip is trash talk, the study finds the majority of gossip is nonjudgmental chat.

“People love to talk about others,” says Jeremy Cone, a psychologist at Williams College. “Think about your own conversations with a family member or friend: You talk about everyday things that keep you connected. You share your daughter got her driver’s license or your uncle has a kidney stone. Much of it is just documenting facts.”

Of course, the study also finds that some gossip is negative or mean-spirited. About 15% of the gossip included some type of negative judgement.

But even negative gossip can serve a purpose, as more research has found.

“I think gossiping can be a smart thing to do,” says Elena Martinescu who has studied gossip in the workplace. “It allows people to keep track of what’s going on and form social connection with other people.”

Research has shown that gossip can help build group cohesion (凝聚力) and cooperation. “When you gossip, you can keep track of who is contributing to the group and who's being selfish,” Martinescu explains. “And by sharing this information, you can exclude those group members who are social loafers (游手好闲的人).”

“We also found negative gossip makes people likely to repair the aspects of their behavior that they were criticized for,” Martinescu says.

So, say, for instance, you were criticized for always arriving at work late. Hearing that gossip about yourself may motivate you to want to be on time.

Of course, this isn’t a license to be loose lips or to repeat baseless claims that can damage someone’s reputation unfairly. But confiding (吐露个人隐私) in your friends and colleagues and sharing impressions about another person — even when they’re negative — may be helpful.

【推荐2】Adaptations are currently popular in the movie industry.     1     But what about book adaptations of films? Book adaptations of films aren’t that common, but it’s a medium that certainly takes skills to master.

The most well-known version of a film being adapted to books is via the novelization. Movie novelizations went through a boom period before the internet era. Fans wanted to know more about the fictional worlds and experience the story again in a new way.     2     Thus, the novelization was a great solution.

Meanwhile, the screen to page process has also opened up the possibility of sequels (续篇). Perhaps there simply wasn’t financial investment to create a follow-up to a film. Maybe a sequel idea simply felt more appropriate for a novel.     3     In recent years, for example, the film Heat, released in 1995 has received its own novel. ET: The Book of the Green Planet continued the extra-terrestrial’s journey after the completion of the film’s narrative.

But what are the benefits of reading a novel instead of waiting for the big screen version? Well, a novel can take its reader deeper into the mind of the characters that the film had to represent in a more visual way.     4     Although a film might characterize a fantastic scene or a specific costume choice, it doesn’t always tell why those things are important. Novelizations and sequels can take that extra step and shine a light on some of those movie-making choices.

Book adaptations of films obviously won’t ever replace cinema, and there’s no need to choose one or the other.     5    

【推荐3】Tiredness May Lead to Snacking

Staying up late doing homework is always tiring. Perhaps when we are tired, we feel the need to eat unhealthy snack food. Recently scientists have been investigating tiredness and snack food.

According to a study in the Journal of Neuroscience, people are more likely to crave snacks when they don’t get enough sleep.

For the study, researchers from University of Cologne in Germany gave the same dinner to 32 healthy men aged between 19 and 33. Half of the men were then sent home to bed, and the other half were kept aware in the laboratory all night.

The next morning, the participants were asked to consider how much they would be willing to pay for snack food items shown to them in pictures.

According to the researchers, all were similarly hungry in the morning, and had similar levels of most hormones and blood sugar.

However, brain scans showed that when the sleep-deprived participants looked at the pictures of junk food, they released more of the “hunger hormone”. This is the hormone responsible for increasing the appetite, and making us consume more.

Asked about how much they would pay for snacks, “participants with sleep deprivation were more willing to overspend on food items than those with a good night’s sleep,” researchers said.

Researchers also observed that among the people who hadn’t slept, there was greater activity in the part of the brain where food rewards are processed.

Scientists think that sleep-deprived people experience changes to the hunger hormone and the brain’s reward system that leads to a stronger desire to eat snacks with high fat and calories.

“This brings us a little closer to understanding the mechanism behind how sleep deprivation changes food valuation,” Professor Jan Peters, a co-author of the study from the University of Cologne, told The Independent.

Listen to some soft music to relieve your tiredness.

Do some slight exercise for a short time when you’re tired.

Eat yogurt or fruits to replace snacks with high fat and calories.

Distance yourself from the craving.

【推荐2】Since the day the car and the airplane coexisted people have dreamed of combining them into one all purpose, go — anywhere, do — anything vehicle. However, there are a lot of reasons why cars and airplanes have yet to join forces.

They have very different needs, like the number of wheels. The four wheels on a car distribute its weight and provide traction and stability. A 3-wheeled car is much more likely to roll when taking a turn at high speed. But airplanes have 3 wheels because when they're on the ground they don't need to take turns at speed, so a 4th wheel would just be unnecessary weight. Tricycle wheel arrangements are also better suited to landing in crosswinds.

Aircraft also have other needs like wings. Whether they're fixed wings like an airliner or rotary wings like a helicopter, to generate enough lift they have to be much larger than the restricted freeway lanes and parking spaces would allow. So most designs for flying cars have wings that are either detachable （可拆卸的）or foldable.

That hasn't stopped some people from trying, and now one Dutch company, PAL-V, thinks their Liberty design has made flying cars a practical reality.

In 2005, the company discovered the work of another Dutch company, Carver, which made 3-wheeled cars that leaned like motorcycles. As for generating lift, PAL-V chose a rotary design called autogyro. Unlike a helicopter, the rotor （旋转翼）of an autogyro is unpowered in flight. Instead, the air flowing over it causes it to spin and generate lift. Autogyros also have short takeoff and landing requirements, so setting one down in an emergency is less dangerous than in a fixed-wing aircraft.

The Liberty received road certification in Europe in October of 2020, hoping to deliver to their first customers starting in 2022.

【推荐3】Every year, millions of people head to London's Trafalgar Square to see Nelson's Column, and the four lion statues that “guard" it. And last month, during the London Design Festival, a bright red lion sculpture(雕像) was added to the collection.

But this was more than just a statue: It had a large open mouth, with an LED screen inside it. At the same time, passersby could type in words on a screen close to the lion, which were used to produce an AI-created poem. The most interesting part of the poems lies in their randomness, as the words that people choose to enter include many things, such as the time, the weather and their mood. In the daytime,the finished poem appeared on the LED screen, but at night, it was projected(投射) onto the lion's body and the famous Nelson's Column, in a lovely light display.

Es Devlin, the sculpture's creator, was inspired(赋予灵感) by the history behind the four historic lion statues. Sir Edwin Landseer, the designer of the lions, wanted them to look much more lifelike, but Queen Victoria refused his plan. This made Devlin wonder, " What if we could give a lion a poetic voice?" According to Devlin, although England has seen many poems about national identity in recent years, these works have been lacking imagination. "I wanted to make a piece that was poetic," he told BBC News.

After standing for almost 180 years, the purpose of Trafalgar Square has changed over the years. But thanks to the high-tech lion and its poetry, the square will stand the test of time.