【推荐1】For about two months, Frank Gordon and his dog Casey have been in intensive training.

Casey is training to become a qualified service dog, and Gordon is training to use him to cope with what doctors have diagnosed as severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD 创伤后应激障碍).

And that alone is a huge step for Gordon, who says he feels trapped in the real-life nightmare he endured during his military service. After having lived with invisible wounds for more than 30 years, he's now got Casey, a new solution to a problem as old as war.

Casey and many other dogs at Wags for Warriors, a non-profit organization in northeast Ohio, are trained to sense when their veterans (老兵) become anxious, and to pull them out of panic attacks. That's what a dog named Sophie was doing as she sat next to her owner and Wags for Warriors co-founder Frank Delorenzo. Sophie reminds Delorenzo to take his medication, pulls him out of crowded areas, and wakes him up from nightmares.

Army veteran Olena Fergurson, who had a brain injury in a plane crash, says,“Before I got my dog Vata and started my training, I could not attend an appointment. ”

Since October of last year,Delorenzo and his wife have been training and providing service dogs to these veterans free of charge. They hold training classes between three and four days each week.

“Some veterans say that it improves their quality of life, but we haven't been able yet to determine whether these dogs provide a medical benefit to veterans with mental illness,” says Mark Ballesteros, a spokesperson for the U. S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

Dr. Heather Axtell, a clinical psychologist, says, “I believe that service animals provide a lot of comfort. They make people feel more secure, but they can't take away what happened. Service dogs give veterans companions, and unconditional love. ”

【推荐3】Celebrated on June16th, World Sea Turtle Day is a day dedicated to one of the world’s oldest and most fascinating creatures. Unfortunately, this is also a day to remind everyone of the sea turtle’s endangered status.

Sea turtles have been around since the time of dinosaurs. They typically live to between 30 and 50 years of age, spending most of their lives at sea. Part of the reptile(爬行动物) family, sea turtles can hold their breath for up to five hours. This comes in handy since some species can dive as deep as 1,000 meters below the water’s surface before needing to come up for air. Sea turtles also like to get around, often migrating very long distances. One species can migrate over 12,000 km from nesting beaches in Japan all the way to feeding grounds near Mexico.

Female sea turtles return to the beach they hatched on to nest. Some species lay up to 250 eggs in a single nest, and each egg takes around 60 days to incubate(孵化). However, it’s estimated that only one in a thousand baby turtles can survive to adulthood.

Although it is worth having a day to celebrate these magnificent animals, World Sea Turtle Day also has a more serious purpose: to raise awareness of their difficult situation. Sea turtles are threatened with extinction. Plastic trash is a big problem because the turtles often mistake bags and other plastic items for food like jellyfish. In fact, half of all sea turtles have consumed plastic at some time in their lives.

Rising global temperature is another threat facing turtles. Turtle eggs that lie on warm sand are more likely to result in female turtles, which affects the animal’s diversity. Also, trash-covered beaches can make it hard for baby turtles to reach the sea.

However you want to celebrate World Sea Turtle Day, take some time to spread the word about what we can do to protect these ancient animals. Reducing the amount of plastic we use is just one small way we can help make sure sea turtles stick around for another 100 million years.

【推荐2】A physical checkup often begins with a series of questions: What foods do you eat? Do you smoke? Getting any exercise? New research suggests another telling indicator could be added to that list: What was your college major? The study finds one’s chosen field of college study is a statistically significant predictor of health in midlife.

The researchers find the four majors associated with the best midlife health are architecture/engineering, biology/life sciences, business, and—here’s a surprise—communications/journalism. Perhaps chasing after big stories keeps us journalists in shape.

It has long been established that people with more education tend to be healthier. But does one’s major matter? To find out, the researchers analyzed data from the nationally representative American Community Survey.

Their sample consisted of 3.7 million United States-born adults between the ages of 45 and 64—the time of life when physical functioning problems start to appear. Participants noted whether they had difficulty walking or climbing stairs, dressing or bathing. A “yes” answer in any of those categories resulted in a grade of relatively poor health.

The researchers focused on the 667,362 participants who earned a bachelor’s degree, but went no further in their education. They noted each person’s college major, which they placed into one of 15 categories. They found substantial differences in health across majors. Two majors are particularly disadvantaged in midlife. The chances of poor health are 1.9 times greater among psychology /social work and law/public policy majors compared to business majors. The researchers argue this is likely due to several factors. Psychology majors tend to suffer from high unemployment and low earnings. Law/public policy majors often enter the field of law enforcement(执行).

The researchers say that they have discovered associations, not proof of causality(因果关系). But they make a convincing case that some majors lead people to live healthier lifestyles than others.

Their findings might even inspire a warning country song: Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be psychology majors.