【推荐1】Screens during meals rob kids of opportunities to improve language and communication skills （storytelling, making jokes, etc.）, as well as to develop patience and even imagination as they entertain themselves waiting for food to arrive.

Meals are an opportunity to connect, to learn more about and enjoy each other. They strengthen the bonds that will bring benefits to the rest of our lives. We squander that opportunity when we stick a screen in front of our kids during dinner.

Of course, we all want to have enjoyable family meals, which is why I love Bruce Feiller's book "The Secrets of Happy Families", in which he devotes an entire chapter to ways to make them fun and meaningful for everyone---such as "fill in the blank" sentences you make up. Sharing something good and something challenging makes for pleasant conversations, too. And I've had fun playing Uno with my daughters until the food arrives in a restaurant.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (小儿科）also offers guidelines to help families manage children's screen time. The academy recommends avoiding digital media for children under 2, except for video-chatting, and limiting screen time to just one hour a day of high-quality programming for children ages 2 to 5.

Fundamentally, we all benefit from more human connection, not less — and that's especially true for children. Schools, airplane trips, most jobs, games, even "social" interaction were all once done without screens but now are filled with them. And while we have gained some advantages, including new connections, we have lost something fundamental, as well.

Less is always more when it comes to screens, even if they are effective at keeping kids quiet. But soon after complaining that they are "bored, ” kids have a natural tendency to fill the screenless void （空虚）with creative games, art, exploration and conversation. There are no studies that warn against having too many hours of those activities.

Let's all work harder to keep family meals special by getting rid of the iPads and nourishing our personal connections as we nourish our bodies.

【推荐2】A few months after Wu Xingu was congratulated by teachers for graduating from the university, the 23-year-old has been making his dream of relieving tens of thousands of teachers in China from drowning in marking papers(改卷) a reality.

Yitiku, an online software system based on Wu’s idea, eases the workload of teachers by doing many of the functions that they did, such as selecting the test questions, forming an exam paper, and preparing exercises for the students.

The features of Yitiku may sound quite simple, but this idea won his company millions of dollars from China’s Internet giant Tencent in January. The unexpectedly successful fund raising story became a popular conversation starter among the people in the education business.

“I can say it’s quite an achievement for me and our company. As far as I know, I’m the first CEO born after 1990s that Tencent has invested (投资) in, and we are the first online education company they have invested in.” Wu Xingyu told China Daily.

Different from other online companies that treat students as clients (客户), Yitiku has chosen teachers as their focus. “ We make the work of teachers easy. Usually it takes two to three hours for them to prepare a new exam paper. Now it’s just three clicks.” said Wu. He is quite satisfied with the major feature of the software.

Sitting in his 10-square-meter office in Zhonguancun, a hub of innovation (创新) in Beijing, Wu looks confident and chatty when talking about his business. His fast-speed answers give people an impression that he has years of experience in the online education sector. The fact is that he had been putting most of attention in directing courses at an art college until about a year ago.

【推荐1】“Did you hear what happened to Adam Last Friday?” Lindsey whispers to Tori.

With her eyes shining, Tori brags, “You bet I did, Sean told me two days ago.”

Who are Lindsey and Tori talking about? It just happened to be yours truly, Adam Freedman. I can tell you that what they are saying is (a) not nice and (b) not even true. Still, Lindsey and Tori aren’t very different from most students here at Linton High School, including me. Many of our conversations are gossip(闲话). I have noticed three effects of gossip: it can hurt people, it can give gossipers a strange kind of satisfaction, and it can cause social pressures in a group.

An important negative effect of gossip is that it can hurt the person being talked about. Usually, gossip spreads information about a topic-breakups, trouble at home, even dropping out-that a person would rather keep secret. The more embarrassing or shameful the secret is, the juicier the gossip it makes. Probably the worst type of gossip is the absolute lie. People often think of gossipers as harmless, but cruel lies can cause pain.

If we know that gossip can be harmful, then why do so many of us do it? Theanswer lies in another effect of gossip: the satisfaction it gives us. Sharing the latest rumor can make a person feel important because he or she knows something that others don’t. Similarly, hearing the latest rumor can make a person feel like part of the “in group.” In other words, gossip is satisfying because it gives people a sense of belonging or even superiority.

Gossip also can have a third effect: it strengthens unwritten, unspoken rules about how people should act. Professor David Wilson explains that gossip is important in policing behaviors in a group. Translated into high school terms, this means that if everybody you hang around with is laughing at what John wore or what Jane said, then you can bet that wearing or saying something similar will get you the same kind of negative attention. The dos and don’ts conveyed through gossip will never show up in any student handbook.

The effects of gossip vary depending on the situation. The next time you feel the urge to spread the latest news, think about why you want to gossip and what effects your “juicy story” might have.

【推荐2】When Zbynek Frolik needed new employees to handle increasing orders at his factories in central Bohemia, he sent out advertisements across the Czech Republic. But in a prosperous economy where nearly everyone had work, there were few takers. Raising wages didn’t help. Nor did offers to subsidize(补贴) housing. So he turned to the robots.

“We can’t find enough humans,” said Mr. Frolik, whose company, Linet, makes hospital beds sold in over 100 countries. “So we’re trying to replace people with machines wherever we can.”

Such talk usually makes people think of a future where employees are no longer needed. In many major economies, companies are experimenting with replacing factory workers, truck drivers and even lawyers with artificial intelligence.

But in Eastern Europe, robots are being enlisted as the solution for a shortage of workers. Often they are helping to create new types of jobs as businesses in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland try to stay competitive. Economic growth in these countries has averaged 5 percent in recent years, affected by the global recovery. A booming economy has reduced the jobless rate to just 2.4 percent, the lowest in the European Union.

The lack of manpower, however, has limited the ability of Czech companies to expand. Nearly a third of them have started to turn away orders, according to the Czech Confederation of Industry, a trade group.

“It’s becoming a brake on growth,” said Jaroslav Hanak, the organization’s president. “If businesses don’t increase robotization and artificial intelligence, they’ll disappear.”

Some factories in Eastern Europe are already on the way. At Elko EP, which makes industrial timers for companies like General Electric, 70 percent of production is automated, and the company is aiming to be almost fully robotized in a few years. In a corner of the factory, robots have taken over routine manufacturing(制造业) tasks. Jiri Konecny, the company’s CEO, moved factory floor workers to more complex roles, and focused hundreds of other employees on research and development. “If we hadn’t invested early in automation, we’d be dead by now,” he said.

【推荐3】On March 19, Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old Pakistani student and women’s education activist, returned to the classroom for the first time since being violently attacked by a member of the Taliban ---- a terrorist organization ---- on October 9, 2012. Malala was shot on her way home from school in Mingora, Pakistan. A Taliban group took responsibility for the attack, claiming that the attack should serve as a warning to others. Members of the group follow a strict version of the local religion and believe girls are not permitted to go to school. Malala was targeted because she is appealing for girls’ rights to education in Swat Valley, Pakistan.

Malala recovers from the attack at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England. After a long period of recovery, Malala is starting as a nine-year student at Edgbaston High School. It is the oldest independent girl school in Birmingham, England. Though she has no concrete plans to return to Pakistan, Malala still speaks out as a voice for change in her country and everywhere.

“I am excited that today I have achieved my dreams of going back to school. I want all girls in the world to have this basic opportunity,” Malala said in a statement. “I miss my classmates from Pakistan very much but I am looking forward to meeting my teachers and making new friends here in Birmingham.”

Malala has been an Internet blogger, or writer, since she was 11 years old. In 2011 she was awarded Pakistan’s National Peace Award for her bravery in writing about difficulties of life and education in the shadow of Taliban. She has spoken publicly about children’s rights and been nominated（提名）for an international children’s peace prize.

After the attack in 2012, support for Malala poured in from around the world. The United Nations declared November 10 Malala Day. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the day honors Malala and shows the world that people of all sexes, all backgrounds and all countries stand behind the heroine.

【推荐2】It is believed that around half the US adult population will be obese (肥胖的) by 2030, while one in four will fall into the severely obese category. This is according to a new study led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which found that levels of obesity are increasing in every state. Indeed the predictions show that levels of severe obesity could be higher than 25 percent in half of states.

“Especially striking was our finding that among adults with very low income (less than $20,000 per year), severe obesity is predicted to be the most common in 44 states—almost everywhere in the US,” a researcher said.

The research was carried out to inform state policymakers—and perhaps help change the tendency. The study authors say the best form of attack is prevention. Limiting intake of sugar is stressed as one of the most effective and cost-effective methods for reducing obesity levels, and a tax likely to save more money than it costs.

Sugar (and the sugar industry) has come under fire for its role in promoting obesity. Indeed, one recent study published in September 2019 puts responsibility for today’s obesity epidemic (流行病) firmly on the shoulders of sugar, concluding high-sugar diets during childhood in the seventies and eighties could be behind the rise.

“We knew from previous work that obesity is increasing in the US, and that some states and demographic groups (人群) are at higher risk, but we were surprised that even the states with the lowest obesity will be above 35 percent in 2030—a level currently considered high, a researcher told Newsweek. What is clear is that we will not be able to treat our way out of this epidemic—achieving and keeping weight loss is difficult—so prevention efforts will be key to making progress in this area.”

【推荐3】Music for Humans and Humpback Whales (座头鲸)

As researchers conclude in Science, the love of music is not only a universal feature of the human species but is also deeply fixed in complex structures of the human brain and is far more ancient than previously suspected.

In the articles, researchers present various evidence to show that music-making is at once an original human “business”, and an art form with skillful performers throughout the animal kingdom.

The new reports stress that humans hold no copyright on sound wisdom, and that a number of nonhuman animals produce what can rightly be called music, rather than random sound. Recent in-depth analyses of the songs sung by humpback whales show that, even when their organ would allow them to do otherwise, the animals converge on the same choices related to sounds and beauty, and accept the same laws of song composition as those preferred by human musicians, and human ears, everywhere.

For example, male humpback whales, who spend six months of each year doing little else but singing, use rhythms (节奏) similar to those found in human music and musical phrases of similar length — a few seconds. Whales are able to make sounds over a range of at least seven octaves (八度音阶), yet they tend to move on through a song in beautiful musical intervals (间隔), rather than moving forwards madly. They mix the sounds like drums and pure tones in a ratio (比例) which agrees with that heard in much western music. They also use a favorite technique of human singers, the so-called A-B-A form, in which a theme is stated, then developed, and then returned to in slightly revised form.

Perhaps most impressive, humpback songs contain tunes that rhyme. “This suggests that whales use rhyme, the same way we do: as a technique in poem to help them remember complex materials,” the researchers write.