【推荐2】Have you ever played a computer game for a long time and then kept seeing the game’s images afterward? This happened to me with the classic shape-falling game Tetris (俄罗斯方块), created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov.

Feeling stressed one evening, I turned on my Switch to find a game to play and relax with. That’s when I discovered Tetris. Before I knew it, I was obsessed. Even when I stopped, my brain was still playing, with the blocks falling in my mind. I started looking at objects in the real world and thinking about how they could be moved and stacked(堆叠) together. I even dreamed about Tetris. I was experiencing the common "Tetris effect".

Introduced by journalist Jeffrey Goldsmith in his 1994 Wired magazine article called This Is Your Brain on Tetris, the effect has been observed by psychologists and researchers. The lasting images of Tetris are due to the "Zeigarnik effect", in which people have better memories of uncompleted tasks than those of completed ones. Tetris, being a game that technically never ends, keeps you thinking of the game’s unfinished task, reported Tech Times. And the catchy music stays with you, too.

There are also positives to the Tetris Effect. In his 1991 study, psychologist Richard Haier at the University of California found that continuously playing Tetris resulted in the thickness of the cerebral cortex (大脑皮层) increasing, which improves brain efficiency(效率), reported psychology website Practical Pie. Haier’s discovery got Tetris put into the Guinness World Records Video Gamer’s Edition 2008, as the "first video game to be proven to improve brain functioning and efficiency".

Tetris has also been researched for use as a treatment for people suffering from trauma (创伤). The Yale Scientific Magazine reported that researchers at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, UK, found that playing Tetris appeared to reduce intrusive (侵入性的) memories in the short term for individuals affected by motor vehicle accidents.

So, the next time you want to play a computer game, why not try the classic Tetris and see if it improves your brain function? But he warned, you’ll likely be seeing falling blocks everywhere.

【推荐1】Twenty years ago, crises like the wildfires burning California and Hurricane Laura striking Louisiana in 2020 could have been described as “natural disasters.” Thanks to climate change, this is no longer the case. Around mid-August last year, the temperature in Death Valley hit the highest ever recorded on Earth A hotter, drier California is much more likely to burst into flames. The Gulf of Mexico too is heating up, with dangerous consequences. Hurricanes draw their energy from the warmth of the surface waters and so are becoming stronger and more likely to intensify.Perhaps we need a new term to call these events, namely “man-made natural disasters.”

People now play such a dominant role on the planet. By cutting down forests and digging mines and building cities, we’ve transformed half of the ice-free land on Earth. With our advanced tools, we move around more earth than all the world’s rivers and streams. As a consequence, all sorts of catastrophes extend across the line between man and nature. Many earthquakes, for example, are now caused by human activity, Meanwhile, as the climate continues to warm, wildfires will grow even larger and storms more damaging. As Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, observed last fall, “If you don’t like all of the climate disasters happening in 2020, I have some bad news for you about the rest of your life.”

What’s to be done? According to some scientists, the best way to deal with, human intervention (干扰) in the natural world is to intervene better. Old technologies got us into this situation; new ones will get us out. Advocates of this view note the extraordinary advances that are being made all the time, in fields ranging from computing to genetics 1o material science. To prevent climate change, engineers have built machines that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. Today the numbers are limited, but perhaps one day they’ll be as common as mobile phones.

Other scientists argue that the new world altering technologies are likely to have much the same impact as the old world-altering technologies, only with. higher risks. Consider the example of some chemicals, which were produced in the hope of solving the problems caused by early refrigerants (制冷剂), but finally destroyed the ozone layer (臭氧层).

As for me, the choice we face is not whether to change the world; that, decision unfortunately has been made. The decision going forward is how are we going to change it? Over the years I’ve interviewed scores of scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs, and I’m continually impressed by how smart humans are as a species. But then, the wind blows in smoke from 3,000 miles away, and I’m reminded of how dangerous we are as well.

【推荐2】Coffee grown worldwide can date back to the ancient forests of Ethiopia. There, legend says the goat herder Kaldi first discovered coffee bean after he noticed that after eating the fruits from a certain tree, his goats became so energetic that they did not want to sleep at night. Coffee trade began on the Arabian Peninsula. By the 16th century it was known in Persia, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey.

Coffee was hardly known in Europe before the 17th century. The Venetians were the first people to bring coffee into Europe. The first European coffee houses started opening in Italy around 1645. In the following 100 years, at least 3000 coffee houses were operating in England. It was the coffee houses of England that started the custom of tipping waiters and waitresses. In a short time, coffee and coffee houses spread throughout Europe. In 1822, a Frenchman Louis Bernard Rabaut invented a machine which forced the hot water through the coffee grounds using steam instead of merely letting it drip through. The first espresso machine (咖啡机) had been born.

In the coffee industry, there are two important coffee species — Arabica and Robusta. Arabica originates from the coffee trees discovered in Ethiopia. It represents about 70% of the world’s coffee production. Arabica coffees bring the highest prices on the world market. Meanwhile, these coffee trees require additional care and attention. Robusta is primarily used for instant coffees. The Robusta bean itself tends to be slightly rounder and smaller than an Arabica bean. It can produce a coffee which has a distinctive taste and about 50-60% more caffeine. The Robusta tree is more resistant to disease, which makes it easier and cheaper to grow.

To preserve coffee beans’ fresh roasted flavor as long as possible, you can store them in an air-tight container (容器) at room temperature. Coffee beans can be beautiful, but avoid clear containers which will allow light to influence thee taste of your coffee. Exposure to air is bad for your beans. If you do freeze your beans, be sure to use a truly air-tight container.