【推荐2】It’s often said that creative people see the world differently from the rest of us and a Harvard study is providing one explanation.Scientists studied brain scans of people after asking them to come up with creative uses for everyday objects.And they found a specific pattern of connectivity that correlated with the most creative responses.

“What this shows is that the creative brain works differently,”said Roger Beaty,the first author of the study.Beaty and colleagues examined brain data from previous studies and found that,by simply measuring the strength of connections in these people’s brain networks,they could estimate the originality of these people’s ideas.

While the data showed that regions across the brain were involved in creative thought,Beaty said the evidence pointed to three subnetworks.And they were the default mode(默认状态)network,the salience(突出)network and the executive(管理的)control network.They appear to play key roles in creative thought.The default mode network, he said,is involved in memory and mental acting,so the theory is that it plays an important role in processes like mind-wandering,imagination,and natural thinking.The salience network notices important information.When it comes to creativity,it may be responsible for arranging the ideas that come from the default mode network.Lastly,the executive control network works to help people keep their focus on useful ideas while getting rid of those that aren’t working.Beaty said,“People who think more flexibly and come up with more creative ideas are better able to use these networks that don’t typically work together and bring these systems online.”

Based on the results of that study,Beaty and colleagues developed a predictive model and tested against brain scan data collected for earlier studies on creativity.“We used already-published data...we found that based on how strong the connections are in these networks,we could guess pretty accurately how creative you’re going to be on a task,”Beaty said.He added,“It’s also not clear whether this can be modified with some kind of training.Creativity is complex,and we’re only working on the surface here.”

【推荐3】A new study says that regular fish consumption has been shown to improve cognition (认知) and help people fall asleep. Fish is loaded with omega-3 fatty acids--a kind of fat that caries numerous health benefits. “Neurons(神经元)need omega-3 fatty acids for proper cell membrane(膜)structure and function,” explains Don Vaughn, MD, a neuroscientist at UCLA, of the importance of a fish-inclusive diet. “It then comes as no surprise that the dietary insufficiency of omega-3 fatty acids leads to poor cognition.”

While previous studies showed a relationship between omega-3 consumption and improved intelligence, none established a link among improved sleep, intelligence, and fish consumption. The new study covered 541 children in China, almost evenly split between boys and girls. The researchers tracked, fish consumption along with the kids’ performance on both verbal(口头的)and non-verbal skill tests such as vocabulary and coding. Parents helped record how well the kids slept. After all the data was collected and analyzed, the researchers found that children who were reported eating fish at least weekly slept sounder and scored 4.8 points higher on their IQ exams than those who were reported eating fish “seldom” or “never”.

Previous studies showed a relationship between omega-3s, the fatty acids in many types of fish, and improved intelligence, as well as omega-3s and better sleep. But the new findings revealed sleep as a possible medium pathway, the potential missing link between fish and intelligence.

“Sleep is essential to brain health and function. The brain strengthens important memories, forgets useless information, and continues practicing skills learned during the day,” says Dr.Vaughn. “Good sleep underlies high performance in memory and problem solving.”

The researchers on the team also noted that poor sleep is often accompanied by antisocial behavior, poor cognition, and a variety of other problems, all of which could be lessened by increasing the amount of fish or omega-3 fatty acids in their diet.

Feel Young at Heart and You’ll Enjoy a Longer Life

Age-liars and birthday-deniers, you’d best learn a thing or two from those who are young at heart. People who feel younger than their actual age may live longer than those who feel older than they truly are, a new study says.

    1    Results from the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggest that people who feel a year or more older than they truly are could have around 41 percent greater risk for death.

Researchers looked at nearly 6,500 older adults, with an average age of 65.8 for they study. Around 70 percent of them felt younger than they were, about a quarter felt their precise age and just under 5 percent felt a year or more older they were, when asked “How old do you feel you are?”

Those who felt older than they were had a higher death rate after a follow-up period of 99 months. While just 14.3 and 18.5 percent of people who felt younger or felt their age, respectively, died during those 99 months, 24.6 percent of those who felt aged beyond their years had died.

The authors say more research is needed on the topic, but suggest it could be that those who feel “young at heart” have healthier behaviors and a stronger will to live. “     2    Individuals who feel older could be targeted with health message promoting positive health behaviors and attitudes toward aging,” the authors write in the study.

The good news is that you can change your feeling of how young you are.     3    One recent study found that helping participants have positive feelings toward age, by showing them positive word associations, helped older adults improve in physical tasks like balancing and getting up out of a chair, in as little as four weeks. Another study found that negative feeling of aging and poor memory can make older adults feel up to five years older, regardless of their actual mental abilities.

There you have it.     4     .

【推荐1】Which is more important when an architect designs a building: beauty or function?

At the start of the twentieth century, Louis Sullivan, one of the creators of modern architecture said that “form follows function.” Functionalism is used to describe the idea behind architecture which primarily focuses on the purpose of a building. However, many people disagree with this and feel that beauty is a more important factor （因素）in architectural design. In the modern world, it seems that most architects combine both ideas: aiming to create buildings which are both functional and beautiful.

The reason for creating a building in the first place is clearly very important. For example, when building an airport terminal, you need to think of the needs of passengers as well as planes. Passengers want to get to their plane as quickly as they can, and planes need to be parked in a more efficient way. As such, many airport terminals have a circular shape with satellite areas. Residential homes need to have enough space for a family, art galleries need wall space to show pictures, and factories need to manufacture goods as efficiently as possible.

Beauty, however, is also important when it comes to the construction of a building. Living or working in an ugly place creates a depressing and uninspiring environment. On the contrary, an attractive building can make people feel happier and increase their motivation to work. There is also a wider responsibility to society which architects have to consider. Beautiful, well-constructed buildings are a symbol of a civilized society, and reflect well on the business or reputation of the owner.

In theory, there seems to be no reason why architecture cannot be both functional and beautiful. Yet in practice, this can cause problems. The Guggenheim Museum in New York, was supposed to combine beauty with function. Many consider the museum's white spiral ramp (螺旋坡道) beautiful, but there have been complaints that it is impractical, as it is difficult to stand back to view the art. Also, the ramp is so narrow that it can become overcrowded. It seems that even a celebrated design has problems with functionality.       

If architects focus only on function, buildings may be cold, ugly and uninteresting. On the other hand, if they focus only on making it look beautiful, the building may be completely impractical. Therefore, combining these two ideas is necessary to create the perfect piece of architecture.

【推荐3】The first drawings on walls appeared in caves thousands of years ago. Later the Ancient Romans and Greeks wrote their names and protest poems on buildings. Modern graffiti seems to have appeared in Philadelphia in the early 1960s, and by the late sixties it had reached New York. The new art form really took off in the 1970s, when people began writing their names, or “tags”, on buildings all over the city. In the mid-seventies it was sometimes hard to see out of a subway car window, because the trains were completely covered in spray paintings known as masterpieces.

In the early days, the “taggers” were part of street crowds who were concerned with marking their territory(领地). They worked in groups called “crews” and called what they did “writing” — the term “graffiti” was first used by The New York Times and the novelist Norman Mailer. Art galleries in New York began buying graffiti in the early seventies. But at the same time that it began to be regarded as an art form, John Lindsay, the then mayor of New York, declared the first war on graffiti. By the 1980s it became much harder to write on subway trains without being caught, and instead many of the more established graffiti artists began using roofs of buildings.

The debate over whether graffiti is art or deliberate damage is still going on. Peter Vallone, a New York city councilor, thinks that graffiti done with permission can be art, but if it is on someone else’s property it becomes a crime. “I have a message for the graffiti destroyers out there,” he said recently, “and your freedom of expression ends where my property begins.” On the other hand, Felix, a member of the Berlin-based group Reclaim Your City, says that artists are reclaiming cities for the public from advertisers, and that graffiti represents freedom and makes cities livelier.

For decades graffiti has been a springboard to international fame for a few. Jean-Michel Basquiat began spraying on the street in the 1970s before becoming a respected artist in the 80s. The Frenchman Blek le Rat and the British artist Banksy have achieved international fame by producing complex works with stencils(模板), often making political or humorous points. Works by Banksy have been sold for over £ 100,000. Graffiti is now sometimes big business.