【推荐3】Breakfast is food for the brain and for the rest of your body. And downing those morning calories is worth it, even for people worried about their weight, a new study finds.

The study was led by Marlene Schwartz, a psychologist who studies obesity. Her group studied some 600 middle-school students. Over three years, students from 12 different schools were asked about their breakfasts. Throughout the study about 34 % — 44% of all students said they regularly ate breakfast at home. Up to 17%, or almost one in every six kids, regularly ate breakfast at school. Overall, about one in every 10 kids reported eating breakfasts both at home and at school. Eating habits changed somewhat as the kids got older. For example, fifth graders were more likely to regularly eat breakfast at home. But by seventh grade, 22% of the studied kids often skipped breakfast.

Surprisingly, at every age, kids who ate breakfast were less likely to be overweight. This was true even for those who ate breakfast at home and at school. It also found that students who skipped breakfast most often were those most likely to be overweight. These findings may seem puzzling. Yet Schwartz’s team can think of several possible explanations.

Skipping breakfast may set people up to be “over-hungry” later in the day, she says. Then someone may eat more food than their body needs. When that happens, it might take the brain longer to realize “you have enough food and can stop eating now”. What’s more, not eating in the morning prevents our brains and bodies from working well. It’s very difficult for children to pay attention in class if they arrive without having breakfast.

But why should eating two breakfasts not lead to weight gain? One explanation may be that school breakfasts are very healthy and controlled in size, notes Schwartz. Also, most of the double- breakfast eaters are boys. These kids are active and actively growing. They sometimes eat twice as much as other people.

【推荐1】A new study, a project of the researchers from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, finds that a fitness tracker (健康追踪器) probably does not help with weight loss.

The trackers are designed to record your physical activity. They are usually worn around the wrist (手腕), where they record a person’s heart rate. The research team looked at two groups of people. The first wore a fitness tracker and took part in health consultation (咨询) with experts for best weight-loss plan. The researchers compared this group with people who only got health consultation.

The study found that those only speaking with the health experts lost nearly 6 kilograms, but those using a fitness tracker lost only 3.5 kilograms. John Jakicic, the lead researcher, questioned the use of these trackers for weight loss.

The study involved 470 people aged between 18 and 35. Some of them were overweight, while others were considered obese (肥胖). Over three fourths of them were women. All were told to increase physical activity and start on a low-calorie diet. They had their weight measured once every six months. After six months, researchers divided the group into two parts: one continued with monthly consulting, while members of the other group were given a fitness tracker. Eighteen months later, both groups showed great improvements in fitness, physical activity and diet, with no big difference between groups. However, when it came to losing weight, the people who only spoke with experts lost nearly twice as much weight.

Jakicic said, “The study’s findings are important because effective long-term treatments are needed to deal with America’s obesity.” More information is needed, he added, to learn how to best use these trackers to help adults who want to lose weight.

【推荐2】Video conferencing has been around for more than 20 years. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, though, you would find that many people needing to attend a meeting remotely would be calling from a real conference room full of their teammates. Today, we’re routinely holding video conferences that are 100% virtual ones. And this is creating a problem that technology can’t fix.

The problem is that we haven’t evolved socially to the point where we can bear much isolation (孤立状态). So much of our well-being and work productivity is based on physical proximity (接近). The removal of that proximity for any period of time can be severely damaging. One surprising casualty (牺牲品) of social distance is laughter.

Normally people laugh about 18 times per day. And 97% of that time we’re laughing with others — we are 30 times more likely to laugh with others than to laugh alone. Think about it: When was the last time you had a funny thought alone and laughed out loud? And think a bit more: How often do you and your friends laugh at something that is actually funny? Research shows that 80% of what people laugh at is really not that funny.

So why do people laugh? They laugh in order to laugh with others. Just as everyone starts yawning when just one person yawns, most people can’t help but laugh when those around them do. This is why comedy shows on TV have prerecorded laugh tracks.

Laughing in response to other people’s laughing is not just a behavioral phenomenon. When we laugh, our body produces two key chemicals: endorphins which help relieve pain and trigger feelings of pleasure, and dopamine which can improve learning, motivation and attention. In fact, studies show that people can stand 15% more pain simply by laughing for a few minutes beforehand. Laughter is also associated with higher motivation and productivity at work.

In today’s home-alone, virtual team world, this is exactly what you as a team leader should be doing: to make your team members stay healthy and productive, you need to get them to laugh more and stress less.

【推荐1】It’s not easy being a teenager-nor is it easy being the parent of a teenager. You can make your child feel angry, hurt, or misunderstood by what you say without realizing it yourself. It is important to give your child the space he needs to grow while gently letting him know that you you’ll still be there for him when he needs you.

Expect a lot from your child, just not everything. Except for health and safety problems, such as drug use or careless driving, consider everything else open to discussion. If your child is unwilling to discuss something, don’t insist he tell you what’s on his mind. The more you insist, the more likely that he’ll clam up. Instead, let him attempt to solve things by himself. At the same time, remind him that you’re always there for him should he seek advice or help. Show respect for your teenager’s privacy (隐私). Never read his mail or listen in on personal conversions.

Teach your teenager that the family phone is for the whole family. If your child talks on the family’s telephone for too long, tell him he can talk for 15 minutes, but then he must stay off the phone for at least an equal period of time. This not only frees up the line so that other family members can make and receive calls, but teaches your teenager moderation(节制). Or if you are open to the idea, allow your teenager his own phone that he pays for with his own pocket money or a part-time job.

【推荐2】Most of the time, the ground feels solid beneath our feet. That's comforting. But it's also misleading because there's actually a lot going on underground. Masses of land (called plates) slip, slide, and bump against each other, slowly changing the shape of continents and oceans over millions and billions of years.

Scientists know that Earth formed about 4. 5 billion years ago. They also know that our planet was hot at first. As it cooled, its outermost layer, called the crust (地壳), eventually formed moving plates. Exactly when this shift happened, however, is an open question.

Now, an international group of researchers has an answer. They've found new evidence suggesting that Earth's crust started shifting at least 3. 8 billion years ago. The new estimate is 1. 3 billion years earlier than previous ones.

Not long before 3. 8 billion years ago, lots of small planets were hitting Earth, keeping its crust in a hot, melting state. After the hard crust formed, much of it sank at various times into the planet's hot insides. There, it melted before returning to the surface.

In some places, however, the crust never sank. One of the oldest such places is in Greenland, in an area called the Isua supracrustal (上地壳) belt. The rocky crust there is between 3. 7 and 3. 8 billion years old. The belt was once part of the seafloor, but now it is exposed to air.

The researchers recently took a close look at the Isua supracrustal belt. They noticed long, parallel cracks (裂缝) in the rock that have been filled in with a type of volcanic rock.

To explain this structure, the scientists propose that tension in the crust caused the seafloor to crack open long ago. Hot, liquid rock oozed from deep inside Earth to fill the cracks. Finally, the whole area cooled, forming what we see today.

That explanation, plus chemical clues inside the rock, suggests that the Isua supracrustal belt was once part of a plate under the ocean, beginning around 3. 8 billion years ago.

“It's a fantastic case of solving a jigsaw puzzle (拼图),” says one of the researchers. He notes that the puzzle was “ a very difficult one because these rocks are all very old and have been badly ruined".

【推荐3】For those who are addicted to mobile devices（终端）, drawing provides some much needed time out. Nowadays, there is a global pencil shortage thanks to a sharp rise in the number of adults purchasing coloring books. Manufactures are reportedly struggling to deal with the heightened popularity of quality crayons（蜡笔）.

British company Faber-Castell, the world’s largest pencil supplier, witnessed “double-digit（两位数）growth” in the sale of pencils. Workers in their German factory have been asked to do extra shifts in an effort to keep up with consumer demand.

“The production of our artists’ pencils has increased strongly compared to the previous year,” Sandra Suppa from Faber-Castell tells The Independent. “People are now not satisfied with ‘just’ 36 colors and we are noticing a trend（趋势）in people preferring, bigger sets of 72 or even 120 colors for colouring. We are also noticing that people are investing in our highest quality artists’ pencils.”

Regarded as the final cure for stress and anxiety, coloring in is a way to take a break from our fast-paced digital culture. It’s not just British who are rushing to buy crayons as the trend is a global one. Staedtler, the Nuremberg-based German pencil maker, is having trouble keeping supply levels up.”We have plans for expanding our resources. Right now we’re working at our limit,” a spokesperson tells Spiegel Online. Brazil has also suffered from pencil shortages, according to NEW York Post.

Coloring books for adults are now a feature in bookshops across the world. British seller, Waterstones reported a 300 percent rise in sales of the therapeutic（有助于放松精神的）books in the past year.