【推荐2】Remembering things is an important function of our brain — if we can’t recall how to do something, we can’t survive. If you think about it, there is so much we have to remember. It’s no surprise that sometimes we are forgetful.

Memory allows the brain to store and recall information when required. Our short-term memory can hold a small amount of information for a short time, while our long-term memory can hold an unlimited amount of information for a long time. Our memory is amazing, but why do we still forget things?

It’s possible we don’t always store information in our memory effectively, maybe because we are in a rush or we consider it irrelevant at the time. When we store information, we often make connections with other things, which helps us recall it later. If you don’t have these connections, then it can be easier to forget. Writing for the Science Focus, Luis Villazon says, “It is also possible that memories become dim over time. As they have not been revisited, their biological ‘trace’ becomes lost.” It’s true that if you don’t perform a task for a long period of time, it can be difficult to recall how to do it.

But sometimes even our short-term memory can let us down. This is called “The Doorway Effect”. Writing for the Future website, psychologist Tom Stafford explains that this “occurs because we change both the physical and mental environments, moving to a different room and thinking about different things”. Put simply, we are trying to spin too many plates at the same time. So, if you forget things easily, it could be because you have too much in your mind.

But we do need to keep our memory sharp by continually using it. Especially when we beyond our 50s, our brains tend to shrink in volume. That’s when we’re at more risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease.

However, as Luis Villazon says, “Forgetting is not always a bad thing! It would waste resources if we remembered every detail of the world around us.”

【推荐1】Your smartphone breaks. The repair costs too much money. So you give up and buy a new device (设备) . That this happens so often is no coincidence (巧合) .

Many big device makers are putting more new products on the market. But they do not sell specialized tools and parts needed for repairs. And they offer no instruction on how to repair their products. As a result, the independent repair shops in your neighborhood find they cannot repair your broken smartphone. You can only go to faraway authorized (经授权的) repair shops to get the necessary repair service, which is often costly.

In recent years, some producers have taken steps to make repairs easier, but there’s a growing effort across the world to push them to do more. Last week, the “Right to Repair movement heard good news from the White House. The president of the US on Friday signed an order aimed at encouraging healthy competition in the US economy. It includes a condition for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) . The FTC was asked to make rules preventing producers from limiting independent device repair shops and DIY repairs.

“Right to Repair” is a global movement to make sure everyone has the right to fix the products they own. The idea has generally come from the United States. The earliest known published reference using the group of words comes from the auto industry dating back to2003. Its supporters require companies to provide their parts, tools and information for consumers (消费者) and repair shops. They also encourage the government to make laws to force producers to increase device reparability.

The FTC in May presented a 56-page report. It said that “many consumer products have become harder to fix.” The report also found that “the burden (负担) of repair limits may fall more heavily on communities of color and consumers having little money” because many independent repair shops are owned by people of color and because high-cost repairs hit low-paid consumers harder.

【推荐3】Feeling unhappy, depressed or lonely could speed up the ageing processes more than smoking or even certain diseases, researchers have suggested. While everyone has an age based on their date of birth — their “chronological age”, they also have what is known as a “biological age”, based on the ageing of the body’s functions, influenced by gene is, lifestyle and other factors. Studies have previously suggested the higher the biological age, the higher the risk of various diseases, and the risk of death.

Now researchers say they have created a digital model of ageing, revealing the importance of psychological health. “Your body and soul are connected — this is our main message,” said Fedor Galkin, a co-author of the study and lead scientist at the Hong Kong startup Deep Longevity.

“We demonstrate that psychological factors, such as feeling unhappy or being lonely, add up to 1.65 years to one’s biological age,” they write. While Galkin said the figure is an estimate, not least as the model assumes that different feelings such as hopelessness or fearfulness are independent of each other, the study highlights the importance of psychological state in how fast we age.

“Taking care of your psychological heath is the greatest contributor that you can have to slowing down your pace of ageing,” he said. The team also report that people who smoke are predicted to be 15 months older than their non-smoking peers, while being married reduces biological age by around seven months. People living in rural areas are predicted to be almost five months older than their urban peers.

“But,” he said, “it is unlikely that isolation and loneliness are truly worse risk factors for health than smoking because the study only looked at data collected at one point in time. The researchers did not follow up participants to show that those with psychological distress actually aged more rapidly,” he said. “It will be important in the future to test whether these predictions are fulfilled by repeating testing over a number of years.”