【推荐1】Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.

Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.

That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted(分心)driving was “only increasing, unfortunately.”

“Big change requires big ideas.” he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.

An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York’s hands-free driving laws.

“We need something on the books that can change people’s behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state’s 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, ”people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone."

【推荐2】Teens interested in losing weight, for instance, got advertisements for unhealthy tips on how to become anorexic (厌食者). Such advertisements targeted these kids in hopes of persuading them to try things that were either dangerous or illegal at their age.

Advertisements are just one example of persuasion — trying to change another’s mind. Advertisements may try to convince us to buy something or do something new and different. Marketing is a field of persuasion designed to sell things, notes Jacob Teeny. Persuasion can be used to sell things. At its worst, it can be used to control people. Clearly, persuasion can be used for good and bad.

People open to new experiences tend to be more easily persuaded, Teeny says. But open-minded people can resist some persuasive arguments — such as the idea that eating junk food is cool. And closed-minded people can sometimes be persuaded. “If you haven’t really thought about the arguments” ahead of time, Teeny says, you’re going to be “much more persuadable.”

【推荐3】In many cultures, it is considered unlucky to spill salt. Fortunately, many cultures also have a solution to the problem, which usually involves throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder. It may seem confusing to modern humans, but knowing that salt was once incredibly valuable can change this perspective.

For thousands of years, salt was an extremely rare commodity. It was difficult to obtain so that the price was very high. Many trading routes were set up to carry salt, people were paid in salt, and salt was sometimes worth more than its weight in gold. Therefore, spilling salt was considered wasteful.

Because of its high value, salt was also associated with friendship and good fortune. Offerings of salt were included in many religious ceremonies, and people might bring salt to a new home for good luck. These associations would have suggested that it would be bad luck to spill salt, since it would seem to violate salt’s fortunate properties.

Salt is also an excellent preservative. It prevents food from going bad. As such, it came to be linked with health and longevity. In some cultures, spilling salt was thought to reduce one's well-being. In Britain, for example, each spilled grain was said to represent a tear, while in Germany spilled salt awakened the devil, bringing misfortune.

The fear of spilling salt was also adopted into the Christian faith. It is said that Judas spilled salt at the Last Supper, and since he later turned out to be the betrayer of Christ, spilled salt is considered unlucky by many Christians.

Should you be unfortunate enough to spill salt, you might throw a pinch over your left shoulder to blind the Devil.

【推荐1】In many cultures, it is considered unlucky to spill salt. Fortunately, many cultures also have a solution to the problem, which usually involves throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder. It may seem confusing to modern humans, but knowing that salt was once incredibly valuable can change this perspective.

For thousands of years, salt was an extremely rare commodity. It was difficult to obtain so that the price was very high. Many trading routes were set up to carry salt, people were paid in salt, and salt was sometimes worth more than its weight in gold. Therefore, spilling salt was considered wasteful.

Because of its high value, salt was also associated with friendship and good fortune. Offerings of salt were included in many religious ceremonies, and people might bring salt to a new home for good luck. These associations would have suggested that it would be bad luck to spill salt, since it would seem to violate salt’s fortunate properties.

Salt is also an excellent preservative. It prevents food from going bad. As such, it came to be linked with health and longevity. In some cultures, spilling salt was thought to reduce one's well-being. In Britain, for example, each spilled grain was said to represent a tear, while in Germany spilled salt awakened the devil, bringing misfortune.

The fear of spilling salt was also adopted into the Christian faith. It is said that Judas spilled salt at the Last Supper, and since he later turned out to be the betrayer of Christ, spilled salt is considered unlucky by many Christians.

Should you be unfortunate enough to spill salt, you might throw a pinch over your left shoulder to blind the Devil.

【推荐2】Early fifth-century philosopher St. Augustine famously wrote that he knew what time was unless someone asked him. Albert Einstein added another wrinkle when he theorized that time varies depending on where you measure it. Today’s state-of-the-art atomic (原子的) clocks have proven Einstein right. Even advanced physics can’t decisively tell us what time is, because the answer depends on the question you’re asking.

Forget about time as an absolute. What if, instead of considering time in terms of astronomy, we related time to ecology? What if we allowed environmental conditions to set the tempo (节奏) of human life? We’re increasingly aware of the fact that we can’t control Earth systems with engineering alone, and realizing that we need to moderate (调节) our actions if we hope to live in balance. What if our definition of time reflected that?

Recently, I conceptualized a new approach to timekeeping that’s connected to circumstances on our planet，conditions that might change as a result of global warming. We’re now building a clock at the Anchorage Museum that reflects the total flow of several major Alaskan rivers, which are sensitive to local and global environmental changes. We’ve programmed it to match an atomic clock if the waterways continue to flow at their present rate. If the rivers run faster in the future on average, the clock will get ahead of standard time. If they run slower, you’ll see the opposite effect.

The clock registers both short-term irregularities and long-term trends in river dynamics. It’s a sort of observatory that reveals how the rivers are behaving from their own temporal frame (时间框架), and allows us to witness those changes on our smartwatches or phones. Anyone who opts to go on Alaska Mean River Time will live in harmony with the planet. Anyone who considers river time in relation to atomic time will encounter a major imbalance and may be motivated to counteract it by consuming less fuel or supporting greener policies.

Even if this method of timekeeping is novel in its particulars，early agricultural societies also connected time to natural phenomena. In pre-Classical Greece, for instance, people “corrected” official calendars by shifting dates forward or backward to reflect the change of season. Temporal connection to the environment was vital to their survival. Likewise, river time and other timekeeping systems we’re developing may encourage environmental awareness.

When St. Augustine admitted his inability to define time, he highlighted one of time’s most noticeable qualities: Time becomes meaningful only in a defined context. Any timekeeping system is valid, and each is as praiseworthy as its purpose.