【推荐1】Taking between 9,000 and 10,000 steps per day appears to reduce the risk of an early death or heart-related event, adding reason to an idea that has been considered as unscientific.

The exact origin of the commonly held belief that people should aim for 10,000 steps a day is unclear, but it has been linked to a marketing plan promoting pedometers (计步器) in Japan. Now, a study by Matthew Ahmadi at the University of Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues suggests the figure could hold some truth.

The team studied more than 72,000 participants, with an average age of 61, in the UK Biobank study as they wore a movement-tracking accelerometer (加速度计) on their wrists for one week. “We were able to know their daily steps,” says Ahmadi. The participants were then tracked for an average of just under seven years.

During that time period, 1,633 people died and 6,190 heart-related events occurred. After adjusting other factors that could influence the risk of illness or death over that period—such as diet quality, smoking and doing other forms of exercise, the researchers found out that the best number of steps per day appears to be between 9,000-and 10,000, with the benefits then starting to tail off. Doing so was linked to a 39% lower risk of dying during the follow-up period and a 21% lower risk of a heart-related event. “It does appear to support the belief that the originally non-evidence based 10,000 steps target may indeed be about right,” says Dale Esliger at Loughborough University in the UK.

However, while the study was “extremely well designed” with “careful methods and statistical analysis”, Esliger says wrist-worn accelerometers aren’t always the best indicator of step count. The researchers also didn’t consider the number of steps taken per minute. “It’s possible that around 6,000 steps performed at a higher pace may be just as health protective as 10,000 slower steps,” says Esliger.

【推荐3】Tourists visiting the Canary Islands can often hear locals communicating over long distances by whistling—not a tune, but the Spanish language. The locals are communicating in Silbo, a much more widespread use of whistled languages. In at least 80 cultures worldwide, people have developed whistled versions of their local languages when the circumstances call for it.

Whistled languages are almost always developed by traditional cultures that live in mountainous regions or in dense forests. That’s because whistled speech carries much farther than ordinary speech or shouting, says Julien Meyer, a linguist who explores the topic of whistled languages. Skilled whistlers can reach 120 decibels (分贝)—louder than a car speaker. As a result, whistled speech can be understood up to 10 times as far away as ordinary shouting can. That lets people communicate when they cannot get close enough to shout.

Whistled languages work because many of the key elements of speech can be imitated in a whistle. We distinguish one speech sound from another by minor differences in their sound frequency patterns. Whistlers can express all of these distinctions by varying the pitch (音高) of their whistle. And the skill can be adapted to any language, even those that have no tradition of whistling.

However, whistled languages are disappearing rapidly all over the world, and some—such as the whistled form of the Tepehua language in Mexico—have already disappeared. Modernization is largely to blame, says Meyer, who points to roads as the biggest factor. “That’s why you still find whistled speech only in places that are very, very remote, that have had less access to roads,” he says.

Fortunately, there is still a ray of hope. UNESCO has listed two whistled languages—Silbo in the Canary Islands, and a whistled Turkish—as elements of the world’s intangible cultural heritage. Such attention can lead to conservation efforts. In the Canary Islands, for example, Silbo is now taught in schools. “If people hadn’t made that effort, Silbo would probably have disappeared,” says Meyer. There, at least, the future of the whistled language looks bright.

【推荐2】British education provides a reliable pathway to the best universities in the world, but what really defines British education?

At its simplest, it can be seen as a curriculum (课程) that is common to most schools in England and Wales.    1     The National Curriculum leads to GCSE (at age 16) and A level examinations(at age 18). These are qualifications recognized by universities and employers around the world.

    2     Teachers in the UK tend to emphasize learning to think and to work things out for oneself over learning facts. Delivering interesting lessons is seen as an important part of the teacher’s role, based on the precondition that we learn much better when we feel motivated.

British education is also associated with activities that take place beyond the classroom. There’re various organized games, outdoor and extra course activities.    3    

Education in the UK is heavily infused (灌输) with liberal ideas and personal responsibility.    4     The curriculum references not only British culture but also many other cultures from around the world. Thoughtfulness and patience with others win high praise.

British education is forward-looking and in constant evolution.    5     New methods often come into practice while the out-dated and hard disciplines have fade into history, leaving behind softer traditions and customs.