【推荐3】According to some recent research, healthy, stable friendships can protect against depression and anxiety, increase life satisfaction, and improve health. Those who don’t have strong social connections, meanwhile, have a risk of disease.    1    . How can they achieve it?Some experts have shared their favorite ways as follows.

Invest time consistently

Making time for the people you care about and having shared experiences play an essential role in deepening friendships.    2    . So you are supposed to invest time and effort. If you find you continually fail to put in time with your friends, add a section for connection to your to-do list and take action.

Get vulnerable.

One way to grow stronger friendships is allowing yourself to be weak. Start by sharing small opinions, and then dive even deeper by telling your friends what you’re currently struggling with and what scares you.    3    .And eventually, you and your friends will be closer together.

Mix in something new

    4    .That goes for both conversations and activities. Carve out moments of communication that you and your friends are familiar with. And brainstorm new adventures you can take on together, like traveling to your shared dream destination or joining a sport team.

    5    

Every friendship will unavoidably arrive at some situations that are concerning: the highs and lows in life that affect how we label our relationships. Were you there when your friends got a promotion or were diagnosed with something scary? The answer plays a large role in determining how much you value that friendship. Do remember: Your company matters.

【推荐1】A new research finds that these beloved pets might hurt the pet-owners’ sleeping. According to the study, though pets have many positive effects on health, pet ownership was linked with poorer sleep.

The researchers adjusted for factors that could affect sleep, including race and income, as well as age, gender and BMI, and focused on whether a person had a sleep disorder and whether a person had a cat or a dog. The findings showed that having a dog was associated with a greater chance of having a sleep disorder and overall having trouble sleeping, while having a cat was associated with having a higher chance of leg jerks(抽搐) at night.

“One of the factors is the age of the pet. It has a big influence on whether or not they keep you up at night,” Van Egmond, a researcher said. “If you have multiple pets, they can egg each other on.” So more pets, more noise, more difficult to fall asleep.

So, what should we do to guarantee the sleep quality with pets hanging around?

With dogs, it depends a lot on the breed and the activity level it needs. Making sure a pet dog gets plenty of physical activities and mental stimulation during the day can help animals — and their owners — get a better rest.

Unlike dogs, cats tend to have bursts of energy at night. To deal with this, such suggestions are worth considering. If you play with your cat before it was ready for bed, you would activate the cat’s hunting instinct(本能). By being fed after that, your cat would feel that it has successfully hunted its food and was rewarded with a nice meal in return. Its natural instinct after that was to groom(梳洗) itself and go to sleep.

The new study indicates that pets can influence your sleep, but we have to really take into account that pets are much more than a facilitator or inhibitor of sleep, they are part of our family.

【推荐2】Why are polar bears white? Why do rabbits have long ears? Why do zebras have stripes (条纹)? It’s all about survival. Wild animals normally focus their efforts on two important tasks. One task is to look for things to eat. While they do that, they have to avoid getting eaten! They can’t afford to ignore any dangers around them. Life is just one long game of hide-and-seek. Luckily for them, the way they look usually helps them. The zebra is a very good example.

Zebras usually travel in large groups. Imagine a hundred zebras moving together across the grassland: in Africa. Not far away, a lioness is lying on a tree branch, resting. She is waiting for her chance to attack. The zebras are getting nearer, but they’ re running very close together. Now she’s seen them, and she’s getting ready: she knows she’ll soon have a zebra to kill.

The lioness’s goal is to catch a zebra for breakfast. There is no place to hide, but the zebras have a secret line of defence; their stripes.

Lions are colour-blind. As the zebras move in a large group, it’s hard for the lioness to see which zebra to attack. All she sees is a big mass of black and white stripes. She’s not sure what to do. Breakfast must wait. The animals are always trying to hide from her.

But do zebras’ stripes cause problems for other zebras as they do for lions? No, they don’t. Actually, the purpose of the stripes in this case is to help zebras recognize each other. Every zebra has an individual pattern of stripes and zoologists believe this is how zebras know who is who in the group. A mother zebra always recognizes her child among the crowd because its stripes are just a little different from the others.

【推荐3】The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its sixth major report on the health of the planet on Monday, demonstrating “if Pacific Ocean temperatures continue to rise, bleaching will kill the remaining corals that make up Australia’s Great Barrier Reef ”.

Bleaching is the result of higher-than-normal ocean temperatures. Warmer water causes corals to release the sea-plants that feed them and make them colorful. They turn white and sicken, often dying very quickly.

The Great Barrier Reef, which is over 2,300 kilometers long is the largest living structure on Earth. It is home to thousands of kinds of fish and other animals. Giant clams, whales, dolphins and birds are among the others that depend on the reef to live.

Humanity also profits from the reef. Popular with visitors, who bring a lot of money to the area, the reef was the center of Tony Fontes’ 40 years career. The professional diver taught the sport and led dive rips to the reef. He compared the destruction from a bleaching event to that from a forest fire. “You just realize you’ve just swum across a reef that a couple weeks ago was full of life and vibrant and now a bushfire has gone through it and the coral is dead,” he said, adding, “and the rest of the marine life will just have to move on or die off.”

IPCC panelist Mark Howden, director of the climate school at Australian National University said conditions that scientists predicted for the future “ are appearing pretty much now. ” However, he mentioned the report offered ideas that can reduce pressure on the reef and help Australia reduce its negative impact on the environment. “Australians should be concerned about all the problems discussed in the report,” he said, “but, the IPCC also wrote about solutions to prevent worst-case circumstances in the future.”