【推荐2】The year 2018 will mark the 100h anniversary of the deadliest influenza outbreak in history. It is estimated that the influenza pandemic (瘟疫) of 1918 killed more than 50 million people around the world. Other estimates go much higher. Because of a lack of medical record-keeping, we may never know the exact number.

The influenza was a fast killer. Some victims died within hours of their first symptoms. Others died after a few days. “Their lungs filled with liquid and they choked to death.” The 1918 flu pandemic was also different from other outbreaks. It struck many young. healthy people. Viruses usually affect sick or old people.

Although modern medicine effectively controls many diseases, influenza remains difficult to protect against. The World Health Organization estimates that every year influenza kills 250,000 to 500,000 people around the world. Each year, medical scientists develop flu vaccines (疫苗) which offer immunity (免疫) from some influenza viruses. But they can only guess which form of the virus will spread.

Health officials remain concerned about another flu pandemic. New forms of the flu virus appear regularly. One example was the “swine flu” or H1N1 outbreak in 2009. Anthony Faucal, Director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in the United States says that virus caused a true pandemic.

To stop the next pandemic, scientists are now researching how to create a universal influenza vaccine. In October 2017, Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the U. S. announced the Universal Influenza Vaccine Initiative. The university said researchers are leading an international effort to develop a universal influenza vaccine that will protect everyone against all forms of the flu anywhere in the world. The university added that researchers will begin tests in early 2018. The Human Vaccines Project, a public-private partnership, is funding the project. However, until a universal influenza vaccine is available, today’s seasonal flu vaccine remains important.

【推荐3】Text messaging is a surprisingly good way to receive candid responses to sensitive questions, according to a new study to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. “The preliminary (初步的) results of our study suggest that people are more likely to disclose sensitive information via text messages than in voice interviews,” says Fred Conrad, a psychologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

“This is sort of surprising,” says Conrad, “since many people thought that texting would decrease the likelihood of disclosing sensitive information because it creates a persistent, visual record of questions and answers that others might see on your phone and in the cloud.”

With text, the researchers also found that people were less likely to engage in “satisficing”— a survey industry term referring to the common practice of giving good enough, easy answers. “We believe people give more precise answers via texting because there's just not the time pressure in a largely asynchronous (非同步的) mode like text that there is in phone interviews, ” says Conrad. “As a result, respondents are able to take longer to arrive at more accurate answers.”

Conrad conducted the study with Michael Schober, a professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research. “We're in the early stages of analyzing our findings,” says Schober. “But so far it seems that texting may reduce some respondents' tendency to shade the truth or to present themselves in the best possible light in an interview, even when they know it's a human interviewer they are communicating with via text. What we cannot yet be sure of is who is most likely to be disclosive in text. Is it different for frequent texters, or generational, for example? ”

For the study, the researchers recruited approximately 600 iPhone-users through Google Ads, offering them iTunes Store rewards to participate in the study. Their goals were to see whether responses to the same questions differed depending on several variables: whether the questions were asked via text or voice, whether a human or a computer asked the questions, and whether the environment, including the presence of other people and the likelihood of multitasking, affected the answers.

【推荐1】Five Great Websites for Teenagers

EcoCentral

This website is all about looking after the Earth, providing the right advice, the right services, and a big dollop of inspiration. There are facts about different animals, as well as information about forests, deserts and oceans. You can upload your own videos onto the site for everyone to see.

TeenPress

This is one of the best sites on the web for teenagers who love writing. You can share your work with others, and there are message boards where you can chat about things that are important to you.

Channel One News

ChannelOne. com is by far the most comprehensive and informative site for teens. Not only does it keep them up with the latest world news, Channel One offers homework help, fun quizzes, music videos and movie reviews. It also covers sports and includes a section where teens can write their own blogs.

Tune-in

There are millions of songs on this website for you to download or listen to online. You can save your favorite songs in your own list. If you’re in a band, you can record your music and upload it. The website is large, but the menus are easy to use.

Science News

Science News is designed as a science news site for young teens though the information they provide is interesting enough for anyone. Articles covering space, fossils, physics, weather, the environment and many other things are offered. It’s a great place for science project ideas.

【推荐2】More than a billion people around the world have smartphones, almost all of which come with some kind of navigation (导航) app such as Apple Maps or Amap. This raises the age-old question we meet with any technology: What abilities is our brain losing to these apps? But also, importantly: What abilities are we gaining?

Talking with people who are good at finding their way around or good at using paper maps, I often hear a lot of annoyance (恼怒) with digital maps. North/south direction gets messed up, and you can see only a small section at a time. I can really understand that it may be quite disturbing for the already skilled to be limited to a small phone screen.

But consider what digital navigation aids have meant for someone like me. Although being a frequent traveler, I’m so terrible at finding my way that I still use Apple Maps almost every day in the small town where I have lived for many years.

In many developed nations, street names and house numbers can be meaningful, and instructions such as “go north for three blocks and－then west” make sense to those familiar with these rules. In Istanbul, however, where I grew up, none of those hold true. For one thing, the locals seldom use street names. Besides, the city is full of winding and ancient alleys that cross with newer avenues at many angles. In such places, you’d better turn to the locals. In the American countryside, however, there is often nobody outside to ask. In fact, along came Apple Maps, like a fairy grandmother whispering directions in my ear. Since then, I travel with a lot more confidence, and my world has opened up.

Which brings me back to my original questions: While we often lose some skills after depending on new technology, this new equipment may also allow us to gain new abilities. Maybe when technology closes a door, we should also look for the doors it opens.

【推荐3】iPad vs textbooks

What if you could have your whole backpack at the touch of your fingertips? In the first month of the Apple iPads release, 25million were sold! People all over the world use iPads for all sorts of different things, but one of their finest qualities is the ability to be a textbook.     1     .

To begin with. iPads are less expensive. Textbooks become outdated and schools have to buy new books, but with an iPad schools can update them for free.     2     . Schools don't have to spend $500 every year for iPads because they last a while and can be updated.

    3    . Students usually have multiple classes, which results in multiple textbooks. Heavy backpacks filled with books can cause back problem. A solution to that is an iPad, which only weighs 1.33 pounds and can hold all of a student's textbooks.

Thirdly, schools should get rid of their textbooks and get iPads because they have more capabilities. Some might think all of the apps are distracting, but the apps actually make iPads more efficient.     4     . Textbooks cannot do those tasks, but iPads can easily do them with just a tap of the fingertip.

Lastly, iPads are a better choice for schools instead of textbooks because these devices allow students to access their learning anywhere at any time.     5     . With iPads, they find it easier to get their homework done.

In conclusion, schools should get rid of their clumsy textbooks and switch to iPads. iPads have allowed this generation to have their entire backpack in the palm of their hands.

【推荐1】Technological change is everywhere and affects every aspect of life, mostly for the better. However, social changes brought about by new technology are often mistaken for a change in attitudes.

An example at hand is the involvement of parents in the lives of their children who are attending college. Surveys on this topic suggests that parents today continue to be “very” or “somewhat” overly-protective even after their children move into college dormitories. The same surveys also indicate that the rate of parental involvement is greater today than it was a generation ago. This is usually interpreted as a sign that today’s parents are trying to manage their children’s lives past the point where this behavior is appropriate.

However, greater parental involvement does not necessarily indicate that parents are failing to let go of their “adult” children.

In the context (背景) of this discussion, it seems valuable to first find out the cause of change in the case of parents’ involvement with their grown children. If parents of earlier generations had wanted to be in touch with their college-age children frequently, would this have been possible? Probably not. On the other hand, does the possibility of frequent communication today mean that the urge to do so wasn’t present a generation ago? Many studies show that older parents—today’s grandparents—would have called their children more often if the means and cost of doing so had not been a barrier.

Furthermore, studies show that finances are the most frequent subject of communication between parents and their college children. The fact that college students are financially dependent on their parents is nothing new; nor are requests for more money to be sent from home. This phenomenon is neither good nor bad; it is a fact of college life, today and in the past.

Thanks to the advanced technology, we live in an age of bettered communication. This has many implications well beyond the role that parents seem to play in the lives of their children who have left for college. But it is useful to bear in mind that all such changes come from the technology and not some imagined desire by parents to keep their children under their wings.

【推荐2】Picture this:you’re switching channels and you come across an advertisement for a popular cigarette brand with doctors promoting its health benefits. Unbelievable? Think again. A century ago, attitudes around smoking were strikingly different, and, shocking though it may now be, it was common to see health professionals give their approval to cigarette makers.

In a jaw-dropping state of affairs , doctors weren’t the only ones to promote smoking —in fact , during the first run of the cartoon show The Flintstones in 1960, its official sponsor was Winston cigarettes, and in one advertising session, the characters Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble are seen smoking a pack together, with the latter remarking:“It tastes good, like a cigarette should.”

There was pushback in the media against the overstatements of wealthy tobacco giants (巨头) however,and it was the American issue of Reader’s Digest which regularly sounded the smoke alarm.The first story on the topic was published in its pages in 1924.“Does Tobacco Injure the Human Body?”, focused on a groundbreaking study that concluded smoking was “one of the very significant reasons fewer men than women attain old age. ”Another story published in 1952 called “Cancer by the Carton” was credited with contributing to the largest drop in cigarette smoking since the Great Depression.

Smoking has lost its cool factor in recent decades, and the number of smokers across the country continues to steadily decline. In 1922 over 65,000 tons of tobacco were sold in the UK , reaching a peak of 125,960 tons sold in 1961. Due to growing public awareness of smoking’ s harmful health effects, by 2014 that figure had dropped to 43,793 tons.

In the past decade, the rate of smokers has dropped considerably. And it’s young people in particular who are turning away from smoking: 25.7 percent of 18-24 year olds smoked regularly in 2011 while in 2018 16.8 per cent did. Hear that? It’ s the collective sound of lungs breathing again.

【推荐3】Most Chinese diners pick up food from shared large plates with the same pair of chopsticks that they then use to eat, or serve others. Usually, the same pair of chopsticks is used in many ways again and again. But the government hopes to change people’s habits by pushing them to use a second pair of chopsticks — just for serving.

State news reporters are calling it a “dining table revolution.” Dr. Zhong Nanshan and Dr. Zhang Wenhong, outspoken infectious (感染的) disease experts who have become famous since the start of the outbreak, have voiced their support. Health organizations across the country are running advertisements like: “The distance between you and civilized dining is just one pair of serving chopsticks.”

Some restaurants and diners have heeded the call. They are offering lower prices to diners who use serving chopsticks. In the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, more than 100 well-known restaurants have formed a “Serving Chopsticks Alliance”.

Still, opposition is strong. Many see sharing food with one’s own chopsticks as among the most authentic (纯正的) expressions of China’s group culture and focus on family, no less important than hugging is to Americans or the cheek (脸颊) kiss is to the French. Serving chopsticks are usually connected with formal settings, like dinner parties and meals with strangers.

By contrast, wheat-eating northerners, and especially the men, take pride in what Chinese call “eating big and drinking big”, without care for such small concerns as germs and bacteria (细菌). Never mind a small, recent experiment by government experts who found that the level of bacteria in dishes for which serving chopsticks were used was as little as 0.4 percent the level of dishes shared in the regular fashion.

【推荐1】In the story of the three little pigs, the one who built his house of straw did not do well; the big bad wolf blew it down. But builder Michael Furbish, who made his own home from bales (捆) of straw, and an elementary school from the same material, says that in reality straw houses are not only strong, but also good for the environment. Straw—the stalks (杆，茎) of plants like wheat, oats, and barley—is considered a waste material and is commonly used on farms as animal bedding. But more and more people are discovering that straw baled into rectangular blocks is an excellent and inexpensive building material.

There are two ways to make a straw-bale structure. You can build load-bearing walls with them, which means the walls support the roof. Or you can build a post-and-beam wooden frame that supports the roof and fill in the walls with the bales. Either way, the walls are there to stay. And they provide great insulation (绝缘), helping keep straw houses in cold climates warm in winter and those built in hot places like the desert cool in summer. Straw is considered a “green” building material because it is a renewable resource: a whole new crop can be grown and harvested every year, easily “renewing” the supply. Also, planting and harvesting straw uses relatively little energy. “Most other building materials require a lot of energy to be produced,” explains Furbish. “With straw-bale construction, you are getting a building product without using much energy at all.”

Furbish used about 900 straw bales in his family’s two-story, three-bedroom house. His company also provided straw-bale walls for the Friends Community School of College Park in Maryland. That project used about 4, 000 bales. When asked if there are any problems with living in a straw house, like mice nibbling (咬，啃). On the walls, Furbish points out that the straw is completely covered with plaster and stucco (灰泥). Besides, he has a couple of cats on mouse watch, just in case. “It would be hard to find a wall system that will wear better than straw,” he says. The big bad wolf is just out of luck.

【推荐3】When a scent moved gently through the air in the bedrooms of older adults for two hours every night for just six months, their memories skyrocketed. Participants in this study by UCI (University of California, Irvine) Centre reaped a226% increase in cognitive (认知的) capacity compared to the control group. The researchers say the finding transforms the long-known tie between smell and memory into an easy, non-invasive (无创的) technique for strengthening memory and potentially preventing dementia. The team’s study appears in Frontiers in Neuroscience.

The study was conducted through the UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory. It involved men and women aged 60 to 85 without memory disorders. They were each given a diffuser (扩散器) and seven small bottles, each containing a single and different natural oil. People in the enriched group received full-strength bottles. Control group participants were given the oils in tiny amounts. Participants put a different bottle into their diffuser each evening prior to going to bed, and it remained active for two hours as they slept.

People in the enriched group showed a 226%increase in cognitive performance compared to the control group, as measured by a word list test commonly used to evaluate memory. CT imaging revealed better integrity brain pathway. The pathway affects decision-making ability and usually becomes less powerful with age. Participants also reported sleeping more soundly.

Scientists have long known that the loss of olfactory capacity, or ability to smell, can predict development of nearly 70 different kinds of diseases including Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Evidence emerges about a link between smell loss due to COVID and later cognitive decrease. Researchers have previously found that exposing people with moderate dementia to up to 40 different scents twice a day over a period of time boosted their memories and language skills, alleviated depression and improved their olfactory capacities. Later, the UCI team decided to try making this technique easier for older adults.