【推荐2】On the day the tornado hit, there was no sign severe weather was on its way—the sky was blue and the sun had been out. My husband Jimmy and I were watching TV upstairs.

No sooner had we got the coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard. The bones of the house shook, and the power went out. We had three flights of steps to get through to get to the relative safety of the first floor.

As we struggled to reach the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Pieces of glass that looked like crushed ice flew everywhere. Suddenly, a three-foot-long tree branch flew over our heads, missing us by inches. Had we been one step up, it would have impaled us.

By the time I reached the closet, Jimmy pushed me down to the closet floor, but he couldn’t get inside himself because of the wind. I grasped Jimmy’s arm and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees and head were full of glass, but in that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house and into the bay.

“Hold on! Hold on!” he yelled. But there was nothing in this closet to hold on to.

All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn’t believe it was over. Jimmy said he’d go outside to check. “No,” I said. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

Our neighbor says the storm lasted four minutes. In that time, four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Of the houses left standing, ours suffered the most damage. Amazingly, none of us were severely injured.

【推荐1】Amazing Benefits of Listening to Music

If you love listening to music, you’re good company.     1    

★Music makes you happier.

When you listen to music, your brain produces a special matter. It biologically (生物学上) causes listeners to feel emotions like happiness, excitement, and joy. So next time you need an emotional increase, listen to your favorite tunes for 15 minutes.

★    2    

Listening to music you enjoy reduces levels of the stress in your body. This is an important finding since stress causes many illnesses. To stay calm and healthy during a stressful day, turn on the radio.

★Music helps you sleep better.

A study showed that students listening to classical music for 45 minutes slept better than students who did nothing. If you’re having trouble sleeping, try listening to a little Bach or Mozart before bedtime.

★Music helps you eat less.

    3    If you’re looking for ways to reduce your appetite (食欲), try dimming the lights and listening to soft music next time you sit down for a meal.

★Music strengthens learning and memory.

Researchers discovered that music can help you learn and recall information better.     4     Memorize these results. You now have a strategy to study more effectively for your next test.

★Music raises IQ and school performance.

Research shows that taking music lessons predicts higher school performance and IQ in young children.     5    

【推荐2】If you have ever had a cat, or have watched one of the many funny cat videos online, you’ll know that cats have a mind of their own. A lot of the things they do are hard to understand—they like to climb up tall furniture, fit themselves in small spaces and attack small objects for no reason at all.

Now scientists have managed to figure out what exactly is going on in the brains of our little friends. According to Tony Buffington, a professor at Ohio State University in the US, cats’ strange behavior largely comes from their way of life back in the wild. “Cats today still have many of the same instincts that allowed them to live in the wild for millions of years.” he said in a TED Talk. “To them, our homes are their jungles.”

In the wild, cats are hunters. Their bodies and great balancing abilities allow them to climb to high spots to better look at the environment. Even though they don’t have to hunt any more in human houses, they still keep the old habit of viewing the living room from, for example, the top of the refrigerator.

Cats’ hunting instinct is also what makes them attack small things like keys and USB drives. In the wild, they hunt whatever they can get, and most of the animals they kill are small.

However, cats can also be prey. This explains why they like to stay in small spaces like drawers or washing machines— they are hiding, or they think they are hiding, from more dangerous animals. This is also why cats prefer a clean box: a smelly one could easily show enemies where they are.

Knowing how cats’ minds work is not only useful for better understanding them. It may also help cats’ owners to better meet cats’ needs. For example, owners could try to make climbing easier for cats by moving their furniture around. They could also use “food puzzles” to make eating feel more like hunting instead of just giving food to the cats.

【推荐3】If you want to slow aging, you might want to eat less. This finding is good news—if you were a mouse. The researchers studied mice, not people.

John Price and other researchers studied two groups of mice. One group was able to eat as much as it wanted. The researchers limited what the mice in the other group ate. Their diet had 35 percent fewer calories than the first group of mice.

Price says the mice with the diet restrictions were more energetic and suffered fewer disease. They were not just living longer but seemed to stay younger for a longer period of time.

The researchers found that fewer calories slow down a natural mechanism in cells called ribosomes. Price explains that ribosomes are responsible for making important proteins in the cells. But with fewer calories, they slow down. This gives the cells more time to repair themselves.

The researchers say ribosomes use from 10 to 20 percent of the cell’s energy to make those proteins. Price wrote that because of this, it is impractical to destroy an entire ribosome when it starts to break down. However, repairing individual parts of the ribosome on a regular basis enables ribosomes to continue producing high quality proteins for longer than they would otherwise. This top quality production, in turn, keeps cells and the entire body functioning well.

Price said, “ribosome is a very complex machine, like a car.” “They need maintenance to replace the parts that wear out the fastest. When tires wear out,” he explained,” you don’t throw the whole car away and buy a new one. It costs less to replace the old tires.”

“Food,” he said, “isn’t just material to be burned—it’s a signal that tells our body and cells how to respond.” Price said the findings help to explain how exactly our bodies age. And this may “help us make more educated decisions about what we eat.”

【推荐1】Born in 1965, Shania Twain was the second of five children in her family. At the age of two, she moved with her mother and two sisters to Timmins, a town north of Toronto. When Shania was eight years old, her mother took her to many different bars, clubs and concerts to perform. In high school，Shania joined a local band, with which she often performed. After that, Shania moved to Toronto, where she continued singing.

When Shania was 21 years old, her parents were killed in a car accident. She had to take over the role of parent to her younger siblings (兄弟姐妹). Taking care of two teenage brothers and a sister was a difficult thing. Suddenly, she had to pay the bills, keep food on the table, and make a living. Anyway, Shania managed to pay the bills by singing here and there.

In 1991, Shania went to Nashville, the home of the country music industry. In 1993, she recorded Shania Twain, her first CD. In 1995, her next CD, The Woman in Me, which had eight hit songs, sold more than ten million copies. Her third CD, Come on Over, was also popular and she had another hit song.

Shania and Robert Lange，a famous producer，got married in 1993. After finishing her 2000 world tour, she decided to take a break from performing. In August 2001, they had a lovely son, whom they named Ej a. After September 11th，Shania decided to spend more time on her family and stayed at home until the fall of 2002. Her reappearance（复出） in the music world put her face on magazine covers and country music publications. She also began to promote (宣传）her new CD，Up，on TV shows.

【推荐2】When your pet has an emergency，first aid is not a substitute for veterinary(兽医的) treatment.However，before you are able to get your pet to a veterinarian，knowing some basic first aid can help.

Bite Wounds

Approach the pet carefully to avoid getting bitten.Wear a mask for the animal and then check the wound.Clean the wound with large amounts of saline(盐水). If these are not available，then regular water may be used.Wrap large open wounds to keep them clean.

Bleeding

Apply firm，direct pressure over the bleeding area until the bleeding stops.Hold the pressure for at least 10 minutes.Avoid bandages that cut off circulation.

Breathing Stops

Check to see if the animal is choking(窒息) on a foreign object.If an animal is not breathing，place it on a firm surface with its left side up.Check for a heartbeat.If you hear a heartbeat but not breathing，close the animal's mouth and breathe directly into its nose—not the mouth—until the chest expands.Repeat 12 to 15 times per minute.

Burns

Wash the burn immediately with large amounts of cool，running water.Apply an ice pack for 15－20 minutes.Do not place an ice pack directly on the skin.Wrap the pack in a light towel or other cover.If the animal has large quantities of dry chemicals on its skin，brush them off.Water may activate some dry chemicals.

Fractures(骨折)

Symptoms include pain，inability to use a limb(腿). Wear a mask for the pet and look for bleeding.If you can control bleeding without causing more injury，then do so.Watch for signs of shock.Don't try to set the fractures by pulling the limb.Transport the pet to the veterinarian immediately，supporting the injured part as best as you can.

【推荐3】British sculptor Jason Taylor has made it his mission to use his talent to conserve our ecosystems by creating underwater museums. Over the years, the environmentalist has put over 850 massive artworks underwater worldwide. On February 1st, 2021, Taylor launched his latest work—The Underwater Museum of Cannes.

“The main goal was to bring attention to the fact that our oceans need our help.” Taylor told Dezeen. “Ocean ecologies have been destroyed by human activities in the Mediterranean over the past few decades, and it is not obvious what is taking place when observing the sea from afar.”

The Underwater Museum of Cannes contains 6 sculptures featuring local residents of various ages. They range from Maurice, an 80-year-old fisherman, to Anouk, a 9-year-old student. Towering over 6-foot-tall and weighing 10 tons, the faces are sectioned into two parts, with the outer part like a mask. The mask indicates that the world’s oceans appear powerful and unbeatable from the surface but house an ecosystem that is extremely fragile to careless human activities.

Though the waters surrounding the sculptures now appear a purely blue, the seabed was filled with old boat engines, pipes, and other human-made trash when the project began about four years ago. Besides removing the trash, Taylor also restored the area’s seagrass. Just one square meter of the seagrass can generate up to 10 liters of oxygen daily. The seagrass also helps prevent coastal erosion (侵蚀) and provides habitats for many ocean creatures.

“The idea of creating an underwater museum was to draw more people underwater and develop a sense of care and protection,” Taylor told Dezeen. “If we threw unwanted waste near a forest, there would be a public outcry. But this is happening every day in our surrounding waters and it largely goes unnoticed.”