【推荐2】While there are many factors that go into how attractive you are to mosquitoes, new research has found the colors you’re wearing definitely play a role.

That's the main takeaway from a new study published in the journal Nature Communications. For the study, researchers from the University of Washington tracked the behavior of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes when they were given different types of visual and scent cues (信号). The researchers put the mosquitoes into small test chambers and exposed them to different things, like a colored dot or person’s hand.

In case you’re not familiar with how mosquitoes find food, they first detect that you’re around by smelling carbon dioxide from your breath. That prompts them to scan for certain colors and visual patterns that could indicate food, the researchers explained.

When there was no smell like carbon dioxide in the test chambers, the mosquitos pretty much ignored the colored dot, no matter what color it was. But once researchers sprayed carbon dioxide in the chamber, they flew toward dots that were red, orange, black, or cyan. Dots that were green, blue, or purple were ignored.

“Light colors are perceived as a threat to mosquitoes, which is why many species avoid biting in direct sunlight,” entomologist Timothy Best says. “Mosquitoes are very likely to die by dehydration(脱水), therefore light colors may typically represent danger and prompt avoidance. In contrast, darker colors are similar to shadows, which are more likely to absorb and store heat, allowing mosquitoes to use their sophisticated antenna to locate a host.”

If you have the option of wearing lighter or darker clothes when you know you'll be going into an area with lots of mosquitoes, Best recommends going with the lighter choice. “Dark colors stand out to mosquitoes, whereas light colors blend in.” he says.

Apart from avoiding colors mosquitoes like (red, orange, black, and cyan) when you’re going into areas where these bugs are known to exist, there are other things you can do to lower your risk of being bitten by a mosquito, which include:

·Using insect repellent

·Wear long-sleeved shirts and pants

·Get rid of standing water around your home or empty items that hold water like bird baths, toys, and planters weekly

·Use screens on your windows and doors

Each of these protective measures will contribute in decreasing your likelihood of getting bitten. And, if you’re able to wear something other than red or dark colors, even better.

【推荐1】When we are desperately searching for our glasses, wallet or keys, we might wish to have a photo-graphic memory, but the truth is we are designed to forget.

In fact, the majority of what we experience in a given day is likely to be forgotten in less than 24 hours. And that is a good thing. Think of all the passing encounters with people you will never see again and the times you spend waiting in a queue at the supermarket. If our brains hoarded (贮藏) every moment of every experience, we would never be able to find the information we need among an ever-increasing pile of information.

So, if memory is not supposed to be a comprehensive collection of the past, what is the point of remembering at all?To answer this question, it helps to think about what it means to remember in the first place. For more than 25 years, I have studied how we are able to recall past events, an ability known as “episodic memory”. It is described as the uniquely human capability for “mental time travel, roaming at will over what has happened as readily as over what might happen, independently of the physical laws that govern the universe”. I first read this description of mental time travel when I was a graduate student, and I was deeply sceptical. Now, with the wisdom of age, I understand what it meant.

When you recall a rich episodic memory, there is a noticeable feeling of being transported back to a point in your past, a specific time and place. For instance, the smell of freshly baked pastries might remind you of having breakfast with your grandmother. Findings from my lab and others have shown that, at the moment of remembering, the brain appears to return a bit to the state that it was in at the time, enabling us to relive these past experiences.

This is why, if you have misplaced your keys, it can be helpful to put yourself, mentally into the context where you last saw them. Getting in touch with the sights, sounds and thoughts from an earlier time period can be an effective way of accessing those memories.

【推荐3】Women’s Innovative Contributions and Inventions

Women made numerous innovative contributions and inventions throughout history, from everyday items to widely-used technologies. Here are some made by brilliant women.

In the 1960s, a company, where Stephanie Kwolek worked, was working on finding a suitable fibre to produce car tyres. During the research, Kwolek achieved a breakthrough when she discovered a heat-resistant polymer that is stronger-but lighter than steel. Then it was used to develop a new synthetic fibre. Today, it is common to see the discovery applied in creating helmets, racing sails and so on.

The caller ID feature has given many people the opportunity to screen unknown or unwanted phone calls. With call waiting, people are notified of a new incoming call while on another call. Interestingly, while receiving a call, that call will not, block the incoming one. Dr Shirley Ann Jackson contributed to these two inventions; during, her research period at Bell Laboratories in the 1970s.

In the 1920s, Alice H. Parker’s model used natural gas to heat a home instead of wood and allowed multiple rooms to be heated at the same time. It also introduced pipes that enabled hot air to circulate through buildings, essentially improving the efficiency of the system.

From the early 1990s, Australian plastic surgeon Dr Fiona Melanie Wood focused her research on improving established techniques of skin repair. The spray-on skin repair technology allowed burns and skin injuries to be treated more effectively and with less pain. With Dr Wood’s constant improvement over the years, the technology is now widely applied in hospitals.