【推荐1】New research suggests that even a simple exercise program might help older people with light memory problems. Doctors have long advised patients to do physical activity to help keep their brains healthy. But the U.S. government-supported research marks the longest study of whether exercise makes any difference once memory starts to decline.

Researchers found around 300 inactive older adults with memory changes called mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (轻度认知障碍). In the research, the participants were divided into two groups and half of them did aerobic exercises, while the rest did stretching and balance movements that raised their heart rates a little. After a year, testing of mental activity showed neither group had worsened, said lead researcher Laura Baker of Wake Forest School of Medicine. By comparison, similar MCI patients in another long-term study of brain health — but without exercise — experienced cognitive decline over a year.

Maria Carrillo is the Alzheimer’s Association chief scientific officer. She said earlier research has found regular physical activity of any kind may reduce damaging inflammation and increase blood flow to the brain. She added that the new study is especially interesting because the COVID-19 pandemic began halfway through the study. That meant the study participants became socially isolated. Social isolation has long been known to increase people’s risk of memory problems.

It is a difficult time for dementia (痴呆症) research. Doctors are not sure about prescribing (开处方) a high-priced new drug called Aduhelm. The drug is supposed to be the first to slow the progression of dementia but it is not yet clear if it really helps patients. Researchers last month reported another drug that works similarly failed in an important study. There is growing urgency to find whether exercise might offer at least some protection. Baker will lead an even larger study of older adults to see if adding exercise to other steps such as a healthy diet, brain games and social activities may reduce the risk of dementia.

【推荐2】If you were to do a web search for “apps to make you money”, you'd get thousands of results. Many, a majority even, of those results are scams (诈骗). There are some that do reward you for your time, though.

Media Insiders

Media Insiders is a public opinion app that gathers data for its clients using surveys and other methods. Its rules indicate that you must be active at least once a week to earn rewards, which can accumulate (累计) and then be used to exchange prizes.

Checkpoints

CheckPoints is an app that tracks what you do on the Internet, rewarding you for certain things. Are you a movie fan? Watching a movie can earn you points. Want to do some shopping at an Internet store? You can earn points for that as well. Those points can then be exchanged for rewards such as gift cards at your favorite stores.

Pact

Need some financial motivation to make your plan to keep a healthy diet work? Pact is here for you. By pledging (保证) to eat a specific amount of fruits and vegetables or drink a certain amount of water in a day, you can earn money. Be careful, though! It will charge you for failing to fulfill your Pact!

These apps are generally reliable. However, you should be cautious whenever giving your information out through apps or on the Internet. For tax purposes you will have to give your full real name. These apps generally pay you through PayPal or by sending rewards to your address, so it is not recommended that you give out any banking information to the apps.

【推荐3】In the desert north of Palm Springs, California, there are many huge wind turbine blades (风力涡轮机叶片). Hundreds of thousands of birds and other creatures die from crashing onto the turbine blades or flying too close to the blades.

Since 2018, the searchers has employed a group of “sharp-nosed workers” with names like Indy, Lady, and Filson. Sniffer dogs (嗅探犬) have been helping to search this area thoroughly to help scientists and energy producers in better understanding the impacts of wind farms on wildlife. The body parts they find may be shocking, but each one is a data point that will eventually help to protect other birds and bats as companies install (安装) more turbines for clean energy.

Hundreds of thousands of birds and bats die from crashing onto the turbines each year, resulting in wildlife populations decline. Wind operators can take steps to reduce the fatalities, such as playing loud sounds through speakers to keep birds away. But those measures only work when energy companies have a solid grasp of interactions between wind farms and wildlife.

If you need to know how many animals a wind farm kills, it helps to work with dogs. In a 2020 study using randomly placed bodies (尸体), human searchers found just 6 percent of bats and 30 percent of birds. Partnering with dogs, however, greatly improved the quality of the search. In the same study, detection dogs found 96 percent of bats and 90 percent of birds. Other researches have found similar results.

Thanks to the sniffers, scientists collected a wealth of data they couldn’t have obtained otherwise. While it’s sad to find so many animals killed by turbines, researchers are analyzing every bit of information they have to understand the industry’s true impacts and explore how to improve the design of future wind projects to achieve the necessary and rapid development of renewables with the least harm to wildlife.

【推荐1】It was a February afternoon in a Brooklyn classroom. Sixteen-year-old Taylor Engler came face to face with a cow. But it was all in her head. She was transported by a virtual reality (VR) headphone. It took the Berkeley Carroll School junior and eight other classmates to a northern New York farm. The farm was 250 miles away. For students, the technology means field trips are no longer kept within the length of a bus ride.

It's unknown how many classrooms have or will use the technology, but experts say few classrooms do or will do. Headphones that require a user's phone can cost as little as $20 or $30, but systems and software for classes run into thousands of dollars. The problem of not having good software is disappearing as more companies enter the market. But the rules for use haven't kept abreast of the development of the technology. In New York, for example, virtual reality lab experiments are not included in the state's hands-on lab time requirements.

Experts say science classes are where virtual reality holds promise for classrooms. “The biggest problem, I think, is going to be how closely it mimics the real world." That's according to David Evans, the director of the National Science Teachers Union. However, he said, “The ability to do dangerous things and to run many, many more cases in a virtual space as opposed to the real physical space stands for a huge learning chance.”

Lamb taught chemistry and he agreed. “Too often in schools, when you do experiments in labs, you mix these together, you mix those together and you get this result. And if you don't get that result, you have done something wrong. But we don't have enough resources for you to redo it, “he said. “In virtual reality, all I do is hit reset on the computer. I don't have to actually use chemicals.”

【推荐3】What if “looking your age” refers not to your face, but to your chest? Osaka Metropolitan University scientists have developed an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) model that uses chest radiographs (光片) to assess a person’s biological age. More importantly, when it is different from the chronological age (实足年龄), it can signal a link with chronic (慢性的) diseases. These findings mark a breakthrough in medical imaging, paving the way for improved early disease detection and intervention.

The research team, led by graduate student Yasuhito Mitsuyama and Dr. Daiju Ueda from the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka Metropolitan University, first constructed a deep learning-based AI model to estimate age from chest radiographs of healthy individuals. They then applied the model to radiographs of patients with known diseases to analyze the relationship between AI-estimated age and each disease. Given that AI trained on a single dataset tends to over fit, the researchers collected data from multiple institutions.

For the development, training, internal and external testing of the AI model for age estimation, a total of 67,099 chest radiographs were obtained between 2008 and 2021 from 36,051 healthy individuals who underwent health check-ups at three facilities.

To confirm the usefulness of AI-estimated age using chest radiographs as a biomarker, an additional 34,197 chest radiographs were collected from 34,197 patients with known diseases from two other institutions. The results showed that the difference between AI-estimated age and the patient’s chronological age was positively correlated with a variety of chronic diseases. In other words, the higher the AI-estimated age compared to the chronological age, the more likely individuals were to have these diseases.

“Chronological age is one of the most critical factors in medicine,” stated Mr. Mitsuyama. “Our results suggest that chest radiography-based apparent age may accurately reflect health conditions beyond chronological age. We aim to further develop this research and apply it to estimate the severity of chronic diseases, to predict life expectancy and to forecast possible surgical complications.”

【推荐3】According to a study by the U. S. Department of Education, families choose homeschooling over public schools for three primary reasons. Nearly half of homeschooling parents said they could give their children a better education at home. Thirty-eight percent cited religious reasons.    1    

Like many homeschool parents, Certain and her husband, Randy, are college graduates. They said they did not have the money to send their children to private school in the Los Angeles area where they lived.    2     And Certain also wanted her children to learn to read using phonics (拼读法).

    3    She began homeschooling her three children because she felt they weren’t learning what she thought they should learn. “I remember helping our daughter, Danielle, with her homework when I realized that she wasn’t reading any of the classics in literature,” said Certain. “It was breaking my heart to see that she was missing out on some very important elements that should have been in her education.”

Certain said it takes more than good intentions to homeschool. “Homeschooling is a    4    For Certain’s family, homeschooling meant Certain had spiritual calling,” she said, to quit her job.

In addition to teaching her children at home, Certain joined other parents in a homeschooling support group and attended conferences and other homeschooling events. “People say that homeschooled children are not learning how to relate socially with their peers (同龄人) but that is just not true,” she said. “    5    ”