【推荐2】Only one in three adolescents are practising appropriate hand hygiene(卫生), a new global study involving University of Queensland researchers has found.

Dr Yaqoot Fatima from UQ’s Institute for Social Science Research said there was a renewed emphasis on adequate hand hygiene with COVID-19. “We used data from the Global School-based Student Health Survey from 92 countries across the six WHO regions to examine the prevalence (普遍)of hand hygiene practices in adolescents worldwide,” Dr Fatima said, “Our results highlight that globally, adolescents practice inadequate hand hygiene. Adolescents who reported unhealthy behaviours such as being more seated, smoking, and experiencing bullying at school were more likely to practise inappropriate hand hygiene than their peers. In comparison, parental support and bonding emerged as a key factor associated with adequate hand hygiene practices in adolescents.”

The researchers examined 354,422 adolescents aged 13–17 years to demonstrate the considerable cross-country variations in hand hygiene practices. Dr Fatima said that although access to soap and water was an issue, around 60 percent of adolescents were not practising appropriate hand hygiene even when they had access to water and soap. While access to handwashing facilities and knowledge of proper hygiene is important for practising adequate hand hygiene, the study showed that the knowledge-behaviour gap is a major reason for insufficient hand hygiene practices.

Bullying prevention at school, systematic combination of health and hygiene education in the school curriculum and peer-led behaviour could be strategies to reduce inappropriate hand hygiene practices in adolescents. The positive role of parental support and bonding suggests that interventions (干预) aiming to improve adolescent hand hygiene should focus on parents and seek their active involvement in designing and delivering those interventions. “With these strategies adopted properly, we are sure to raise public awareness of hand hygiene practices.” Dr Fatima said.

【推荐3】The tooth is the hardest part of your body. Your teeth help you in many ways. For example, they can help you talk. They can also help you have a great smile. And the most important job of your teeth is to chew (咀嚼) your food. But do you know how your teeth grow?

When you are born, you don’t have any teeth. About 8 months later, small teeth begin to appear one by one. These teeth are called baby teeth. They are also called milk teeth. You won’t have baby teeth forever. They usually begin to fall out when a child is about 6 years old. Then, permanent (永久的) teeth begin to appear. These teeth are larger and more powerful. Most people will have 28 permanent teeth by the time they are 12 years old.

For some people, four more permanent teeth arrive by their 25th birthday. They are called wisdom teeth (智齿). But these teeth don’t make you smart! Sometimes they bring you pain. If a wisdom tooth brings you too much pain, you should go to a dentist (牙医) and have it pulled out.

【推荐1】The body gives off many gases. Although some smells may signal a need to bathe or that you ate a certain meal, other gases might point to serious disease. Now, researchers have come up with a system that uses earmuffs to catch the disease-signaling gases. Doctors could get the information as patients wear a set of earmuffs. Results could be ready within minutes.

“The ear is a good place to monitor,” explains Johnson, a biomedical engineer. The ear’s skin is fairly thin, he notes. So gases don’t have to travel far to get out of the blood and escape through skin pores.

To collect the gases, Johnson and his team selected earmuffs that make a tight seal with the head. These are the type people often wear to protect the ears from loud noise. His team made two holes in the muff covering one ear. A tube slowly pumped air in one hole. Another tube pulled air out of the second hole and sent it to a sensor.

In their tests, the team found that they could measure changes in the amount of alcohol coming from the skin of the ear. It could work much like a Breathalyzer that police use to test people for driving drunk. The team invited three men. Each had to avoid drinking alcohol for at least three days before taking part. Once in the lab, these men wore the earmuffs and sat for 10 minutes as the system recorded normal gas levels leaving their ears. Afterward, the men drank a big amount of alcohol. About 7 minutes later, the earmuff system tested out a rise in alcohol leaving the skin. After 50 minutes, alcohol levels reached the peak and continued falling until the test was over.

The team then measured other gases by changing out the sensor. With the right sensor, their earmuff system could test out disease. Later, they replaced the earmuffs with a one-eared version to make it a bit more comfortable.

Johnson imagines another possible benefit. The earmuff system could help doctors tell whether a child’s ear infections have been caused by bacteria or a virus. How? Each type of infection exudes different gases. That, in turn, could guide how doctors cure the disease.