【推荐2】“I never thought that I would beat the tumor.” says a cancer patient in Lanzhou in Northwest China’s Gansu province. The man adds that he is particularly grateful for heavy ion therapy he received, at a follow-up visit following several rounds of treatment revealing that his cancer cells had disappeared.

A research team from the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed the country’s first medical heavy ion accelerator with independent intellectual property rights, and put it into clinical application. Cancer treatments employing heavy ion accelerators can bombard a target with high-energy electrons to kill cancer cells. Compared to traditional therapy such as radiation, heavy ion treatment is considered to be more balanced, exposing healthy cells to less radiation. The treatment period is shorter and the therapy can more effectively control cancer cells.

In 1993, researchers proposed to carry out basic research on heavy ion cancer treatment during an academic conference held in Tianshui, Gansu. In 2006, China followed the United States, Japan and Germany to become the fourth country to successfully carry out heavy ion clinical treatment, when four cancer patients participated in preliminary clinical trials for heavy ion therapy. In 2015, China’s first such accelerator, with independent intellectual property rights, rolled off the production line in Wuwei, in Gansu. On March 26, 2020, the accelerator was put into operation, and by the end of June this year, more than 750 patients completed their therapy at Wuwei’s heavy ion treatment center, with remarkable curative effects. The follow-up statistics showed that the three-year local tumor control rate reached 84 percent among 46 clinical trial participants.

Heavy ion therapy is highly effective in treating a wide range of solid tumors and can be used in cases where surgery is not possible or unsuitable, when a patient is sensitive to conventional radiation therapy, or prone to relapse following such therapy. This includes tumors located in the central nervous system, head, neck, skull base, chest and abdomen. So far there have been several cases where people have recovered from cancers by the therapy.

【推荐3】Vitamin D was recognized a century ago as the cure for rickets, a childhood disease that causes weak bones. Then, in the early 2000s, a pile of studies suggested that low vitamin D levels could be a factor in cancer, cardiovascular (心血管) disease, Parkinson’s disease and so on. This simple vitamin seemed to be a cure for whatever troubled us. However, all these observational studies have a fundamental weakness: they can identify a co-occurrence between vitamin D and a disease, but they can’t prove there is a cause-and-effect relation.

To look at whether taking vitamin D had curative effects, Manson and her team started the world’s largest and most far-reaching randomized vitamin D trial. The study followed nearly 26,000 healthy adults, randomized to receive either 2,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D or a placebo (安慰剂), for an average of 5.3 years. The volunteers were almost evenly split between men and women, and 20 percent of the participants were black.

The results came as a shock. Not only did vitamin D not reduce rates of cancer or heart disease, but the trial also found that vitamin D did not prevent or improve cognitive function, or reduce the risk of bone fractures (骨折). The finding about fractures “was a real surprise to many people,” Manson says.

In 2011, the Institute of Medicine established an expert committee to conduct a thorough analysis of all existing studies on vitamin D and health. The committee concluded that the bone-strengthening benefits of vitamin D remain steady when blood levels reach 12 to 16 nanograms per millililter. They also found that there were no benefits to having levels above 20ng/ml. According to measurements of vitamin D levels in the general U. S. population, most had levels of 20 ng/ml or more in 2011. Levels have actually risen since then, meaning that most people don’t need to take extra vitamin D.

The ups and downs of vitamin D offer a lesson in humility. The relation between the vitamin and disease is far more complicated than it first seemed and a reminder that scientific understanding is always developing over time.

【推荐1】Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.

Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.

That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted（分心）driving was "only increasing, unfortunately."

"Big change requires big ideas." he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.

An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York's hands-free driving laws.

"We need something on the books that can change people's behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state's 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, "people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone."

【推荐1】Excessive (过度的) smartphone use is a distinctly 21st century issue, but that doesn’t make it any less problematic. Countless people spend their days endlessly scrolling from one social media feed or app to the next. Many argue there’s an easy solution: place it in silent mode (模式).

Now, however, researchers from Penn State find that this approach can actually backfire for certain people. Study authors report people checked their phones more often when their devices were in silent mode. Notably, participants who scored high in “fear of missing out” and “need to belong” personality tests checked their phones the most after placing them on silent. In some cases, these individuals stayed on their phones for longer as well.

This work is based on data collected from the screen time monitoring tool of 138 iPhone users. Researchers focused on how two distinct psychological traits may influence how people act in response to placing their phones on either silence or vibrate. More specifically, study authors analyzed people who tend to be especially preoccupied (专注) with gathering information from others(fear of missing out, or FOMO), and people with a strong desire to maintain interpersonal relationships(need to belong).

Incredibly, in comparison to audio-alert or vibrate modes, each participant checked their phones more often when it was in silent mode. When the phone’s sound and vibration was on, the groups checked their devices 52.9 times daily on average. When their phones were silent, that average rate nearly doubled to 98.2 times a day. Volunteers identified as having high levels of FOMO checked their phones roughly 50 times daily when their device was on vibrate, while in silent mode, they checked their phones about 120 times daily, and they also tended to keep scrolling significantly longer if their phones were in silent mode.

Participants with high levels of the need-to-belong trait actually didn’t check their phones more in silent mode, however, they did stay on their phones longer if the devices were in either silent or vibration-only mode.

At the end of the day, smartphone use habits come down to the individual. Researchers conclude the first step toward developing healthier tech habits for everyone is understanding that different people react to apps, notifications, and various tech features differently.

【推荐2】Stingrays are an instantly recognizable fish, with their pancake-like bodies that swim gracefully through the water. Their flat bodies allow them to sit on the bottom of the ocean, river or lake, disguising themselves to predators (食肉动物) swimming above as they hunt their prey (猎物) on the floor. Their eyes sit on the top of their body, while their mouths are on the bottom. They each have a long tail with a toxin-filled barb (充满毒素的倒钩). When they feel threatened, they can lift their barbed tails upward and injure potential predators. Most species of stingrays sport dull colors that help with disguise, though some do have more lively colors. Stingrays eat prey like worms while freshwater stingrays eat insects as well.

As those creatures move through the water, they generate bioelectric fields. Stingrays are able to detect these bioelectric fields of the animals around them using a network of special sensory organs called ampullae of Lorenzini. These organs are small, fluid-filled electrical receptors that are located near the stingray's mouth and look like tiny black holes in the animal's skin. Once they've located and captured their prey with the help of these sensory organs, stingrays use their hard teeth to break the shells of their victims, and can even chew their meal.

In 2006, Australian television personality Steve Irwin died when a stingray's barbed tail pierced his heart. Irwin was being filmed for a show called "Ocean's Deadliest" when he swam too close to a stingray. However, death from stingrays is rare. A stingray's poison is generally only deadly when its barb pierces people's neck or chest. Otherwise, contact with a stingray's. barb anywhere else on the body causes pain similar to a jellyfish (水母) sting.

Scientists also believe that stingrays have the ability to detect the Earth's magnetic fields and the orientation of electric currents generated by objects in the water. They could then use that information to navigate in the open ocean. However, this ability could potentially cause problems for the animals as offshore energy technologies like wind and wave energy become more popular, thus disturbing stingrays' ability to accurately detect their surroundings. This could influence stingrays' feeding and migration patterns.