【推荐2】Although the finished work may be read in a few seconds, a short poem can be even more difficult to write than a longer one. You have fewer words to get your point across and to arouse the same emotion and meaning in the reader. For your first short poems, here are some instructions.

Start with a simple statement. This will be the basic subject of your poem.     1    . You’ll find the poetry as you open it up and dig deeper into it.

    2    . Brainstorm words and phrases that help open up each of the key words in your statement. Find some ways of describing that you can use to make your description unique.

Break lines to strengthen the rhythm and meaning. The line break is what makes a piece of writing poetry, rather than prose.     3    , even if you’re writing in free verse with no rhyme or other inflexible structure.

Go longer in your first draft. It’s far easier to cut than it is to add. When you sit down to write your first draft, don’t worry about the form or length you’ve chosen.     4    .

Experiment with traditional forms. If you’ve never written a short poem before, the haiku (俳句) can be an easy place to start.     5    . You’ll write 17 syllables through 3 lines of text, most commonly in the 5-7-5 style.

【推荐2】Older adults with a better sense of smell may live longer than those who have a poor sense of smell, a new study suggests. The study was a project of researchers in the United States that was continuing for over 13 years. They asked nearly 2300 men and women to recognize 12 common smells. All the subjects were from 71 to 82 years of age. The researchers gave the adults marks, from 0 to 12, based on how many smells they recognize correctly.

During the years of follow-up research, over 1200 of the adults died. When the study was started, none of the adults were weak. They could walk about half a kilometre, climb 10 steps and independently complete daily activities. In the latest findings, the researchers noted those with a weak nose were 30% more likely to die than people with a good sense of smell. The findings were reported last month in the scientific publication Annals of Internal Medicine.

Honglei Chen, a doctor with Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, was the lead author of the report on the study. He said the connection between a poor sense of smell and an increased risk of dying was limited to adults who first reported good or excellent health. This suggests that a poor sense of smell is an early and sensitive sign of worsening health before it is recognizable in medical tests. With a poor sense of smell, people are more likely to die of brain and heart diseases, but not of cancer or breathing problems.

The results also suggest that a poor sense of smell may be an early warning of poor health in older age that goes beyond dementia (痴呆) or other neurodegenerative (神经变性的) diseases. These often signal the beginning of the weakening of the mind or body.

【推荐3】Good health is the most valuable thing a person can have, but one cannot take good health for granted.     1     There are three things that a person can do to help stay in good shape: eat right food, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly.

Proper nutrition is important for good health.     2     Don’t eat too much food with lots of sugar and fat. Eat plenty of foods high in protein, like meat, fish, eggs and nuts. Vegetables and fruits are very important because they provide necessary vitamins and minerals. However, don’t overeat. It is not helpful to be overweight.

    3     If you don’t get enough sleep, you feel tired and easily get angry. You have no energy. Over a long period of time, a little amount of sleep may even result in a change of personality. Be sure to allow yourself from seven to nine hours of sleep each night.     4    

Finally, get plenty of exercise. Exercise firms the body, strengthens the muscles, and prevents you from gaining weight.     5     If you follow a regular exercise program, you will probably increase your lifespan. Any kind of exercise is good. Most sports are excellent for keeping the body in good shape: basketball, swimming, bicycling, running and so on. Sports are not only good for your body, but also enjoyable and interesting.

If everybody eats the right foods, gets plenty of sleep and exercises regularly, the world will be a happier and healthier place.

【推荐1】The 2020 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to former U.S. Poet Laureate (桂冠诗人) Louise Gluck. The prize committee mentioned “her unmistakable poetic voice that with plain beauty makes individual existence universal”. Being the first American woman to win the award since Toni Morrison in 1993, Gluck, 77, joins a list of literary giants and previous Nobelists who include, in this century, Canadian short-story master Alice Munro, Chinese magical-realist Mo Yan, etc.

Gluck’s works include 12 collections of poetry and a couple of volumes of essays on literary writing. “All are characterized by trying hard to achieve clarity. Childhood and family life, the close relationship with parents and brothers or sisters is a theme that has remained central to her,” Anders Olsson, the chairman of the Nobel Committee for Literature, said. “She seeks the universal, and in this she takes inspiration from myths (神话) and classical themes,” Olsson added, citing her 2006 collection Averno, which the committee described as “masterly” for its “visionary interpretation of the myth of Persephone’s fall into hell in the captivity of Hades, the god of death”.

As a professor at Yale and a resident of Cambridge, Gluck also served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2003 to 2004 and is no stranger to awards. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her collection of poems titled The Wild Iris, in which “she describes the extraordinary return of life after winter in the poem Snowdrops,” the Nobel literature committee said Thursday. She also won the 2014 National Book Award for poetry for Faithful and Virtuous Night. In 2016, President Obama awarded the National Humanities Medal to Gluck in a White House ceremony.

The publicity-shy Gluck did not immediately make any comment about the latest honor for her body of work, which lasts more than half a century. In a recent interview, she acknowledged that prizes can make “existence in the world easier” but did not amount to the immortality (不朽) of a true artist.

【推荐2】When you were at school, the last thing you probably wanted to do was to spend your weekends going to work. There was homework to do, sport to play and fun to have. But our parents probably persuaded us to find a job to earn some money and get some life experience. When I was a teenager I had a paper round: delivering newspapers to people’s homes.

Today in the UK you are allowed to work from the age of 13, and many children do take up part-time jobs. It’s one of those things that are seen almost as a rite of passage (成人仪式) .It’s a taste of independence and sometimes a useful thing to put on your CV (简历). Teenagers agree that it teaches valuable lessons about working with adults and also about managing their own money.

Some research has shown that not taking up a Saturday or holiday job could be deleterious to a person later on. A 2015 study by the UK Commission on Employment and Skills found that not participating in part-time work at school age had been blamed by employers’ organizations for young adults being ill-prepared for full-time employment, but despite this, recent statistics have shown that the number of schoolchildren in the UK with a part-time job has fallen by a fifth in the past five years.

So does this mean that British teenagers are now afraid of hard work? Probably not. Some experts feel that young people feel going out to work will affect their performance at school and they are under some pressure now to study hard and get good exam result and a good job in the long term. However, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told BBC News that “Properly regulated part-time work is a good way of helping young people learn skills that they will need in their working lives.” In reality, it’s all about getting the right balance between doing part-time work and having enough time to study and rest.

Many young people actually want to work because it gives them a sense of freedom. One 13-year-old girl called Rachel, who has a Saturday job in a shop, told the BBC that “I enjoy my job because I’m earning money and it helps me socialize with people I work with.” That seems like something worth getting up for a Saturday morning. Did you do a part-time job when you were at school?

【推荐3】It has become a certain belief among the public — drink at least eight glasses of water a day to improve health and wellbeing. Bottled water companies often repeat it to increase their sales but it is actually a silly idea. There is no evidence to prove the advantages of drinking eight glasses of water a day, scientists say.

The misunderstanding is caused from the suggestion that adults should drink 2.5 liters of water daily, which was stressed by the British Medical Journal in December. The important part of the suggestion that most of this quantity of water is contained in prepared foods, however, is usually ignored.

US researchers who reviewed the evidence concluded that most people do not need to worry about the amount of water they drink every day. Besides drinking water, they will be getting plenty of liquid (液体) in other ways. Caffeinated drinks such as tea, coffee and cola and alcohol (酒) can help reach the daily total if they don’t drink too much, though these drinks help the production of urine (尿). Less well known are the dangers of drinking too much water, causing water poisoning, low salt levels and even death.

The review of research by Dan Negoianu, from the University of Pennsylvania, found that not a single study included the suggestion of drinking eight glasses of water a day. Although one small study suggested that drinking water could result in fewer headaches, the results were not very important. However, the benefits of drinking some water to prevent a pain in head after drinking too much alcohol are, separately, proved to be true.

No studies showed any advantages to the color of the skin because of the increased water taken into bodies. Dehydration (脱水) can make skin less pleasant, but there was no clear evidence to support the idea that water helps people keep a youthful appearance. The researchers also found no evidence that drinking lots of water does some good to the body’s organs (器官).