【推荐1】An old English saying goes, “Laughter is the best medicine.” One person who certainly would have agreed with that is Norman Cousins.

Norman Cousins was the editor of a magazine called Saturday Review for almost forty years. He also wrote and spoke about world peace and anti-nuclear and anti-war issues. And he traveled to many different countries to share his ideas.

In the 1960s, after returning to the United States from a busy and tiring trip to Europe, Mr. Cousins got sick. He discovered that he had a rare disease, known as ankylosing spondylitis, which caused the joint between his bones to stiff. In less than a week after he got sick, he could not stand. Every move that he made was painful. He was not able to sleep at night. The doctors told Mr. Cousins that they did not know how to cure his illness and that he might never get over it. Mr. Cousins, however, refused to stop hope.

Mr. Cousins thought that illness could be caused by unhappy thoughts. He did not want to take medicine to cure himself. Instead, he felt that happy thoughts or laughter might cure his illness. So he began to experiment on himself while still in that hospital by watching comedy shows on TV. Quickly Mr. Cousins found that ten minutes of real laughter during the day gave him two hours of pain-free sleep at night.

Deciding that the doctors could not help him, Mr. Cousins left the hospital and checked into a hotel room where he could continue his experiments with laughter. For eight days, Mr. Cousins rested in the hotel room watching comedy show on TV, reading amusing books, and sleeping whenever he felt tired. Within three weeks, he felt well enough to take a holiday to Puerto Rico where he began running on the beach for exercise.

After a few months, Mr. Cousins was able to carry on his work. He had laughed himself back to good health.

【推荐2】A new coronavirus, a cousin of the SARS virus, has infected more than 200 people since the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December. Scientist Leo Poon, who first decoded the virus, thinks it likely started in an animal and spread to humans. The World Health Organization offered guidance to countries.     1    

What is a coronavirus

    2     In rare cases, they are what scientists call zoonotic (人畜共患病), meaning they can be transmitted from animals to humans, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Coronavirus symptoms

The viruses can make people sick, usually with a mild to moderate upper respiratory (呼吸的) tract illness, similar to a common cold. Coronavirus symptoms include a runny nose, cough, sore throat, possibly a headache and maybe a fever.     3    

For those with a weakened immune system, the elderly and the very young, there’s a chance the virus could cause a lower, and much more serious, respiratory tract illness like a pneumonia or bronchitis.

    4     Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, also known as the MERS virus, was first reported in the Middle East in 2012 and also causes respiratory problems, but those symptoms are much more severe. Three to four out of every 10 patients infected with MERS died, according to the CDC. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, also known as SARS, is the other coronavirus that can cause more severe symptoms. First identified in the Guangdong province in southern China, according to the WHO, it causes respiratory problems but can also cause diarrhea, fatigue, shortness of breath, respiratory distress and kidney failure. It also results in death.

How it spreads

Viruses can spread from human contact with animals.     5     With SARS, scientists suspected civet cats were to blame. When it comes to human-to-human transmission of the viruses, often it happens when someone comes into contact with the infected person’s secretions.

【推荐3】Scientists are working to stop a deadly virus that infects(感染)pigs. The virus is causing huge losses for farmers in China and other Asian countries. Many farmers have tried to contain African swine flu by quarantining(隔离)pigs and destroying infected animals. But the spread of the disease into East Asia has stepped up the search for other ways to deal with the problem.

The virus had not been considered a major concern for researchers until it appeared in China last year. Chinese farmers raise about half of the world's pigs. Some researchers think the virus might have come from infected animals in Eastern Europe or Russia. Since then, it has spread to China, Vietnam and other Asian countries. Millions of pigs have been destroyed.

Although swine flu does not sicken people, it is very infectious and deadly to pigs. "Today's situation, where you have this global danger, puts a lot more emphasis on this research,” said Doctor Luis Rodriguez. He spoke to The Associated Press. Rodriguez leads the United States government laboratory for foreign animal diseases at Plum Island , New York. As a deadly virus kills pigs across Asia, scientists are accelerating efforts to develop a vaccine (疫苗).

Vaccines often are developed by killing a virus before it is put into an animal. The disabled virus does not make the animal sick, but it activates the body's natural defenses against disease. The immune(免疫的)system is then able to identify the virus and produce antibodies against it.

However, this method is not effective with all viruses including the one that causes African swine flu. For swine flu, scientists have been working on a different kind of vaccine. It is made from a weakened virus, not a dead one. The problem for researchers has been how to change the virus so it can be safely used.

Vietnam's government reported a few weeks ago that it was testing vaccines, but provided few details of its programs. In China, the government said scientists are working on a vaccine that genetically changes the virus. That is similar to a method being used by scientists in the United States.