【推荐2】Will skipping breakfast make me fat?

The good news for those who don’t have breakfast is that putting on weight isn’t inevitable —as long as you control those high-calorie desires and stay active.

Research shows that although avoiding breakfast will make you hungrier and you might make up for that with a bigger lunch, this won’t necessarily make you “fatter” — on average, those who skip breakfast don’t eat more across the whole day than if they didn’t skip it. Some researchers have found that you may even eat fewer calories overall, and end up using your body’s fat reserves for energy, which can actually help you lose weight.

However, weight isn’t the only consideration: studies show that breakfast-skippers are likely to exercise less. This may be because they have lower energy levels-after eight hours or so without food, the body will have used up most of its stores of easy-to-access energy during sleep. Morning fasters are also more likely to have unhealthy, but appetite-suppressing habits, such as smoking or drinking a lot of coffee.

If you want to ensure that you eat a regular, nutritious breakfast, try preparing it the night before don’t leave it until the morning, when your brain struggles to make good decisions.

If you do skip breakfast. . .

■Don’t make up for it with a huge lunch, otherwise you’ll suffer overeating.

■Make sure you eat something before you exercise, or you risk “hitting the wall”.

■Don’t make up for lack of energy with coffee-it can make you lose your appetite and make you anxious and nervous.

【推荐1】To produce the classic clothing, blue jeans, producers rely on indigo dye (靛蓝染料), the only molecule known to provide jeans’ unique, beloved color. While indigo itself naturally comes from a plant, growing demand for blue jeans throughout the 20th century gave rise to synthetic (合成的) indigo, which is now more commonly used.

Indigo is the dye that makes jeans blue, but it doesn’t mix with water. To dye clothes, usually, chemicals are needed to make the color stick to the cloth. But in Denmark, scientists have created a new way to dye clothes using an enzyme (酶), which is a kind of protein that can cause chemical reactions, instead of harmful chemicals. This new method is better for the environment and doesn’t use poisonous stuff.

The chemical process for dyeing blue jeans has persisted for the last century. Workers are exposed to the poisonous chemicals, which also pollute the environment near factories. Waste water from those factories often ends up in waterways, decimating local ecosystems and even dyeing rivers blue.

Ditte Hededam Welner, the study’s lead researcher, says their new enzyme works really well and is strong enough for making lots of jeans without breaking down. This enzyme makes dyeing with indican, which is like indigo, much less harmful to the planet — about 92% better than the old way.

However, the new method doesn’t fix all the environmental problems of making jeans. Making a single pair of jeans uses a lot of water — enough to fill many bathtubs — from growing the cotton to putting the final touches on the jeans.

Even though the new dyeing process is better for the environment, it’s not always easy or cheap to change to it. Welner’s team isn’t sure if jeans companies will find it easy or affordable to switch to this method. It costs a little bit more — just seven cents extra per pair of jeans — to use the enzyme for dyeing. But Welner believes it’s worth it because it’s much better for the environment.

【推荐2】Being honest may not get you a lot of friends, but it will get you the right ones. That’s true, so you should pursue authentic positivity in your friendships, the opposite of toxic (有毒的) positivity that would have you encouraging friends in all things, regardless of what you might feel or observe or know about the challenges of life.     1    

1. Ask questions.

A feature of authentic positivity is a curious mindset, a mentality where you are less locked into “telling it like it is” and more interested in wondering and exploring the possibilities together with your friend.     2     If your friendship has a history of welcome advice-giving, your question could be “Are you looking for ideas, or do you just want me to listen?”

2.     3    

“That’s so disappointing” is sometimes the most positive thing you can say to your friend when they are struggling. Resisting the urge to say “It’s all going to work out; don’t worry” shows your friend that you see them in their pain, and that you are available to support them here and now.     4     You can use “yes/and” statements like “What happened at work is so frustrating—AND I know how creative you are, so you’ll find a way to move forward.”

3. Learn to apologize —and ask for an apology.

    5     That includes you, too. Being authentic in a friendship means having the freedom to say to a friend, “I’m sorry I hurt you.” It also means being able to say, “Your words/ actions hurt me.” Friendships that stand the test of time have room for mistakes, and for repair.

【推荐3】With more and more people swimming at beaches every year, the problem of sharks takes on new importance. There are people who still insist that sharks never attack human beings unless they are bleeding or wounded, but this thought has not been clearly proved. In the past few years, on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, there have been cases of shark attacks which resulted in death. And just how many of the swimmers who have disappeared were victims of shark attacks will never be known. Clearly, these violent fish can be dangerous. Several species are known to attack human beings, and it is believed by some experts that certain sharks, once having tasted human blood, develop a taste for it.

The chances that one will come across a shark are small, but certain measures should be taken by everyone. Putting hands or legs over the side of a boat in warm water is to be avoided. Swimming far out from beaches is inviting trouble. No swimmer should go great distances from shore alone, or go into the water when nobody else is about. Skin divers, particularly those who go deep down in the water or among rocks and ledges(暗礁) that serve as hiding places for sharks, are taking unnecessary risks.

If one is in a boat that is rubbed against by a shark, he should remember the creature is not trying to upset his boat; it is probably trying to rub off sea lice (海虱). A beat, especially on the nose, will scare it away. If a swimmer comes across a shark, he should swim away as quietly as possible, trying to avoid making it angry. He should also head for shore (岸) as quickly as possible.