【推荐1】The effects of advertising often work in tricky (狡猾的) ways. Many people don’t even realize they are being marketed to when they change their behaviour after encountering advertisements. Since advertising is a powerful psychological tool, an entire field of study, which is devoted to unlocking how advertising influences consumer behaviour, has been developed.

Another effect of advertising is educating consumers about specific products or services. This can be part of the persuasion written in an ad. In an advertisement, a company can influence possible buyers by showing how the product works and how it can solve the problems they face or at least ease those problems. For example, a dog owner who previously thought there was no solution to his dog’s anxiety can learn through a dog vest (背心) ad that there actually is a solution, and that solution is the gentle pressure provided by the vest.

Advertisements generally use similar language. Many advertisements are designed to make the viewers take immediate action. Words and phrases often used in such ads include “Buy now!” “Get started!” and “Try now!”. Specifically, the part of an ad that pushes for immediate action is called “call to action”, which is important to any ad because it drives the viewers or listeners to take action. Besides, companies usually use persuasive language in the rest of the advertisement. This can be a recommendation from a previous buyer, a chart showing the product’s benefits, or a list of the product’s benefits.

Advertising is part of marketing. Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably (可替换地), they aren’t the same thing. Marketing is the broad process of researching consumers’ needs, collecting and evaluating data related to those needs and developing various strategies for attracting consumers. Advertising, on the other hand, strictly refers to the process of attracting potential customers to make a sale.

【推荐3】Wisdom teeth seem like a biological mistake, leading to millions of surgeries per year. But for some people, these “extra” teeth come up just fine, while others don’t get them at all. What’s the biological story here?

According to the standard story, before surgical intervention, people with impacted wisdom teeth expired. Those lacking the problematic teeth increased in number, passing on genes for reduced numbers of teeth to future generations. Today, thanks to dental surgeons, individuals with impacted teeth survive and contribute to the gene pool.

But decades of research challenges this survival-of-the-toothless explanation. Many scholars now propose that wisdom teeth problems originate from our eating softer foods as children, made possible by farming and industrialization. Here’s the theory: Compared to wild resources consumed by hunter-gatherers, agricultural and processed foods are softer. Hard food during childhood seems to stimulate jaw growth, allowing mouths to grow large enough for more teeth. Soft food doesn’t require enough of a chewing workout to maximize jaw growth potential.

Around 12,000 years ago, humans began to experiment with farming, and this lifestyle ultimately took hold in most societies. Domesticated products, like wheat flour and cow’s milk, make for much softer diets than wild foods. What’s more, the industrialization of food production has really softened our meals. So the idea is that processed and/or agricultural diets reduce the stress on our jaws necessary to result in full growth when we reach early adulthood. By the time we’re reaching adulthood, there may not be enough space to accommodate our final molars (臼齿).

This theory is supported by research. For example, a 201l paper measured skulls housed in museums from six farming and five hunter-gatherer groups. The farmers, raised on softer foods, consistently had shorter jaws, which would have provided less space for tooth formation.

Consequently, many dental scientists recommend parents put some additional raw fruits, vegetables and nuts on kids’ plates, which could potentially prevent later wisdom teeth removals.