【推荐1】New data presented this week at the annual Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) suggest that a student's preferred sleeping schedule has a lot to do with his or her grade-point average in school. In one study, researchers at the University of Pittsburg revealed that poor sleep habits among high schoolers led to lower grades, particularly in math.

It's no surprise that poor sleep habits may negatively impact academic performance. And dozens of studies have linked an increase in nightly sleep to better cognition and alertness. The new research, however, goes a step further, quantifying the impact of erratic or inadequate sleep on grades. These findings are more convincing than saying that if you get more sleep, you'll feel better," says Jennifer Cousins, a lead researcher of the study.

The study involved data from 56 adolescents (34 female) between the ages of 14 and 18 years. They were asked to fill out sleep diaries for one week and wear a special activity monitor on their wrists, which recorded when the students were asleep or awake. Overall, teens with poor sleep habits received lower grades than students who stuck with a more regular sleep routine.

Interestingly, Cousins also found that different sleep habits had different effects on the students' school performance：those who woke up more often during the night did worse in math, for example, while those who slept peacefully through the night tended to get better grades in English.

These findings bring up new questions about teasing out（探讨）the details of what is important about sleep that impacts learning," says Cousins. "Does more sleep improve our ability to deal with abstract concepts found in math, or does sleep quality increase creativity? We don't know the answers, and don't want to draw those conclusions yet. But this helps us understand more about how sleep helps the things we do in daily life. "

Authors of the study point out that the results provide overwhelming evidence of the importance of sleep during a period of development that is critical for adolescents and recommend sleep education as a prevention tool to help increase awareness of the importance of sleep and of the negative consequences of poor sleep.

【推荐2】If you haven’t heard or seen anything about Road Rage in the last few months, you’ve probably been avoiding the media. There have been countless stories about this new and scary phenomenon, considered a type of aggressive driving. You have most likely encountered aggressive driving or Road Rage recently if you drive at all.

While drunk driving remains a critical problem, the facts about aggressive driving are surely as disturbing. For instance, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Association, 41,907 people died on the highway last year. Of those deaths, the agency estimates that about two-thirds were caused at least in part by aggressive driving behavior.

Why is this phenomenon occurring more than ever now, and why is it something that seemed almost nonexistent a few short years ago? Experts have several theories, and all are probably partially correct. One suggestion is extreme overcrowding. In the last decade, the number of cars on the roads has increased by more than 11 percent, and the number of miles driven has increased by 35 percent. However, the number of new road miles has only increased by 1 percent. That means more cars in the same amount of space; and the problem is severe in urban areas. Also, people have less time and more things to do. With people working and trying to fit extra chores and activities into the day, stress levels have never been higher. Stress creates anxiety, which leads to short tempers. These factors, when combined in certain situations, can spell Road Rage.

You may think you are the last person who would drive aggressively, but you might be surprised. For instance, have you ever yelled out loud at a slower driver, sounded the horn long and hard an another car, or sped up to keep another driver from passing? If you recognize yourself in any of these situations, watch out!

Whether you are getting angry at other drivers, or another driver is visibly upset with you, there are things you can do to avoid any major conflict. If you are easily influenced by Road Rage, the key is to release your emotion in a healthy way. If you are the target of another driver’s rage, do everything possible to get away from the other driver safely, including avoiding eye contact and getting out of their way.

【推荐3】Combining knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering, scientists from McGill. University develop a biomaterial tough enough to repair the heart, muscles, and voeal cords. representing a major advance in medicine.

“People recovering from heart damage often face a long and tricky journey. Healing is challenging because of the constant movement tissues must withstand (承受) as the heart beats. The same is true for vocal cords. Until now there was no injectable (可注射的) material strong enough for the job,” says Guangyu Bao, a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University.

The team, led by Professor Luc Mongeau and Assistant Professor Jianyu Li, developed a new injectable hydrogel (水凝胶) for wound repair, which is a type of biomaterial that provides room for cells to live and grow. Once injected into the body, the biomaterial forms a stable structure allowing live cells to grow or pass through to repair the injured organs.

“The results are promising, and we hope that one day the new hydrogel will be used to restore the voice of people with damaged vocal cords,” says Guangyu Bao.

The scientists tested the durability of their hydrogel in a machine they developed to copy the extreme biomechanics of human vocal cords. Vibrating (振动) at 120 times a second for over 6 million cycles, the new biomaterial remained undamaged while other standard hydrogels broken into pieces, unable to deal with the stress of the load.

“We were incredibly excited to see it worked perfectly in our test. Before our work, no injectable hydrogels possessed both high porosity (多孔性，疏松) and toughness at the same time. To solve this issue, we introduced a pore-forming polymer to our formula（配方),” says Guangyu Bao.

The innovation opens new ways of making progress for other applications like tissue engineering. The team is also looking to use the hydrogel technology to create lungs to test COVID-19 drugs.

【推荐1】China’s three major mobile operators (运营商) on Thursday started their long-awaited 5G service plans with users in dozens of cities. China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom announced their monthly 5G plans with prices ranging from 128 yuan to 599 yuan, almost at the same time.

The 5G services are now being used in 50 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The expectation for the new communication technology has long been high. The three major mobile operators already registered (注册) over 10 million 5G users before the official start.

The country is expected to have over 600 million 5G users by 2025, covering nearly 40 percent of the global total. Major phone makers are jumping on the broadband (宽带) business. Eighteen types of 5G smartphones were brought out in the first three quarters of this year, and about 787, 000 5G phones came into the market, according to a research institute with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology(MIIT).

Bloomberg News reported that bringing 5G services out to the world’s biggest population should give a push to China’s digital economy, including makers of telecommunications equipment, platforms and applications for the internet of things, autonomous (自动的) driving and factory automation. It will be expensive at first but could pay off well into the future.

China is ready to become the world’s largest 5G market by users, a position that could help it set global standards (标准) for such networks and inspire its drive to become a leader in this field.