【推荐2】A primary school art teacher has received a good deal of praise since her daughter posted photos of her special school project online.

Rebecca Bonner teaches at Mcauliffe Elementary School in Highland Village, Texas. In total, she hosts art classes for about 580 students who are aged from 3 to 11 years old. Bonner always tries to encourage her students to be creative by telling them to ''turn their mess-up into a dress-up''. So as a way of giving an example of her words, she invited all of her students to draw freely on a white dress that she brought to school. For two weeks, the young students used their pens to add their own little designs (设计) to the dress. The art teacher then showed their work by proudly wearing the dress for a school art show.

Her students were not the only ones happy to see their art come to life-Bonner's 20-year-old daughter Charlece Lake was so moved by her mother's project. Charlece took some photos of Bonner wearing the dress and posted them to Twitter, saying that her mom was ''the cutest art teacher ever''. Since posting the pictures, they have been shared thousands of times.

Though Bonner was surprised that her project had been widely known, she said that she was happy for the chance to serve as a good role model for art. ''I'm not worried about being famous of anything like that but I do think it's great to promote(推广) the arts, because art is not common among primary schools, '' Bonner said. ''I think it's really important for kids to have that place to create, and that freedom(自由) to create, '' she added.

【推荐1】Breakfast is food for the brain and for the rest of your body. And downing those morning calories is worth it, even for people worried about their weight, a new study finds.

The study was led by Marlene Schwartz, a psychologist who studies obesity. Her group studied some 600 middle-school students. Over three years, students from 12 different schools were asked about their breakfasts. Throughout the study about 34 % — 44% of all students said they regularly ate breakfast at home. Up to 17%, or almost one in every six kids, regularly ate breakfast at school. Overall, about one in every 10 kids reported eating breakfasts both at home and at school. Eating habits changed somewhat as the kids got older. For example, fifth graders were more likely to regularly eat breakfast at home. But by seventh grade, 22% of the studied kids often skipped breakfast.

Surprisingly, at every age, kids who ate breakfast were less likely to be overweight. This was true even for those who ate breakfast at home and at school. It also found that students who skipped breakfast most often were those most likely to be overweight. These findings may seem puzzling. Yet Schwartz’s team can think of several possible explanations.

Skipping breakfast may set people up to be “over-hungry” later in the day, she says. Then someone may eat more food than their body needs. When that happens, it might take the brain longer to realize “you have enough food and can stop eating now”. What’s more, not eating in the morning prevents our brains and bodies from working well. It’s very difficult for children to pay attention in class if they arrive without having breakfast.

But why should eating two breakfasts not lead to weight gain? One explanation may be that school breakfasts are very healthy and controlled in size, notes Schwartz. Also, most of the double- breakfast eaters are boys. These kids are active and actively growing. They sometimes eat twice as much as other people.

【推荐2】One debate about chicken eggs is why white eggs usually cost more than brown ones. Some people think white eggs are more nutritious (有营养的). Is that true? According to Sherman Hickman, the director of community outreach and education for Hickman’s Family Farms, it’s first important to know why chickens have different egg colors.

Jesse LaFlamme is the CEO of Pete and Gerry’s Organic Egg. She says, the chicken breed (品种) decides whether or not hens have pigment genes, the natural chemical that results in a colored shell. Although all eggs start out white in color, shell color can change from white to brown and even blue in some rare breeds. An interesting way to know what color eggs a hen lays is to look at the color of its ear feathers (羽毛), LaFlamme says. Breeds such as the Leghorn chickens lay white eggs, while Orpington chickens lay brown eggs and Ameraucana chickens produce blue eggs.

Hickman notes that the Leghorn breed is a popular choice for farmers because it lays more eggs. Hens that produce colored eggshells, however, usually are larger and require more feed and energy to create that painted shells. Since those breeds cost more to feed, their eggs are more expensive.

Although eggs sometimes look different and are priced differently, it’s impossible to know their nutrition according to shell color alone. “Choosing between brown and white eggs is a matter of personal preference,” Malina Linkas Malkani, media spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, says. “But it’s important for people to know that the color of the eggshell is related to the breed of the hen, not the egg’s nutrition, quality or shell thickness.” What does affect the nutrition is the specific food the hen eats, according to Malkani.

【推荐3】Time to load up some popular games: new research indicates pigs have the mental capability to play video games. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, tested the ability of four pigs (Hamlet, Omelette, Ebony and Ivory) to play a simple joystick (操纵杆) game with their noses, moving a cursor (光标) to four targets on the screen. Although the animals didn’t show the skills to win a round any time, they did show an understanding of some simple games. Performing well not by chance, the pigs appeared to recognize that the movement of the cursor was controlled by the joystick. The fact that they did so well although they didn’t have flexible fingers is “extraordinary”, according to the researchers.

That pigs can do this should give us pause about what else they are capable of learning and how such learning may influence them,” said Purdue University’s Dr Candace Croney, the study’s lead author.

Researchers also noted that while the pigs could be taught to play the game using food as positive motivation, they also responded well to social interaction. In fact, when the game was made more challenging and the pigs became unwilling to participate in it, “only encouraging words from the experimenter” would make the pigs continue their training.

These findings are the latest to highlight the intelligence and learning abilities of pigs. Not only have they been shown to use mirrors to find hidden food, but studies have also shown how pigs can be taught to “come” and “sit” after oral commands.

As with any sentient (有感觉力的) beings, how we interact with pigs and what we do to them influences and matters to them. We therefore have a duty to further understand how pigs get information and what they are capable of learning and remembering, because this may help them understand their interactions with us and their environments.