【推荐1】Compared to dogs, cats are often considered to be cold to their human owners. It is usual for them to be indifferent（无动于衷的）when humans call their names. Are we sure that they don't understand human voices at all?

A recent study published in the journal of Scientific Reports suggests that we've been fooled. Japanese scientists found that cats can recognize their names if their owners regularly use them. In the study, scientists recruited (招募) 78 domestic cats. They played recordings of voices of their owners saying five words: the first four words were random nouns that resembled their names while the final word was the cat's name. Then they observed the cats' responses, if there were any.

Most of cats moved their ears or heads when they heard their names, while they made no response to other words. That suggested, "cats were paying attention to you, what you say and what you do," John Bradshaw, an expert on human-animal interactions at the University of Bristol, UK, told The Times. "And cats were just as good as dogs at learning," she added.

In the study, when people called their names, cats often associated (联系) the words with rewards, such as food or play, or with"punishments" such as having a bath or going to the vet. This made cats sensitive（敏感的）to words. After the cats had been called several times, they could respond to the words. But the scientists added that while dogs have evolved（进化）to follow their owners' orders, cats have not. Although cats appear to be distant, they do have special relationships with their owners.

According to study co-author Atsuko Saito, cats have evolved not to show their emotions as a survival method. One example is illness, which they tend to hide because “in the wild, no one can rescue them" and predators（捕食性动物）are more likely to pay attention to them, ” Saito explained.

However, technology may help bridge the communication gap between cats and us. There are now mobile apps available to explain what their meows mean. So, the next time you hear "meow, meow", your cat may be telling you, "Hi, you haven't cleaned my litter box recently."

【推荐3】John James Audubon was curious about some birds he saw near his Mill Grove home in the early 1800s. He caught a few of them, tied a thin silver string to their legs, and released them. The next year, the birds returned. Audubon realized that his feathered neighbors returned to the same nesting spot each year.

People had tried attaching bands to birds' legs before Audubon's experiment. More than 2,000 years ago, Rome officers sent messages attached to birds to keep their armies informed. Audubon's experiment, however, is the first example of banding used to learn more about the movements of the wild birds in North America.

Today, only trained scientists are permitted to band birds. An organization known as the Bird Banding Laboratory（BBL）supplies official aluminum bands. Each band is stamped with a unique identification number. Researchers collect information about banded bird's species, weight, sex, age, wingspan and general health. That information is shared with the BBL.

Modern technology has taken bird banding to a new level. Today, transmitters（发射器）that come in all kinds of sizes are used. They can be attached to the leg, the neck, the back, or even a bird's feathers.

Researchers can learn many things from a banded bird, such as patterns in nesting, feeding and migration. Banded information also gives researchers a sense of the general health of a group of birds. And information about the general health of birds helps scientists understand the general health of the environment, which is good for humans too.

【推荐1】Awe is generally defined as the sense that you are in the presence of (在……面前) something larger and more consequential(重要的) than yourself. According to a study called “awe walks”, people who took a fresh look at the world around them during brief, weekly walks felt more upbeat and hopeful in general than walkers who did not. Feeling a sense of awe also seems to up our overall feelings of gladness and improve health.

Previous studies have linked increased physical activity to greater happiness and reduced risks for anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. But no studies had looked into whether mixing awe and activity might increase the benefits of or, on the other hand, reduce them. So, for the new study, scientists concentrated on people in their 60s, 70s and 80s, an age when some people can face risks for declining mental health.

The scientists asked 52 study volunteers to add a weekly 15-minute walk to their normal schedules. All of them were physically healthy and psychologically well-adjusted, with little anxiety or depression. Then they were randomly divided into two groups. One, as a control group, was asked to start walking, preferably outside, but given few other requirements. The other group was not only asked to walk once a week, but also were instructed in how to cultivate awe as they walked. “Basically, we told them to try to go and walk somewhere new, since novelty helps to cultivate awe,” says Virginia Sturm, an associate professor who led the new study.

Both groups were asked to take a few selfies (自拍) during their walks and upload them to a lab website and also complete a daily online assessment of their current mood. After eight weeks, the scientists compared the groups’ responses and photos. Not surprisingly, the awe walkers felt happier, less upset and more socially connected than the control group members.

The findings are subjective, though, since awe, like other emotions, is difficult to quantify, but Dr. Sturm thinks awe walks could be a simple thing for small wonders without any downside.

【推荐2】The human sense of smell is closely associated with our emotions. We use our limbic system — the part of the brain which is thought to control emotion — to connect our sense of smell to our feelings. Before people even recognize a smell, the deepest parts of the brain have already been stimulated (激发) and an emotional response has been triggered.

Research has shown that humans can react emotionally to smells that we can barely even notice. In one study at a major university in Chicago, three smells were given to thirty-one volunteers. The smells were of different concentrations, and some were so low that they were hardly detectable to the human nose. The different smells used were: a pleasant lemon scent (气味), a neutral anisole (中性苯甲醚), or an unpleasantly sweaty smelling acid. First, the volunteers were asked to press a button to show whether they had smelled anything or not. Then they were shown a picture of a face, which they had to rate for its likeability using a six-point marking system.

The results of the study showed that when people knew they had been exposed to a smell, it did not influence the way they judged the likeability of the faces. However, when they believed they had not smelled anything, but had actually been exposed to one of the scents, the ratings of face likeability changed. Exposure to very low concentrations of acid, so low that they were undetectable, tended to produce a negative response to a face. By comparison, after smelling lemon scent but again detecting no smell, participants rated faces as generally likeable. These findings support other research into sense perception (感觉), whether it is smell, sight, or hearing, which shows that subliminal (潜意识的) sensory information does affect our perceptions.