【推荐2】Games are anything but a waste of time. By playing games, children learn and precise important skills that they will use long after the games have been ______. Young children learn to follow rules and wait their ______. They also practice how to cooperate and ______ winning or losing. Older children develop thinking skills including using a strategy and planning ahead. Psychologist say strategy games encourage the frontal lobes (额叶) of the brain to develop. This part of the brain is ______ for skills which include planning, organizing and decision-making.

Playing board games can improve children’s focus and increase their attention span. But to be successful, games must be played to the end without any ______. Players cannot check their phone s or leave the table for a snack. Playing board games or card games is also a great way to unplug. A variety of studies ______ of the negative effects of too much screen time. Everyone gets ______ in a task with other people — in person — when playing a game.

Playing games is not just for kids, either. It’s ______ for adults as well. They need to make time in their day for enjoyment. This kind of activity can trigger (触发) the ______ of the feel-good chemicals that make people feel happier. The social interaction of playing games with family and friends also helps prevent ______ and depression. Sharing laughter and fun while playing games not only improves relationships and draws people closer but also improves brain ______. When people engage in games like chess or other strategy games, their brains are ______.

Playing games can also stimulate the mind and boost creativity. Taking a break for game — playing can also increase your ______. By the time you finish playing a game, your brain will have relaxed, so it’s ______ when you go back to work.

The playwright George Bernard Shaw famously said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” It follows then, that play keeps you ______. So make some time to play a game today!

【推荐3】Mice are at their best at night. But a new analysis suggests researchers often test the nightly creatures during the day, which could alter results and create ________ across various studies, if they record time-of-day information ________. Scientists assume that waking up lab mice in the daytime may twist research.

Of the 200 papers examined in the new study, more than half cither failed to report the timing of behavioral testing or did so ________. On the contrary, they found only 20 percent reported ________ testing. The analysis was published in Neuroscience & Bio-behavioral Reviews.

West Virginia University neuro-scientist Randy Nelson, the study's lead author, says this is likely a matter of human ________. “It is easier to get students and schools to work during the day than at night,” Nelson says. But that advantage ________.

“Time of day not only impacts the intensity of many ________, including mice activity, aggressiveness of their behavior, and hormone levels,” but changes in those factors can only be ________ during certain parts of the daytime cycle, says University of Wyoming behavioral neuro-scientist William D. Todd. This means that “failing to report time of day of data collection and tests makes ________ of results extremely difficult,” adds Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center staff scientist Natalia Machado. Neither Todd nor Machado was involved in the new study.

________, the study researchers say it is critical that scientists report the timing of their work and consider the fact that animals' behavioral and physiological responses can ________ with the hour. As a first step, Nelson says, “obviously, taking time-of-day into consideration seems like ________ fruit in terms of line assing behavioral neuroscience research reliability, reproducibility and rigor (严谨性)

University of Calgary psychologist Michael Antle, who was also not involved in the analysis, says such differences in how studies are run ________ a “reproducibility crisis” in science, with other laboratories unable to ________ study results. “Running a study at the wrong time,” he says, “could lead to us completely ________ a finding altogether.”

【推荐2】The Differences Between the World Cup and the Olympic Soccer

You don’t have to be a soccer expert to know that the World Cup is the sport’s biggest international event. That’s right—it’s even bigger of a deal than participating in the Olympics. While most other sports see the Olympic games as the grandest stage, soccer holds its World Cup to a much higher _________. You may feel surprised but this is exactly the truth. In fact, the two events are set apart by a fair share of _________

The calendar year

Many of the sports that have their own Olympic events have _________that revolve around when the Games would be, so when it comes time to compete, the athletes are available. This isn’t the case for some of the bigger sports, _________, and soccer is one of them. When the World Cup qualifiers(预选赛) _________with the Olympics, even though there is a FIFA contingent(国际足联团队)that organizes soccer at the Summer Games, FIFA may not encourage its _________players to compete at the Olympics.

Countries participating

The World Cup hosted 32 national teams in Russia in the 2018 tournament.(This is also what allows the World Cup to host so many games over the span of a month. ) _________, the Olympics only hosts about half of that, with 16 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams participating in 2016Summer Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

_________requirement

You can’t put all the _________on FIFA for players not participating in the Olympics when the Games also put restrictions on who can play at the event. Each team participating in the Olympics can only have three players over 23 on their roster(参赛名单), which has led to the Games being mockingly referred to as a U-23 tournament. The World Cup, __________, doesn’t have such a limit.

Because of the age limit, many think the level of skill displayed at the Olympics isn’t a good __________of what the world’s best soccer players are capable of. Keep in mind that FIFA is part of the organizing committee for soccer at the Olympics. So it always has the final __________in whether the best players in the world can participate. As the New York Times summarized in 2008, FIFA’s message to the Olympics is clear: Soccer is one sport in which you will never be allowed to __________an event with the best in the world.

Fans

Part of the World Cup’s appeal is that it runs over the course of the __________, and viewers who don’t watch certain teams on a regular basis can become more familiar with the competition. The Summer Games __________the games—again, made up of fewer teams—onto a much shorter schedule with less time for fanfare.

【推荐3】With cities growing faster than ever, more and more _______ urban spaces are appearing all around the world. Dealing with the increase in these lifeless spaces has been a serious problem for almost every major city.

Valero Square is located in the center of the city’s downtown at a busy tram line station and next to a large market. With such a good location, the site should have been a(n) _______ area, but the reality couldn’t have been more _______ . While thousands of people move through the square every day, few stopped to spend time in the square. People would instead simply _______ without a second thought.

That was until the installation of a project titled “Warde”.

The installation is a cluster of giant red “flowers”, which open to 30 feet wide, on top of 30-foot-tall “stems”. The flowers can be filled with _______ . This inflation (膨胀) and deflation enable the flowers to open and close.

The new installation is difficult to neglect, but what is truly _______ is the way that these flowers interact with their surroundings. Standing under one of the flowers will cause it to open and stay _______ until you choose to leave, providing shade and _______ from the hot sun. Warde is also programmed to _______ to public transport service, springing to life as the trams arrive and depart from the square, ________ travellers not to miss their tram.

Temporary ________ projects such as Warde are being used more and more as a way to reengage communities with neglected spaces. ________ it’s still too early to say if Valero Square has been brought back to life by Warde, the project has certainly managed to generate increased public ________ in the space. ________ , Warde is an excellent example of how urban art projects can be a great tool for getting people to stop and really take notice of their ________ .