1 . When almost everyone has a mobile phone, why are more than half of Australian homes still paying for a landline (座机)?

These days, it would be hard for you to find anyone in Australia over the age of 15 who doesn’t own a mobile phone. In fact, plenty of younger kids have one in their pocket. Practically everyone can make and receive calls anywhere, anytime.

Still, 55% of Australians have a landline phone at home and only just over a quarter (29%) rely only on their smartphones, according to a survey. Of those Australians who still have a landline, a third concede that it’s not really necessary and they’re keeping it for a feeling of safety-19% say they never use it while a further 13% keep it in case of accidents. I think my home falls into that group.

More than half of Australian homes are still choosing to stick with their home phones. Age is naturally a factor—only 58% of Generation Ys (出生于1980至1990年末的一代人) still use landlines now and then, compared to 84 % of Baby Boomers (二战后生育高峰期出生的人) who’ve perhaps had the same home number for 50 years. Age isn’t the only factor. I’d say it’s also to do with the makeup of your family.

Generation Xs (出生于1960至1970年的一代人) with young families, like my wife and I, can still find it convenient to have a home phone rather than providing a mobile phone for every family member. To be honest, the only people who ever ring our home phone are our Baby Boomers parents. Sometimes, we play a game and guess who is calling before we pick up the phone (using Caller ID would take the fun out of it).

How much do you depend on your landline? How long will they be used before going the way of gas street lamps and morning milk deliveries?

2 . If you ever have the desire to break out into song in the shower, in the car, maybe at your neighbor’s karaoke night—you should embrace it whole-heartedly. This ancient art not only makes you feel good, but it can also improve your well-being, reduce your feelings of pain, and even extend your life.

Using your voice to sing, rather than simply carrying out a conversation, offers unique benefits because singing affects our bodies. Also, studies link singing with a lower heart rate decreased blood pressure and reduced stress according to Patricia Preston-Roberts, a music therapist (治疗师). She uses the song to help patients who suffer from a variety of problems.

Singing, particularly in a group, seems to benefit the elderly particularly well. As part of a three-year study examining how singing affects the health of those fifty-five and older, a Senior Singers Chorus was formed by the Levine School of Music in Washington, D.C. The seniors involved in the chorus, as well as seniors in two separate arts groups about writing and painting, showed significant health improvements compared to those in the control groups (控制组). Obviously, the arts groups reported thirty fewer doctors’ visits, fewer eyesight problems, less depression, and less need for medication.

Even lead researcher Dr. Gene.D.Cohen director of the Center on aging at George Washington University, was surprised at how big an effect the seniors’ arts participation had on their health. Cohen said, “The average age of all the subjects was eighty. This is higher than life expectancy. So, if an effect were to be achieved, one would ordinarily expect to see less decline (下降) compared to the control group. The fact that there was so much improvement in many areas was the surprising factor.” The seniors also noticed health improvements and they reported feeling better both in daily life and while singing.

The part of the brain that works with speech is different from the part that processes music. “People seem to enjoy doing something jointly with other people. There are a lot of facts that being socially involved is good for people with dementia (老年痴呆).” Ballard said.

The arts are showing up as a treatment tool in hospitals across the country. If you are thinking of volunteering, singing at a hospital may be a good choice—not only for the patients, but also for yourself.

3 . Kite flying is the sport of sending up into the air, by means of the wind, a light frame covered with paper, plastic or cloth. The frame can be one of many different shapes and is attached to a long string held in the hand or wound on a drum. Kites have a long history of practical application and many different types of kites have been developed to serve various purposes.

The ancient Chinese used bird-kites to carry ropes across rivers and valleys. The present folding kite which will dive excitingly is an improved type of such a kite. With its long flat body and single pair of bird-like wings, it looks just like a large bird in the air. The modern version is usually made of tissue-paper rather than the traditional silk.

Man-lifting kites were developed in ancient times, again by the Chinese, for getting information from walled cities and army camps. In fact, as recently as World War II, German U-boats (德国U型潜艇兵) flew kites from their towers to lift people into the air to watch the land. These kites, which are no longer in existence, were made of light-weight cloth. They were much larger and stronger than the Chinese ones. Their design, however, was simply that of the cutter kite. Smaller in size, this type of kite is still very popular as a toy for children, being easy to make with a diamond-shaped frame, no wings and brown-paper covering.

Box-kites are another type of kites found in toy shops today. The first box-kite, named for its box-like body, was developed in the nineteenth century to test theories of flight and this type of cotton-covered kite greatly led to the success of early planes. These kites are the ancestors of a heavier version of the box-kite, which consists of two main sections, placed side by side. Developed for the peacetime purpose of fishing in strong sea wind, it is the only modern kite described which has practical value. A long-lasting plastic material has to be used for this kite, which carries fishing lines.

7 . Nowadays electronic devices are becoming wireless (无线的). We can listen to songs by using earphones without wires. A mouse or keyboard can be run on a computer without wires. Many of them use Bluetooth. Bluetooth is the technology that allows the exchange of data between different devices. However, have you ever wondered why it is called Bluetooth?

Bluetooth was named after Harald Bluetooth, a 10th-century king of Denmark (丹麦). He was famous for uniting Denmark and Norway into one kingdom. His dead tooth, which was a dark blue color earned him the nickname Bluetooth. In 1996, Jim Kardach from Intel suggested Bluetooth as the name because King Harald Bluetooth united two kingdoms just as people wanted to connect computers with other electronic devices. The Bluetooth logo is a combination of Harald’s initials (首字母) ‘H(ᚼ)’ and ‘B(ᛒ)’ written in Nordic runes (古代北欧文字).

Developed in the late 1990s, Bluetooth has become increasingly popular. On May 20, 1999, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) was set up and the first Bluetooth specification (标准), Bluetooth 1.0, was published in the same year. The Sony Ericsson T36 became the first mobile phone to include Bluetooth in 2001. The Bluetooth SIG published the latest Bluetooth 5.3 on July 13, 2021.

Besides Bluetooth headsets, there are more things people can do with Bluetooth. Bluetooth can connect up to seven devices to one master device at the same time and allows users to exchange voice and data transmissions (传送) between two or more devices. For example, we can print wirelessly across the room with a Bluetooth printer. Without Bluetooth, each device would have to be joined together by wires, meaning we could never sit more than a few meters away from the screen.

Bluetooth offers many advantages, but there are drawbacks, too. We have to charge (充电) Bluetooth devices more often because Bluethooth shortens battery life. Besides, Bluetooth technology easily finds nearby devices so hackers (黑客) can see which devices are nearby and attack them, especially in public places like airports, trains and cafes. What’s more, most Bluetooth devices must be within about 10 meters of each other and has slow data speed.

8 . Screens are a major part of our lives. It’s common that people use more than one screen for work or play at the same time. For example, a teen may play games while watching TV. A new study found that multitasking between screens might lead to problems with attention and memory.

The finding was reported by Kevin Madore and Anthony Wagner, psychologists at Stanford University. They invited 80 young adults to answer questions about their everyday attention and media (媒体) multitasking and to perform a memory task. The participants were required to classify (把……分类) pictures into “joyful” or “unjoyful”. After a 10-minute break, they viewed another set of pictures, some of which had been in the first group. Participants had to recall whether each photo had been in the first set and how they classified them the first time.

With the EEG (脑电图) device on their head, their brain activity in areas involved with attention and memory was recorded and monitored (监测) as they paid attention to what was shown on the screen. Researchers studied the change of the alpha waves (阿尔法脑波), which decrease when people pay close attention to something and increase as their mind wanders (走神). The researchers also used an eye tracker to record changes in pupil dilation (瞳孔扩张). With close attention, our pupils dilate and contract (收缩) over and over again. But when we get less focused, our pupils become smaller.

Researchers found that people who reported more media multitasking in their daily lives were more likely to forget pictures from the first set they’d seen. The EEG recordings showed that these people also had a harder time paying attention during the task. The researchers also found that the participants’ pupils became smaller and alpha-brain-waves increased right before someone wrongly classified pictures in the second part of the testing. People who multitasked less, however, showed no such brain changes and eye changes. They also performed better on the memory task.

It’s important to note that media multitasking and loss in attention or memory were related. “We know that multitasking in general has costs,” the lead researcher Madore said. “That means it typically takes longer to do a task. And we typically make more mistakes when we multitask.” Those costs don’t only happen while multitasking, and the new study has shown we might show poorer attention and memory even when we’re no longer multitasking. “Our attention has limits and the power of distraction (分心) can be big,” he added. That’s why we should be mindful of how we use media and how it might affect attention and memory elsewhere in our lives.

So, if you want to improve your memory, it is worth a shot to not media multitask.

9 . When we think of leadership, we often think of strength and power. But what are these really and how do they operate?

Leadership today is not about forcing others to do things. If this is even possible it is short-term, an tends to backfire. If you order someone to do something against their will, they may do it because they feel they must, but the anger they feel will do more harm in the long-term. They will also experience fear.

Fear causes the thinking brain to shut down, making the person unable to function at his or her best. If they associate (联系) you with this emotion of fear, they will become less functional around you, and you will have succeeded in not only shooting yourself in the foot, but possibly making a very good employee or partner unable to perform effectively. Fear has no place in leadership.

The way we influence people in a lasting way is by our own character, and our understanding and use of emotion. We can order someone to do something which may be part of the work day; or we can employ them at the emotional level, so they became fully devoted to the projects and provide some of their own motivation. Today’s work place is all about relationships. Anyone works harder in a positive environment in which they’re recognized and valued as a human being as well as a worker. Everyone produces just a bit more for someone they like. Good leaders usually understand the way things work. They know the pay check is not the single most encouraging factor (因素) in the work life of most people.

The true strength of leadership is an inner strength that comes from the confidence of emotional intelligence—knowing your own emotions, and how to handle them, and those of others. Developing your emotional intelligence is the single best thing you can do if you want to develop your relationships with people around you, which is the key to the leadership skills.

10 . Do you eat fish every week? Do you think eating fish may help protect our brains from air pollution? A new research studied some older women, who lived in places with high levels(等级) of air pollution. They found that those who had the lowest levels of omega-3 fatty acids(w-3脂肪酸) in their body had more brain shrinkage(脑萎缩) than women who had the highest levels.

“Fish is an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids and easy to add to the diet,” said Ka He from Columbia University. “Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to maintain brain structure(保持脑部结构) in aging brains. They have also been found to reduce brain damage caused by some neurotoxins(神经毒素). So we did the research to see if omega-3 fatty acids could help protect our brains from a certain toxin in air pollution.”

The research studied 1,315 women with an average age of 70. Researchers asked the women how much fish they had each week and tested the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood. The researchers also used the women’s home addresses to work out their three-year average exposure to air pollution, and then scanned(扫描)different areas of the women’s brains to see the change in the structure.

After adjusting for(调控) age, education, smoking and other factors that could affect(影响) brain shrinkage, researchers found that women who had the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the blood had less change in white matter and hippocampus than those with the lowest levels, which are associated with signal sending and memory.

“ It’s important to note that our study only found an association(联系) between maintaining brain structure and eating fish,” he said, “Higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the blood from eating fish may help maintain brain structure as women grow older and possibly fight against the bad effects of air pollution. However, more research is still needed.”