1 . “Some day, there’ll be no Americans left in the NBA,” said 12-year-old Xing Tao, who joined his school team two weeks ago after watching Yao Ming in a televised NBA game, “The players will all be Chinese, like Yao.”

To China, Yao is a home-grown superstar who helped make the world’s first basketball league closer to Chinese players. To the NBA, the 2.23-meter center offers an opening of a different sort into the world’s largest new market. Yao’s NBA first appearance against the Indiana Pacers in October reached 287 million families in the US. That game might have been a bit of a letdown to Yao’s fans: He played just 11 of the 48 minutes, had two rebounds (篮板) and got no points. Comparing that with his performance on December 19, also against Indiana, Yao won 29 points and 10 rebounds. “This was one of the most exciting games I’ve had,” Yao said after Houston’s 95-83 victory. The NBA has to be excited about his on-count success. In all his games, he’s averaging 12.7 points and 7.7 rebounds, quite good for a new star. “Yao Ming has brought the NBA closer to the Chinese,” said NBA spokeswoman Cheong Sau Ching, “That makes the dream seem practical for other people in China and proud to be Chinese.”

The 22-year-old Yao is not the country’s first player in the NBA: Wang Zhizhi broke down the Dallas Mavericks in November 2003. But Yao’s combination of modesty (谦虚) and skills make him a favorite back home.

3 . It turns out that overworking your brain with either physical or mental exercise may lower your ability to delay self-satisfaction. And that may set you up for poor choices in your self-care and finances.

A new study published in the journal Current Biology asked excellent endurance athletes to overtrain for three out of 9 weeks, and compared them to a group who did a normal 9-week training program.

Not only did those overworked athletes perform worse on a cycling test at the end of the overtraining, MRIs of their brains during behavioral tasks showed more exhaustion in the cognitive control part of the brain system. "Cognitive control in this situation is the capacity to maintain exercise despite things like muscle pain," said study author Bastien Blain, a research associate at University College London. “And what we found is that there is an intelligence factor involved in exercising and it has a limited capacity. You cannot use it forever.''

In other words, your brain will burn out and affect your body's ability to exercise. But that's not all. Overworking that part of the brain also reduced the athletes' abilities to resist temptation of an immediate reward."For example, they were asked whether they preferred $10 now or $50 in six months," Blain said. “And those who overtrained were more likely to choose the immediate reward, which is interesting. It could provide a mechanism to explain why some athletes are using drugs to improve their performance."

One caution about the exercise study is that it only looked at endurance athletes, said. Dr. Mare-Andre Cornier, who is associate director of Colorado University's Anschutz Health and Wellness Center. "This is potentially very important for the higher end athlete who is overdoing it," he said.“But does this have anything to do with the average Joe going to the gym? You can't conclude that from this study."

4 . Will doing housework save you a trip to the gym? If you think so, you need to think again. A new study finds that people who do housework as their weekly exercise tend to be heavier than those who get their exercise by doing sports.

In fact, the more time people spend on performing housework as exercise, the heavier they tend to be. The finding is shocking, because people thought more physical activities — no matter what the form — would always lead to a lower weight.

Richard Cotton, an exercise physiologist, agreed that it is hard to lose weight only by doing housework. You’ll get the most reward for your time if you add some traditional physical activities, he said. For example, 30 minutes of sweeping floors bums about 130 calories, while 30 minutes of riding a bike bums 400 calories. But some housework does give you exercise. For example, 30 minutes of washing the clothes by hand bums 215 calories, close to what you would bum in 30 minutes of combined jogging and walking.

The study collected information from more than 4 ,600 people who were interviewed about their weekly physical activity. About 42 percent of them had 150 minutes of physical activity per week. Of those people, nearly two-thirds said that at least 10 minutes of their weekly activity was spent doing housework. Women and older people tended to report more time spent in doing housework as part of their physical activity. In other words, if the researchers didn’t count housework as a type of physical activity, just

Therefore, it is possible that people who said they exercised by doing housework were not really honest about the time or length of the activity, researchers said. "After all, the combination of different physical activities is the best choice," Cotton said.

5 . We all know that exercise is great for you. But let's be honest.    1     Here I am going to share my top reasons for working out.

Exercise can completely change your feeling. When you work out, your body produces endorphins（内啡肽）.    2    You will feel better after a workout than you did before it. Next time you're having a bad day, try going for a fast-paced run or taking a spinning class（单车课 程），and the day won't seem so bad after all.

    3     Whenever I move to a new city or work, I look for exercise classes, where you can always meet like-minded people. You can support each other during a difficult workout. And you all share a collective feeling of happiness when the hard class finishes!

Exercise makes you feel confident. We all know the physical effects of exercise on our bodies but we don't always talk about the mental effects.    4    This new feeling might even help in your work or social life.

Exercise makes you feel strong and fit. Running 30 minutes every day helps you keep healthy and makes you feel a sense of achievement. It's a great feeling doing something you couldn't do before and knowing it's a result of your hard work.

So, next time you're feeling down, put your trainers on and get sweating. It might not be easy in the beginning for most people.     5    

6 . Chambanamoms Presents

Girl's Night Out: Foot Golf!

Grab some friends and join us on Saturday, June 4, for a fun night out at Lake of the Woods Golf Course in Mahomet, thanks to our friends at the Champaign County Forest Preserve District. There will be giveaways, some adult drinks and food, as well as a great night out playing Foot Golf. Yes, we said Foot Golf .You don' t need to have a bag full of club(球杆)or fancy spike(钉鞋)--- just bring yourself (and athletic shoes, please).

If you can kick a soccer ball, you can play Foot Golf. If you can laugh and have fun, you can also play Foot Golf.

So what is Foot Golf? Foot Golf is what happens when you combine golf and soccer. Players kick off from a tee box (开球处) and attempt to get their soccer ball into a 21-inch diameter(直径) cup using the fewest number of kicks. Foot Golf can be played by children and adults. It is a trend sweeping golf courses across the country, and we are lucky to have it right here in Champaign County.

This event is FREE. To manage the number of people we have on the course, we are asking our friends to register (注册) . Here is a quick and easy form to fill out: http://www.chambanamoms.com/girlsnightoutrsvp/

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday, June 4, at 7 p.m. Bring your girlfriends 一and your sense of humor!

IF YOU DRIVE: Lake of the Woods Golf Course is a quick drive west from Champaign-Urbana on Interstate 74. Get off at Lake of the Woods exit, Exit No. 174. Head north for 1/2 mile until the first stop sign. Take a left at the stop sign and travel for one mile. This road will take you directly to the golf course.

I am writing this letter to you to express my concern about the sports facilities in our school.

8 . Many people thought a computer wasn't supposed to be able to beat a top master at the ancient Chinese game, Weiqi, for at least another 10 years. But AlphaGo, an artificially intelligent system(人工智能系统) designed by Google, made it. It easily beat Lee Sedol last year, one of the best players in the world. It challenged the world's top players to show how much progress it had made over the past few years.

In the late of May, 2017, AlphaGo appeared in China and played against 19-year-old Ke Jie in Wuzhen, China. He is No. 1 player now in the world. However, the result wasn't out of people's expectation. He lost the matches. Though Ke Jie tried his best and he once saw the victory just a step away, he lost his best chance when he became excited.

At the press conference(新闻发布会) after the match, Ke Jie was interviewed by the reporters.He said he had realized how powerful AlphaGo was, and it was getting perfect. When a Chinese reporter asked him in English, the reporter spoke so fast that the interpreter(口译员 ) couldn't catch him. Ke Jie got kind of angry and told him that it was unnecessary for two Chinese to speak English. The reporter apologized to him and offered to ask him for a coffee.

The cat and mouse game is over, but the challenge between man and robots will still go on.