7 . Dating in the workplace is, if not a taboo, certainly a conundrum-not only for businesses, but also for the employees who find themselves falling for a co-worker. [1]         Should it be allowed? Would it be authoritarian to ban it? Should employees inform their bosses of office relationships, or should they conceal them? Is requiring so-called “love contracts” to be signed by both parties before initiating a relationship even realistic?

[2]        Most people spend 30 to 45 hours in the office each week-and with team-bonding activities, work celebrations and Friday drinks, it’s normal for colleagues to build a bond with one another, especially if they find that they have more things in common than just their employer.

From the company’s point of view, however, couples at work are a serious risk factor which must be mitigated. Without a proper dating policy in place, claims of sexual harassment and accusations of favoritism become a significant risk. It’s not necessary to ban office romance (though you are certainly allowed to): but you do need to have clear rules in place, to ensure you’re doing all you can to head off any potential issues. Ask, for example, that all employees who embark on a relationship have a sit-down, be it casual or formal, with HR. [3]      

As for employees, there are two things to consider when you find yourself romantically interested in one of your colleagues: first of all, is it worth it? [4]         Regardless of how your employer feels, office romance can be quite complicated-not only because you’ll most likely be the target of gossip, but also because your work environment will be affected if the relationship does not work out. And secondly, what is your company’s dating policy? If they have a zero-tolerance policy, do not risk your job or assume you will be able to keep your relationship on the down low. In the vast majority of cases, it’s simply not possible.

Attitudes towards office romance are certainly changing, with more companies reassessing zero-tolerance policies and opting for a more casual approach to how their employees connect with one another. That said, however, office romance is still a complex issue, and it should be treated with gravitas.

8 . Everything we know suggests that the universe is unusual. It is flatter, smoother, larger and emptier than a “typical” universe predicted by the known laws of physics. If we reached into a hat filled with pieces of paper, each with the specifications of a possible universe written on it, it is unlikely that we would get a universe anything like ours in one pick—or even a billion.

The challenge that cosmologists face is to make sense of this specialness. One approach to this question is inflation—the hypothesis (假设) that the early universe went through a stage of fast expansion. At first, inflation seemed to do the trick. A simple version of the idea gave correct predictions for the spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background.

But a closer look shows that we have just moved the problem further back in time. To make inflation happen at all requires us to fine-tune the initial conditions of the universe. And unless inflation is highly tuned, it leads to a runaway process of universe creation. As a result, some cosmologists (宇宙学家) suggest that there is not one universe, but an infinite number, with a huge variety of properties: the multiverse. There are an infinite number of universes in the collection that are like our universe and an infinite number that are not. But the proportion of infinity to infinity is undefined, and can be made into anything the theorist wants. Thus, the multiverse theory has difficulty making any firm predictions and threatens to take us out of the area of science.

These other universes are unobservable and because chance dictates the random distribution of properties across universes, suggesting the existence of a multiverse does not let us get to anything about our universe beyond what we already know. As attractive as the idea may seem, it is basically a sleight of hand, which turns an explanatory failure into an apparent explanatory success. The success is empty because anything that might be observed about our universe could be explained as something that must, by chance, happen somewhere in the multiverse.

We started out trying to explain why the universe is so special, and we end up being asked to believe that our universe is one of an infinite number of universes with random properties. This makes me suspect that there is a basic but unexamined assumption about the laws of nature that must be overturned.

Cosmology has new questions to answer. Not just what are the laws, but why are these laws the laws? How were they chosen? We can’t just hypothesize what the initial conditions were at the big bang, we need to explain those initial conditions. Thus, we are in the position of a computer program asked to explain its inputs. It is clear that if we are to get anywhere, we need to invent new methods, and perhaps new kinds of laws, to gain a scientific description of the universe as a whole.

9 . Tune in to a college football match in America, and you might think that you are watching a professional rather than an amateur sport. The biggest stadiums routinely fill over 100,000 seats. Corporate sponsorships are common. Television broadcasts are filled with ads for expensive pick-up trucks and beers. In all, America’s college athletic departments brought in a combined $18.1bn of revenue (收益) in 2017, up from $9.8bn in 2007.

Despite the popularity of their output, college athletes receive no salary. The National College Athletic Association (NCAA), which governs college sports, has long forbidden its players to receive any reward. The ordinance has caused public discussion and disagreement. After years of legal challenges and intense public scrutiny(监督), the NCAA’s restriction on paying student athletes is at last starting to crack.

On September 10th, California passed a bill which would allow athletes at colleges in the state with profitable sports programs to hire agents and earn money on the side through sponsorship deals or autograph(签名) sales. The bill still needs to be signed by the governor, and would not come into effect until 2023.

Some lawmakers would like to go one step further. Senator Bernie Sanders put it plainly on Twitter: “College athletes are workers. Pay them.” Yet treating athletes as employees could make things more complicated. Would this mean that colleges would pay their female players as much as males, for example, even if the men bring in more revenue?

Richard Borghesi, an economist at the University of South Florida-Sarasota, has written a pair of papers looking at how much top athletes would make if they were paid according to their ability to generate revenue for their colleges. Mr Borghesi estimates that the top 10% of football and 16% of basketball players would be paid around $400,000 and $250,000 a year respectively.

The NCAA opposes California’s efforts. The association notes that college athletes are already rewarded in the form of scholarships, and argues that they shouldn’t get any further reward as amateur players. The NCAA has also threatened to ban Californian colleges from competing in national championships.

Although the NCAA’s objections may have been reasonable at some point, they make little sense today. The two most profitable college sports, American football and basketball, are highly competitive. Many universities are willing to make every effort to admit talented players.

10 . As we age, even if we’re healthy, the heart just isn’t as efficient in processing oxygen as it used to be. In most people the first signs show up in their 50s or early 60s. And among people who don’t exercise, the changes can start even sooner.

“Think of a rubber band. In the beginning, it is flexible, but put it in a drawer for 20 years and it will become dry and easily broken,” says Dr. Ben Levine, a heart specialist at the University of Texas. That’s what happens to the heart. Fortunately for those in midlife, Levine is finding that even if you haven’t been an enthusiastic exerciser, getting in shape now may help improve your aging heart.

Levine and his research team selected volunteers aged between 45 and 64 who did not exercise much but were otherwise healthy. Participants were randomly divided into two groups. The first group participated in a program of nonaerobic (无氧) exercise—balance training and weight training—three times a week. The second group did high-intensity aerobic exercise under the guidance of a trainer for four or more days a week. After two years, the second group saw remarkable improvements in heart health.

“We took these 50-year-old hearts and turned the clock back to 30-or 35-year-old hearts,” says Levine. “And the reason they got so much stronger and fitter was that their hearts could now fill a lot better and pump (泵送) a lot more blood during exercise.” But the hearts of those who participated in less intense exercise didn’t change, he says.

“The sweet spot in life to start exercising, if you haven’t already, is in late middle age when the heart still has flexibility,” Levine says. “We put healthy 70-year-olds through a yearlong exercise training program, and nothing happened to them at all.”

Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, says Levine’s findings are a great start. But the study was small and needs to be repeated with far larger groups of people to determine exactly which aspects of an exercise routine make the biggest difference.