1 . Various Apps to Learn

Apps are typical digital learning tools, which can give you diverse and personalized content to meet your needs. Want to find an app that can help you learn? Here are some great ideas for you.

2 . Blind Olympic Athletes Show the Universal Nature

Tune into any sports coverage on TV, and you will see many athletes proudly raise their arms and heads in victory, while a much larger number hang their shoulders and necks in defeat. Studies have revealed why—they are universal behaviours, performed by humans in response to success and failure.

The discovery came from Jessica Tracy from the University of British Columbia and David Matsumoto from San Francisco State University, who wanted to see how people showed feelings of pride and shame.     1     They tried to find a large group of people, and it was critically important that some of these subjects had never seen other people reacting to success or failure before.

The answer was Athens, during the 2004 Olympic Games. Its sister competition—the Paralympics—included many athletes who were born blind.     2     Working with a professional photographer, Tracy and Matsumoto compared the body language of 108 competitors, 41 of whom had lost their sight, and 12 of whom were blind from birth. The photographer repeatedly took pictures of these athletes after their competitions, and the researchers carefully recorded the positions of their heads, arms and bodies.     3     The winners tilted their heads up, smiled, lifted their arms and puffed out their chests, while shoulders bent forward and narrowed chests were the marks of losers.

    4     Men and women who have never seen other people behave in these ways still make exactly the same movements. And while it’s possible that parents may have taught their blind children some of these actions, it’s very unlikely that they could have taught them all—particularly the expansion or narrowing of the chest.

These actions were also remarkably consistent between contestants from every part of the world. Tracy and Matsumoto argue that pride and shame deserve a place alongside other primary emotions like happiness, fear and surprise.     5    

3 . While many people aren’t getting enough calcium (钙), new research cautions that some people may have the opposite problem: they could be getting too much. Americans spend more than $1 billion a year on calcium supplements in hopes of delaying osteoporosis, a kind of bone disease that disables many elderly women and some men. Yet recent studies link calcium supplements to a higher risk of heart attacks. Last month, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a draft recommendation against taking calcium and vitamin D，saying there wasn’t enough evidence of benefit to justify the risk.

For generations of Americans who grew up encouraged to drink milk to maintain strong bones, the reports raised troubling questions: Is calcium not so important after all? Are the supplements unsafe? And how much is too much? “It’s gotten very confusing but it doesn’t need to be,” says Ethel Siris, director of the Toni Stabile Osteoporosis Center in New York. How much calcium people need varies by age and gender. “Adults generally need 1,000 mg daily, rising to 1,200 mg for women over 50 and men over 70, according to guidelines issued in 2010. Children need 1,300 mg daily during the peak growing years of 9 to 18.”

People also need sufficient levels of vitamin D to absorb the calcium. The IOM recommends 600 international units a day for most adults, and 800 daily after age 70，although many physicians recommend more. It is difficult to take in that much vitamin D from food sources, so experts say many people should take vitamin D in supplement form.

Getting adequate calcium from food is easier. For example, 8 ounces of milk or 6 ounces of yogurt has 300 mg of calcium, and one cup of spinach has 270 mg.

But studies linking calcium supplements to heart attack have made experts more cautious of excess calcium than before. A study of 24,000 Germans published in the journal Heart last month, found that those who got their calcium exclusively from supplements were more than twice as likely to have a heart attack as those who took no supplements.

Exactly how calcium supplements might contribute to heart attacks baffles experts. “Nobody has associated the calcium in your bloodstream with calcification(钙化)in your arteries(动脉),” says Nieca Goldberg, medical director of the Joan H. Tisch Center. Still, she says she now urges patients get their recommended calcium from food rather than from supplements to avoid possible problems.

Osteoporosis experts also urge patients not to take more than the recommended amount of calcium. “People should definitely stop taking two big calcium supplements a day,” says Dr. Dawson-Hughes. Even if the risks remain unclear, taking more than the body can absorb doesn’t benefit bones,” so it’s not worth any risk.” She adds.

5 . Neurotech—new, potentially revolutionary technology—promises to transform our lives. With all the global challenges of today, we need revolutionary technology to help the world cope.

There are different types of neurotech—some is invasive, some isn’t. Invasive brain-computer interfaces involve placing microelectrodes or other kinds of neurotech materials directly onto the brain or even embedding them into the neural tissue. Such technology has already improved the quality of life and abilities of people with different illnesses or impairments, from epilepsy to Parkinson’s Disease to chronic pain. There is also noninvasive neurotech that can be used for similar applications. For example, researchers have developed wearables to infer a person’s intended speech or movement. These are already quite impressive, but there is also neurotech that really pushes the envelope. Not only can it sense or read neurodata but it can also modulate—invasively and noninvasively. This research is still in early stages, but it’s advancing rapidly.

As neurotech becomes more commonplace, we must consider the risks it might present, the morals around it, and the necessary regulation. We have to anticipate and deal with the implications related to the development and use of this technology. Any neurotech applications should consider potential consequences for the autonomy, privacy, responsibility, consent, integrity and dignity of a person.

What if someone were to face employment discrimination because the algorithms（算法） that power a neurotech application used for hiring misinterpret his or her neurodata? What if a criminal gets a hold of the previous or current neurodata of the secretary of defense and steals top secret information? Concerns increase when we are not just monitoring someone’s neurodata but also interpreting it, decoding the person’s thoughts—with implications for accuracy and mental privacy.

One tricky aspect is that most of the neurodata generated by the nervous systems is unconscious. It means it is very possible to unknowingly or unintentionally provide neurotech with information that one otherwise wouldn’t. So, in some applications of neurotech, the presumption of privacy within one’s own mind may simply no longer be a certainty.

As new, emerging technology, neurotech challenges corporations, researchers and individuals to reaffirm our commitment to responsible innovation, it’s essential to enforce guardrails so that they lead to beneficial long-term outcomes—on company, national and international levels. We need to ensure that researchers and manufacturers of neurotech as well as policymakers and consumers approach it responsibly. Let’s act now to avoid any future risks as neurotech matures—for the benefit of humanity.

8 . “I Got Him!”

It was the homecoming parade in Rockwall, Texas, and cheerleader Tyra Winters in her uniform, was riding atop one of the school’s floats(花车). As it slowly made its way down the street, the 17-year-old enthusiastically _______ at the crowd, all the while soaking in the music, laughter, and applause.

All of a sudden, a horrible _______ came. Looking down, Winters saw a two-year-old on the sidewalk gasping for air, his mother _______ for help in panic. The boy had been sucking on a piece of candy when it _______ down the back of his mouth, lodging in his throat and blocking his windpipe.

“There was no coughing；there was no _______ ,” his mother, Nicole cried. No one seemed to know how to help.

Except for Winters. With dreams of becoming a surgeon, she had learned the Heimlich maneuver（海姆利克氏急救法）. Knowing that every second _______, she leaped off the moving float and ran to the child.

Soon, the boy coughed up the piece of _______, gasped, and began breathing again. Without another word, Winters handed the boy back to his mother and hurried back to her float before it could leave her behind.

It all happened so _______, Nicole never had time to thank the teen. Winters’ heroic actions left Nicole __________. “I don’t really have any words,” she said, “‘thank you’ doesn’t seem good enough.”

9 . She turned up at the doorstep of my house in Cornwall. No way could I have sent her away. No way, not me anyway. Maybe someone had kicked her out of their car the night before. “We're moving house.” “No space for her any more with the baby coming.” “We never really wanted her, but what could we have done? She was a present.” People find all sorts of excuses for abandoning an animal. And she was one of the most beautiful dogs I had ever seen.

I called her Goldie. If I had known what was going to happen, I would have given her a more creative name. She was so unsettled during those first few days. She hardly ate anything and had such an air of sadness about her. There was nothing I could do to make her happy, it seemed. Heaven knows what had happened to her at her previous owner’s. But eventually at the end of the first week she calmed down. Always by my side, whether we were out on one of our long walks or sitting by the fire.

That’s why it was such a shock when she pulled away from me one day when we were out for a walk. We were a long way from home, when she started barking and getting very restless. Eventually I couldn’t hold her any longer and she raced off down the road towards a farmhouse in the distance as fast as she could.

By the time I reached the farm I was very tired and upset with Goldie. But when I saw her licking （舔) the four puppies I started to feel sympathy towards them. “We didn't know what had happened to her,” said the woman at the door. “I took her for a walk one day, soon after the puppies were born, and she just disappeared.” “She must have tried to come back to them and got lost,” added a boy from behind her.

I must admit I do miss Goldie, but I’ve got Nugget now, and she looks just like her mother. And I’ve learnt a good lesson: not to judge people.

Pixar is one of the world’s     1     (famous) and successful film studios.     2     (it) latest animated film, Soul, was released last November. Soul tells the story of Joe Gardner, an aspiring jazz musician living in New York. One day, after an accident, Gardner ends up in the Great Before—a place where souls must “find their spark” before entering a human body. When Gardner     3     (give) the job of mentoring a soul called 22, he tries to find his way back to Earth.