Traditionally,     1     the year winds down, it’s a time for reflections—to give thanks, reconnect with loved ones, and cherish the more meaningful parts of life, removed from our usual day-to-day distractions.

Of course, the events of 2020 haven’t shown a lot of respect for our traditions. In a year of so much tragedy, it can be tough to give thanks when you’re doing your best to get by. And far too many of us will have to gather around a table with an empty chair, if we were able to gather together at all.

One thing, though, we can say about 2020 is that it forced us all to cherish what is most important, what’s most meaningful in our lives. To stop taking things for granted,     2     truly matters. To be grateful for what we have, and to be alive to the pain of those     3     (fortunate).

Throughout this challenging year, I’ve been moved, again and again, by the sacrifices so many were willing to make on behalf of others. The healthcare professionals who risked their lives to save ours. The workers who have kept our lights on and our shelves stocked, always essential to our economy, but finally     4     (recognize) for it. The protesters of every race and age who saw injustice in their streets and their institutions and demanded change. And the less heralded leaders, the quiet change-makers who saw need in their own communities and leapt to address it. They checked in on their neighbors, delivered food and PPE to seniors and those experiencing hardship, offered mental health support to those     5    (recover) from trauma.     6     holes this pandemic tore wide in our social fabric, these emerging leaders stepped forward to patch it up.

These are exactly the leaders Michelle and I started our Foundation to support. We always thought they     7     (lead) us into a bright future, if only we     8     empower them, connect them with each other, and give them a dose of inspiration when they needed it.

What we learned in 2020 is that these emerging leaders aren’t just building a brighter future, they’re safeguarding our present. In hard times, they are the ones who’ve given me solace. It’s     9     sacrifice in which I found hope. And as we begin to close the chapter on a difficult year with encouraging news on the horizon, it’s their leadership     10     will guide us today and tomorrow.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everybody.

—Quoted from Barack Obama’s Christmas speech in 2020

3 . You’re running late for work and you can’t find your keys: What’s really annoying is that in your search, you pick up and move them without realizing. This may be because the brain systems involved in the task are working at different speeds, with the system responsible for perception(感知)unable to keep pace.

So says Grayden Solman and his colleagues at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. To investigate how we search, Solman’s team created a simple computer-based task that involved searching through a pile of colored shapes on a computer screen. Volunteers were instructed to find a specific shapes as quickly as possible, while the computer monitored their actions.“Between 10 and 20 percent of the time, they would miss the object,”says Solman, even though they picked it up.“We thought that was remarkably often.”

To find out why, the team developed a number of further experiments. To check whether volunteers were just forgetting their target, they gave a new group a list of items to memorize before the search task, which they had to recall afterwards.

The idea was to fill each volunteer’s“memory load”，so that they were unable to hold any other information in their short-term memory. Although this was expected to have a negative effect on their performance at the search task, the extra load made no difference to the percentage of mistakes volunteers made.

To check that the volunteers were paying enough attention to the items they were moving, Solman’s team created another task involving a pile of cards marked with shapes that only became visible while the card was being moved. Again, they were surprised to see the same level of error, says Solman. Finally, the team analyzed participants’ mouse movements as they were carrying out a similar search task. They discovered that volunteers’ movements were slower after they had moved and missed their target.

Solman’s team propose that the system in the brain that deals with movement is running too quickly for the visual system to keep up. While you are searching around a messy house to find your keys, you might not be giving your visual system enough time to work out what each object is. Since time can be costly, sacrificing accuracy on occasion for speed might be beneficial overall, Solman thinks.

The slowing of mouse movements suggests that at some level the volunteers were aware that they had missed their target, a theory that is backed up by other studies that show people tend to slow down their actions after they have made a mistake, even if they don’t consciously realize the mistake.

Why true happiness isn't about being happy all the time

Over the past two decades, the positive psychology movement has brightened up psychological rescarch with its science of happiness and human potential. It argues that psychologists should not only investigate mental illness but also what makes life worth living.

The founding father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, describes happiness as experiencing frequent positive emotions, such as joy, excitement and satisfaction, combined with deeper feelings of meaning and purpose. It implies a positive attitude in the present and an optimistic outlook for the future. Importantly, happiness experts have argued that happiness is not a stable ,unchangeable feature but something flexible that we can work on and eventually strive towards.

Recent research indicates that psychological flexibility is the key to greater happiness and well-being.For example,being open to emotional experiences and the ability to endure periods of discomfort can allow us to move towards a richer, more meaningful existence. Studies have also demonstrated that the way we respond to the circumstances of our lives has more influence on our happiness than the events themselves. Experiencing stress, sadness and anxiety in the short term doesn't mean we can't be happy in the long term. Putting up with sorrow can make us tougher and lead us to take action in our lives, such as changing jobs or overcoming hardship. Often when people have faced difficulty, illness or loss, they describe their lives as happier and more meaningful as a result.

Unlike feeling happy, which is a temporary state, leading a happier life is about individual growth through finding meaning. It is about accepting our humanity with all its ups and downs, enjoying the positive emotions, and making use of painful feelings in order to reach our full potential.

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5 . In “minority report”, a policeman played by Tom Cruise, gathers information from three psychics (通灵者) and arrests future criminals before they break the law. In the real world, prediction is more difficult. But it may no longer be science fiction, thanks to the growing predictive power of computers. That prospect scares some, but it could be a force for good-if it is done right.

Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, can lead to remarkably accurate predictions. It works by chewing vast quantities of data in search of patterns. Take, for example, restaurant hygiene (卫生). The system learns which combinations of sometimes vague factors are most suggestive of a problem. Once trained, it can assess the risk that a restaurant is dirty. The Boston mayor’s office is testing just such an approach, using data from online reviews.This has led to a 25% rise in the number of spot inspections that uncover offences.

Governments are taking notice, A London district is developing an algorithm (运算法则) to predict who might become homeless. In India Microsoft is helping schools predict which students are at risk of dropping out. Machine-learning predictions can mean government services arrive earlier and are better targeted. Researchers behind an algorithm designed to help judges make bail (保释) decisions claim it can predict likelihood of committing crimes again so effectively that the same number of people could be bailed as are at present by judges, but with 20% less crime.To get a similar reduction in crime across America, they say, would require an extra 20,000 police officers at a cost of $2.6 billion.

But computer-based predictions are sometimes debatable. ProPublica, an investigative-journalism outfit, claims that a risk assessment in Bmoward County, Florida, wrongly labelled black people as future criminals nearly twice as often as it wrongly labelled whites. Citizens complain that decisions which affect them are taken on incomprehensible grounds.

These problems are real, but they should not spell the end for machine learning as a policy tool. Instead, the priority should be to establish some ground rules and to win public confidence.The first step is to focus machine learning on applications where people stand to gain extra help at school, say, rather than extra time in jail.

National governments neglecting development needs of cities

National governments around the world are neglecting the needs of their major cities with non-existent or inadequate development policies, a new report has found. National governments are key to making cities more sustainable, because cities are limited distinctly in the policy measures they can take for themselves, the report points out. However, only a quarter of the world’s governments have urban development policies at all, and most of those that do exist are far from     1     to make cities sustainable.

The report looks at the key measures of energy production, transport, waste     2     and infrastructure(基础建设)，For instance, putting in adequate public transport can transform the lives of citizens and the carbon footprint of the cities they live in. Encouraging the use of electric vehicles above petrol-driven cars can also have a(n)     3     effect, not just on greenhouse gas emissions but also on removing some of the key causes of air pollution.

The report, from the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Coalition for Urban Transitions and funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, suggests national governments have     4     the needs of their major cities even when they have in place national policies on issues such as climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.Derik Broekhoff of the Stockholm EnvironmentInstitute,the lead author of the study, said“Now is the time for national governments to put cities at the heart of their national development     5     . Countries must consider what policies need to be     6     in order to ensure their countries and cities are prepared for the unprecedented     7     and climate challenges the world is facing.”

Cities around the world are facing rapid population growth, and are likely to be among the areas     8     hit by dramatic climate change, in part because many are at risk of rising sea levels, floods and droughts. For most of human history, the     9     population was greater than those of cities, and it is only in just over the last decade that this balance has     10     with most of the world’s populations now living in urban centres, a trend that is expected to speed up even further.

Currently, many of the brainy gadgets being developed for the Internet of Things will anticipate our needs and make choices for us--without being told what to do--marking a(n)     1     transformation in our relationship with machine.

As we turn more of our decision-making over to the devices,they will     2     into our personal confidants (知己) and counselors, determining everything from the time we wake up and clothes we wear to the music we listen to and the route we take to work. In the process, experts say our reliance on these     3     tools will far surpass today's dependence on smart phones.These autonomous assistants are widely expected to help us stay healthier, take better care of our loved ones, live more comfortably, become more environmentally responsible and     4     our productivity by freeing us from an endless array of boring routines so we can concentrate on the most important ones.

But social scientists and others worry these computerized devices might make decisions that are     5     flawed or that we otherwise dislike, leaving us feeling less in control of our lives. More importantly, their     6     observation could result in an excessively conformist (循规蹈矩的)society, some experts fear一especially with the government and other entities (实体) exploring the use of these intelligent machines to assess and prevent "abnormal behavior."

Stanford University researchers believe society may be profoundly impacted by Internet-of-Things machines blessed with humanlike     7     . So in December they began a century-long study of the technology in part to     8     the implications “of systems that can make inferences about the goals, intentions, identity, location, health, beliefs, habits and future actions of people."

Understanding such     9     is crucial, experts say, because the technology is being rapidly adapted. About 13 percent of consumers already have got a smart thermostat, security camera or other devices installed in homes. Instead of just doing what we command, many of the devices being empowered with sophisticated software and micro-electronics to act on their own     10     as our personal advisers.

One of the most important New Year's resolutions     1     every parent should make for 2021 is to ensure everyone in the family spends less time with screens. Since last year, a number of new studies     2     (confirm) that the effects of technology on kids are even worse than many parents feared.

Children between the ages of 8 and 11 who spend more than two hours a day looking at screens were associated with lower cognitive function than those who engaged in less screen time, according to researchers who published a study in The Lancet in September. While researchers noted there is no causal link, they wrote,“Emerging evidence suggests that mobile device and social media uses have an unfavorable relationship with attention, memory, impulse control, and academic performance”--- perhaps     3     technology encourages multi-tasking and can cut into kids' sleep time.

The Times also reported many elite schools are moving towards eliminating or reducing screens, while many public schools are touting technology in classrooms.     4     fears of a technological divide were once centered on the high cost of technology and high-speed internet access, the concern is now that less affluent children     5     be spending more time with technology. Already, research by Common Sense Media has found that higher-income teenagers spend less time with screens for entertainment compared to lower-income teens. Of course, a total ban isn't necessarily a smart strategy, either. Some screen time can be important for helping kids learn to use technology they     6     (need) in their careers. They might also use it in beneficial ways     7     (access) educational games and programs, and stay connected to family and friends, for example.

And     8     parents blame their kids' bad behavior on their technology use, it's also important to take a look in the mirror. Moms and dads need to reduce their own screen time, too. A study published in June in Pediatric Research found that there's     9     vicious cycle: The parents' use of phones and its interference in parent-child interactions is associated with kids acting out(模仿).This might then prompt parents to continue using their phones as a way to cope with stress.

New Year's celebrations are the perfect time to get the whole family to look up from their screens       10     offering some fun alternatives like board games, scavenger hunts, baking treats or getting together with family and friends. Kids will soon discover that there are plenty of things that aren't on Facebook to "like."

10 . Gyms that profit most from the January rush

Every year, like clockwork, many people go through the same routine. On December 26^th and January 1^st, as the fog of cheese, chocolate oranges and champagne lifts, regret creeps（悄悄出现）in. Online searches for “get fit” and “lose weight” increase.    1    “Intent typically takes seven to 14 days to turn into reality,” notes Humphrey Cobbold, chief executive of Pure Gym, Britain’s largest gym chain. So this week will be one of the busiest for the gym industry globally.

Many gym recruits（新成员）will have their new sportswear on for high-intensity interval training. In the basement of Another Space, a club near London’s Leicester Square, music pumps and light flash as a trainer shouts instructions to a group of mostly young women. They are pushed through bursts of burpees, handclap push-ups and various kick and punches at boxing bags. The training is murderous.    2    Such high-end gym can charge up to eight times as much as low-cost ones, based on two visits a week over a year.

They are at one end of a fitness market.    3    America’s market leader, Planet Fitness, promises “the best value on the planet”, and has over 10 million members; its shares rose in 2017. One in seven people in Britain is a gym member, and 35% of private memberships are low-cost, up from 14% in 2013, according to Leisure DB, a data firm. Mid-range clubs, meanwhile, have fared less well. Virgin Active recently sold its less luxurious facilities in Britain to avoid being squished（压扁）in the middle.

Pure Gym expects soon to reach 1 million members. Part of its appeal is that, unlike traditional gyms, members are not bound by a long contract. “We have taken a £500 decision and turned it into a £20 decision,” says Mr Cobbold.    4    Most new joiners do not plan to spend much money. But gyms proper on non-attendance. According to IHRSA, an industry body based in Boston, fewer than half of gym members in America hit the treadmill（跑步机）at least twice a week—until the exercise cycle begins anew the following January.