1 . Holidays and stress seem to go hand in hand. To cope, many people often steal hours from their sleep to pack in all the cooking, shopping, parties and family time.     1     . Try these sleep expert tips to prevent from ruining slumber during the holidays.

Be careful with excess food

    2    . However, Eating smaller portions and taking breaks to check in with your body on how full you are can help. This seems cruel especially when a delicious meal is right in front of you, but this tip can help reduce your feelings of sleepiness. Besides, try replacing the sugary and fatty foods on your holiday plate with more unprocessed, fiber-rich foods.

    3    

Many people look forward to that holiday nap, and often point to the turkey as the cause. In fact, you’d have to eat about 8 pounds for turkey to have an effect. Instead, it’s the rich, processed foods, such as candied sweet potatoes or pecan pie, that are making you feel tired    4    .

Watch for depression

If you suffer from anxiety, depression or seasonal affective disorder (a condition that causes sadness when there’s less daylight), watching your sleep is key. Depression and sleep are linked.     5    Calming strategies can include a relaxing transition before going to sleep in which you could take a bath, meditate or listen to soothing music.

2 . The world’s most breathtaking clifftop hotels

Angama Mara, Kenya

Perched 1, 000 feet above the Maasai Mara, Angama Mara is on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. The site served as a location for the 1985 film “Out of Africa. “ Guests can expect top-quality game viewing, including Africa’s Big Five, every month of the year, both on game drives and on walking safaris. Amenities include a photography studio, fitness center, an art gallery, a 40-foot-long swimming pool and a studio.

Angama Mara: Suswa Mara Triangle, Kenya; +254 730 630630

Monastero Santa Rosa Hotel & Spa, Amalfi Coast, Italy

Formerly a monastery dating back to the 17th century, the family-run Monastero Santa Rosa clings to the side of a cliff overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea and Gulf of Salerno. With 20 rooms, it has an infinity pool, five tiers of landscaped gardens and a Michelin-starred restaurant. The spa is the best on the Amalfi Coast and features treatments using local herbs and plants.

Monastero Santa Rosa Hote1& Spa: Via Roma, 2, 84010 Conca dei Marini SA, Italy; +39 089 832 1199

Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort, AI Jabal Al Akhdar, Nizwa, Oman

Towering 6, 000 feet above sea level on the curving rim of a canyon, Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar overlooks Oman’s mountainous landscape. It’s an area that Prince Charles and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, visited in 1986. The resort has 115 rooms, a cliff-edge infinity pool, six restaurants and lounges and a spa. Guests can hike through valleys, mountain bike or visit ancient mountainside villages and nearby historic sites.

Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort: No 110, Al Jabal Al Akhdar, Nizwa 621, Oman; +968 25 218000

3 . Are you interested in robot-science? What do you think robots are capable of? Let’s have a review of world-leading technology gathered at the World Robot Conference (WRC) 2022.

Technology in agriculture

A fruit-picking robot attracted visitors’ attention. With the help of various sensors and an AI system, the robot can collect fruit according to its ripeness, quality and size. The robot first locates the fruit and then uses sensors to decide whether it is ripe, with a robotic arm picking the fruit gently. The fruit is then categorized, ending up in a basket according to its size. It is said that more robotic technology will be used in agriculture in the future, including robots for daily inspection and weeding.

Robots fighting Covid-19

Medical staff conducting nucleic acid tests often find their work toilsome, especially under the summer heat. A nucleic acid test robot developed by Tsinghua University and a Chinese biotech company was presented at the WRC. It looks like a vending machine, but the robot can collect throat swabs (拭子), process samples, as well as produce and upload the results within 45 minutes. The whole process will not require the involvement of humans or laboratories.

Inventions of the youth

Those visiting the exhibit also witnessed the intelligence of a new generation. Wang Zirun, a junior student at the school, designed a three-dimensional parking facility model. Since there are usually too few parking spaces in older residential areas, Wang’s work aims to fit more cars into current parking spots. The facility works like a sky wheel with six parking spots. When cars need to be picked up, the facility rotates steadily, placing the car on the ground.

4 . A “secretive” new species of frog has been discovered on the forest floor in India’s Western Ghat mountain range. Named the starry dwarf frog after the markings on its dark brown back, it is just 2 centimeters long.

The frog, whose closest relatives are a group of species native to India and Sri Linka, is the only member of an ancient lineage (血统)dating back to millions of years ago, according to researchers from India and the US. It is unclear whether the species is descended from African or Asian frogs.

A group of Indian and US researchers first came across the local species hidden in leaf-litter as part of a wider project to look for new frogs, lizards and snakes in the richly biodiverse region and stored it in a jar for later study. Genetic testing and a closer look at its shape, colouring and other features has shown that it doesn’t match any existing species.Kartik Shanker of the Indian Institute of Science, who helped design the study, says while it is common to find new frogs in India, this one needs to be noticed. “This particular species not just is a new species, but also belongs to a new genus (属), and that makes it a little more special,” says Shanker.

The number of known species of frog identified in India has climbed from around 200 to above 400 over the past two decades. While many species new to science are frequently immediately sorted as endangered, it is too early to say whether the starry dwarf frog is threatened. “They are very secretive,” says Shanker, adding that the team didn’t know the size of its population. The frog is active at night and lives near water.

Habitat loss is a serious risk to frogs in tropical forests around the world, alongside threats such as a deadly fungus(真菌)that has been killing off amphibians(两栖动物)for the past four decades. But the new species was found in a reserved forest, meaning it will enjoy a degree of protection by Indian government agencies.

5 . Have you ever walked through a door and thought to yourself, “What was I going to do?” If you have, you are not alone. Psychologists believe that walking through a door and entering another room creates a “mental block” in the brain. This is generally referred to as the doorway effect.

In the early years of brain research, scientists thought that human memory was like a closet, with many sections in which we could store little boxes of experiences from our lives. Boxes would remain there forever, and whenever we had to look into them, we could just go to that particular section and find that box of memory.

Beautiful as this description of human memory formation sounds, it is not true. Our brain is much more complex than that. Psychological studies suggest that our memories are episodic(情节性的)in general. If you think back on anything, you’ll probably quickly realize our memories don’t function as clear narratives. Instead, they’re more episodic and divided into parts.

A new research led by psychologist Oliver Baumann from Bond University in Australia suggests that it’s not so much the doorways that cause a memory wipe, as moving from one location to a significantly different one—it’s the abrupt change of scene that prepares our minds for something new. “A good example is moving around in a department store,” says Baumann, “Taking the elevator between floors may have no effect on our memory, but moving from the store to the parking lot might cause us to forget something that we need to buy.”

Baumann also points out that a busy and perhaps overloaded brain does seem to play some part in this phenomenon. In other words, walking through open doors is thought to reset memory to make room for a new episode.

The good news is that experiencing such forgettable episodes after entering another room does not tell you anything about your memory and intelligence. So when you enter a room and suddenly forget why you are there, you should not think that Alzheimer’s disease is creeping up on you!

6 . Here are some hostels (旅社) that will help you save money when you’re traveling in Toronto, Canada.

HI Hostel Toronto really gets what travelers need. The hostel is in a central location close to everything you need (shopping, restaurants, subway and more). It’s very easy to meet people here because there is a bar that hosts live music. The beds are super comfortable so you can have a good sleep. Free breakfast is included.

Beds from $45 every night.

Two Peas Pod Hostel runs a store and a café. They have a super rooftop (屋顶) (you can see the CN Tower from it) and a mini movie theater. Their beds are super cool and comfortable. They have lockers underneath them so you can keep all your things safe. It’s almost like staying in a modern hotel but with the fun of a hostel. Enjoy a great stay with free breakfast.

Beds from $59 every night.

This is your standard backpacker hostel. They have a bar and a café. There’s no free breakfast but the money you save makes up for that. It’s located near the subway so you can easily get around the city. It’s a good choice for travelers to meet people.

Beds from $37 every night.

This is the most affordable hostel with free breakfast in the city. It’s not as central as the other hostels but that also makes one of its advantages: it is far from noise. The hostel is not the most modern but it has a welcoming, homey feel.

Beds from $26 every night.

7 . There’s a continuing controversy over whether electric vehicles should produce sounds to let the blind and other pedestrians know they’re on the scene. Some think those sounds should be standardized—like the “beep, beep, beep” of heavy machinery backing up, so you’ll think “something heavy is coming this way” when you hear it — and some think any sound will do.       

This is a serious subject. Plug-in hybrid cars (电混动力车) and battery electric vehicles are super-quiet, and a study at the University of California, Riverside concludes that people listening to recordings on headphones can hear a regular gas car coming from 28 feet away, but a hybrid in battery mode only when it’s 7 feet away.

In response, the European Union has put new rules into play: all new electric vehicle models must have a sound-producing device, which sounds like a traditional engine. Starting in 2021, all new electric vehicles of any model will need the Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System or AVAS. That sound will come into play when the car is traveling backwards or when it’s traveling at less than 12 miles an hour — speeds at which cars are more likely to be mixing with pedestrians.     

That’s a nice start, say representatives for the blind, but more is needed. “We’re calling on the government to take this announcement further by requiring AVAS on all existing electric and hybrid vehicles and ensuring drivers have them switched on,” John Welsman, guide dog owner and Guide Dogs staff member, said in a statement.

Drivers in most cases have the ability to shut off the device when needed. My guess is that they will eventually be standardized so your mind will automatically register “electric car” when you hear it. And that’s probably a good thing to reduce the mayhem (混乱) on the roads.