1 . Farmers, especially in developing countries, are often criticized for cutting down forests. But a new study suggests that many farmers recognize the value in keeping trees.

Researchers using satellite images found at least ten percent tree cover on more than one billion hectares (公顷) of farmland.    1    

The study found the most tree cover in South America.    2     North Africa and West Asia have the least. And it also found that climate conditions alone could not explain the amount of tree cover in different areas.    3    

There are areas with few trees but also few people, and areas with many trees and many people. The findings suggest that things like land rights, markets or government policies can influence tree planting and protection.

Dennis Garrity heads the World Agroforestry Center.    4     The problem, he says, is that policy-makers and planners have been slow to recognize this and to support such efforts.

The satellite images may not show what the farmers are using the trees for, but trees provide nuts, fruit, wood and other products. They provide windbreaks and shade from the sun.    5     Even under drought conditions, trees can often provide food and a way to earn money until the next growing season.

4 . August is one of the most popular months to travel for Chinese. Choosing the perfect destination for an August vacation isn’t easy. We looked at airfare trends, climate data, and cultural calendars to select 4 vacation spots that are some of the best places to visit this August.

Mackinac Island, Michigan

Visitors can enjoy the sunny weather while boating, fishing, and sailing. On land, you can hop between historic sites like Fort Mackinac and Fort Holmes, both key sites in the War of 1812.

And sweet teeth will have something to celebrate too: the Fudge(软糖)Festival, which takes place every August and allows the many fudge shops on the island to show off their best work.

Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

Martha’s Vineyard is praised as one of the most classic summer getaways in the United States. The charming island south of Cape Cod is dotted with simple and elegant New England homes, relaxing sandy beaches. The sunny summer weather in August sets the perfect stage fora boat outing or a shopping trip to the town’s shops of all kinds.

Krakow, Poland

Krakow, Poland, is the perfect mixture of history and nightlife.

Tourist favorites in Krakow include Wawel Cathedral, St. Mary’s Basilica, and the Schindler’s Factory museum, each of which gives a glance into Poland’s religious and political history. After the sun sets, enjoy Krakow’s world—famous har and restaurant scene, and don’t forget to pop into a cafe for a late-night snack.

Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

Every year, one of the grandest wonders in nature is performed here—the Great Migration.

The annual migration sees more than 2 million wildebeest(羚羊), zebras make the dangerous journey across the Serengeti in search of greener fields. Along the way, predators(食肉动物)such as lions and crocodiles lie in wait for the incoming foods, providing tense scene for brave sightseers and nature lovers.

6 . The sun is setting, brightening your kids’ faces as they play in the waves. You reach for your phone for this perfect moment. But before you do, here’s a bit of surprising science: Taking photos is not the perfect way to keep memory as you think.

Taking too many pictures could actually harm the brain’s ability to keep memories, says Elizabeth Loftus, a psychology professor at the University of California. So, we get the photo but kind of lose the memory. Photography “outsources” memories. It works in two ways: We either shake off the responsibility of remembering moments when taking pictures, or we’re so distracted (分心的) by the process that we miss the moment altogether. The first explanation is the loss of memory. People know that their camera is recording that moment, so they don’t try to remember. The other is distraction. We’re distracted by the process of taking a photo — how we hold our phone, composing the photo, such as smiling faces, the background to our liking and clear image, all of which use up our attention that could otherwise help us memorize.

However, taking photos can help memory when done mindfully. While taking a photo may be distracting, the act of preparation by focusing on visual details around has the opposite. When people take the time to take clear pictures, memories become strengthened.

Another advantage is that we recall moments more exactly with the photos. Memory has been reshaped with the help of new information and new experiences. Thus, photos or videos help us recall moments as if they really happened. Memories die away without a visual record backing them up. Therefore, a photo is an excellent tool to help remember when done purposefully, which is worth exploring further.

7 . People trained to detect lies often rely on multiple signs, such as eye contact, length of responses and the details in what people say, but studies have shown that assessing a wide range of behavioral information can make it harder to decide if someone is lying. Bruno Verschuere at the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues wondered whether solely focusing on the detail of statements could provide more consistent results.

To test this idea, researchers asked 44 students to go for a walk or steal from a mock(模仿的)crime. Students were instructed to lie if they committed the fake theft.

Next, the researchers recruited 171 people to watch six truthful and six deceptive(欺骗的) interviews from these recordings, ranking interviewees’ eye contact and detail level. The results revealed that both truth-tellers and liars averted (转移) their gaze a similar amount, but truthful statements were substantially more detailed than deceptive ones, suggesting the latter is a more useful way to tell that someone is lying.

The researchers then asked 405 people to judge the true nature of six truthful and six deceptive statements randomly chosen from the interviews. Around half of the participants used multiple cues to identify liars. The remaining participants solely ranked the level of detail in answers on a scale of 1 to 10, with l a 6 or above counting as truthful. Those using multiple cues distinguished lies from the truth 59% of the time, while those relying solely on detail achieved 66%.

“Our take is that using just one cue can provide a simpler way to judge lies from the truth,” says Verschuere. Nevertheless, in the real world, you would probably need to confirm the accuracy of statements through extra further investigations or follow-up questions, he says.

8 . When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note — “Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery” — and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically (魔术般) appear.

All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn’t freeze. And I remember Mr. Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.

Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch (门廊) . Every so often my son’s friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.

10 . We all know that unpleasant feeling when we’re talking about something interesting and halfway through our sentence we’re interrupted(打断). But was that really an interruption? The answer depends on whom you ask, according to new research led by Katherine Hilton from Stanford University.

Using a set of controlled audio clips, Hilton surveyed 5,000 American English speakers to better understand what affects people’s perceptions(认知)of interruptions. She had participants listen to audio clips and then answer questions about whether the speakers seemed to be friendly and engaged, listening to one another, or trying to interrupt.

Hilton found that American English speakers have different conversational styles. She identified two groups: high and low intensity speakers. High intensity speakers are generally uncomfortable with moments of silence in conversation and consider talking at the same time a sign of engagement. Low intensity speakers find it rude to talk at the same time and prefer people speak one after another in conversation:

The differences in conversational styles became obvious when participants listened to audio clips in which two people spoke at the same time but were agreeing with each other and stayed on topic, Hilton said. The high intensity group reported that conversations where people spoke at the same time when expressing agreement were not interruptive but engaged and friendlier than the conversations with moments of silence in between speaking turns. In contrast, the low intensity group perceived any amount of simultaneous (同时) chat as a rude interruption, regardless of what the speakers were saying.

“People care about being interrupted, and those smalt interruptions can have a massive effect on the overall communication,” Hilton said. “Breaking apart what an interruption means is essential if we want to understand how humans interact with each other.”