3 . Whether it is the flu or any of the other cold-like viruses rising in winter, it seems that stuffy noses and sore throats are common symptoms. You may have noticed, however, that your cold seems to get better or worse depending on the time of day.     1     Then, they partially clear up throughout the day, only to get worse once more as you get to bed. Why does this happen?

Currently, the leading idea is that symptom severity is linked to our circadian rhythm (昼夜节律). The circadian rhythm is very important for daily cellular processes and can be affected by the amount of sleep and light we get each day.     2    

While resting, the body uses the downtime to recover.     3     This also applies when you are ill—the body floods the blood with white blood cells called leukocytes, resulting in and immune response against diseases and the immune system fighting infection.

This, therefore, explains why our cold symptoms get worse as we settle down for a night’s sleep. Cells infected by viruses are attracted to the local area and killed, causing soreness in the affected tissues, and mucus (鼻涕) floods the nose to join the fight.     4     You wake up feeling like death due to the battle happening within.

    5     The first is simply gravity. When you lie down, your mucus builds up in the nose, causing pressure and headaches. As you stand up, you start to feel better. Another factor is about hormones. Hormonal imbalances can be caused by lack of sleep at night and could influence immune function, leading to a cycle of sleepless nights and then feeling worse.

4 . Atomic shapes are so simple that they can’t be broken down any further. Mathematicians are trying to turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for help to build a periodic table of these shapes, hoping it will assist in finding yet-unknown atomic shapes.

Tom Coates at Imperial College London and his colleagues are working to classify atomic shapes known as Fano varieties, which are so simple that they can’t be broken down into smaller components. Just as chemists arranged element s in the periodic table by their atomic weight and group to reveal new insights, the researchers hope that organizing these atomic shapes by their various properties will help in understanding them.

The team has given each atomic shape a sequence of numbers based on its features such as the number of holes it has or the extent to which it bends around itself. This acts as a bar code (条形码) to identify it. Coates and his colleagues have now created an AI that can predict certain properties of these shapes from their bar code numbers alone, with an accuracy of 98 percent.

The team member Alexander Kasprzyk at the University of Nottingham, UK, says that the AI has let the team organize atomic shapes in a way that begins to follow the periodic table, so that when you read from left to right, or up and down, there seem to be general patterns in the geometry (几何) of the shapes.

Graham Nib lo at the University of Southampton, UK, stresses that humans will still need to understand the results provided by AI and create proofs of these ideas. “AI has definitely got unbelievable abilities. But in the same way that telescopes (望远镜) don’t put astronomers out of work, AI doesn’t put mathematicians out of work,” he says. “It just gives us new backing that allows us to explore parts of the mathematical landscape that are out of reach.”

The team hopes to improve the model to the point where missing spaces in its periodic table could point to the existence of unknown shapes.

6 . On a tram smoothly pulling into the heart of Luxembourg City, Marck gives a smile and takes a look at the fabric of the seat next to him. For him, the city’s trams are more than just transport. More even than the focus of his job. They are about transforming his country and, perhaps, changing the world.

Marck is the director general of Luxtram, Luxembourg’s modern trams. It first started running services two years ago. Next year, Luxembourg will become the world’s only country to get rid of fares on all its forms of public transport. Luxembourg’s traffic problems come from its army of workers. The population of the capital city almost doubles during the working day, when more than 110,000 people travel in and out.

After three decades when its roads have become so crowded, Luxembourg is going to do something remarkable. Free fares, and a plan to persuade people to switch from cars to trams or trains. Marck, along with many others, is excited to see what happens next. “The fact that this is free means that everyone can use it — young or old, rich or poor,” he said. “Everyone can say to themselves it’s better to leave the car at home. We must continue to improve and extend the network. It must always be comfortable, well-connected, efficient.”

Lydie Polfer, the city’s mayor, says she hopes to reach the point where more than a third of people come into the city using public transport — at the moment, it’s less than one in five. She said, “It’s not practical to ban cars because some people, like the elderly, need them. But everyone has to be aware that he or she can do something to improve the situation. There is an expression in German — you are not in the traffic jam — you are the traffic jam, and that is true. I think that making it free will be the biggest arguments for people to use public transport. ”

7 . Children are more creative when they learn in natural surroundings, according to new research from Curtin University. Primary school students in Australia and England were put to the test to see whether writing poetry in a natural outdoor setting produced more creative outcomes than writing in a classroom, and the answer was yes.

Dr Paul Gardner and Sonja Kuzich from Curtin’s School of Education ran comparative trials with 10-year-old students in both countries and the results, recently published in the Cambridge Journal of Education, gave a big thumbs-up to the positive influence of natural settings. “We found that students who had direct contact with nature by immersing (沉浸) themselves in a bush or forest setting were much more descriptive and vivid in the language they used than the classroom-based writers who ‘imagined’ being in nature through photos,” Dr Gardner said.

In total, 97 students took part in the study, split across four classrooms, including two based at an English primary school and two from a primary school in Western Australia. In each country one class visited a natural bush or forest before writing a poem based on what they saw, smelt and felt. The other class viewed a pile of images of the same bush or forest setting.

Ms Kuzich said the difference in creative language used between the classes was obvious with twice as many UK forest students using figurative (比喻的) language compared with their class-based counterparts. In Australia that figure rose to more than four times when comparing the poetry of the bush-based students with those who remained at school.

The researchers say further studies of larger groups are now recommended to gain greater understanding of the influence of natural spaces and “green learning” in schools. Future research may also be needed to examine if the green learning can be translated into other learning themes or context to see if there is a flow on effect in different environments.

10 . At The Rachael Ray Foundation^TM (RRF), we’re pretty big animal lovers. As a part of our work, we support a wide variety of organizations that do good for animals, from rescue to care and more. Get to know a few of them and the work we do together.

RRF helped enable Pittsburgh Aviation Animal Rescue Team (PAART) to purchase a new and bigger plane for its rescue missions which bring animals from danger to safety. Whether it be flying dogs in overcrowded shelters to new homes, saving animals caught in the path of natural disasters, or bringing supplies to shelters in need, the brave PAART pilots are always ready to help.

National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) works to find and train shelter dogs who have the talent and drive to become search and rescue animals. RRF supports SDF’s efforts to identify and transform rescued dogs into rescuers, to provide lifetime care for these dogs and to find homes for all dogs who enter the SDF training program.

This is a program administered by Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS) to support Best Friends’ network partners in their lifesaving efforts. The money has been awarded to organizations across the country to fund initiatives such as adoption drives and shelter intake prevention efforts.

This program, administered by North Shore Animal League America (NSALA), provides money for animal welfare organizations impacted by disasters. RRF is proud to help NSALA in its efforts to identify needs in disaster situations and provide targeted, effective relief.