1 . Exercise and a healthy diet in childhood leads to adults with bigger brains and lower levels of anxiety, according to a new research in mice.

Though diet and exercise are consistently recommended as ways to promote health, this study is the first to examine the long-lasting, combined effects of both factors when they are experienced early in life.

The researchers determined that early-life exercise generally reduced anxious behaviors in adults. It also led to an increase in adult muscle and brain mass. When fed “Western” style diets high in fat and sugar, the mice not only became fatter, but also grew into adults that preferred unhealthy foods.

These findings have recently been published in the journal Physiology and Behavior. To obtain them, the researchers divided the young mice into four groups - those with access to exercise, those without access, those fed a standard, healthy diet and those that ate a Western diet.

Mice started on their diets immediately after weaning (断奶), and continued on them for three weeks, until they reached physical maturity. After an additional eight weeks of “washout”, during which all mice were housed without motion and on the healthy diet, the researchers did behavioral analysis and various measurements.

One of those they measured, leptin, is produced by fat cells. It helps control body weight primarily by lowering the sensation of hunger and also by increasing energy consumption. Early-life exercise increased adult leptin levels as well as fat mass in adult mice, regardless of the diet they ate.

Previously, the research team found that eating too much fat and sugar as a child can change the microbiome (肠道菌群) for life, even if they later eat more healthily. Going forward, the team plans to investigate whether fat or sugar is more responsible for the negative effects they measured in Western-diet-fed mice.

Together, both studies offer critical opportunities for health interventions in childhood habits. The findings may be relevant for understanding the potential effects of activity reductions and dietary changes associated with fatness.

4 . For four years, as a coordinator(协调员） for the Harvard First Generation Program,I have been sharing bits and pieces of my college experience on this blog.     1    

The most important lesson I learned in college is that you have to give yourself space and time to grow. When I arrived at Harvard, I thought all my college experiences were just the means to the larger end of stability, success,and happiness.     2     Keep your goals in mind and allow them to grow as you push beyond your comfort zone.

Be willing to change your mind. It feels great to win, but you'll always learn more from your mistakes than you'll learn from the things you got right the first time. Over time, I learned to make space to be a better listener, and to admit when I'm wrong.     3    

    4     I was used to handling life without much external guidance. I thought asking for help was equal to admitting defeat, but that wasn't true. Once I realized that, it became easier to allow myself to rely on friends for support when I really needed it.

As graduation approaches, I often think about a quote by Morrison: “When you get jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else.     5     I don't know what I'll be doing in five or ten　years, but I will be using the resources at my command to live happily with others.

Recently, the box office darling in China, titled A Little Red Flower,     1     (become) a hit.It is a love story about a young couple     2     (suffer) from cancer and the stress it puts on their families. The movie star Jackson Yee,     3     performance in Better Days(2019) was thought highly of, has impressed countless viewers.

Han Yan, the director and scriptwriter of A Little Red Flower, says that his new film is intended     4     the audience who need a spiritual guide or support,

“I don't want to     5     (simple) show how much pain people are in after they fall ill or how they toss and turn in bed, unable to fall asleep. Movies, indeed all works of art, should be able to give viewers psychological consolation(安慰)，”he says.

By showing the steely     6     (determine) of cancer patients and their families in facing one of life's biggest     7     (challenge), Han hopes viewers who comparatively have little     8     (worry) about can realize that they should stop complaining and be grateful for being alive.

“I have watched many movies about the pursuit of dreams, but as I get older I feel the     9     (difficult) thing in the world is to stay alive," he says "Every day, I see people exhausting all means just to stay alive .Battling severe illnesses is just     10     extreme version of staying alive. ”

The Xi’an City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived China’s long history. It     1     (build) originally to protect the city     2     the Tang dynasty and has now been completely restored (修复). It is possible       3     (walk) or bike the entire 14 kilometers.

We accessed the wall through the South Gate. The wall is 12 meters high and from here you can see streams of people moving inside and outside the City Wall.

After     4     (spend) some time looking at all the defensive equipment at the wall, we decided it was time for some action and what     5     (good) than to ride on a piece of history!

We     6     (hire) our bikes from the rental place at the South Gate. My bike was old and shaky     7     did the job. It took us about 3 hours to go all     8     way around the Xi’an City Wall. Supposedly you can do it in two hours, but we stopped at the different gates and     9     (watchtower) to take pictures or just to watch the local people going about their     10     (day) routines.

10 . Who is a genius? This question has greatly interested humankind for centuries.

Let’s state clearly: Einstein was a genius. His face is almost the international symbol for genius. But we want to go beyond one man and explore the nature of genius itself. Why is it that some people are so much more intelligent or creative than the rest of us? And who are they?

In the sciences and arts, those praised as geniuses were most often white men, of European origin. Perhaps this is not a surprise. It’s said that history is written by the victors, and those victors set the standards for admission to the genius club. When contributions were made by geniuses outside the club—women, or people of a different color or belief—they were unacknowledged and rejected by others.

A study recently published by Science found that as young as age six, girls are less likely than boys to say that members of their gender(性别)are “really, really smart.” Even worse, the study found that girls act on that belief: Around age six they start to avoid activities said to be for children who are “really, really smart.” Can our planet afford to have any great thinkers become discouraged and give up? It doesn’t take a genius to know the answer: absolutely not.

Here’s the good news. In a wired world with constant global communication, we’re all positioned to see flashes of genius wherever they appear. And the more we look, the more we will see that social factors(因素)like gender, race, and class do not determine the appearance of genius. As a writer says, future geniuses come from those with “intelligence, creativity, perseverance(毅力), and simple good fortune, who are able to change the world.”