5 . Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopian novel by George Orwell, was set in a totalitarian state where even the language they use is controlled. Adjectives are forbidden and instead they use phrases such as “ungood”, “plus good” and “double plus good” to express emotions. As I first read this I thought how impossible it would be in our society to have such vocabulary. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised in its own way it's already happening. I type messages to my friends and alongside each is the obligatory (惯用的) emoji. I often use them to emphasise something, or to not seem too serious, or because this specific GIF conveys my emotions much better than I ever could using just words. And I wonder, with our too much use of emojis, are we losing the beauty and diversity of our vocabulary?

English has the largest vocabulary in the world, with over one million words, but who's to say what it'll be like in the future? Perhaps we will have a shorter language, full of saying “cry face” if something sad happens or using abbreviations like LOL (laugh out loud) or BRB (be right back) instead of saying the full phrase. So does this mean our vocabulary will shrink? Is it the start of an exciting new era? Will they look back on us in the future and say this is where it all began—the new language? Or is this a classic case of the older generations saying, “Things weren't like that when I was younger. We didn't use emoticons to show our emotions?”

Yet when you look back over time, the power of image has always been there. Even in the prehistoric era they used imagery to communicate, and what's even more incredible is that we are able to analyse those drawings and understand the meaning of them thousands of years later. Pictures have the ability to go beyond the usual limits of time and language. Images, be it cave paintings or emojis, allow us to convey a message that's not restrictive but rather universal.

6 . Did you ever have to say “no” to somebody? Such as a classmate who asks to go to lunch with you? New research suggests that, at least socially, a rejection (拒绝) should not include an apology. In other words, saying you are sorry does not make the person being rejected feel any better. In fact, it might make the rejected person feel worse. That is surprising. Many people consider it to be good manners to say they are sorry when they turn down a request.

Gili Freedman is doing some related research at Dartmouth College. For her research, she asked over 1,000 people to respond to different examples of social rejection. In one example, the researchers asked people for their reaction (反应）after a person named Taylor asked to join a co-worker who went out to lunch every Friday. And Taylor was told “no”. But in some cases, the person rejecting Taylor offered an apology. In other cases, the people doing the rejection did not say they were sorry. People were asked how they would feel if they were being turned down, just as Taylor was. Most said they would be more hurt by a rejection with an apology than a rejection without an apology.

Freedman said the reason is that apologies make people feel like they need to say that the rejection was okay— even when they felt like it was not okay. Rejection without an apology lets them express their feelings of disappointment, hurt or anger more easily. Freedman also said that an apology often makes the person doing the rejection feel better—even as it makes the person being rejected feel worse.

Her research deals only with social communication. A business situation might be very different. “If a manager rejects a job interviewee or a boss must tell an employee that he or she is being fired from a job,” Freedman said, “reactions to apologies may be different.”

7 . In this Pennsylvania city, Pittsburgh is shrinking but getting wealthier. Since 2000, its population has declined by 95,000 while its income per capita (人均) has shot up 24 percent. The trend is taking hold in many other cities, like Buffalo in New York, Providence in Rhode Island and New Orleans.

Some of these areas have created more high-paying jobs in energy, health care or education. Others have managed to reshape their producing industry for a new economy. Higher-paying jobs have a greater effect because they create demand for additional services. "The story in Pittsburgh is very positive, and other areas are looking at it as an example of the transformation that might be possible，”said Guhan Venkatu, who wrote an economic history of the area called “Rust and Renewal” for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have helped bring tech jobs and innovation(革新) to the area by sponsoring tech centers that help graduates start companies without moving to Silicon Valley or San Francisco. This has helped keep Pittsburgh's educated young population growing even as the entire population in the city has dropped.

Pittsburgh has more STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) jobs than other shrinking cities, about 80, 000 or 7% of all jobs. STEM jobs add productivity and income growth to the area. Manufacturers of high-tech medical equipment in the Pittsburgh area also have doubled employment in the last 10 years.

However, some experts question whether growing income per capita can really make up for a declining population. According to Patrick Adler, a researcher at the University of Toronto, population loss does matter if it means lower-skilled workers have fled because of a lack of opportunity. What's more, high-paying jobs in education and health care can disappear if the population declines too greatly. So it'd be wise to find ways to increase the population.

8 . Don't get mad the next time you catch your teenager texting when he promised to be studying. He simply may not be able to resist. A University of lowa(UI) study found teenagers are far more sensitive than adults to the immediate effect or reward of their behaviors. The findings may help explain why the initial rush of texting may be more attractive for adolescents than the long-term pay off of studying.

"For the teenager, 'the rewards are attractive." says Professor Jatin   Vaidya，an author of the study. "They draw adolescent. Sometimes, the rewards are a kind of motivation for them. Even when a behavior is   no   longer in a teenager's best interest to continue, they will, because the effect of   the reward is still there and lasts much longer in adolescents than in adults ."

For parents,that means limiting distraction (分心的事情）so teenagers can make better choices. Take the homework and social media dilemma: At 9 p.m., shut off   everything except a   computer that has no access to   Facehook or Twitter, the researchers advise. "I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed access to technology," Vaidya says. But some help in netting their concentration is necessary for them   so they can develop those impulse-control skills.”

In their study,Vaidya and co-author Shaun Vecera note researchers generally believe teenagers are impulsive（冲动的)，make bad decisions，and engage in risky behavior because the frontal lobes（额叶）of their trains are not fully developed. But the UI researchers wondered. whether something more fundamental was going on with adolescents to cause behaviors independent of higher-level reasoning.

"We wanted to try to understand the brain's reward system how it change from chillhood to adulthood," Says Vaidya, who adds the reward character in the human brain is easier than decision-making. “We've been trying to understand the reward process in adolescence and     whether there is more to   adolescence behavior than an under-developed frontal   lobe,”he adds.For their study ,the researchers persuaded 40 adolescents, aged 13 and 16,and 40 adults, aged 20 and 35 to participate.

In the future,researchers hope to look into the psychological and neurological（神经学上的）aspects of their results.

9 . Home prices remained divergent in China during December, with some of the first-tier cities recording price drops, while second and third-tier cities saw increases due to the varied market policies, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

Newly built commercial housing prices in the first-tier cities－namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen－remained stable in December, while those in second and third- tier cities rose by 0.6 percent and 0.5 percent respectively from November 2017.

The same trend was witnessed in second-hand home prices, which dropped slightly by 0.1 percent in first-tier cities and rose 0.3 percent in both second and third-tier cities in December, said Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the NBS.

In September 2017, the local governments of several regional capitals launched new restrictions to further slow home sales, in response to the central government’s call to end housing speculation and cool the red-hot housing market in certain cities.

As housing regulations in larger cities have tightened, investors have started looking for opportunities in medium-sized and small cities, thus causing a noticeable home price increase in third-tier cities.

Fan Hengshan, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at an economic forum on Thursday that housing prices in third and fourth-tier cities have risen too fast, and this needs to be monitored carefully.

“The home price increase in third-tier cities will have a fairly large impact, considering that a large part of China’s gross domestic product and population come from these cities,” said Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist and head of equity strategy for China at Deutsche Bank, during a recent media briefing.

Zhang estimated that third-tier cities accounted for a major part of Chinese residents’ 50 trillion yuan wealth gains, driven by rising home prices in 2017.

“Despite a relatively large increase in home prices in third-tier cities, studies have found that at the end of 2017, local residents in 85 third-tier cities need to save four to eight years of their income to buy a home, meaning that house price to income ratios are not too high in these cities,” he said.

10 . Researchers define self-control or self-discipline as“ability to control or change one’s inner responses”.    1     However,some people think that as an immediate consequence of leading lives of constant self-control,they aren’t likely to gain a lot of pleasure from life.

    2     To start,414 adults completed on online survey.In the survey,they rated the their self-control by indicating how much they agreed with 14 statements,such as“I indeed do certain things that are bad for me,if they are fun.”

In their study,205 adults were given smart phones and required to report their emotions at random moments throughout the week.     3     If so,they had to report how hard they tried to resist them,and whether they eventually ended up acting on them.

The researchers found that the more self-control people had,the more satisfied they were with their lives in the long run.     4       In fact,such people’s increased happiness to a large extent accounted for the increased life satisfaction.

These researchers also figured out that people high in self-control are simply less likely to find themselves in situations where that’s even an issue.They don’t waste time fighting inner battles over whether or not to eat a second piece of cake.    5     And that,it would seem,makes them happier……even if occasionally a little bit sad.