1 . The eyes are the windows of the soul (心灵). Having a pair of bright, clear eyes is very important, so we should protect our eyes throughout our lives.

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Don’t read while lying down or walking. Relax after every hour of reading. Keep a distance from the TV set when you watch TV and give your eyes a rest every 30 minutes. Don’t stare at (盯看) the sun or try to read in the darkness.     2     This can damage your eyes easily.

Get your eyes checked often.

Not many people have this habit, but it is necessary. If you feel that there is something wrong with your eyes, get them checked quickly.     3    

Rest your eyes whenever you can.

You can close your eyes for a few seconds or look into the distance for one or two minutes. A small break will relax your eyes.     4    

Besides, be careful when you choose your glasses.     5     Make sure your glasses are right for you. If you don’t feel right, get your glasses changed.

2 . Bad teeth may be painful and it’s getting worse without treatment. They can even ruin your life. Illness of the teeth can find its way into the blood system. This can increase the chances of a heart disease or other illnesses.

Experts say good care for teeth should start at birth. Mothers’ milk is the best food for the healthy development of teeth.

But dentists say a baby’s mouth and early teeth should be cleaned after each feeding. Use a cloth with a little warm water. Do the same if a baby is fed with a bottle. Experts say if you decide to put your baby to sleep with a bottle, give him only water.

When a baby’s teeth begin to appear, you can clean them with a wet toothbrush. Dentists say it is important to find soft toothbrushes made especially for babies and to use them very gently. Young children often eat toothpaste (牙膏) when they brush their teeth, so they should be carefully watched when they brush their teeth.

Parents often ask what effect thumb sucking (吮拇指) might have on their baby’s teeth. Experts generally agree that this is fine early in life. Most children stop sucking their thumbs by the age of four. If it continues, parents should talk to their children’s dentists or doctors.

Dentists say children should have their first dental visit by the time they are one year old. They say babies should be examined when their first teeth appear, usually at around six months.

3 . What is the best sleep position for your health?

It’s difficult to control what sleeping position we naturally fall into, as our body will subconsciously all into the most comfortable position for us. However, some positions are better for you than others and come could hold back your health and wellbeing.     1     .

If you sleep on your side

More than 60 per cent of people sleep on their side. Often our body naturally moves to this position, which is linked to when we were in the womb in the foetal(胎儿的) position.    2    It offers a number of benefits to your body, from promoting healthy spine alignment(脊椎对齐) which can help to prevent back pain to reducing heartburn and snoring(打鼾).

If you sleep on your back

Lying on your back is the second most popular sleeping position and offers just as many benefits as side sleeping. When you’re sleeping on your back, it’s easy to keep alignment and to also evenly distribute your weight.     3    

If you sleep on your stomach

Sleeping on your stomach is the least common sleeping position.     4     . And those who sleep on their stomach could put themselves at risk of a less restful night’s sleep. The stomach offers the least amount of back support and can increase pressure on the spine which may cause pain once you wake up.

    5     You should consider various factors such as if you snore or suffer sleep problems, or if you often have back and neck pain. Side sleeping has been noted as the best position for the body, so this is probably one to try and get into the habit of trying, but again, it all depends on you.

4 . Have you ever wondered if you see the same colours as other people? Most people know what blue is when they see it. They call it "blue” because they were taught the word and connected it with what they saw. But how do you know what you see as blue isn’t someone else s red?

The ability to perceive (感知) different colours is up to receptors (接受器) in our eyes. Light waves hit these receptors and they react depending on which colour the light is, sending signals to the brain. The brain then reads these signals to determine which colour light the eyes are receiving.

Some people’s receptors are more developed than others. The inability of the receptor to feel the light waves correctly means that some people cannot tell the differences between similar colours.

Those with more developed receptors can see more colours. We sometimes hear people having an argument about whether something is dark blue or black. It might be because one person has stronger receptors to feel the light than another.

In the past, most scientists would argue that everyone saw colours in the same way. However, research was conducted on monkeys, in which their receptors were changed. This enabled them to see more colours than usual. Normally monkeys can only see blue and green, but the change allowed them to see red. Their brains automatically (自动地) got used to new colours. This suggests that our brains may adapt depending on our stimulus (刺激) and find new colors of the things we see. Colours could be a very personal experience, unique to everyone.

So, the next time you talk about your favourite colour, just remember if yours is blue and your friend says red, you two might actually be thinking about the same colour. What if everyone in the world has the same favourite colour, but just calls it different names?

6 . Three tips for protecting your eyes during the winter

We usually worry about staying warm during the winter months, and think less about protecting our eyes.     1    .Here are three things you can do to protect your eyes during winter months.

Tip 1:     2    .

During the winter, our eyes are often exposed to blowing, dry, hot air that can cause them to become dry. Here are a few treatments:     3    . Keep yourself away from direct heat sources while sitting. Use a humidifer (加湿器) to help reduce dryness.

Tip 2: Wear sunglasses with UV (紫外线) protection.

UV rays in the winter can harm our eyes.     4    . Wear sunglasses when you’re outside, or driving, to protect your eyes from UV rays. This is especially important as days lengthen into spring and the sun gets stronger.

Tip 3: Goggles (护目镜) protect in many ways.

Goggles not only protect our eyes from UV rays, but they also help keep our eyes from drying out from the winter wind. In addition, think about all those branches, leaves, and dirty snow that can severely injure our eyes upon contact.     5    . Don’t forget them!

7 . Be at your best!

What does your brain need to work well? Here are some things it needs.

Good food

Experts say that breakfast is much more important than any other meal.     1    . So don’t miss breakfast—especially before an exam! But you need to eat a good breakfast—junk food won’t work.

A regular supply of energy

Your brain needs a regular supply of energy, so you need to eat carbohydrates (碳水化合物). They’re found in bread, rice, pasta and beans.     2    . They work more quickly than bread and rice, so they give you a short burst (爆发) of energy, but afterwards you feel more tired.

A continuous supply of oxygen (氧气)

Your brain needs oxygen, which it gets from exercise.     3    . You also need a good supply of iron because iron helps your blood to carry oxygen round your body.

Water

    4    . Not getting enough water will stop your brain from working well. And remember, water isn’t as expensive as sweet drinks!

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Your brain needs several hours’ sleep, so it can ‘update’ itself, just like a computer. Experts say that when you study for a test or an exam, you should get some sleep as quickly as possible after you’ve finished studying. This helps you to remember what you’ve learned.

8 . Most of us learned what we know about eye color from a chart in grade-school biology. You know two blue-eyed parents are going to have blue-eyed kids. But the story of how eye color is passed down is more complicated（复杂的) than we’re taught.

Humans get their eye color from melanin（黑色素）, which also determines skin and hair shades. Melanin is good at absorbing light, which is especially important for the iris（虹膜）, the function of which is to control how much brightness can enter the eyes. Once it passes through the irises, the majority of the visible light goes to the retina（视网膜）, where it’s translated into images by the brain. The little that isn’t absorbed by the iris is reflected back, producing what we see as eye color. That color depends on the kind and amount of melanin a person is born with.

Though we used to think eye color just came from a simple pattern of inheritance （遗传）, in recent years scientists have found that it’s also shaped by many genes acting together. What’s more, tiny changes, or mutations（突变）, in a gene can result in different shades in the iris.

The two genes currently thought to be most strongly linked with human eye color are OCA2 and HERC2. OCA2, the gene we used to think was the only player in eye color, controls the production of the P-protein and the organelles that make and transport melanin. Different mutations in the OCA2 gene increase or decrease the amount of protein that’s produced in the body, changing how much melanin is sent to the irises. The HERC2 gene, meanwhile, acts like a helicopter parent （直升机父母） for OCA2. Different mutations in this gene act as a switch that turns OCA2 on and off and determines how much P-protein it produces.

Those are just the two genes we know about in detail so far. Newer studies have linked as many as 16 genes to eye color, all of which pair with OCA2 and HERC2 to generate different iris colors and patterns. With all these genes and their structural changes, it’s hard to say for sure what a child’s eye color will be based on their parents’.

9 . Losing a baby tooth can be fun for a kid. You can put it under your pillow and look forward to finding some money there in the morning. And then you can watch your new permanent(永恒的）tooth grow in its place.

But if a permanent tooth falls out, that's a problem. There isn't another one under the gum（齿龈）that can replace it. Unfortunately, this happens to some older people. And if permanent teeth fall out or need to be pulled, an older person might need dentures.

Dentures,known as false teeth, are a set of replacement teeth for any teeth that are missing.

There are partial dentures, which take the place of only a few teeth and prevent the others from changing position. If all the teeth are gone, the person would need complete dentures,which replace every tooth in the mouth.

Dentures can cause pains at first but take little time to get used to.They also need special care. They should be brushed daily with a special denture brush and cleanser and soaked(浸泡） in denture solution when not in the mouth.

Dentures are important for the old because, without teeth, it's hard to smile, talk, and eat properly. But it can be a little weird if you see someone take out his or her dentures. It can also be strange to see someone, like a grandparent, without dentures in because he or she won't have any teeth. Try not to make fun of the person because this could cause hurt feelings.

People usually lose their permanent teeth due to periodontal disease (牙周炎）， or gum disease, which is caused by bacteria that attack the gums. Diseased gums aren't strong and healthy, so teeth can get loose and fall out. Older people often have many cavities (洞） that have been filled over the years, and these fillings can weaken over time, leading to more tooth problems.

10 . Have you ever wondered if you see the same colours as other people? Most people know what blue is when they see it. They see the colour and call it “blue” because they were taught the word and associated it with what they saw. But how do you know what you see as blue isn’t someone else’s red?

The ability to perceive colours is down to receptors in our eyes. Light waves hit these receptors and they react depending on which colour the light is, sending signals to the brain. The brain then decodes these signals to determine which colour light the eyes are receiving. Some people’s receptors are more developed than others. People with weaker receptors usually have colour blindness. The inability of the receptor to interpret the light waves correctly means that some people cannot tell different shades of a colour.

In the past, most scientists would argue that everyone saw colours in the same way. However, research was conducted on monkeys, in which they were injected with a virus affecting their receptors. This enabled them to understand more colours than usual and brought an interesting discovery. Normally monkeys can only see blue and green, but the virus allowed monkeys to see red. The neurons (神经元) in their brains adapted to be able to understand new colours, which might mean the neurons in our brains are not instinctive (本能的) to automatically understand which colour is which. This implies that our brains and neurons may adapt depending on our stimulus (刺激) during the developmental phase. Colour could be a very personal experience, unique to everyone.

So, the next time you talk about your favourite colour, just remember if yours is blue and your friend says red, you might actually be thinking about the same colour. What if everyone in the world has the same favourite colour, but just calls it different names?