5 . The secret to happiness is keeping busy, research has found.Keeping the mind occupied with tasks—no matter how meaningless—keeps off negative emotions, the study found.

However, the bad news is that humans are seemingly born to be lazy in order to save energy, according to Professor Christoper Hsee, a behavioral scientist at Chicago University.

In a study, 98 students were asked to complete two surveys. After they had completed the first, they were made to wait 15 minutes to receive the next one. They were given a choice of either banding in the first survey nearby or at a more distant location they had to walk to. No matter which choice they made, they received a chocolate bar. It turned out that about two-thirds (68 students) chose the lazy option. Those who had taken the walk reported feeling happier than those who had stayed put (呆在原处).

Prof. Hsee concluded that keeping busy helped keep people happy. He said the findings, reported in the journal Psychological Science, might have an effect on policies.

“Governments may increase the happiness of idle citizens by having them build bridges that are actually useless,” he suggested.

As for ordinary people, he advised, “Get up and do something. Anything. Even if there really is no point to what you are doing, you will feel better for it.” He added, “Thinking deeply or engaging in self-reflection can be regarded as keeping busy, too.”

“You do not need to be running around, You just need to be engaged, either physically or mentally.”

6 . The COVID-19 pandemic has spread far and wide. Because of this, countries around the world have implemented containment measures(实施遏制措施) to help stop the virus in its tracks. As more and more people stay inside to stay safe, the outside world seems to have become much quieter. In fact, scientists have seen this change in their research, too.

Seismologists—scientists who study earthquakes— have heard less seismic noise recently. Seismic noise is made from vibrations in the ground that are caused by things like ocean waves and human activity, such as construction work and traffic. This noise makes it difficult for scientists to pick up seismic activity that is made at the same frequency.

Thomas Lecocq, a scientist at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, located in Brussels, was the first to notice this phenomenon.

According to Lecocq, the amount of seismic noise in Brussels has been reduced by about 30 to 50 percent since mid-March. Interestingly enough, this is around the same time Belgium started its containment measures.

Because of this reduction in background noise, scientists like Lecocq have been able to pick up on smaller earthquakes that some seismic stations—like the one in Brussels—wouldn’t have been able to before.

This phenomenon isn’t unique to Brussels, though. Once Lecocq shared his findings online, seismologists from all over the world echoed similar findings.

Celeste Labedz, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, mentioned in a tweet that Los Angeles also experienced less background noise.

Researchers from the UK, France and New Zealand also noted a decrease in background noise since containment measures were put in place.

These global efforts to contain the COVID-19 virus have helped to shed light on seismic activity that may have gone unnoticed. It also shows that people are listening to health officials and following lockdown guidelines.

“From the seismological point of view, we can motivate people to say, ‘You feel like you’re alone at home, but we can tell you that everyone is home. … Everyone is respecting the rules.’ Lecocq told CNN.

7 . As online learning becomes more common and more and more resources are converted to digital form, some people have suggested that public libraries should be shut down and, in their places，everyone should be given an iPad with an e-reader subscription.

Supporters of this idea state that it will save local cities and towns money because libraries are expensive to maintain. They also believe it will encourage more people to read because they won't have to travel to a library to get a book; they can simply click on what they want to read and read it from wherever they are.

However, it would be a serious mistake to replace libraries with tablets. First, digital books and resources are associated with less learning and more problems than print resources. A study done on tablet vs book reading found people read 20-30% slower on tablets, retain 20% less information, and understand 10% less of what they read compared to people who read the same information in print.

Second, it is incredibly narrow minded to assume that the only service libraries offer is book lending. Libraries have a multitude of benefits, and many are only available if the library has a physical location. Some of these benefits include acting as a quiet study space, giving people a way to converse with their neighbors, holding classes on a variety of topics, providing jobs, answering patron questions, and keeping the community connected. A survey conducted in 2015 found that nearly two-thirds of American adults feel that closing their local library would have a major impact on their community. People see libraries as a way to connect with others and get their questions answered, benefits tablets can’t offer nearly as well or as easily.

While replacing libraries with tablets may seem like a simple solution, it would encourage people to spend even more time looking at digital screens, despite the various issues surrounding them. It would also end access to many of the benefits of libraries that people have come to rely on. In many areas, libraries are such an important part of the community network that they could never be replaced by a simple object.

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8 . What Can We See in a Logo?

We see hundreds of logos on signs, vehicles, websites, and even on the clothes we wear. All of these logos are designed to attract our attention.     1     However, recently research supports the idea that remembering what a logo looks like is a very difficult task.

Researchers gave 85 students a simple assignment to draw the Apple logo purely from memory. Surprisingly, only one student in the study could accurately draw the logo from memory.     2     Researchers have developed a theory that they think might help to explain this blind spot in our memories.

Logos are typically designed to be simple and easy to recognize with a quick glance. Yet the frequent exposure to these logos can actually make our brains overlook them. This process is known as “attentional saturation (注意力饱和).”     3    

Even though the brain is accustomed to ignoring unnecessary details, it is also programmed for recognition. When we see images such as logos over and over again, we become familiar with them. This constant exposure leads to something scientists refer to as gist (梗概) memory.     4     This general sense of memory has its own benefits. In fact, familiarity with a popular logo can even make people feel more comfortable about purchasing or using certain products.

Logos are everywhere we look today. A fancy design or a thoughtful color combination may be a good start for a logo concept, but there are other factors to consider.     5     A clever design may be interesting, but most people will forget the details—especially if our brains have anything to say about it.

Many people have the hobby of collecting things, e.g. stamps, postcards or antiques. In the 18th and 19th centuries,     1     (wealth) people travelled and collected plants, historical objects and works of art. They kept their collection at home until it got too big     2     until they died, and then it was given to a museum. The 80,000 objects collected by Sir Hans Sloane, for example,     3    (form) the core collection of the British Museum     4     opened in 1759.

10 . Are Happy Meals Really Happy?

Don’t we all know a “Happy Meal” when we see one--the famous boxed meal that includes a hamburger, kid-sized French fries, fruits and milk, served with a toy that’s extremely popular with children who love to collect them?

A Happy Meal is a form of kids’ meal sold at a certain fast-food chain since 1979. A toy is included in the meal, both of which are usually contained in a box or paper bag. However, collectors of these little toys will not get them any longer, since the company will replace toys with books and each of these books will mainly pass on nutritional messages.

Happy Meals are extremely popular with kids, especially for their collectable toys, when you consider that over 1.3 billion of these packages are sold each year. These packages have been very controversial. Health supporters believe that drawing kids to these meals with toys is a clever way of promoting unhealthy food choices. They see it as an advertising a strategy of “catching its customers young”--a move that has paid off very well for the fast-food company.

Child development experts say that food habits get formed in children by age six and continue through to their adult life. Fatty and sugary foods such as those served in Happy Meals are believed to play a big role in growing health problems such as obesity and diabetes. Public health care costs have gone up and untold amounts of money have been spent on coping with these health problems. On November 2, 2010, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a law requiring that children’s meals sold in restaurants must meet certain nutritional standards before they could be sold with toys, to overcome the problem of childhood obesity--in other words, the State of California tried to ban the toys in Happy Meals. However, it was strongly opposed by some as being heavy-handed, and the ban was thrown out by the government.

While some people believe that the fast-food company, with its large following of children, can create a powerful message through the books, others believe its actions are contradictory. Anyway, the company is trying to spread the message of nutrition while it is serving food that is anything but healthy.