2 . People who have children experience greater happiness and feel they find more meaning in life than those without kids , according to psychologist from the university of California and university of British Columbia and Stanford university. They also said that in spite of all kinds of pressure linked to parenthood, parents feel happier during the day hours when they are taking care of their kids than during other daily tasks. The report included three different studies , one from each university, and appeared in the journal psychological science .

The research was carried out in three stages, and in each of the parts psychologists interviewed about 190 people and asked them to describe how they felt during their daily activities which included cooking, changing diapers（尿布）, doing the dishes, going to work and playing with the kids. The authors wanted to figure out whether people who had children felt happier and evaluated（评估）their lives more positively when compared to those without kids. They were also interested in whether parents experienced more positive feelings while taking care of their kids than when doing some other day -to -day activities .

According to Elizabeth Dunn, psychology professor at the University of British Columbia and a co-author of the study, the results were quite a surprise for the researchers. All the people who had children reported that caring for their young ones was more meaningful and made their lives much happier than any other activity did.

These findings challenge the common belief that children are linked to reduced well-being, researchers said. The impression many people have now from the mass media and academic research is that being a parent seems to be quite a negative experience. Many previous studies on this topic linked parenthood to unhappy marriages, lower life satisfaction and even depression, Elizabeth Dunn, who was expecting her first child, said. In Dunn's personal opinion, parenthood is related to, but may not cause, happiness.

The results showed that age and marital status（婚姻状况）also played a role in parental happiness. The study found that older and more mature married couples who have higher social status and do not have financial problems are more likely to be happier if they have kids when compared to childless couples. Even single parents said that all the stresses linked to parenthood did not completely wipe out the feelings of satisfaction caused by caring for kids. On the other hand, young parents who were under the age of 26 were found to be significantly unhappier than their peers who did not have children. Interestingly, fathers in the study were reported to be particularly satisfied and experience only positive feelings compared to men without kids.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at UC Riverside and a leading scholar in positive psychology, said that their study does not necessarily mean that parenting makes people happy; however, there is a clear connection to be taken into consideration. And while more research is needed on the matter, the new findings suggest that the responsibilities and all the work that arrives with parenthood may be offset （抵消）by the pleasure of having children, and childcare may actually be linked to feelings of happiness and meaning in life.

I was     1     (addict) to my smartphone. The first thing I did when I woke up in the morning was reach for my phone. I always ask for Wi-Fi connections when    2     (go) to a new restaurant or coffee shop. It was     3     (stress) for me to have a dead battery in my smartphone. Sometimes I had the uncomfortable feeling that this little machine     4     (take)up too much of time. Sliding into the habit was easy, but I have difficulty    5     ( quit)the habit. Then the day came    6     I finally realized I had to make a change. Head down, eyes on my smart phone, I stepped into the road. A car    7     ( shoot) past, nearly shocked me off my feet. At that very moment, I made up my mind to spend a whole week    8     my smartphone. With eyes no longer     9     (fix) on my phone, I had a chance     10     (company) my old friends.

Parents often complain about the junk(垃圾) that pops up in the form of game-related push notices on smartphones where their kids play video games. In fact, that happens because app developers take advantage     1     algorithms(演算法) to get more hits and reading counts,     2     they believe increase their data flow and trick users to visit their pages.

However, this kind of “smartness” is bad for users,     3     the information sent this way is rarely of any educational value. Once children get trapped in this “information cocoon”, it isn’t     4    (benefit) to their learning process.

To prevent that from happening, market regulators need to     5    (strong) management of app algorithms and they could also improve the technology to prevent users from getting addicted to junk information. Additionally, the laws must     6    (make) so that smart phone apps don’t continue helping those advertisers     7     target is to make profit by spreading junk. Although increased data flow is meant     8    (attract) commercial advertisements, media outlets shouldn’t pursue profit at the cost of youngsters’ mental     9    (grow). Finally, children need to be taught how to tell junk from useful information, thus keeping them     10    (concentrate) on the right thing.

For that to happen, both schools and parents need to make joint efforts to teach them how to use apps to broaden their knowledge and avoid getting lost in the ocean of useless information.

5 . Highway safety experts have long been concerned about a possible increase of accidents and deaths as people in their 70s, 80s and beyond continued to drive. However, a recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that drivers age 70 and older were less likely to be involved in a car accident than those 35 to 54.

The study, published in June in The Journal of Safety Research, recorded a 43 percent drop in accidents among drivers 70 and older from 1997 to 2018. For middle-aged drivers, the decline in accidents was half that, 21 percent. Although seniors rarely drove as far as younger drivers did, older adults had better safety records per mile driven. In 2017, for the first time ever, drivers 70 and older had fewer crashes reported to the police than middle-aged drivers, the institute found.

The study’s authors credited two major factors for the improved safety record of older drivers: Seniors today are healthier than in decades past, and most are operating safer vehicle. To that, I would add, they’re helped by significant safety improvements in roadway design. For example, when stop signs or traffic lights were replaced by roundabouts at crossroads, overall crashes dropped 37 percent, injury crashes by 75 percent, and deaths by 90 percent.

Still, there’s no question that an aging mind and body can compromise driving safety. Flexibility and reaction time necessarily decline as-we get-older. Age-related health challenges that can worsen driving ability include arthritis (关节炎), hearing loss and dementia (痴呆). The most important lesson for older drivers is to acknowledge (承认) such changes and know how to make up for them if possible.

Brenda Vrkljan, a specialist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, is doing what she can to help older adults continue to drive safely by monitoring where and when they drive and how they behave behind the wheel.

A program called Candrivee which Dr Vrkljan helped establish, is tracking the driving patterns of older adults to assess what changes might improve safety. She and colleagues are placing cameras in aging drivers’ cars to record their unsafe missteps, like failing to check mirrors before changing lanes or not stopping soon enough. Afterward, the drivers can view the video, offering them an opportunity to bear witness to their limitations.

A red panda climbs along the branch of a tree, placing one paw in front of     1     other. But then ... whoops! The panda loses     2     (it) balance. A fall from this height — about a hundred feet — could be deadly. But,     3     (ultimate), the panda quickly holds the branch.

Red pandas and giant pandas share a similar name, but they are not closely related.     4     makes red pandas different is that they spend most of their time in the trees instead of walking on the ground and looking for food like giant pandas.

Red pandas are now in the     5     (danger) situation of dying out. Their forest homes are being cut down and poachers (偷猎者) hunt them     6     their fur. Luckily, people are trying to help. For example, last year, the Red Panda Network     7     (employ) local people to be forest guardians. These pandas’ human friends kept watching over the red pandas, replanted bamboos and helped tourists observe them quietly without     8     (trouble) them. High-tech methods are adopted     9     (track) poachers. By taking a DNA sample (样本) from a red panda     10     (rescue) from the black market, the scientists can learn where the animal was taken from.