Loneliness is like a disease, and what's worse, it's contagious. It can spread from one person to another, according to the recent research that stresses the power of one person's emotions to affect even people he doesn't know.

    The new analysis, involving 4,793 people who were interviewed every two years between 2005 and 2015, showed that a friend of a lonely person was 52％ more likely to develop feelings of loneliness by the time of the next interview. A friend of that person was 25％ more likely, and a friend of a friend of a friend was 15％ more likely.

“Loneliness is not just the property of an individual. It can be transmitted across people—even people you don't have direct contact with,” said John T. Cacioppo, a psychologist of the University of Chicago who led the study published in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

    Loneliness has been linked to medical problems, including depression, sleep problems and generally poorer physical health. Identifying some of the causes could help reduce the emotion and improve health, experts said.

Although the study did not examine how loneliness spreads, Cacioppo said another research has provided clues. “Let's say for whatever reason you get lonely. You then interact with other people in a more negative fashion. That puts them in a negative mood and makes them more likely to interact with other people in a negative fashion and they minimize their social ties and become lonely,” Cacioppo said.

According to Cacioppo, loneliness spread more easily among women than men, perhaps because women were more likely to express emotions.

Lonely people become less and less trusting others. This makes it more and more difficult for them to make friends－and more likely that society will reject them. Therefore, it is important to recognize and deal with loneliness．Cacioppo emphasizes people who have been pushed to the edges of society should receive help to repair their social networks.

    French writer Frantz Fanon once said: “To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.” Since the world changes every day, so does our language.

     More than 300 new words and phrases have recently made it into the online Oxford Dictionary, and in one way or another they are all reflections of today's changing world.

    After a year that was politically unstable, it's not hard to understand the fact that people's political views are one of the main drives of our expanding vocabulary. One example is “clicktivism”, a compound of “click” and “activism”. It refers to “armchair activists” — people who support a political or social cause, but only show their support from behind a computer or smartphone. And “otherize” is a verb for “other” that means to alienate (使疏远) people who are different from ourselves — whether that be different skin color, religious belief or sexuality.

    Lifestyle is also changing our language. For example, “fitspiration” — a compound of fit and inspiration — refers to a person or thing that encourages one to exercise and stay fit and healthy.

    The phrase “climate refugee” — someone who is forced to leave their home due to climate change — reflects people's concern for the environment.

    According to Stevenson, social media was the main source for the new expressions. “People feel much freer to coin their own words these days,” he said.

    But still, not all newly-invented words get the chance to make their way into a mainstream (主流的) dictionary. If you want to create your own hit words, Angus Stevenson, Oxford Dictionaries head of content development, suggests that you should not only make sure that they are expressive (有表现力的) and meaningful, but also have an attractive sound so that people will enjoy saying them out loud.

    Christmas is a great time with family and friends. One of the best ways to bond with (团结)one another is through games. So why not play some great Christmas party games?

    Present pickup is a great game for both young and young at heart. It can be played inside or outside. To prepare for the game, you will need to have some small boxes and some small gift bags. This is a great way to use the paper from last year. There should be as many presents as players. You'll also need four or more candy canes(甘蔗). Two large boxes can be used to drop the presents in.

    Two ropes will be needed. Take one rope and make a starting line. The other rope will mark the finish line. Place the large boxes at the finish line. Equally divide the presents into two groups. It's best to have an equal number of boxes and bags on each side to make it fair.

    The first player on each team will take two candy canes. When it's time to start, they'll pick up the presents only using the candy canes. Each player must run his present to the box or finish line and drop it in. If it's dropped on the way, the player starts over. After they drop their presents, the players will run the candy canes to the next players. This continues until all the presents have been picked up. The first team to finish wins.

    To play kids against adults, you may want to put easier presents in a group for the kids and more difficult ones for the adults. There are many variations to the game, so have some fun and come up with your own.

    Although I had wanted to quit smoking, I never made up my mind until New Year's Day last year. I was having a terrible headache. I knew it was time to quit.

    Searching for methods to quit smoking on the Internet is like searching for weight loss tips — there are thousands of different ways that are said to be the best, but not all are right for you. One approach that did draw my interest was apps. Along with cigarettes (烟), my phone was the only other thing I couldn't leave my apartment without.

    There are hundreds of apps for quitting smoking. I downloaded an app called QuitIt because it was said to be good. It was free and didn't cost much time as some others. You input the amount of cigarettes you smoke, the cost per pack and the time you decide to quit smoking. The app does the math and then gives you information based on the information given by you. It tracks the amount of time since you decided to quit, the money you've saved, and the danger you've avoided. The app also includes a number of health goals.

    Quitting smoking was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Like most stories of quitting, I did get a little sick and I felt terrible, but the most difficult part was the empty feeling I was left with. Any time I felt like a cigarette, I would open the app and track the progress I had made. If I wanted to smoke while I was on the computer, I'd immediately go to stop smoking to read a success story, or to offer support to someone else having a harder time than me.

    I quit smoking 1 year 2 months and 27 days ago. I did not smoke 6,771 cigarettes and saved $4,062.84.

    It's already challenging enough for environmentalists to keep beaches clear of washed up trash(垃圾) and plastic debris(残骸), but the most difficult problem lies in cleaning up all of the millions of tiny microplastics that are impossible to pick up and separate from the sand.

    Fortunately, a group of engineering students succeeded in developing a massive new vacuum cleaner that can collect microplastics without removing any of the sand from the beach. The 12 Canadian students from the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec built their Hoola One plastic vacuum cleaner as a class project.

    "We did some research and we realized there was no machine around the world to do this kind of job," Hoola One co-founder Sam Duval told Hawaii Public Radio. "So we told each other, 'We will invent it,' and we did it."

    As a means of testing their machine's efficiency, they recently used it on the sands of Hawaii's Kamilo Beach, which is also notorious for being one of the dirtiest beaches in the world. Though their first prototype(原型)experienced a number of technical issues, the students managed to fix the problems and tidy up the beach.

    Using a handheld tube, the machine sucks(吸入)up plastic and sand and dumps them all into a massive tank of water. Since rocks and sand are heavier than plastic, they sink to the bottom of the tank so they can be dumped back onto the beach. The plastic, on the other hand, floats to the top of the tank.

    According to Hawaii Public Radio, the team left the Hoola One vacuum on the island as a donation to the state department- They are now researching the ecological effects of the vacuum on the beach while they search for funding and sponsorships(赞助)to produce more Hoola One vacuums.

Mrs. Black was having a lot of trouble with her skin, so she went to her doctor about it. He could not find anything wrong with her, however. So he sent her to the local hospital for some tests. The hospital, of course, sent the results of the tests direct to Mrs. Black's doctor, and the next morning he telephoned her to give her a list of the things that he thought she could not eat, as any of them might be the cause of her skin trouble. Mrs. Black carefully wrote all the things down on a piece of paper, which she then left beside the telephone while she went out to a ladies' meeting.

When she got back home two hours later, she found her husband waiting for her. He had a big basket full of packages beside him, and when he saw her, he said, "Hello, dear. I have done all your shopping for you." "Done all my shopping?" She asked in surprise. "But how did you know what I wanted?" "Well, when I got home, I found your shopping list beside the telephone," answered her husband. "So I went down to the shops and bought everything you had written down."

Of course, Mrs. Black had to tell him that what he had thought were all the things the doctor did not allow her to eat.