Most people agree that honesty is a good thing. But does Mother Nature agree? Animals can't talk, but can they lie in other ways? Can they lie with their bodies and behavior? Animal experts may not call it lying, but they do agree that many animals, from birds to chimpanzees, behave dishonestly to fool other animals. Why? Dishonesty often helps them survive.

    Many kinds of birds are very successful at fooling other animals. For example, a bird called the plover sometimes pretends to be hurt in order to protect its young. When a predator（猎食动物）gets close to its nest, the plover leads the predator away from the nest. How? It pretends to have a broken wing. The predator follows the "hurt" adult, leaving the baby birds safe in the nest.

    Another kind of bird, the scrub jay, buries its food so it always has something to eat. Scrub jays are also thieves. They watch where others bury their food and steal it. But clever scrub jays seem to know when a thief is watching them. So they go back later, unbury the food, and bury it again somewhere else.

    Birds called cuckoos have found a way to have babies without doing much work. How? They don't make nests. Instead, they get into other birds' nests secretly. Then they lay their eggs and fly away. When the baby birds come out, their adoptive parents feed them.

    Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky. After a fight, the losing chimp will give its hand to the other. When the winning chimp puts out its hand, too, the chimps are friendly again. But an animal expert once saw a losing chimp take the winner's hand and start fighting again.

    Chimps are sneaky in other ways, too. When chimps find food that they love, such as bananas, it is natural for them to cry out. Then other chimps come running. But some clever chimps learn to cry very softly when they find food. That way, other chimps don't hear them,  and they don't need to share their food.

    As children, many of us learn the saying "You can't fool Mother Nature." But maybe you can't trust her, either.

    The latest study by the University of Florida has found that eating from smaller, less beautiful, and even paper plates will help prevent overeating. Eating with a fork instead of a spoon can help you lose weight, the researchers say. Much to their surprise, they find that putting mirrors in the dining room will also help reduce weight.

    The researchers asked 185 college students to choose a chocolate cake or a fruit salad, and evaluated the taste. Those who ate in a room with a mirror scored the taste of junk food much lower than those in a room without a mirror. But the taste of fruit salad remained the same in any case.

    Lead scientist, Dr. Ata Jami, says that a glance in the mirror tells people more than just about their physical appearance. It enables them to view themselves objectively and helps them to judge themselves and their behavior in the same way that they judge other people.

    The mirrors were found to push people to compare and match their own behavior with accepted social standards. The researchers believe it proves that people don't want to look in the mirror when they feel they are following the social standards. When they look in the mirror with mouths full of junk food, feelings of discomfort and failure can be increased. Therefore, the presence of the mirror lowers the taste of unhealthy food.

    However, researchers say this is only the case if people select the food they are eating, because they are responsible for that choice. The researchers suggest that mirrors be placed in dining rooms and other eating spaces, so that people will start eating more healthily.

    Spending money on time-saving services reduces stress and boosts(增进）happiness according to a new research, but shockingly, few of us do it.

    Whillans, a professor at HBS said, "Buying time helps to protect us from the stress in our lives caused by time pressure, and the feeling that we don't have enough minutes in the day to complete our tasks."

    The effect was clearest in the Canadian experiment, in which 60 working adults were given $40 to spend in two different ways. One weekend, they were told to spend the money on a material purchase—a gift for themselves. The next weekend, they were instructed to spend the $40 on anything that saved them time,  from paying the neighbor ' s kid to run errands (跑腿）to taking an Uber instead of a bus.

    "On the day they made the time-saving purchase, they felt happier, in a better mood, and lower feelings of time stress than on the day they bought a material purchase, " said Whillans.

    The biggest surprise to the researchers was how few people would spend money on time-saving services. When they asked 98 working adults how they would spend a "windfall"(意外之财) of $40, only two percent named a purchase that would save them time.

    "One reason," said Whillans, "is that we're very bad at remembering how much we hate doing certain tasks once the suffering has passed. That makes us less likely to take active steps to avoid that overburdened feeling in the future. "But another possible cause is good old-fashioned guilt." If you feel guilty about getting someone to clean your house for you, then you might get less happiness from outsourcing (外包）that task, " said Whillans, "or you might just be less likely to spend your money in that way."

    On May 29, 1973, Thomas Bradley, a black man, was elected mayor of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the third largest city in the United States, with a population of three million. About sixteen percent of the city's population are black.

    News of this election appeared on the front pages of newspapers everywhere in the United States. Here is how one major newspaper reported the event.

    LOS ANGELES ELECTS BRADLEY MAYOR UNSEATING YORTY

    BLACK WINS 56% OF VOTES

    Bradley called his victory over Yorty "the fulfillment of a dream". During his childhood and youth, people had kept telling him, "You can't do this, you can't go there, because you are a Negro." Nevertheless he had won a decisive victory over a man who had been won 43.7 percent.

    Los Angeles voters have had many opportunities to judge. Thomas Bradley had to form an opinion of him. The son of a poor farmer Texas, he joined the Los Angeles police force in 1940. During his twenty-one years on the police force he earned a law degree by attending school at night. He was elected to the city council years ago.

    At the time of the Los Angeles election, three other American cities already had black mayors, but none of these cities had as large a population as Los Angeles. Besides, the percentage of blacks in those other cities was much larger. Cleveland, Ohio, had thirty-six percent black when Carl Stokes was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967. In the same year Richard Hatcher was elected mayor of Cary. In Newark, New Jersey, sixty percent of the population were black when Kenneth Gibson was elected in 1970. Thus election of a black mayor in those cities was not very surprising.

    In Los Angeles, thousands of white citizens voted for Thomas Bradley because they believed he would be a better mayor than the white candidate. Bradley had spent forty-eight of his fifty-five years in Los Angeles. Four years ago, Bradley lost mayoral election to Yorty. This time Bradley won.

    One advantage of the Internet is shopping conveniently online for clothes; one disadvantage of the Internet is also shopping conveniently online for clothes.

    "Nothing fits," said Lam Yuk Wong, a senior in electrical and computer engineering at Rice University. "Everyone says this. They order clothes and they don't fit. People get very unhappy."

    Wong and her design partner, Xuaner "Cecilia" Zhang, are Team White Mirror, creators of what they call a "virtual (虚拟)fitting room". Their goal is simple and consumer-friendly: to let online clothing shoppers have a perfect fit and a perfect look when shopping every time. Both women are from China, Wong from Hong Kong and Zhang from Beijing. They both order most of their clothing online. They got the idea from their own experience as consumers and from listening to the complaints of friends and relatives. They say, 'The color is wrong' or 'I got the right size but it still does not fit.' We want to make it like you're in the store trying on the clothes," Zhang said.

    Using a Kinect developed by Microsoft for use with its Xbox 360 video game player, Zhang scans Wong and turns her image into, in effect, a virtual model, keeping Wong's dimensions (尺寸), and even her skin and hair color.

    "We put the clothes on the shopper's 3-D body models and show how they look when they are dressed," Wong said. So far, Wong and Zhang have adapted the software to show dresses and shirts, and they are now working on shorts.

    Asked if she thought men as well as women might be interested in using their virtual fitting room, Wong said, "I think their wives will care about this, so it will also be important to men."

    "What kind of rubbish are you?" This question might normally cause anger, but in Shanghai it has brought about complaints over the past week. On July 1st, the city introduced strict trash-sorting regulations that are expected to be used as a model for our country. Residents must divide their waste into four separate kinds and put it into specific public bins. They must do so at scheduled times, when monitors are present to ensure compliance（服从）and to inquire into the nature of one's rubbish.

    Violators face the possibility of fines and worse. They could be hit with fines of up to 200 yuan ($29). For repeat violators, the city can add black marks to their credit records, making it harder for them to obtain bank loans or even buy train tickets.

    Shanghai authorities are responding to an obvious environmental problem. It generates 9 million tonnes of garbage a year, more than London's annual output and rising quickly. But like other cities in China, it lacks a recycling system. Instead, it has relied on trash pickers to sort out the waste, picking out whatever can be reused. This has limits. As people get wealthier, fewer of them want to do such dirty work. The waste, meanwhile, just keeps piling up. China produces 80 billion pairs of disposable(一次性的)chopsticks a year.

    Many residents appear to support the idea of recycling in general but are frustrated by the details. Rubbish must be divided according to whether it is food, recyclable, dry or hazardous(有害的), the differences among which can be confusing, though there are apps to help work it out. Some have complained about the rules surrounding food waste. They must put it straight in the required public bin, forcing them to tear open plastic bags and toss it by hand. Most upset are the short windows for throwing trash, typically a couple of hours, morning and evening. Along with the monitors at the bins, this means that people go at around the same time and can keep an eye on what is being thrown out; no one wants to look bad.