Chimps(黑猩猩) will cooperate in certain ways, like gathering in war parties to protect their territory. But beyond the minimum requirements as social beings, they have little instinct (本能) to help one another. Chimps in the wild seek food for themselves. Even chimp mothers regularly decline to share food with their children, who are able from a young age to gather their own food.

In the laboratory, chimps don't naturally share food either. If a chimp is put in a cage where he can pull in one plate of food for himself or, with no great effort, a plate that also provides food for a neighbor to the next cage, he will pull at random —he just doesn't care whether his neighbor gets fed or not. Chimps are truly selfish.

Human children, on the other hand are naturally corporative. From the earliest ages, they decide to help others, to share information and to participate in achieving common goals. The psychologist Michael Tomasello has studied this cooperativeness in a series of experiment with very young children. He finds that if babies aged 18 months see an unrelated adult with hands full trying to open a door, almost all will immediately try to help.

There are several reasons to believe that the urges to help, inform and share are not taught, but naturally possessed in young children. One is that these instincts appear at a very young age before most parents have started to train their children to behave socially. Another is that the helping behaviors are not improved if the children are rewarded. A third reason is that social intelligence develops in children before their general cognitive（认知的）skills, at least when compared with chimps. In tests conducted by Tomasello, the human children did no better than the chimps on the physical world tests but were considerably better at understanding the social world.

The core of what children's minds have and chimps' don't is what Tomasello calls shared intentionality. Part of this ability is that they can infer what others know or are thinking. But beyond that, even very young children want to be part of a shared purpose. They actively seek to be part of a “we”, a group that intends to work toward a shared goal.

Drug problems

    If you're worried about your own or someone else's drug taking or misuse, it's good to know the facts.

Why take drugs?

    Drug users don't start using drugs with the intention of becoming addicted. But many drugs contain addictive substances(物质) and even people who use them occasionally can become dependent and need to use them regularly.

    Reasons why people start using drugs can include: to escape problems they may be having in other parts of their life, peer pressure and fitting in with another group of people, being curious about the effects of drugs.

    If you start to use drugs on a regular basis, or if you become dependent on them, it can affect your family and friends as well as having a serious impact on your own physical and mental well-being.

    Drug overdoses can be fatal. You can die instantly from misusing substances and drugs that you can buy over the counters.

Signs of drug abuse and misuse

    There is not a common list of symptoms that you can use to tell if you or someone you know is misusing drugs. That's because drug use affects different people in different ways, depending on the type of drugs they're using.

    Although anxiety, tiredness and a change in sleeping habits can be signs of drug use, they can also be caused by changes in your body, stress or other problems.

_____________________

    Drugs are categorised into three classes based on their overall level of harm. Class A drugs are the most dangerous, however, all the drugs in all three classes are harmful and addictive.

    Remember that all drugs are illegal, even Class C drugs like cannabis(大麻烟). If you're caught selling them to other people, or carrying a small amount in your pocket, it's likely that the police will get involved.

    If you're found guilty of any of these offences, you may face a fine or time in custody(拘留), with Class A drugs carrying the most severe sentences.

Worried about a friend?

    If you think that one of your friends or relatives is misusing drugs, you may want to approach them and talk about it. It's not your responsibility to make them stop, but you can tell them about how their behaviour is affecting your relationship.

    If they ask for help with their problem, then it's important to listen and help them find the right information and treatment.

National Drugs Helpline

    If you're worried about drug abuse and addiction you can call the National Drugs Helpline on 0800 776 600 for confidential advice—lines are open seven days a week. Calls are free and they won't show up on your phone bill, but you may be charged if you use a mobile.

More useful links

Information about addictions from need to know

Information about drugs, the law and human rights

    Dodder is an unusual and unwanted plant that attacked other plants. Except for its flower, the plant looks like spaghetti, a kind of noodles in the shape of long thin pieces that look like string when they are cooked. It's almost leafless, thread-like stems hang down on top of other plants that dodder needs to stay alive. Dodder does not produce its own food. Instead, it steals food from other plants. It feeds by sucking juices from the plant which is wrapped around, often making its host very weak or even killing it.

    Dodder can find other plants by their smell. When a young dodder plant starts growing, it follows the smell of plants it prefers, like tomato plants, potato plants, or other farm crops. Unlike most plants that usually grow in the direction of light or warmth, a dodder plant will grow in the direction of, for example, tomato smell-if a tomato happens to be growing nearby.

    However, a young dodder plant must find a host plant quickly. It no longer needs its root once it is attached to the host and wrapped around it. If it cannot catch a smell of potential host within a few days, it will dry up and vanish even if there is plenty of water around. Once it finds a host, the young dodder plant will attach itself to it and start growing faster. At that point the dodder plant will drop its root.

    Dodder is thus a difficult weed to manage and a real headache for farmers. When it does get out of hand, dodder can greatly reduce a farmer's harvest or even destroy crops completely. Before sowing their produce, especially farmers in warm parts of the world often check to make sure no unwanted dodder seeds have mixed with their crop seeds. This is a good way to stop dodder plants from making their way to a crop field secretly.

    When I was growing up, we were not an "I love you" family. We certainly found such affection lovely. We just didn't do it.

    I was thinking about all of this on Saturday at my daughter Katie's recital (演奏会). I had never insisted she do anything in her free time except learn how to play the piano. I carried this from childhood. My parents couldn't afford these lessons. My daughter mostly accepted this demand with good humor. This has meant, through the years, that our house has been filled with a few muddled (混乱的) complaints mixed with versions of songs.

    The day of the recital, I was listening to Katie practice The Entertainer, and one note was not good. I don't know how to play the piano, but I did say, "Hey, Katie, maybe you should hold that note just a bit longer." Then she played it again and again. I realized that I had done something unintended — I was making her think too much just a few hours before her recital.

    So I told her not to worry about it, but it was too late. She kept at it for a little while longer until finally I said that she'd played it perfectly. I didn't think we ever isolated that note; I felt pretty bad for even bringing it up.

    Then it was time for recital. Katie was the first one to perform. She was dressed well. As I watched her play The Entertainer, all I could think was how grown-up she had become, and that I had already missed the four-, five-, six-year-old versions of her.

    She got to the end of the song, and she reached the note we had talked about. And she held it. She held it so long that for an instant it broke her timing on the rest of the song. Then she finished the song, and she looked right at me. Then I hugged her. My parents are right. You don't have to say the words "I love you". Sometimes one note will do.

Nobody says high school and college are easy. Studying is difficult, as is memorizing information for a test. Fortunately, there are books that can help to make dealing with school easier.

Unlimited Memory by Kevin Horsley

Do you have trouble remembering everything you're studying? Feel like you have too much on your plate? Unlimited Memory by Kevin Horsley may be for you. It's a bestseller in memory improvement. This book has strategies to help you learn faster while also teaching you to become more productive. Of course, having a good memory comes in handy outside of the classroom as well. Really, this is a great book for life in general.

Student ^fs Guide to Writing College Papers by Kate L. Turabian

Many students reach college and find that essay writing in college is very different from that in high school. Whether this is the case for you or you just want to improve your writing skills, you'll want to check out Student's Guide to Writing College Papers. It's available on Kindle or in hardback or paperback forms. Right now, this one is its fourth edition. The book covers writing your actual paper, citing sources(引用来源), and style. Even English majors can find a lot of helpful tips in this book.

On Course by Skip Downing

It is another book you'll want to check out. In its eighth edition, the book provides you with self-assessment tools to help you identify what you need to change for academic success. It contains guided journal entries（分录）to help you with responsibility, self-management, self-awareness, learning and self-esteem.

How to Become a Straight A Student by Cal Newport

The book will teach you different approaches and strategies to help you score better but spend less time on studying, with a focus on studying smarter, not harder. It's available on Kindle and in audiobook(有声读物)and paperback forms.

Myopia, also known as nearsightedness, has become a lot more common in recent decades. Some even consider myopia an epidemic (流行病). But what causes myopia and what reduces it?

While having two myopic parents does mean you're more likely to be nearsighted, there's no single myopia gene. That means the causes of myopia are more behavioral than genetic.

Scientists have learned a great deal about the progression of myopia by studying visual development in baby chickens. They do so by putting little hats on baby chickens. Lenses (镜片) on the face of the hats cover the chicks' eyes and are adjusted to affect how much they see.

Just like in humans, if visual input is wrong, a chick's eyes grow too large, resulting in myopia. And it's progressive. Blur (模糊) leads to eye growth, which causes more blur, which makes the eye grow even larger, and so on.

Two recent studies featuring extensive surveys of children and their parents provide strong support for the idea that an important driver of the increase in myopia is that people are spending more time focusing on objects immediately in front of our eyes, whether a screen, a book or a drawing pad.

Other research has shown that this unnatural eye growth can be interrupted by sunlight. A 2022 study, for example, found that myopia rates were more than four times greater for children who didn't spend much time outdoors—say, once or twice a week—compared with those who were outside daily. At the same time, kids who spent more than three hours a day while not at school reading or looking at a screen close-up were four times more likely to have myopia than those who spent an hour or less doing so.

Fortunately, just a few minutes a day with glasses that correct blur stops the progression of myopia, which is why early vision testing and vision correction are important to limit the development of myopia.