Fear may be felt in the heart as well as in the head, according to a study that has found a link between the cycles of a beating heart and the chance of someone feeling fear.

    Tests on healthy volunteers found that they were more likely to feel a sense of fear at the moment when their hearts are contracting(收缩) and pumping blood around their bodies, compared with the point when the heartbeat is relaxed. Scientists say the results suggest that the heart is able to influence how the brain responds to a fearful event, depending on which point it is at in its regular cycle of contraction and relaxation.

    Sarah Garfinkel at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School said: “Our Study shows for the first time that the way in which we deal with fear is different depending on when we see fearful pictures in relation to our heart.”

The study tested 20 healthy volunteers on their reactions to fear as they were shown pictures of fearful faces. Dr Garfinkel said, “The study showed that fearful faces are better noticed when the heart is pumping than when it is relaxed. Thus our hearts can also affect what we see and what we don't see一and guide whether we see fear.”

To further understand this relationship, the scientists also used a brain scanner(扫描仪) to show how the brain influences the way the heart changes a person's feeling of fear.

“We have found an important mechanism by which the heart and brain ‘speak' to each other to change our feelings and reduce fear,” Dr Garfinkel said.

    “We hope that by increasing our understanding about how fear is dealt with and ways that it could be reduced, we may be able to develop more successful treatments for anxiety disorders, and also for those who may be suffering from serious stress disorder.”

    Which boy hasn't dreamed of being a cool secret agent? The wonderful fighting abilities and the world-saving adventures are much more colourful than most people's everyday lives. Well, Cody Banks is just like any other boy, except that he is not just dreaming. He has a big secret his friends never know about. He was trained to be a spy by a special CIA programme, which was made to look like a summer camp. He learned high-speed driving, hand-to-hand fighting and the use of high-tech tools.

    After proving he could become a young hero by saving a baby from a runaway car, Banks gets his first real task. He must make friends with a popular girl at school, Natalie Connors. Then, he must spy on her father, a scientist who has developed a dangerous technology. Banks must stop a group of bad people from forcing Natalie's father into using the technology to endanger the world.

    The CIA may have taught him first-class self-defence moves, but they didn't show him how to talk to girls. Banks has zero ability when it comes to dealing with girls. How can he get around his problem and get an invitation to the girl's upcoming birthday party? Will he finally become Natalie's boyfriend and find out whatever he can about her father's work?

    Agent Cody Banks has everything that young people are interested in: big explosions, breath-taking performances and funny girl-dating experiences. It was listed No.2 in the American box office last week.

    “This story is interesting and fun for the whole family to enjoy, and especially cool for young boys,” said Paul Perkins, a film reviewer in the US.

    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.

    A blocked airway(呼吸道) can kill someone in three to four minutes, but it can take more than eight minutes for an ambulance to arrive. So a simple procedure such as opening someone's airway can save their life while they're waiting for emergency medical help. This means you're more likely to give first aid to someone you know than a stranger.

    There are many misconceptions (误解) surrounding first aid. Below are the ‘most popular' ones with details of what you should do.

    You should put butter or cream on a burn. The only thing you should put on a burn is cold water — keep the butter for cooking. Put the affected area under cold running water for at least ten minutes.

    The best way to treat bleeding is to put the wound under a tap. If you put a bleeding wound under a tap you wash away the body's clotting agents(凝血剂) and make it bleed more. Instead put pressure on the wound with whatever is available to stop or slow down the flow of blood. As soon as possible call 999. Keep pressure on the wound until help arrives.

    Nosebleeds are best treated by putting the head back. If you put the head back during a nosebleed, all the blood goes down the back of the airway. Instead advise them to tilt(倾斜) their head forwards and ask the person to pinch(捏) the end of their nose and breathe through their mouth.

    You need lots of training to do first aid. You don't — what you mostly need is common sense. You can learn enough first aid in a few minutes to save someone's life — whether it's from a book, attending a course or watching videos online.

    Remember: anyone can save a life

    Here's an idea whose time has come: A flu shot that doesn't require an actual shot.

    For the first time, researchers have tested a flu vaccine patch(疫苗贴) in a human clinical trial and found that it delivered as much protection as a traditional injection(注射) with a needle. Doctors and public health experts have high hopes that it will increase the number of people who get immunized(免疫的) against the flu.

    Seasonal flu is responsible for up to half a million deaths around the world each year according to the World Health Organization. A team led by Georgia Tech engineer Mark Prausnitz has come up with an alternative method that uses "microneedles". These tiny needles are so small that 100 of them, arranged in order on a patch, can fit under your finger. Yet they're big enough to hold vaccine for three types of flu.

    None of the study volunteers had serious side effects. The groups that got patches had mild skin reactions that were not seen in the regular needle group, while the volunteers in the regular needle group were more likely to experience pain. Overall, 70 percent of the volunteers who got vaccine patches said they'd rather use them again than get a traditional flu shot. The study authors declared it a success on all fronts.

    The biggest beneficiaries could be people in low and middle-income countries, where flu vaccines are hard to come by. Reducing pain is nice, but other benefits—the patch costs less, is easier to transport, doesn't require refrigeration, can be self-administered and doesn't cause waste of needles—are even better.

    "Microneedle Patches have the potential to become ideal candidates for vaccination programs," wrote Katja Hoschler and Maria Zambon of Public Health England.

    Before the 1830s, most newspapers were sold through annual subscriptions in America, usually $8 to $10 a year. Today $8 or $10 seems a small amount of money, but at that time these amounts were forbidding to most citizens. Accordingly, newspapers were read almost only by rich people in politics or the trades. In addition, most newspapers had little in them that would appeal to a mass audience. They were dull and visually forbidding. But the revolution that was taking place in the 1830s would change all that.

    The trend, then, was toward the "penny paper"-a term referring to papers made widely available to the public. It meant any inexpensive newspaper; perhaps more importantly it meant newspapers that could be bought in single copies on the street.

    This development did not take place overnight. It had been possible(but not easy)to buy single copies of newspapers before 1830,but this usually meant the reader had to go down to the printer's office to purchase a copy. Street sales were almost unknown. However, within a few years, street sales of newspapers would be commonplace in eastern cities. At first the price of single copies was seldom a penny-usually two or three cents was charged-and some of the older well-known papers charged five or six cents. But the phrase "penny paper" caught the public's fancy, and soon there would be papers that did indeed sell for only a penny.

    This new trend of newspapers for "the man on the street" did not begin well. Some of the early ventures(企业)were immediate failures. Publishers already in business, people who were owners of successful papers, had little desire to change the tradition. It took a few youthful and daring businessmen to get the ball rolling.