Most academics would view a post at an elite university like Oxford or Harvard as the crowning achievement of a career—bringing both honour and access to better wine cellars. But scholars desire such places for reasons beyond glory. They believe perching on one of the topmost branches of the academic tree will also improve the quality of their work, by bringing them together with other geniuses with whom they can collaborate and who may help spark new ideas. This sounds reasonable. Unfortunately，as Albert Laszlo Barabasi of Northeastern University，in Boston (and also, it must be said, of Harvard), shows in a study published in Scientific Reports, it is not true.

    Dr Barabasi and his team examined the careers of physicists who began publishing between 1950 and 1980 and continued to do so for at least 20 years. They ranked the impact of the institutions these people attended by counting the number of citations each institution's papers received within five years of publication. By tracking the association of individual physicists and counting their citations in a similar way, Dr Barabasi was able to work out whether moving from a low to a high-ranking university improved a physicist's impact. In total, he and his team analysed 2,725 careers.

    They found that, though an average physicist moved once or twice during his career, moving from a low-rank university to an elite one did not increase his scientific impact. Going in the opposite direction, however, did have a small negative influence. The consequence is that elite university do not，at least as far as physicists are concerned，add value to output. That surprising conclusion is one which the authorities in countries such as Britain, who are seeking to concentrate expensive subjects such as physics in fewer, more elite institutions—partly to save money, but also to create what are seen as centers of excellence—might wish to consider.

    “We all know that exercise is good for us, but can you get the benefits without actually doing the exercise?” asks Michael Mosley.

    Having a hot bath or a sauna is a good way to soothe your limbs after exercise, but what happens if you do it instead of exercise? Dr. Steve Faulkner of Loughborough University asked me to take part in an experiment comparing the relative benefits of having a long, hot bath versus an hour of hard pedalling.

    For this study I join a group of volunteers who have all been fitted with monitors which continuously record blood sugar levels. Keeping your blood sugar levels within the normal range is an important measure of your “metabolic” fitness.

    The first part of the experiment is very relaxing, consisting of having a long, hot bath. While I sit in the bath, which they keep at 40℃, Steve closely monitors my core temperature. Once it has risen and stayed there, I am allowed out.

    A couple of hours after my bath I have a light meal. Since we want to see how having a hot bath compares with exercise we repeat the experiment.

    So what's the result?

    “One of the first things that we were looking at,” Steve says, “is the energy expenditure while you're in the bath and what we found was an 80% increase in energy expenditure just as a result of sitting in the bath for the course of an hour.”

    This is nothing like as many calories as cycling for an hour (which comes out at an average of 630 calories) but we do burn 140 calories, the equivalent of a brisk 30-minute walk.

    A killer whale(虎鲸) that can copy words such as “hello” and “bye-bye” is thought to be the first of its kind to copy human speech.

    The female killer whale learned to “speak” some human words by copying a trainer at a park in France. The animal's ability includes speaking the name “Amy” and “one, two, three”.

    Whales and dolphins are among the few animals except humans that can learn to produce a sound just by hearing it. “It is not often seen,” said Dr Josep Call, a co-researcher on the study. “Humans are good at it…Interestingly, the animals that can do best are marine mammals(海洋哺乳动物).” The researchers start to find out whether killer whales could learn new words by copying others. They studied a female named Wikie at Marineland Aquarium in Antibes, France. She was taught to speak human words.

    Dr Jose Abramson, a co-researcher on the study, said basic “conversations” with Wikie may one day be possible. He said,” It has been done before with a famous grey parrot and dolphins using American sign language(手势语).” However, he said they have to be careful about introducing human ideas on animals, as there is more to learn by trying to understand the natural way each kind communicates in its own environment. Wikie made sounds in water, which may be quite different.

    Dr Alex Thornton, senior speaker at the University of Exeter, said they still don't fully understand why some animals learn to copy. Some animals copy sounds to attract possible partners, while others copy sounds to become a member of a group. “Some whales, for example, learn their calls from one another to mark them out as members of their social group,” said Dr Thornton, who doesn't join in the research.

    Dyeing eggs has long been an Easter tradition, but it's the dyeing of baby chicks that is upsetting in some states.

    The dye, which is often ordinary food coloring, is either injected into eggs being hatched or sprayed onto newly hatched chicks. Although hatchery owners say the practice is harmless, critics argue that spraying the birds with color is stressful and that dyeing the animals transforms them into something attractive that can be thrown away when their colorful feathers disappear.

    “These are living creature and dyeing them sends out a message saying that they are more of a new and unusual object than a living animal,” said Dr. Marc Copper, senior scientific manager for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Dyed chicks — and sometimes rabbits — have been a traditional part of the Easter holiday in some parts of the world, but the practice has gone largely underground in the U.S. because many people view it as cruel.

    Today, about half of U.S. states ban the dyeing of animals, but last month the Florida Legislature passed a bill to remove the state's 45-year-old ban. The drive to end the law wasn't related to Easter chicks; it was done at the request of a dog groomer(美容师) who wanted to enter pet beauty contests.

    Florida governor Rick Scott must agree to remove the ban, which would be lifted July 1, but the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida(ARFF) has asked him not to remove the ban. In addition to allowing animals dyeing, the law would also lift a ban on selling baby animals as pets, and the organization fears that next year the state could see hundreds of dyed baby chicks on the market.

As long as the dye is not poisonous, experts say the birds' health isn't affected, and there are scientific reasons to dye animals. Wildlife researchers often inject eggs with dye to track birds in the wild, and teachers have dyed chicks for educational purposes. However, animal advocates are quick to point out that dyeing baby chicks for Easter isn't educational — it's done simply to earn profits.

    Social media is one of the fastest-growing industries in today's world. Your friends' lives may look more exciting than yours on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but a new research shows it is because they are faking (伪造) it.

    A recent survey has found around two-thirds of people on social media post images to their personal information to make their lives seem more adventurous. And more than three quarters of those asked said they judged their peers based on what they saw on their Instagrm, Snapehat or Facebook pages.

    The British survey, by smart phone maker HTC, found that, in order to make our own pages and lives appear more exciting, six percent also said they had borrowed items to include in the images in order to pass them off as their own. More than half of those surveyed said they posted images of items and places purely to show off, causing jealousy among friends and family.

    Behavioral psychologist Hemmings said the trend was unsurprising due to the rise of social media. "We're living in a world instant communication." she said. "Fashion and style used to live and die in magazines; now people are in search of authentic, peer-to-peer recommendations as well, making social media an equal power house to magazines and newspaper."

    "With images being shared in an instant, we desire to know what our friends are wearing, or what super stars are buying, as soon as they have got them." Such is the influence of social media sites like Instagram, 76 percent of those asked also said seeing items on social influences them to buy them, with men more likely to take style advice and buy what they see.

    A ten-year-old boy from Howell, Michigan is being praised as a hero thanks to his persistence (坚持) that led to saving the life of an elderly neighbor. The event happened late in an evening when Danny DiPietro was being driven home from hockey practice by his mom.

    That's when the young boy noticed an open garage (车库) and a figure that he believed was a dog outside an apartment building near his house. Given the freezing weather, the young boy got a feeling that something was not right. But instead of dismissing it like most kids at his age, he insisted that his mother, Dawn, find out what was going on. Dawn tried to make Danny believe that no one would leave a dog out in such cold weather, but he refused to take no for an answer.

    Dawn finally gave in and decided to drive to the area with the family dog and see if there was any truth in Danny' s hunch (直觉). Sure enough, as she got closer to the apartment building she noticed a garage that was wide open and someone waving madly for help. Upon getting there, she realized that it was not a dog the young boy had seen, but Kathleen St. Onge. The 80-year-old woman had fallen down on some ice in front of her garage and had been lying there for two hours, unable to get up.

    Dawn rushed home to get her husband to help and called 911. The two then returned with some blankets to cover Ms. St. Onge, while they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Though still in hospital, the elderly woman is recovering well and forever grateful to Danny for following his hunch!