Exercise may help to safeguard the mind against depression(沮丧) through previously unknown effects on working muscles, according to a new study involving mice.

    Mental health experts have long been aware that even mild, repeated stress can contribute to the development of depression and other mood disorders in animals and people. Scientists have also known that exercise seems to cushion against depression. But precisely how exercise, a physical activity can reduce someone's risk for depression, a mood state, has been mysterious. So for the new study, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm studied the brains and behavior of mice in a complicated and novel fashion.

    We can't ask mice if they are feeling cheerful or in low spirits. Instead, researchers have pictured certain behaviors that indicate depression in mice. If animals lose weight, stop seeking out a sugar solution when it's available — because, probably, they no longer experience normal pleasures — or give up trying to escape from the cold-water zone just freeze in place, they are categorized as depressed. And in the new experiment, after five weeks of frequent but low-level stress, such as being lightly shocked, mice displayed exactly those behaviors. They became depressed.

    The scientists could then have tested whether exercise blunts (延缓) the risk of developing depression after stress by having mice run first. But, frankly, from earlier research, they wanted to know how, so they bred pre-exercised mice. A wealth of earlier research by these scientists and others had shown that aerobic exercise, in both mice and people, increases the production within muscles of an enzyme (酶) called PGC-1alpha. The Karolinska scientists suspected（怀疑） that this enzyme somehow creates conditions within the body that protect the brain against depression. Then, the scientists exposed the animals, which without exercising, were in high levels of PGC-1alpha to five weeks of mild stress. The mice responded with slight symptoms of worry. But they did not develop depression. They continued to seek out sugar and fought to get out of the cold-water zone. Their high levels of PGC-1alpha appeared to make them depression-resistant（抵抗的）. Finally, to ensure that these findings are relevant to people, the researchers had a group of adult volunteers complete three weeks of frequent endurance training, consisting of 40 to 50 minutes of moderate cycling or jogging. The scientists conducted muscle biopsies (活体检查) before and after the program and found that by the end of the three weeks, the volunteers' muscle cells contained substantially more PGC-1alpha than at the study's start.

    The finding of these results, in the simplest terms, is that “you reduce the risk of getting depression when you exercise,” said Maria Lindskog, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute.

    How fit are your teeth? Are you lazy about brushing them? Never fear: An inventor is on the case. An electric toothbrush senses how long and how well you brush, and it lets you track your performance on your phone.

    The Kolibree toothbrush was exhibited at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. It senses how it is moved and can send the information to an Android phone or iPhone via a Bluetooth wireless connection.

    The toothbrush will be able to teach you to brush right (don't forget the insides of the teeth!) and make sure you're brushing long enough. “It's kind of like having a dentist actually watch your brushing on a day-to-day basis,” says Thomas Serval, the French inventor.

    The toothbrush will also be able to talk to other applications on your phone, so developers could, for instance, create a game controlled by your toothbrush. You could score points for beating monsters among your teeth. “We try to make it smart but also fun,” Several says.

    Serval says he was inspired by his experience as a father. He would come home from work and ask his kids if they had brushed their teeth. They said “yes,” but Serval would find their toothbrush heads dry. He decided he needed a brush that really told him how well his children brushed.

    The company says the Kolibree will go on sale this summer, for $99 to $199, developing on features. The U.S. is the first target market.

    Serval says that one day, it'll be possible to replace the brush on the handle with a brushing unit that also has a camera. The camera can even examine holes in your teeth while you brush.

    In 2016, designer Liz Ciokajlo received a task from the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York: revisit the Moon Boot, a fluffy-looking snowshoe inspired by the footwear used by the Apollo astronauts.

    Launched in 1972 at the height of the lunar missions, the Moon Boot is an icon of the 20th Century's “plastic age” and the museum administrators wanted a new take on it.

    Ciokajlo set out to reimagine it. She knew only a biomaterial would work in a “post-plastic age”, but the designer also wanted a new destination to inspire it. Our generation's space travel obsession is not the Moon, she thought, but the red planet Mars. And Mars allows you to really think outside of the box.

    The task led her to an amazing biomaterial that had already attracted the attention of engineers innovating m building materials and of top space agencies like NASA and ESA. Her final design, a tall, female, rough-looking boot, can be made on board a spaceship with almost only human sweat and a few fungus spores (真菌孢子), ideal for a seven-month trip to Mars with limited check-in luggage.

    This magic biomaterial is mycelium (菌丝体), the vegetative part of the fungus It looks like amass of white thread-like structures, each called hyphae. Collectively, these threads are called mycelium and are the largest part of the fungus.

    Mycelium has amazing properties. It is a great recycler, as it feeds off a substrate to create more material, and has the potential of almost limitless growth in the right conditions. It can endure more pressure than conventional concrete without breaking. It is a known insulator and fire-retardant and could even provide radiation protection on space missions.

    On Earth it's currently used to create ceiling panels, leather, packaging materials and building materials, but in outer space it stands out for its architectural potential, says artist and engineer Maurizio Montalti, who has teamed up with Ciokajlo.

    For her revisited boot, Ciokajlo wanted to use the human body as the source for some of the building materials and decided to employ sweat. Reusing sweat is not entirely new in space exploration but a novelty approach for footwear. She thinks it might make astronauts feel closer to home during the long journey to Mars.

    The design is still hypothetical, because the real boot submitted for Moma and currently in display at the London Design Museum did use mycelium but not human sweat, as their deadline was too tight, but the science checks out.

    If you find yourself checking your phone first thing in the morning, if you find you're text-messaging while driving, checking your phone instead of working on an important assignment—you are addicted.

    Don't worry. The new NoPhone might be just the thing you need. It looks and feels exactly like a smartphone, but it does nothing. It's just a piece of plastic that you can carry around in your hand to fool yourself.

    NoPhone is currently a prototype(手机模型) that will cost only $12 once it hits the market. Its makers are trying to raise $30,000 in order to cover the production and marketing costs.

    Dutch designer Ingmar Larsen, who helped create the NoPhone, said that he had the idea as a joke along with his friends Van Gould and Ben Langveld. To their great surprise, the idea received a lot of attention online and people from all over the world started placing requests for NoPhone of their own, so that's when the three friends decided to raise money for mass production.

    David H said," I used to sleep with my phone in my hand, but my night terrors would cause me to throw it across the room in an unconscious panic. With the NoPhone, I can still enjoy the comfort of holding a phone in my sleep, without waking up to a broken screen, thanks, NoPhone."

    If you're interested in NoPhone, but concerned about not being able to take selfies anymore, don't worry. The makers do have an update at no extra charge—the mirror sticker. That way, they say, you can enjoy "real-time" selfies with your friends when they're standing right behind you.

    A couple had a son eleven years after they married. They were a loving couple and the boy was the apple of their eye. When the boy was around four years old, one day the father was very tired after work so he asked his wife to pick up their son. The mother, who was very busy in the kitchen, totally forgot about it.

    Later the boy lost his way on the street. When the son was found missing, the mother hurried to look for him, but she didn't find him. The mother felt very sad and didn't know how to face her husband.

    When the father went to the police station after hearing that the son was missing, he looked at his wife and said just four words. What do you think the four words were? The husband just said "I love you, darling."

    The son was missing. If he had picked him up earlier, this would not have happened. There is no point in blaming (责备) anyone. His wife had also lost her only child. What his wife needed at that moment was comfort and understanding from her husband. That is what the husband gave his wife. Several weeks later, with the help of the police, the couple finally found their lost son. The family's relationship became stronger over that time.

    Sometimes we spend lots of time asking who is to blame. We miss many chances to give each other support and let each other feel the warmth of human relationships. Get rid of all your unwillingness to forgive, selfishness, and fears and you will find the world is much more wonderful.

    What if we could replace oil with a fuel which produced no pollution and which everybody had equal access to? The good news is that we can, in fact, we are swimming in it -literally.

    Hydrogen is one of the building blocks of the universe. Our own sun is basically, a big，dense cloud of the stuff. And hydrogen can be used to create electricity for power, heat and light.

    The problem is that hydrogen is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It does not exist as a material on its own, but is always part of something else. So it has to be separated before it can be used.

    Most commercial hydrogen in use now is created from natural gas. As oil will start to run out in around the year 2030. It makes sense to produce as much hydrogen as possi­ble as soon as we can. But natural gas supplies will also begin to run out soon after. Another source is needed.

    Researchers are now using electricity to make water into hydrogen. Companies are working on the problem in their own areas. The first commercial hydrogen "fuel cells" for computers and mobile phones have already come on to the market Auto companies have also invested over US $2 billion in the production of hydrogen fuelled cars.

    The nations of a hydrogen fuelled planet would not fight over energy recourses. There would be a great reduction in pollution, the only by-product of creating hydrogen is pure drinking water something that is very scarce in many parts of the world. But that is not where the good news ends, once the costs of producing hydrogen have been brought down, it will possibly provide power for a third of the Earth's popula­tion that has no electricity.

    And electricity creates wealth. In South Africa over the last decade there has been a large programmer of electrification. Thanks to the programmer, people do not have to spend their days looking firewood to burn for heat and with electric light, they can work long into the night

Some scientists see radical changes in the way the human race co-operates. Hydrogen creates electricity, and is also created by it. With dual use fuel cells, everyone who consumes energy could also produce it. Late at night, a man drives home in London and connects his car into the "worldwide hydrogen web", which it supplies with electricity. A few hours later, a man in Beijing uses that electricity to power the hydrogen cell in his car. Hydrogen could be the first democratic energy source.

    Like all dreams of the future, it seems very far away. But the threat of war and terrorism in the Middle East has made governments and businesses more aware of the need to end oil dependency and spend more time and money on hy­drogen resource. So maybe the threat of war is not a completely bad thing for the future of the human race.