There was good news last week for people who struggle to get eight hours of sleep a night: they may not need so much shut-eye after all.

    Researchers from UCLA and elsewhere looked at sleep habits of remote hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, Namibia and Bolivia — groups with pre-industrial lifestyles whose sleep patterns are believed to reflect those of ancient humans. The researchers found that, on average, members of each group sleep a bit less than six and a half hours a night.

    The study, published in the academic journal Current Biology, indicates that “natural” sleep is less than eight hours a night and that modern society's numerous electronic distractions (分心) aren't necessarily to blame for people getting just six or seven hours of sleep.

    “The story that often gets out is that if you sleep for less than seven hours, you're going to die early,” he told me. “That's not true.”

    Yet Americans are addicted to getting more sleep — and on turning to medical shortcuts to help them.

    According to the Centers for Disease Control, as many as 70 million U.S. adults suffer from sleep disorders or sleeplessness. Only a third of Americans get the government's recommended seven to nine hours of sleep a night.

    About 9 million American adults use sleeping pills to help get a good night's rest, the CDC found. Siegel said the number of people relying on medicines “has gone up rather rapidly since then.”

    Industry consulting firm Global Data estimates that worldwide sales for sleeplessness medicines will run about $1.4 billion next year and reach $1.8 billion by 2023, recovering from lower sales in recent years because of cheaper generics(仿制药) hitting the market.

    Dr. Roy Artal, a sleep specialist in West Los Angeles, said it's understandable that busy people in today's go-go world would turn to medicines to speed up the sleep process. But all they're doing is building a reliance on powerful drugs for relatively little improvement.

    “There's no magic pill that makes us sleep when we want and wake up when we want,” Artal said. “The effects of sleeping pills tend to be modest.”

    He and other experts say the answer to sleeplessness isn't to be found in a pill bottle. It's in what's called “sleep hygiene (保健).”

    Top lists are lecturing people on everything from “100 places to visit” to “100 books to read”. Aren't you just tired of being told what to do with your time?

    Now you have a list to end all lists!

    Take a look at the following two examples from the list of “101 thins not to do”:

    Swim with Dolphins?

    Swimming with dolphins is one of the world's most profitable tourist activities. However, every dolphin will welcome having their busy, tiring day interrupted by tourists screaming pushing around them in the water. Worse yet, when dolphins get too near to the boats loaded tourists, they could get caught up in ropes and killed by propellers(螺旋桨).

    Here's a little secret. Dolphins look like smiling at you, but actually they're just opening mouths.

    Go to see the Mona Lisa?

    There must be something about the mysterious smile. The 6 million people who visit the lady in the Louvre every year can't all be wrong, after all. But they can be quite annoying, standing in front of you, holding up their cameras to prevent you from seeing anything. In fact, it is hard for you to see the painting clearly because you have to stay away from it for security reasons. After queuing for hours, many tourists can remain in front of the painting only for 15 seconds most.

    If the mysterious lady in the picture knew her fate, she wouldn't just be smiling, she'd be laughing.

    So, still long to see the Mona Lisa? If you want to find out more about the list, read 101 Things NOT to Do Before You Die. Visit www. not2dobeforeidie. co. uk and buy the book at a 20% discount.

    Universities are doing everything they can to become a green campus. But there are also items students can do to make your campus more eco-friendly.

1）Recycle everything, especially paper!

    There is a large amount of paper a college student goes through every term.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} We know that these things can't be avoided, but the way you handle the use of all the paper can really help create a better green campus.

2）Buy green.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Paper, cleaning products and water are products that can be bought as recycled goods. They're slightly more expensive than the normal products, but it's worth it to make a green campus.

3）Walk and bike to school.

    Most campuses, especially those that are trying to become a more eco-friendly campus, have pretty good public transit (公共交通系统).{#blank#}3{#/blank#} Walking or biking will help make your campus a green university.

4） {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    A water bottle can be refilled at any water fountain and can easily be drunk in class or while riding a bike. This will save the environment by decreasing the amount of plastic waste on your campus.

5）Buy used clothing.

    It is usually thought of as something to do to save money. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Recycling clothes minimizes the use of resources to make clothing and puts a dent in the problem of worldwide sweatshops.

A. Carry a water bottle.

B. It is also good for the environment!

C. Buy recycled goods as much as possible.

D. Paper made of this kind of wood is much stronger.

E. On top of that, almost all universities are pedestrian (步行者) friendly.

F. It includes class notes, term papers, student newspapers and so on.

G. Universities call on all the students to learn to recycle all the waste paper.

    One morning, more than a hundred years ago, an American inventor called Elias Howe finally fell asleep. He had been working all night on the design of a sewing machine but he had run into a very difficult problem: It seemed impossible to get the thread to run smoothly around the needle.

    Though he was tired, Howe slept badly. He turned and turned. Then he had a dream. He dreamt that he had been caught by terrible savages whose king wanted to kill him and eat him unless he could build a perfect sewing machine. When he tried to do so, Howe ran into the same problem as before. The thread kept getting caught around the needle. The king flew into the cage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe. They came up towards him with their spears raised. But suddenly the inventor noticed something. There was a hole in the tip of each spear. The inventor awoke from the dream, realizing that he had just found the answer to the problem. Instead of trying to get the thread to run around the needle, he should make it run through a small hole in the center of the needle. This was the simple idea that finally made Howe design and build the first really practised sewing machine.

    Elias Howes was not the only one in finding the answer to his problem in this way.

    Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric light, said his best ideas came into him in dreams. So did the great physicist Albert Einstein. Charlotte Bronte also drew in her dreams in writing Jane Eyre.

    To know the value of dreams, you have to understand what happens when you are asleep. Even then, a part of your mind is still working. This unconscious(无意识的), but still active part understands your experiences and goes to work on the problems you have had during the day. It stores all sorts of information that you may have forgotten or never have really noticed. It is only when you fall asleep that this part of the brain can send messages to the part you use when you are awake. However, the unconscious part acts in a special way. It uses strange images which the conscious part may not understand at first. This is why dreams are sometimes called “secret messages to ourselves”.

    Once upon a time, two brothers who lived on neighboring farms fell into conflict(冲突) . It was the first serious one between them in 40 years of farming peacefully side by side. In the end, they fell apart.

    One morning, a man with a carpenter's toolbox came for some work. The elder brother said, "I have a job for you. Look at the farm across the creek(河沟). My younger brother lives there. It was he who used his bulldozer(推土机)to dig the creek last week to spite(刁难) me. So I want you to build me a fence, an 8 – foot – high fence, in order not to see his place any more." The carpenter smiled and said, "I see. I'll try to do a job that satisfies you." Then the elder brother went downtown.

    At sunset when the farmer returned, the carpenter had just finished his job. The farmer's eyes opened wide! To his surprise, there was no fence there at all! Instead, there was a bridge stretching from one side of the creek to the other! A fine piece of work! He saw his younger brother coming to him with the hands outstretching. The brothers stood at each end of the bridge, and then they met in the middle, taking each other's hands. They turned to see the carpenter lift his toolbox on his shoulder.

"No, wait! Stay a few days. I've a lot of other work for you," said the elder brother. "I'd love to stay on," the carpenter said, "but I have so many more bridges to build."

For hundreds of years, Africans have preserved their history through storytelling. But some Africans worry that oral traditions will be lost to the Internet connections and social media.

This has led a Nigerian woman named Elizabeth Kperrun to create a mobile phone application as a way to preserve African folk stories. She calls her mobile app AfroTalez, which tells children's stories that teach moral lessons.

"We can't teach kids something by telling them, 'Don't do this'. I think kids need context to understand. In a story somebody stole something and then something bad happened to them. Alternatively, somebody else did something good and they ended up happy or rich."

"Hello children. My name is Liz and I'd like to tell you a story about tortoises, elephants, and ..." The voice of "Aunt Liz" narrates the story, while a full-screen animation appears. An arrow signals when it's time to move on. There are also quizzes on object recognition and counting throughout.

Kperrun asks her older relatives to help her collect stories for the application. The stories come from an ethnic group living in southeast Nigeria and northwest Cameroon. "I want to keep it centered on folk stories, not the ones that Walt Disney has made really popular... It's fair and respectful to keep certain cultures alive because folk stories are part of the tapestry that keeps cultures together." Kperrun once said.

Kperrun writes and reads the stories. Her business partner and husband Idamiebi Ilamina-Eremie does the animation (动画).

AfroTalez is available for Android users and can be downloaded for free. So far, AfroTalez has more than 50,000 users. Funding for the app has been a major challenge. Kperrun hopes to use a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the next version of AfroTalez to be released soon.

Kperrun believes technology doesn't have to destroy or replace traditions. Her goal is to combine them to keep African culture alive. She says "Africa is our home, but we are so eager to become Western that we are forgetting things that are really important and should be passed on of who we are, and I don't think that's right."