What happens inside the head of a soccer player who repeatedly heads a soccer ball. That question motivated a study of the brains of experienced players.

    Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York selected 34 adults, men and women. All of the volunteers had played soccer since childhood and  now competed year﹣round in adult soccer leagues. Each filled out a detailed questionnaire developed especially for this study to determine how many times they had headed a soccer ball in the previous year, as well as whether they had experienced any known concussions in the past.

    Then the players completed computerized tests of their memory and other learning skills and had their brains scanned. using a complex new M.R.I. technique which can find structural changes in the brain that can't be seen during most scans.

    According to the data they presented, the researchers found that the  players who had headed the ball more than about 1, 100 times in the previous 12 months showed significant loss of white matter in parts of their brains involved with memory, attention and the processing of visual information, compared with players who had headed the ball less.

    This pattern of white matter loss is "similar to those seen in traumatic brain injury", like that after a serious concussion, the researchers reported, even though only one of these players was reported to have ever experienced a concussion.

    The players who had headed the ball about 1, 100 times or more in the past year were also generally worse at remembering lists of words read to them, forgetting the words far more often than players who had headed the ball less.

    A study showed that the experiences children have in their first few years are important. These experiences affect the development of the brain. When children receive more attention, they often have higher IQs. Babies receive information when they see, hear and feel things, which makes connections between different parts of the brain. There are a hundred trillion (万亿) connections in the brain of a three-year-old child.

    Researcher Judit Gervain tested how good newborns are at distinguishing different sound patterns. Her researchers produced images of the brains of babies as they heard different sound patterns. For example, one order was mu-ba-ba. This is the pattern "A-B-B". Another order was mu-ba-ge. This is the pattern "A-B-C". The images showed that the part of the brain responsible for speech was more active during the "A-B-B" pattern. This shows that babies can tell the difference between different patterns. They also were sensitive to where it occurred in the order.

    Gervain is excited by these findings because the order of sounds is the building block of words and grammar. "Position is key to language," she says. "If something is at the beginning or at the end, it makes a big difference: 'John caught the bear.' is very different from 'The bear caught John.' "

    Researchers led by scientist Patricia Kuhl have found that language delivered by televisions, audio books, the Internet, or smartphones－no matter how educational－doesn't appear to be enough for children's brain development. They carried out a study of nine-month-old American babies. They expected the first group who'd watched videos in Chinese to show the same kind of learning as the second group who were brought face-to-face with the same sounds. Instead they found a huge difference. The babies in the second group were able to distinguish between similar Chinese sounds as well as native listeners. But the other babies－regardless of whether they had watched the video or listened to the audio－learned nothing.

    Reality TV show has been charged with making the nation silly, but a study suggests part of the show could be good for children.

    Massey University PhD student Jacinta Hawkins looked at the influence of TV programs on kids' health knowledge, attitudes and behavior. She said programs which showed overweight people on TV is making children say "I don't want to grow up like that'."

    The research was part of Ms Hawkins' paper on how schools improve health. She spoke to 92 children, ages from 7 to 13, from six Auckland primary schools to find out how they received information on nutrition and physical activity. Some said they learnt from TV news programs, but most of them mentioned reality shows such as Fat Chance, Honey We're Killing the Kids and Downsize Me.

    "Earlier studies had looked at the effect junk-food advertising had on children," Ms Hawkins said, "but messages within TV programs had not been explored. Children from the six schools largely recognized program content, rather than advertising, as a source of food and physical activity messages. They are learning habits of eating and exercise from TV programs. "

    The children also recognized that their parents had a role to play in shaping health behavior. Talking about Honey We're Killing the Kids, which shows how people will look if they continue with good habits, children said they developed attitudes from their family's habits. MMs Hawkins said children remembered what they had seen and thought it was the parents' duty to lead by example.

    Large gatherings such as weddings and conferences can be socially stressful. Pressure to learn people's names only adds to the stress. A new facial-recognition app could come to the rescue, but privacy experts recommend going on with caution.

    The app, called SocialRecall, connects names with faces via smartphone cameras and facial recognition, potentially avoiding the need for formal introductions. "It breaks down these social barriers we all have when meeting somebody," says Barry Sandrew, who created the app and tested it at an event attended by about 1,000 people.

    After receiving an invitation to download SocialRecall from an event organizer, the user is asked to take two selfies and sign in via social media. At the event, the app is active within a previously defined geographical area. When a user points his or her phone camera at an attendee's face, the app identifies the individual displays the person's name, and links to his or her social media profile. To protect privacy, it recognizes only those who have agreed to participate. And the app's creators say it automatically deletes users' data after an event.

    Ann Cavoukian, a privacy expert who runs the Privacy by Design Center of Excellence praises the app's creators for these protective measures. She cautions, however, that when people choose to share their personal information with the app they should know that there may be unintended consequences down the road with that information being used in another context that might come back to bite you."

    The start-up has also developed a version of the app for individuals who suffer from prosopagnosia, or "face blindness", a condition that prevents people from recognizing individuals they have met. To use this app a person first acquires an image of someone's face, from either the smartphone's camera or a photograph, and then tags it with a name. When the camera spots that same face in real life, the previously entered information is displayed. The collected data are stored only on a user's phone, according to the team behind the app.

Family dynamics in the animal kingdom are as different as the animals themselves. In the animal world, there are advantages to be gained from being part of an extended family.

Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees are the world's largest living primates. These creatures are peace-loving and may live together for a lifetime. The dominant male has many wives who may stay with him for most of their lives, which can cause everyday conflicts. It is the male who settles the conflicts by a warning stare or hitting the back of the offenders' heads.

Elephants

Females stick together in the elephant world, living in herds under a stateswoman. The experience and knowledge of this elder one, who may be 60-years-old, are of great benefit. She will remember, for example,the location of water holes and seasonal food supplies. In times of danger, the group bunches around the young and it is the stateswoman who decides whether to flee or confront the threat.

Lions

Lions are the only cats to live in a large family group guarded by a pair of powerful males. Family life is relatively harmonious and baby lions may be fed by any mother with milk, so orphaned babies do not starve. Males live in the wilderness for some years before seeking their own pride by challenging resident males in a bloody battle. The male lion protects his pride from other males and enemies.

Ostriches (鸵鸟)

Ostriches travel in bands of 10-50 individuals, the most remarkable birds being the eight-foot-tall males. The largest birds in the world, ostriches cannot fly, but run fast. The wives of the male ostrich all put their eggs in the same nest. A primary female will then join the male to hatch (孵化) the eggs and she will push away other eggs on the outside to ensure her own are in the middle.