Living near the beach may come with an extra perk (利益): better health. A new study analyzed information from more than 48 million people in England and found that the nearer they lived to the coast, the more likely people were to report good health within the past year.

    Living near the coast may be associated with better health because the seaside environment reduces stress, the researchers said. They pointed to another British study that found that people who took trips to the coast experienced more feelings of calmness and relaxation than those who visited urban parks or the countryside.

    The difference from living near the coast was relatively small. But a small effect, when applied to an entire population can have a substantial impact on public health ,said study researcher Ben Wheeler of Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in Exeter, England.

    However, it's too soon to advise people to hit the beach to improve health, Wheeler said. The study only found an association, not a cause-effect link, and it's possible that other factors could explain the results. For instance, it could be that people who are wealthier, and therefore healthier, are more able to move to desired locations such as the coast, Wheeler said, a phenomenon known as the migrant effect. But the study did find that the association between coastal living and better health was strongest for those living in the poorest areas, which perhaps indicates that wealth cannot explain the results, Wheeler said.

    Because the study looked at only England—an island country in which everyone lives within 72 miles of the coast—it's not clear whether the findings would apply to other populations. Far from England, a health expert not involved in the study said that while the British research certainly doesn't prove that people's health and the place they live are linked, it's possible that proximity to the seas does something for our bodies.

    If future studies confirm the results, the next step would be to find out it is what coastal environments that can benefit health. Wheeler said it may then be possible to bring those benefits to people living in other areas, through virtual environments, for instance.

The idea of being able to walk on water has long interested humans greatly. Sadly, biological facts prevent us ever accomplishing such a thing without artificial aid—we simply weigh too much, and all our mass pushes down through our relatively small feet, resulting in a lot of pressure that makes us sink.

    However, several types of animals can walk on water. One of the most interesting is the common basilisk Basilicus basilicus, a lizard (蜥蜴)native to Central and South America. It can run across water for a distance of several meters, avoiding getting wet by rapidly hitting the water's surface with its feet. The lizard will take as many as 20 steps per second to keep moving forward. For humans to do this, we，d need huge feet that we could bring up to our ears in order to create adequate w hitting.

    But fortunately there is an alternative : cornflour. By adding enough of this common thickening agent to water (and it does take a lot), you can create a “non-Newtonian” liquid that doesn't behave like normal water. Now, if the surface of the water is hit hard enough, particles(粒子）in the water group together for a moment to make the surface hard. Move quickly enough and put enough force into each step, and you really can walk across the surface of an adequately thick Liquid of cornflour.

    Fun though all this may sound, it's still rather messy and better read about in theory than carried out in practice. If you must do it, then keep the water wings handy in case you start to sink--and take a shower afterward!

    With the wide, application of the Internet, Uber, a new approach to your destination instead of taking an ordinary taxi, has become more popular recently. However, benefits won't come without its fair share of drawbacks. The ride-sharing experience is about to get awkward.

    Uber drivers are a part of the so-called sharing economy: They use their own vehicles, receive customer reviews via the app's five-star rating system and make their own hours and choices. Unlike other services, Uber claimed that drivers all over the country could dearly alert customers that tipping is not included. Those drivers that expect to be tipped can make their wishes known. But the company is holding to its official no-tip-required line. “Once you arrive at your destination, your fare is automatically charged to your credit card on file－there's no need to tip.” Although drivers value the freedom to push a button rather than punch a clock like ordinary taxi drivers, lack of a clear policy leaves Uber drivers m a vulnerable (脆弱的) and awkward position: If they ask a customer for a tip or put up a sign, that customer could give the driver a low star-rating, and the driver could finally be removed from the app.

    But has the company done a good job working with customers? Some observers say that this new grey area for tipping will create awkwardness about whether they should tip or not. Providing an option to tip on an app sends a clear message to customers to reach into their pockets. According to Guinn's 2015 survey of roughly 500 people, merely 30% people would be more likely to leave a tip if they were presented with a “no tip” button.

    If the service is twice as expensive during a rain storm or public transport delay, the customer has the right not to tip, However, if the driver is extra helpful or avoids traffic to reach your destination in a more timely manner, you could give an extra tip, says Uber, who will leave tipping options in the hands of the consumer rather than the app.

    As free as they make us, mobile phones still need to stay close to a power source. Soon that may change with "green" power.

    Three Chilean students got the idea for a plant-powered device(装置) to charge（使……充电） their cellphones, while sitting in their school's outdoor courtyard during a break from exams, with dead mobile phones. Then, one of them had an "aha" moment.

    “It occurred to Camila to say about plants,” said inventor Evelyn Aravena. “'Why don't you have a socket, if there are so many plants? 'After that, we thought, 'why don't they have a charging outlet（插座）? Because there are so many plants and living things that have the potential to produce energy, why not?'”

    Their invention—a small biological circuit called E-Kaia—uses the energy plants to produce during photosynthesis(光合作用). A plant uses only a small part of that energy and the rest goes into the soil, and that's where the E-Kaia collects it. The device plugs into the ground and then into your phone.

    "It's the most amazing project I've ever seen in my life, plain and simple. They brought this original model, and it worked — and that's when it all changed, at least from my personal point of view and I began to support them." said Mauricio Cifuentes.

    The device solved two problems for the engineering students — they needed an idea for a class project, and an outlet to plug in their phones.

    "Looking for a place to charge the notebook, which had no power, and the mobile phones, we weren't able to find anything because all the other students were in the same state of madness trying to find a place to charge their devices," said Aravena.

    But plants are everywhere, and the bio－circuit makes good use of their excess(过多的) power.

    The E-Kaia doesn't carry much charge but it's powerful enough to completely recharge a mobile phone in less than two hours.

    The student inventors have applied for patents（专利） on their technology, and expect the E-Kaia to go on sale in the near future.

    You've probably heard such reports. The number of college students majoring in the humanities (人文学科) is decreasing quickly. The news has caused a flood of high-minded essays criticizing the development as a symbol of American decline.

    The bright side is this: The destruction of the humanities is, finally, coming to an end. No more will literature, as part of an academic curriculum, put out the light of literature. No longer will the reading of, say, "King Lear" or D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" result in the annoying stuff of multiple-choice quizzes, exam essays and homework assignments.

    The discouraging fact is that for every college professor who made Shakespeare or Lawrence come alive for the lucky few, there were countless others who made the reading of literary masterpieces seem like two hours in the dentist's chair.

    The remarkably insignificant fact that, a half-century ago, 14% of the undergraduate population majored in the humanities (mostly in literature, but also in art, philosophy, history, classics and religion) as opposed to 7% today has given rise to serious reflections on the nature and purpose of an education in the liberal arts.

    Such reflections always come to the same conclusion: We are told that the lack of a formal education, mostly in literature, leads to numerous harmful personal conditions, such as the inability to think critically, to write clearly, to be curious about other people and places, to engage with great literature after graduation, to recognize truth, beauty and goodness.

    Literature changed my life long before I began to study it in college. Books took me far from myself into experiences that had nothing to do with my life, yet spoke to my life. But once in the college classroom, this precious, alternate life inside me got thrown back into that dimension of my existence that bored me. Homer, Chekhov and Yeats were reduced to right and wrong answers, clear-cut themes and clever interpretations. If there is anything to worry about, it should be the disappearance of what used to be an important part of every high-school education: the literature survey course, where books were not academically taught but thoroughly introduced—an experience unaffected by stupid commentary and useless testing.

    The literary classics are places of quiet, useless stillness in a world that despises (鄙视) any activity that is not profitable or productive. Literature is too sacred to be taught. It needs only to be read.

    Soon, if all goes well and literature at last disappears from the undergraduate curriculum—my fingers are crossed—increasing numbers of people will be able to say that reading the literary masterworks of the past outside the college classroom, simply in the course of living, was, in fact, their college classroom.