A study published in Child Development,the top－ranked educational psychology journal,provides some of the strongest evidence yet that gesturing may have a unique effect on learning.Teachers in the United States tend to use gestures less than teachers in other countries.

     "Gesturing can be a very beneficial tool that is completely free and easily employed in classrooms," said Kimberly Fenn,study co－author and assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University."And I think it can have long－lasting effects."

    Fenn and Ryan Duffy of MSU and Susan Cook of the University of Iowa conducted an experiment with 184 second－,third－ and fourth－graders in Michigan elementary classrooms.

    Half of the students were shown videos of an instructor teaching math problems using only speech.The others were shown videos of the instructor teaching the same problems using both speech and gestures.In the speech－only videos,the instructor simply explains the problem.In the other videos,the instructor uses two hand gestures while speaking,using different hands to refer to the two sides of the equation.Students who learned from the gesture videos performed better on a test given immediately afterward than those who learned from the speech－only video.

    Another test was given 24 hours later,and the gesture students actually showed improvement in their performance while the speech－only students did not.

    While previous research has shown the benefits of gestures in a one－on－one tutoring－style environment,the new study is the first to test the role of gestures in equivalence learning in a regular classroom.

    The study also is the first to show that gestures can help students transfer learning to new contexts—such as transferring the knowledge learned in an addition－based equation to a multiplication－based equation.

    Fenn noted that U.S.students lag behind those in many other Western countries in math and have a particularly hard time mastering equivalence problems in early grades."So if we can help them grasp this foundational knowledge earlier," she said,"it will help them as they learn algebra and higher levels of mathematics."

    The Coolest Inventions

    An Oceans Vacuum(吸尘器)

    There's a collection of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's bigger than Texas and growing. The way to clean it up now is to catch it with nets. That is both costly and slow. Instead, the Ocean Cleanup Project proposes a 62-mile-long floating barrier that would use natural currents to trap trash. If next year's trials succeed, a full cleanup operation would aim to start in 2020. It could reduce the trash by 42% over 10 years.

    Easy-On Shoes

    In 2012, Matthew Walzer, a high school student with a disability, sent a note to Nike. “My dream is to go to college,” he wrote, “without having to worry about someone coming to tie my shoes every day.” Nike assigned a design team to the challenge. This year, they came out with their solution: the FlyEase. The basketball shoe can be fastened with one hand. A pair of Nike FlyEase shoes sells for $130.

    An Airport for Drones (无人机)

    As Amazon, Google, and others get ready for drone delivery service, there is one big question: What kinds of home bases will their drones have? Rwanda, in Africa, may have the answer. There, workers will soon start work on three “drone ports”. The goals is to make it easier to transport food, medical supplies, electronics, and other goods through the hilly countryside. Construction is set to be completed in 2020.

    In order to increase their job chances after college, Chinese students are turning to a special practice—Eiffel Tower nose jobs (鼻整形手术). The latest trend in plastic surgery promises to create a nose that is similar to the curve of the Eiffel Tower.

    Surgeon Wang Xuming said:  “We are influenced by the beauty of the Eiffel Tower. We are not content to just add something to the nose; we reconstruct it.” The surgery costs about US$ 10,000 and involves the enlarging of the nose using tissue from the forehead.

    Hundreds of posters advertising the procedure are put up all over Chongqing city, where surgeon Xuming runs his private practice. They show a western-looking woman with an almost-to o-perfect nose, against an outline of the Eiffel Tower.

    Interestingly, many young women in China are eager to achieve a western appearance, as they believe it will give them an advantage in the highly competitive job market. “Some students face a lot of employment pressure after graduation. If their facial features are good, they'll have more chances of finding a job,” said surgeon Xuming. “We've had students getting the Eiffel Tower nose; it's helped them a lot.”

    Apparently, Chinese employers are quite particular about appearances and prefer attractive candidates. Some of them even go as far as putting height and weight requirements in their employment ads. Plastic surgeons across the country are reporting an increase in the number of students choosing beauty “improvement”.

    According to a Mr. Li, hospital manager at surgeon Xuming's clinic, most of their customers are female and the bill is taken care of by the family. “They usually come in with their mothers, and tend to be from well-off backgrounds.” he said.

    Personally, I don't think it so important to “improve” our appearance as long as we are skilled at our jobs. We can't decide how we look, but we can decide how well we live and work.

A facial expression results from one or more motions of the muscles of the face. These movements convey the emotional nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among humans, but also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species.

In the business world, much emphasis is placed on your first words, but it isn't all about what you say. You only have seconds to make a first impression that can make or break a relationship in business. Since the face is the first thing we notice about a person, it's vital to use your face to make that important connection.

Researchers have shown that 55 percent of non-verbal communication is facial. People generally try to mask negative expressions such as disappointment, fear or envy, but these feelings are often reflected in their eyes, or the downward turn of the mouth.

Genuine expressions of anger and surprise can be quite brief, lasting for only a few seconds. If an expression remains longer, it may be a sign of insincerity (不真诚). In general, a genuine expression matches the beginnings of a feeling, so watch for expressions that come after the words.

The research conducted last year by a team from Glasgow University, suggested that people from different cultures read facial expressions differently. Not only can that mean confusion in everyday life, but it can lead to confusion when conducting business.

The study found that East Asian participants tended to focus on the eyes of the other person, while Western subjects took in the whole face, including the eyes and the mouth. The work, which was published in Current Biology journal challenged the idea that facial expressions are universally understood. In the study, East Asians were more likely than Westerners to read the expression for "fear" as "surprise", and "disgust "as "anger".

With more recognition than Halloween and less than Christmas, Valentine's Day as an imported festival faces a dangerous situation in China, where it's caught between forces of tradition and fashion. Valentine's Day has a natural enemy in China. And it is not the Chinese equivalent, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month on the lunar calendar, usually around half a year away from Feb. 14. It is the Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year, that will influence the Feast of Saint Valentine.

The real disagreement between East and West probably took place over a century ago, when China's door was forced open by Western powers and Chinese scholars supported westernization as a means to strengthen our nation's ability to compete.

The introduction of the solar calendar and Western measurements was both an acknowledgment of their influence and an effort to be accepted by the world order.

For a full century, we have had two systems running in parallel. When it comes to the eventual outcome, practicality usually beats all other concerns. Laws can help, such as the three traditional festivals of Tomb Sweeping, Dragon Boat and Mid­Autumn gaining legal status in 2008 and giving every Chinese citizen a day off, but laws cannot push what people have no feelings for. So, the celebration or boycott of imported holidays or homegrown ones should be no cause for worry. If they are irrelevant, no social media will change the public's mind; and if they are accepted, there must be a need which they happen to satisfy.

Since we have no global Qin Shihuang to force one system on every country, we can always rely on a dual (双重的) approach by which we share with the outside world on the one hand but preserve our own ways of life on the other.

Dawn Loggins of Lawndale, N. C. is on her way to Harvard, one of the eight world­famous universities in the eastern US. Nobody encouraged her to study or paid for her special classes. This girl created her own future.

The teen was abandoned by her family last summer, when her parents and two sisters moved to Tennessee. She found herself homeless and had to spend the night on friend's sofas.

The school bus driver learned about Dawn's situation and invited Dawn to move in with her family. Soon, Dawn had a job at Burns High School. She worked from 6 a. m. to 7：40 a. m. before the first school bell rang. She swept floors and picked up trash again in the afternoons, before diving into her studies in the evenings.

Dawn's hard work paid off. She finished school with a 3. 9 GPA and scored 2, 110 on the SAT.

"There were times when I felt like it would be easiest if I gave up," the 18­year­old said." But it was never in me to give up, because I realized that I was never going to be successful unless I got an education."

Even before Dawn's family left her, she led a difficult life. Her family was poor and cups of noodles were often the only food. Dawn" studied by candlelight" because her parents couldn't afford to pay the electricity bill(电费).

Dawn has now reconnected with her family. They are proud of her accomplishments(成就)and are attending her high school graduation.