It's 5:00 in the morning when the alarm rings in my ears. I roll out of bed and walk blindly through the dark into the bathroom. I turn on the light and put on my glasses. The house is still as I walk downstairs while my husband and three kids sleep peacefully. Usually I go for a long run, but today I choose my favorite exercise DVD. Insanity. Sweat pours down my face and into my eyes. My heart races as I face my body to finish each movement. As I near the end of the exercise, I feel extremely tired, but a smile is on my face. It's not a smile because the DVD is over, but a smile of success from pushing my body to its extreme limit.

    Some people enjoy shopping, smoking, food, work, or even chocolate. But I need exercise to get through each day. Some shake heads when they see me run through the town. Others get hurt when I refuse to try just one bite of their grandmother's chocolate cake. They raise their eyebrows, surprised by my “no thank you,” or by my choice to have a salad. Over the years , I have learned it's okay to just say “no.” I shouldn't feel sorry for refusing food that I don't want to eat.

    So what drives me to roll out of bed at 5:00 a.m.? What gives me the reason to just say no to ice cream? Commitment. A commitment to change my life with a way that reduces daily anxiety, increases self –confidence and energy, extends life and above all improves my body shape. This is the point where a smile appears on my face as I look at myself in the mirror or try on my favorite pair of jeans that now fit just right. It's through commitment and sweat that I can make a difference within myself inside and out.

    A recent experiment proves that bees can save time and energy when they fly around to different flowers.

    Dr Nigel Raine, from the Royal Holloway University of London, has always been interested in finding out why animal behave like they do. He is also interested in bees. It was not a surprise when he and some other scientists from Queen Mary University of London discovered that bees can quickly solve a problem that takes computers many days.

    Flowers make pollen (花粉), and when bees visit them, they carry the pollen to other flowers. The plants need the pollen to make seeds that will grow. Dr Raine notes that we get a lot of our food from plants, so it is important to know how the bees move around and take the pollen between flowers. The scientists wanted to examine the journey that the bees take and how they save energy when they do this. They completed the experiment on the roof of Queen Mary University, using artificial flowers and a large amount of nectar, a sweet liquid produced by flowers. They taught one bee to visit all the flowers in one place at the same time. When the bee got to know the location of the flowers well, they saw how it flew around and returned home with the nectar. After this, they changed the locations of the flowers. The scientists thought the bee would follow the route it knew already. This would mean that it followed a longer route than it needed to, and so it would use more energy. They watched the bee carefully as it travelled between the flowers in their new location, and they made notes. But in the experiment, the bee changed its route and flew a shorter distance.

    The problem that the bee solved is similar to a maths puzzle called the 'travelling salesman problem'. A salesman who goes to different places to sell things wants to travel the shortest distance. But he has to calculate the length of many possible routes to know which one is the shortest. A computer can calculate this but the experiment shows bees can do the same calculation quickly with a tiny brain. Scientists are very interested in how they do this. It would help us to understand how pollen is moved around. In addition, if they find this out, it could help us to improve communication networks. This might help humans to reduce traffic jams when there is an accident, for example.

    Supermarket shoppers who buy lots of foods on "two for one" deals are far more likely to be obese (肥胖的), a major study suggests.

    Cancer Research UK found that those with highest consumption of discounted foods were at 50 percent greater risk of obesity, compared with those with low take-up of such deals.

    The study of more than 16,000 households found almost one in three food and drink items in UK supermarket baskets were bought on promotion. And the discounts were far more likely to be applied to unhealthy foods, with almost half of all chocolate, crisps, popcorn, and savoury snacks bought on promotion.

    Shoppers whose baskets contained between 40 and 80 percent of goods on special offer were 54 percent more likely to be obese than those with a maximum 20 percent of foods on such deals. Those with highest take-up of the deals bought 30 percent less fruit, and nearly 25 percent fewer vegetables than those shunning the deals.

    The study follows a government consultation on proposals to ban "buy one, get one free" deals on unhealthy foods and supermarket "guilt lanes" as part of its childhood obesity strategy.

    One in five children are overweight or obese when they start primary school, rising to around one in three when they leave.

    Research has found that obesity increases the risk of 13 different types of cancer including bowel and breast disease.

    Alison Cox, director of cancer prevention at Cancer Research UK, said: "The government's proposed 9 p. m. ban on junk food ads is a step forward in fighting childhood obesity. Now we want to see restrictions on price promotions for unhealthy food and drink items, as well as those strategically placed at checkouts. This will help families to make healthier choices.

    "There isn't one magic fix for the problem, but getting rid of these encouragements to buy unhealthy food is key to changing it."

    In today's society, language plays a key role in defining gender (性别) by vocabulary, and also their non-verbal (非语言的) vocabulary. Each one of these different types of ways of communicating is obviously different between men and women.

    Many different studies show that men tend to talk much more than women. It has also been proven that women tend to speak faster than men; this is due to the fact that women tend to be interrupted more often than men are, and also have the ability to speak more clearly, precisely, and more quickly than men. In one study it was found that women spoke for an average of three minutes describing a painting, as opposed to the thirteen-minute average it took men to describe it.

    Men and women also tend to have a very different non-verbal way of communicating, which can also make it very hard for one another to understand what the opposite sex is trying to say. Men's body language is much more reserved when talking to women. Men tend not to make as much eye contact and they generally stay farther away from women when talking to them. Men avoid other people's body space while talking, and they also tend to sit back when talking. All of these have given off the impression of disinterest or boredom. Women are by far better listeners and much more enjoyable to talk with and they tend to raise more topics for conversation.

    Women also make it clearer whether or not the conversation is going somewhere or just stuck in neutral. After learning about our styles of communicating with each other, I have decided that although men have not quite mastered communicating, what fun would it be if we all spoke the same "language"? The little games men and women play with each other while conversing would be lost. The question everyone asks himself or herself after talking with someone of the opposite sex, "I wonder if there's something there?" would no longer exist.

    Does the amount of cash in a lost wallet influence how likely a person is to return it? Classical economic theories suggest that the greater the appeal, the less likely we are to be honest—but a new study turns the idea on its head, finding altruism(利他主义), and a powerful hate for viewing oneself as a "thief" outweigh the financial attraction.

    A team of researchers conducted a huge experiment concerning 355 cities in 40 countries. More than 17,000 identical wallets were dropped off at public places, each containing a grocery list, a key, and three business cards in the local language using made-up names and an email address. Some had no money while others contained the equivalent (等值) of $13.45.

    According to the research, people on average returned 40% of wallets with no money in them but 51%with money. It also shows extreme differences between countries. But although rates of people's honesty varied greatly from country to country, one thing remained remarkably constant: wallets with money, as opposed to no money, raised reporting rates.

    In the US, the UK and Poland, they repeated the experiment with even more money: $94.15, which increased reporting rates by an average of 11% compared to the smaller amount. They also found that having a key expanded reporting rates by 9.2%.

    The findings, which run counter to a fundamental principle of classical economics, suggest honesty, altruism and self-image can sometimes be more influential than economic self-interest.

    A purely economic approach to behavior suggests people would keep the wallets with the larger amounts of money due to the increased financial reward, but economics often doesn't account for a person's sense of honesty or self-image, according to behavioral scientists. Altruism also influenced the findings, the researchers say. Since the key is valuable to the owner but not the finder, this pointed toward an altruism concern in addition to the cost of negatively updating one's self image.

    The great-grandmother is learning English with the help of her family when she is at the age of 91. She hopes to use the language at next year's Olympic Games in Tokyo. Takamizawa was one of the more than 200, 00 people who requested to volunteer for Tokyo's 2020 Games. English is not required for service, but it is a useful skill for volunteers to have.

    But Takamizawa had not been able to learn the language when she was young. Takamizawa said that she was in high school when World War Two started. She said, "In my second year there, English was banned because it was the enemy language."

    Takamizawa said her grandchildren helped persuade her that she was not too old to learn. "When I talked to my grandchildren about my wish, they said, 'It's not too late. We will teach you one word a day' ". Natsuko is Takamizawa's granddaughter and main English teacher. Natsuko sends a new English word to her grandmother's phone every day. They also often work together directly on phrases that Takamizawa will need for the Olympics. "Welcome to Tokyo, this is the Olympic stadium, how can I help you?" Takamizawa answers when asked to say an English phrase she has learned. Natsuko explains that she wanted to give her grandmother something to enjoy. "I can clearly see her English is getting better. It's my joy now."

    The EF English Proficiency Index is a measure of the level of English spoken in a country. Japan ranks 49th among countries where English is not the first language. This situation is slowly changing as younger generations welcome English. However, Takamizawa believes real change will not happen unless Japanese people become more open to the rest of the world. With around 500 days to go until the games begin, the whole Takamizawa family is ready to welcome the world to Tokyo.