Almost one in five drivers had dozed off behind the wheel, a shocking news report had showed. Of those who were dozing off, 29% have done so with their cars speeding at 70 miles per hour. The report also found a quarter of men have fallen asleep while driving, making it almost twice as many as women.

    The Safety on Wheel Report, by Post Office Insurance, also looked at how often tiredness or a lack of concentration caused accidents. Three in ten drivers have experienced an accident, from passing a walker crossing to hitting another vehicle, because of a lack of concentration. Meanwhile, almost half (49%) of UK drivers have driven when they do not concentrate.

    Paul Haven hand, head of insurance at Post Office, said, “ When tiredness strikes, drivers should avoid the roads.” There is no measurement for tired driving, unlike driving under the influence of alcohol, yet it could result in an equally dangerous accident.

    Drivers are advised to take a 15-minute break from driving every two hours. However, a third (36%) are so eager to reach their destination that they will ignore feelings of tiredness. What's more, almost one in five (18%) will drive for longer than four hours without a break, while 6% carry on for up to 6 hours. Just over a quarter (27%) choose a quick stop to buy a cup of coffee, which is a very popular way for drivers to get rid of tiredness, and only 17% stop to have a rest until they feel energetic again. Mr. Havenhand added, “Drivers should plan ahead and rest before starting a long journey; besides, they can take regular breaks to recharge their batteries while on road; in some cases, if they do feel too tired to concentrate on the roads, they could consider an alternative means of transport.”

    When we see well, we do not think about our eyes very often. It is only when we cannot see perfectly that we realize how important our eyes are.

    People who are near-sighted can only see things that are very close to their eyes. Everything else seems ­­blurry. Many people who do a lot of work, such as writing, reading and sewing become near-sighted. People who are far-sighted suffer from just the opposite problem. They can see things that are far away, but they have difficulty in reading a book unless they hold it at arm's length. If they want to do much reading, they must get glasses, too.

    Other people do not see clearly because their eyes are not exactly the right shape. They have what is called astigmatism (散光). This, too, can be corrected by glasses. Some people's eyes become cloudy because of cataracts (白内障). Long ago these people often became blind. Now, however, it is possible to operate on the cataracts and remove them.

    Having two good eyes is important for judging distances. Each eye sees things from a slightly different angle. To prove this to yourself, look at an object out of one eye; then look at the same object out of your other eye. You will find the object's relation to the background and other things around it has changed. The difference between these two different eye views helps us to judge how far away an object is. People who have only one eye cannot judge distances as people with two eyes.

    My folks bought their first house in the early 1940s after Dad got a better job in Marquette, Michigan. We lived just inside the city limits in what was still a rural area.

    In the spring of 1948, when I was 6 years old, my parents bought a calf（小牛）to replace our cow, which had been killed the year before. So one day we drove to a local farm and returned with a white and brown calf we named Tubby.

    We didn't own a truck, so Tubby rode home in the backseat of Dad's car with my 9-year-old brother, Steve, and me. As you can imagine, the trip was a lot of fun for us kids.

    Later that summer, Mom thought it would be cute to take a picture of me sitting on Tubby's back. All went well until the snap of the camera shutter sent Tubby charging off on a run, with me holding on for dear life.

    I lasted for about 30 feet before I hit the ground. Mom was quick enough to shoot a follow-up picture, so we had photos of me both on and off Tubby!

    When summer had passed, the day arrived for poor Tubby to fill our freezer. I must have been somewhere else with my Mom on the fateful day, because I have no memory of how it happened. All I knew was that the barn was empty, and that we had plenty of meat for dinners.

    I hadn't lived on a farm like my mother, so I didn't understand that what happened to Tubby was not unusual. Livestock aren't meant to be pets, and most farm kids know and accept that truth.

    Whenever we had beef for dinner, I would tearfully, “Is this Tubby?” This went on for a couple of weeks until Dad had finally had enough and declared, “No more cows!” That made me feel a little better about poor Tubby.

    Christmas is a time for eating great food, giving and receiving presents, and most importantly spending time with your family watching some classic Christmas movies.

The Grinch (2000)

    This is a Christmas must-watch and one of Jim Carrey's best performances. It was also originally a nursery tale book written by Dr Seuss. It's the story of a green monster who wants to ruin Christmas but who in the end discovers the power of love and generosity. I promise it's a great film with plenty of laughs along the way.

    Love Actually (2003)

    While this is not a personal favourite of mine, people in the UK absolutely love this film. It has many featuring actors and actresses. It might be a little difficult to follow as there are complex plots, so I recommend watching a translated version or enabling subtitles (字幕) in your native language. However, the heart-warming elements of the film make it worth watching.

    Home Alone (1990)

    This amusing masterwork is one of my favourite films of all time. It tells the story of a boy, Kevin, who is left alone in his house when his large family forgets to take him on vacation with them. While the families are away, burglars try to rob the house and Kevin must protect his home by setting traps. The trips, falls and traps will have you laughing out loud as you watch a 10-year-old boy beat two grown men.

    Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

    You can't have Christmas in an English-speaking country without watching this movie. It's not funny like Home Alone or The Grinch, but it is incredibly touching. It's about a man who claims to be Santa, but nobody believes him except a lawyer and a little girl. The story-line may seem a little childish but you can enjoy it at any age.

    Developed by researchers and designers specializing in typography(印刷术)and behavioral science, Sans Forgetica is a new font(字体)designed to help readers better remember the information they read by forcing them to spend a bit more time on each word.

    The design of Sans Forgetica is based on a font called Albion, but with substantial  modifications(修改)to reduce familiarity and attain its goal of engaging the brain more and helping the reader retain(保留) more information. It was developed by scientists at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, who believe it could help students studying for exams.

    “We believe this is the first time that specific principles of design theory have been combined with specific principles of psychology theory in order to create a font, ”Behavioral economist Jo Peryman told DW.

    If fonts are too familiar, readers often glance over them without their brain creating may  memories of what was read. At the same time, if a font is too outlandish, the brain has to struggle too much to decipher(破译)it while neglecting the retention of information. According to its developers, “Sans Forgetica lies at a sweet spot where just enough obstacle has been added to create that memory retention.” Its modifications force readers to spend more time, but not too much time, reading each word, allowing the brain to engage in deeper cognitive processing.

    So does Sans Forgetica actually work? Does it help readers better remember the information they read? So far, studies have shown that it can make a difference, although not a significant one.

    One experiment had 96 participants recall word pairs presented in three different fonts. They remembered 69 percent of the word pairs written in Sans Forgetica, compared to 61 percent for the other fonts. In a different experiment, 303 students took a mock(模拟)multiple-choice exam, and whenever the text was presented in Sans Forgetica, they remembered 57 percent of the text, compared to only 50 percent of the surrounding text written in Arial font.

    So Sans Forgetica won't give you the memory of an elephant, but if you're the kind of person who believes every little bit helps, it might be worth a try.

    When you were at school, the last thing you probably wanted to do was spend your weekends going to work. There was homework to do, sport to play and fun to have. But our parents probably persuaded us to find a job to earn some money and get some life experience. When I was a teenager I had a paper round: delivering newspapers to people's homes. I then progressed to a Saturday job in a supermarket: stacking shelves and working at the checkout.

    Today in the UK you are allowed to work from the age of 13, and many children do take up part-time jobs. It's one of those things that are seen almost as a rite of passage(成人仪式).It's a taste of independence and sometimes a useful thing to put on your CV(简历).Teenagers agree that it teaches valuable lessons about working with adults and also about managing their money.

    Some research has shown that not taking up a Saturday or holiday job could be deleterious to a person later on. A 2015 study by the UK Commission on Employment and Skills found that not participating in part-time work at school age had been blamed by employer's organizations for young adults being ill-prepared for full-time employment, but despite this, recent statistics have shown that the number of schoolchildren in the UK with a part-time job has fallen by a fifth in the past five years.

    So, does this mean that British teenagers are now afraid of hard work? Probably not. Some experts feel that young people feel going out to work will affect their performance at school, and they are under more pressure now to study hard and get good exam results-and a good job in the long term. However, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told BBC News that "Properly regulated(控制的)part-time work is a good way of helping young people learn skills that they will need in their working lives." In reality, it's all about getting the right balance between doing part-time work and having enough time to study and rest.