Most of us have gone away from “mad men” in the street, only to realize that they are in fact using a Bluetooth headset. Now a new University of Pennsylvania study shows that muttering can actually help people find lost objects—in other words, saying the name of an object helps you find it more quickly.

    Previous work has suggested that speaking aloud while performing step-by-step tasks, like tying shoelaces (鞋带), can help kids guide their behavior and let them focus on the job in hand. However, scientists were not sure if speaking aloud when performing tasks could help adults in the same way, especially when looking for particular objects. Professor Gary Lupan and Daniel Swingley, writing for the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, carried out some experiments. They hoped to give the fact that next time you lose your keys, muttering “keys, keys, keys” can in fact help you find them.

    Inspired by viewing people muttering to themselves as they try to find things like peanut butter in a supermarket, the researchers conducted two experiments to see if this actually worked. In the first, participants were shown 20 pictures of various objects and were asked to find a certain one, with some seeing a text label (标签) telling them what they were looking for. These participants were then asked to search for the object again while saying the word to themselves, with results showing that saying it aloud helped people find the object more quickly.

    The second experiment saw participants performing a shopping task, where they were shown photographs of items (物品) commonly found on supermarket shelves. They were asked to find all examples of a particular item, so if they were asked for apples they had to find all the bags of apples, as quickly as possible. The researchers found that there was also an advantage in saying the name of the product aloud when they were searching for something familiar.

    The University of Pennsylvania study shows that muttering can actually help people reach the target object—in other words, muttering to oneself helps to focus the mind on something. It works more effectively than seeing a written description. Repeating the word over and over again helps even more.

    A warm drink of milk before bed has long been the best choice for those wanting a good night's sleep. But now a study has found it really does help people nod off-if it is milked from a cow at night.

    Researchers have discovered that “night milk” contains more melatonin(褪黑激素), which has been proven to help people feel sleepy and reduce anxiety.

    The study, by researchers from Seoul, South Korea, involved mice being fed with dried milk powder made from cows milked both during the day and at night.

    Those given night milk, which contained 10 times the amount of melatonin, were less active and less anxious than those fed with the milk collected during daytime, according to the study published in The Journal of Medicinal Food.

    Night milk quickened the start of sleep and caused the mice to sleep longer.

    While the effect of cows milk harvested at different time has not been tested on humans up to now, taking melatonin drugs has been suggested to those who are struggling to fall asleep at night.

    Previous studies have also indicated that milk can be excellent for helping sleep because of the calcium content, which helps people to relax.

    Milk is also sugar-free and additive-free with nutritionists recommending skimmed milk as the best choice before bed as it is the least fattening. The more fat you take in before bedtime, the greater burden you will put on your body at night.

    After years of debate, gray wolves were reintroduced (重新引进) to Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves were caught in Canada and moved to the park. By 2016, the Yellowstone wolf population had grown to more than 170.

    Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and other pans of United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around. The disappearance of the wolves had many unexpected results. Deer and elk populations—major food sources(来源) for the wolf—grew rapidly. These animals ate large amounts of plants, which reduced plant diversity(多样性) in the park. With the disappearance of gray wolves, coyote (草原狼) populations also grew quickly. The coyotes killed a great number of red foxes in the park, and completely drove away the park's beavers (河狸).

    As early as 1966, biologists asked the government to consider reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. They hoped that wolves would be able to control the elk and coyote problems. Many framers were against the plan because they feared that wolves would kill their farm animals or pets.

    The government spent nearly 30 years thinking lip a plan to reintroduce the wolves. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carefully monitors and manages the wolf packs in Yellowstone. Today, the debate continues over how well the gray wolf is fitting in at Yellowstone. Elk, deer, and coyote populations are down, while beavers and red foxes have made a comeback. The Yellowstone wolf project has been a valuable experiment to help biologists decide whether to reintroduce wolves to other parts of the country as well.

A Wild Child's Guide to Endangered Animals

From New York Times bestselling author Millie Marotta comes this gorgeous celebration of the animal kingdom. Highlighting 43 endangered species, the book takes readers on a trip around the world while learning about rare and well-known animals and their habitats.

Marcovaldo

Marcovaldo is a collection of 20 short stories written by Italo Calvino. Describing the life of a poor rural man living in northern Italy, the stories unfold according to the seasonal cycle of a year. Common themes in the stories include pollution, failure and poverty.

The Art of Mondo

Over the years, Mondo has received global recognition for its incredible art posters that bring to life classic films, television shows, and comics such as Jurassic Park. For the first time, The Art of Mondo brings together this highly sought-after art in one volume that showcases the incredible creativity of the studio's artists whose vastly different styles are united by one guiding principle: limitless passion for their subject matters.

The Coming of the Third Reich

There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler's rise to power and the collapse(坍塌) of civilization in Nazi Germany. The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard Evans, offers a masterful combination of academic work, important new research and interpretations.

Patriarchy and Capitalism

Chizuko Ueno, a leading Japanese sociologist, feminist critic and public intellectual, has been a pioneer in women's studies and the author of many books, including Patriarchy and Capitalism.

Many Chinese people have recently been surprised {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (find) that many types of food that they thought were imported are {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (actual) grown or produced in Northeast China. 

The northeastern region of the country has been attracting {#blank#}3{#/blank#} huge amount of attention this winter, with so many visitors going to its tourist attractions in search of ice and snow, and {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (praise) the enthusiasm of its people. 

To show its {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (appreciate) to the people of Heilongjiang for taking good care of a group of 11 kindergarten children from South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region during their visit {#blank#}6{#/blank#} the northeastern province, Nanning, the regional capital of Guangxi, sent 189 tons of mandarins to Harbin, Heilongjiang's provincial capital. Heilongjiang then returned the gesture and sent 100,000 boxes of cranberries to Guangxi. 

The cranberries surprised a lot of Chinese people, even many from Heilongjiang Province, {#blank#}7{#/blank#} didn't realize that the fruit is produced in the region. Since the introduction of cranberries from North America in 2014, Fuyuan city in Heilongjiang Province {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (grow) 280 hectares of cranberries, making it one of the {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (large) cranberry growing bases in Asia. 

Other types of fruits grown in Northeast China include blueberries and raspberries, which {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (think) to be imported into China from other countries, too. Many people have also discovered that some precious foods, such as Wagyu beef, are also produced in Northeast China.