A strong memory depends on the health and vitality （活力） of your brain. They say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but when it comes to the brain, scientists have discovered that this old saying simply isn't true. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

      Give your brain a workout. Memory, like muscular strength, requires you to “use it or lose it”. The more you work out your brain, the better you'll be able to process and remember information.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

        Don't skip the physical exercise. While mental exercise is important forbrain health, that doesn't mean you never need to break a sweat. Physical exercise helps your brainstay sharp. It increases oxygen to your brain and reduces the risk for disorders that lead to memory loss.

        Get enough sleep. There is a big difference between the amount of sleep you can get by on and the amount you need to function at your best.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Keep stress in check. Stress is one of the brain's worst enemies. Over time, stress destroys braincells. Studies have also linked stress to memory loss.

        Have a laugh.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} That holds true for the brain and the memory, as well as the body. Unlike emotional responses, which are limited to specificareas of the brain, laughter engages multiple regions across the whole brain.

{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Just as the body needs fuel, so does the brain. You probably already know that a diet based on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, “healthy”fats and lean protein will provide lots of health benefits, but such a diet can also improve memory. For brain health, though, it's not just what you eat—it's also what you don't eat.

A. Eat a brain-boosting diet.

B. Play games with memory.

C. Laughter is the best medicine.

D. But oversleeping is not good for yourbrain.

E. Even skipping a few hours makes adifference!

F. You have to shake things up from timeto time!

G. The human brain has an astonishingability to adapt and change.

    Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to warrant(保证；授权) time in front of the television have been invented in the UK.

    The shoes — named Square Eyes — contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter(传话器) passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day's efforts.

    The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University to London, UK. “We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. “And I wanted to deal with that with my design.”

    Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.

    Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals exactly one minute of TV time.

    Existing pedometers(计步器) normally clip(夹在) onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”

    Dreams can be familiar and strange, fantastical or boring, but some dreams might be connected to the mental processes that help us learn. In a recent study, scientists found a connection between nap time dreams and better memory in people who were learning a new skill.

    In the study, 99 college students between the ages of 18 and 30 each spent an hour on a computer, trying to get through a virtual maze (逃宫). The maze was difficult, and the study participants had to start in a different place each time they tried, making it even more difficult. They were also told to find a particular picture of a tree and remember where it was.

    For the first 90 minutes of a five - hour break, half of the participants stayed awake and half were told to take a short nap. Participants who stayed awake were asked to describe their thoughts. Participants who took a nap were asked about their dreams after sleep and they were awakened within a minute of sleep to describe their dreams.

    Stickgold, a neuroscientist, wanted to know what people were dreaming about when their eyes weren't moving during sleep.Four of the 50 people who slept said their dreams were connected to the maze. Some dreamed about the music that had been playing when they were working; others said they dreamed about seeing people in the maze. When these four people tried the computer maze again, they were able to find the tree faster than before their naps.

    Stickgold suggests the dream itself doesn't' help a person learn, it's the other way around. He suspects that the dream was caused by the brain processes associated with learning.

    All four of the people who dreamed about the task had done poorly the first time,which makes Stickgold wonder if the dreams show up when a person finds a new task particularly difficult. People who had other dreams, or people who didn't' take a nap, didn't show the same improvement.

    In this day and age,it may seem that getting two people with different views together to discuss them leads to a disaster.Just think about what would happen if you sat down and had an open and honest conversation with someone with completely opposing views.Could it bring you closer together?

    However,the Human Library Organization is counting on it.At a Human Library,people volunteer to become "books" and make their experiences open and available."Readers" are encouraged to ask them questions freely,and they'll get honest answers in return.There's no judgment,and no questions are off—limits.

    You won't find unpleasant comments,and you won't lose faith in humanity.At the Human Library,you actually feel letter about the world you live in.You might even make a new friend!

    "The human books consist of people who have been discriminated by society."said Ronni Abergel,the Human Library Organization's founder,who has set out to build a space for conversations that can challenge prejudices through dialogue."The most pleasantly surprising thing about it is how close all the human books become to one another."she said.

    Human Libraries help to remind us there really is more that unites us than divides us.And as events now spread throughout 82 countries,with Human Libraries even set to launch soon in Pakistan and Jordan,you can tell that is a shared feeling.

    "We can spend billions and billions in trying to build up homeland security and our safety,but real safety comes from having positive relations to other groups in your community."said Abergel,"Real safety is not going to come from building walls.It's going to come from reaching out and getting to know each other."

Christmas in the United States is traditionally a time of gift-giving and family gatherings. But small towns across the country have their own traditions.

Middleburg, a small town in the state of Virginia, is known for its horses. For more than 50 years, Middleburg has organized a yearly Christmas parade. Men and women ride horses through the woods and fields. They follow hunting dogs as they search for a wild fox. But first, these hunters ride in the yearly parade, wearing their bright red hunting clothes and hats.

John Hale, a citizen of Middleburg says many city people visit his town." We have a lot of people from an urban area that come to visit, but it incorporates a lot of the old traditions." The night-time hayride is one such tradition. Small groups gather under the moonlight on an open wagon (四轮马车) filled with hay (干草). The passengers sing as farm horses pull the wagon slowly across the fields.

There are some newer traditions, too. Trey Matheu works at the nearby Salamander Resort. He says a visit to Middleburg is a chance to slow down for a day. He says Middleburg can be a calming, peaceful place without tension.

"Middleburg is an opportunity to take a step back, to take a deep breath, and understand that even though life is moving on at a very fast pace, there's really an opportunity where you're allowed to step off for a little bit."

Parade organizers say more than 13, 000 people attend even in below freezing weather. But if you ask, you will hear many different reasons why people come to watch the parade:

"I come here because I'm from a small town. I like how everybody comes together."

"I live right down that street, right there. And that's my dog."

Middleburg looks its best at Christmastime. That may be why so many people return each year.

Video calls are a common occurrence, but have you imagined being able to touch the person on the other end of the line? Scientists are making this a reality.

Researchers at the University of new South Wales, Australia have invented a soft skin stretch device (SSD). A haptic device that can recreate the sense of touch. Haptic technology mimics the experience of touch by stimulating localized areas of the skin in ways that are similar to what is felt in the real world, through force, vibration or motion.

Vibration is the most common haptic technology today and has been built into many electronic devices such as one attached to the back of the trackpad (触摸板) in laptops, which simulates a button clicking. However, haptic feedback with vibration becomes less sensitive when used continuously. The existing technology also has great difficulty recreating the sense of touch with objects in virtual environments or located remotely. According to Mai Thanh Thai, lead author of the study.

The new technology overcomes issues with existing haptic devices. The research team introduced a novel method to recreate the sense of touch through a soft artificial "muscles".

"Our three-way directional skin stretch device, built into the fingertips of the wearable glove we also created is like wearing a second skin-- its soft stretchable and mimics the sense of touch-- and will enable new forms of haptic communication to enhance everyday activities" said Thanh Nho Do, senior author of the study.

Imagine you are at home and you call your friend who is in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs, and your friends also wears a glove with integrated 3D force sensors. If your friend picks up an object, it will physically press against your friend's fingers. And their glove with 3D force sensors will measure with interactions. The force signals can be sent to your glove so your device will generate the same 3D forces. Making you experience the same sense of touch as your friend.

The haptic devices could be applied in various situations, allowing users to feel objects inside a virtual world or at a distance. It could also be used in medical practices. Doctors can feel a patient's organ tissues. With surgical tools without touching them.