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    In 2006，Paul Letourneau of Worcester，Mass，lost his parents，his home and his pet dog.And that August，his life­long mild depression took a turn for the worse as he became suicidal(有自杀倾向的)．

    “I said I didn't want to be alive anymore，”Letourneau,67，recalled telling his best friend.

    He and his friend had gone for a walk when Letourneau stopped and asked his friend about ways to die painlessly.His friend advised him to admit himself to a hospital.

    “When I went back home，physically，I was shaking so much－and emotionally，I couldn't stop，”Letourneau said，“I knew I had to get help.”

    For many men，it takes a lot more than feeling down to recognize that they are depressed and then step through the doors  of a hospital，or a friend's or relative's home to ask for help.Men who are depressed usually refuse to get appropriate treatment，depression experts and patients say.

    “When men get depressed，the depression can be quite severe，”said Dr.lan Cook，professor of psychiatry at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.“The challenge is getting men to acknowledge that they're depressed.”

    Depression affects about 15 million people in the United States，according to the National Institutes of Mental Health，and men get depressed about half as often as women.

    “It's unclear how much of this is a reporting bias，”Cook  said.“The stigma(耻辱)issues are somewhat different for men than they are for women.”

    “Men intend to consider that asking for help is a sign of  weakness，but when they can't complete the task of bringing themselves to the Promised Land，they become at risk.” said  Steven Lappen，who was once a depression patient.

    When it comes to gifts, it's not easy to shop for someone when you're not sure what they're into. Thankfully, Crate and Barrel's sister store — the modern, fancy version — CB2 has a gift collection that is just as beautiful as it is practical. They're known for their modern designs. We've edited a list of some of our favorite gift ideas from CB2 so you'll know just what to get.

    Galactic Jewelry Box ($21)

    This jewelry box is not only a place to store your jewels, but it looks like one itself. “Designed by UK-based Seascape Curiosities, the jewelry box brings deep space to your room. Open storage space lined with light grey cotton velvet holds most-precious possessions,” CB2 states. The best part? It's under $25.

    Flamingo Catchall ($29.95)

    Designed by the British fashion designer Matthew Williamson, this flamingo catchall is a pop of color in every room and offers a secure place to store some of your favorite rings, earrings, or little items. Not only is it an awesome addition to just about any home, it's also a great conversation starter at dinner parties.

    Heritage Navy Leather Activity Ball ($49)

    It's a great gift for the man in your life who loves sports. Crafted with design and function in mind, handmade activity ball (think of it as a smaller basketball) stands up to years of play and even gets better looking with age. It's a super addition to any bookshelf.

    Black Nickel Cocktail Shaker ($24.95)

    This cocktail shaker starts off with a smoky black finish and fades into grey. It's fashionable, functional, and — above all — easy to clean.

    For twenty years, I saved all my college course notes and textbooks: that's a lot of paper.  Worse, it wasn't easy to carry them around—and trust me, they weren't light — on at least seven moves. Yet I never once looked at them. They sat in our basement, covered in a thick layer of dust. If books and papers could wonder, they'd wonder why they were still under our stairs after all those years. What were my plans for them? When would the Big Day come?

    Well, the Big Day eventually did arrive; only it was different than expected. My wife, always more accepting changes than I am, finally convinced me to clear out the entire mess.

    The pain I experienced was also unexpected. I didn't feel nostalgia(怀旧的), or suffer pains for long-lost magical moments of my education. No, what hurt me was to come across those terrible papers I'd written, reminders of poor study habits, immaturity(不成熟), and an embarrassing lack of comprehension. It was great to get rid of them. I won't have to carry those dusty, filthy(脏兮兮的) things on our next move. But it was also a clearing of personal history. Initially, I struggled with this. My books, my notes, and my papers were primary source materials, documenting an important time in my life. To clear them out was to clear out the truth. What I've learned since taking this leap is that the lesson is more important than the truth. I feel as if much of my real education during my college years isn't in the documents but now in me. So I am glad to free myself of this physical burden of carrying them around. And what's better is that I don't need to look back on those painful moments. They belong to the past.

    You might want to consider doing something similar, either under the stairs of your basement or in your mind. Not so long ago, a very smart person created a new holiday—Discardia!—to be celebrated four times a year. It's a great idea, and every time I clear things out, I feel better physically and psychologically. Discardia's slogan is “Let go of everything that doesn't make your life awesome!” What is the personal rubbish piling in your life? Clear it out and make your life awesome.

    Tiny microbes(微生物)are at the heart of a new agricultural technique to manage harmful greenhouse gas. Scientists have discovered how microbes can be used to turn carbon dioxide into soil­enriching limestone(石灰石), with the help of a type of tree that grows in tropical areas, such as West Africa.

    Researchers have found that when the Iroko tree is grown in dry, acidic soil and treated with a combination of natural fungi(霉菌)and other bacteria, not only does the tree grow well, it also produces the mineral limestone in the soil around its root.

    The Iroko tree makes a mineral by combining Ca from the earth with CO₂ from the atmosphere The bacteria then create the conditions under which this mineral turns into limestone. The discovery offers a new way to lock carbon into the soil, keeping it out of the atmosphere. In addition to storing carbon in the trees leaves and in the form of limestone, the mineral in the soil makes it more suitable for agriculture.

    The discovery could lead to reforestation(重新造林) projects in tropical countries, and help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the developing world. It has already been used in West Africa and is being tested in Bolivia, Haiti and India.

    The findings were made in a three­year project involving researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Granada, Lausanne and Delft University of Technology. The project examined several microbiological methods of locking CO₂ as limestone, and the Iroko­bacteria way showed best results. Work was funded by the European Commission under the Future&Emerging Technologies(FET)scheme.

    Dr. Bryne Ngwenya of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the research, said: "By taking advantage of this natural limestone­producing process, we have a low­tech, safe, readily employed and easily operating way to lock carbon out of the atmosphere, while improving farming conditions in tropical countries."

The brain-training app trains people to tap on images of healthy foods but to stop when they see unhealthy snacks, creating a link between these foods and stops. The new study, by the universities of Exeter and Helsinki, found that playing the game about once a day for a month led to an average one-point reduction of junk food consumption.

Generally, people who used the app more also reported great changes in their food intake. One app user wrote, "Really useful. I used to eat junk food two to four times a week and I have reduced this to once a week after using the app regularly for a month. My desire for junk food has been reduced greatly and I no longer eat in the evening mindlessly."

The study used the app's usage data, and the app regularly asked questions about how often users eat certain food, along with other information such as their age and weight. The findings suggested that using the app regularly was linked with big changes in eating habits.

The app is free and it only takes about four minutes per day, so it's something people can do not just at home but at work and elsewhere. "From our results it seems important that you do the training at regular times and don't just stop. Therefore, keep it interesting, so you won't get bored with it. Personalize the app as much as possible and pick the food that you find really hard to resist," said Natalia Lawrence, a professor of the University of Exeter.

The researchers stressed that their findings should be further proved, because there was no comparison group and other factors____(such as the possibility that people who did more training were also more motivated to lose weight) could play a part in the results.