The more interested you are in a topic, the more likely you may be to form “false memories” about the events related to that topic.

    “Most people are pretty confident about their own memory for some events, but new research shows that false memory is a lot more frequent than many people realize. In terms of daily life, the key point here may be to understand that someone who remembers an event differently from yours isn't necessarily lying—someone's memory may be faulty, or it might be you,” said study co-author Ciara Greene, a psychologist at the university College Dublin.

    In the study, the researchers asked 489 people to read four news stories about events that were related to the topics they ranked as the most interesting, and four stories about events related to the topics they rated as the least interesting. In each case, three of these events really did occur, but the fourth one was made up.

    It turned out that people tended to remember the stories of the topics they said they were more interested in compared with the topics they were not interested in. However, the participants also tended to store more false memories related to the topics they were interested in compared with the topics they were not interested in, the researchers found.

    The more people know about a topic, the more memories related to this topic they have stored in their brains, the researchers said. Therefore, when a person meets new information on this topic, that information may find traces of similar memories that have already stored in the brain, Greene said.

    “This can result in a sense of familiarity or recognition of the new material, leading to the conviction (确信) that the information has been met before and is in fact an existing memory,” Greene said. In other words, this new material or information may “feel” familiar and therefore the person may believe it must be true, he said.

    Learning more about how false memories work may help protect against the harmful results of them, such as when eyewitness accounts(证言) of crimes are faulty.

    We have a strange obsession with the concept of perfection. “If I have the perfect parents and perfect grades, then I would be happy.” Under cultural influence, we seek what we can't have without remembering that we don't actually need to be perfect. Imperfection allows us to be human.

    Parents, teachers and other high-achieving peers will have us believe that we must be perfect if we wish to remain competitive. However, what job or school requires you to have a 2400 SAT, 4.0 GPA and develop a cure for some form of cancer by the age of 18? Although these would be great achievements, are they worth the cost of sleep? We feel like we need the perfect grades to get into the perfect college that will provide us with the perfect education necessary to obtain the perfect job. With this misconception, when writing our resumes(简历), we then seek out experiences that we think may help build a good name for ourselves. Feeding on our thirst for perfection, some college and career industries have been set up claiming to help us reach our goals.

    The truth is, you only need to be good enough. Don't worry about anything secondary to your passions. You won't become an expert at anything if you spend your time trying to succeed in everything you do. You only become an expert when you devote your time to the one or two projects that truly bring you joy.

    As members of this society, we have a responsibility to be excellent in what we do, not perfect. Although perfection can be a goal, it should not be the only goal. We only have 24 hours in a day. Thus, we need to prioritize(优先选择)what we want to do and cut out the activities we cannot do. If you enjoy debating, take a law class and see how it suits you. If you enjoy cooking, experiment in the kitchen and see what you can make!

    Try as hard as you can and let your future worry about itself. Worry about your task at hand and you will be successful in achieving your dreams. Above all, remember that you are going to be okay.

Earth's geologic ages—time periods defined by evidence in rock layers—typically last more than three million years. We're barely 11,500 years into the current age, the Holocene. But a new paper argues that we've already entered a new one—the Anthropocene, or “new man”, age.

    The name isn't brand-new. Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen, a co-author of the paper, coined it in 2002 to reflect the changes since the industrial revolution. The paper, however, is part of new push to formalize the Anthropocene age.

    Recent human impacts have been so great that they'll result in an obvious boundary (界限 ) in Earth's rock layer, the author's say. “We are so skilled at using energy and exploiting the environment that we are now a defining force in the geological process on the surface of the Earth,” said co-author Jan Zala, a geologist with the University of Leicester in the UK. Even so, it could take years or even decades for the International Union of Geological Science to formalize the new age.

If the concept of the Anthropocene age is to be formalized, scientists will first have to identify and define a boundary line ,or marker, that's set in stone. “The key thing is thinking about how—thousands of years in the future—geologist might come back and actually recognize in the deposit in the UK.” It's not as straightforward as you might think. The market has to be very precise, and it has to be recognized in many different parts of the world,” said Haywood, who wasn't involved in the new study.

One candidate for the market is the distinctive radioactive signature left by atom bomb tests, which began in 1945. “The fallout (沉降 ) is basically across the world,” Haywood said. In a similar way, scientists used traces of the element iridium (铱) left by shooting star strikes to help define the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods—the time of the great dinosaur extinctions.

    The push for a formal declaration of the Anthropocene age is about more than just scientific curiosity. The move the scientists write in the last issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, “might be used as encouragement to slow carbon emissions and biodiversity(生物多样性)loss” or “ as evidence on protection measures” Just as Haywood said, by underlining how much we're changing the environment, the formalization would be "a very powerful statement”.

    On her first day in New York City, teaching students from low-income families at an after-school program, Alyssa Kapasi noticed so many kids were lining up for free sandwiches and fruit in the cafeteria. Many of these poor students don't get enough food to eat at home, so a free school lunch or a free after-school meal might be the most food they would get all day.

    Kapasi, who graduated from private school, was shocked. Therefore, she was determined to help. “I want other kids to understand that if they meet a problem, they don't have to wait to be an adult to salve it,” says Kapasi. She and a group of friends are now putting their programming skills ta work to create an app called Food for Thought, which will allow parents, students and even kind-hearted strangers to donate to a lunch account for a student in need at a nearby school.

    About 20 million American kids receive free lunches. Two million more quality for reduced-price meals, and those students' families may pay for part of their food. When they don't have the money on any day, the students might have to choose an “alternative meal” such as a free cheese sandwich.

    One clever feature of the app which is being supported by donation from companies and social investors—is that it provides anonymity (匿名) to lunch recipients and donors. To receive financial help, a family will need only a recommendation from a school administrator, and no one else knows.

    “I want to make the application a platform where all users feel no shame in using it,” says Kapasi. She hopes to test the app in a school district next month. And then, she will devote herself to charity.

    Tom arrived at the bus station quite early for the London bus. The bus for London would not leave until five to twelve. He saw a lot of people waiting in the station. Some were standing in lines, others were walking about. There was a group of school-girls. Their teacher was trying to keep them in order. Tom looked around but there was nowhere for him to sit.

    He walked into the station cafe. He looked up at the clock there. It was only twenty to twelve. He found a seat and sat down, facing a large mirror(镜子) on the wall. Just then, John, one of Tom's friends, came in and sat with Tom.

    "What time is your bus?" asked John.

    "Oh, there is plenty of time yet," answered Tom.

    "Oh, I'll get you some more tea then," said John.

    They talked while drinking. Then Tom looked at the clock again.

    "Good heavens! It's going backward!" he cried. "A few minutes ago it was twenty to twelve and now it's half past eleven."

    "You are looking at the clock in the mirror," said John.

    Tom wanted to kick himself for being so foolish. The next bus was not to leave for another hour. He has never liked mirror since then.

    Ask any new college graduate about his immediate goals, and it is likely that he will tell you he wants a job. But it turns out that today's students are not going to be satisfied with any job. According to the latest survey, making a difference through their work is essential (必要的) to young people's happiness.

    The survey found that 72 percent of graduating college seniors believe being able to have a positive social influence through their work is essential to their happiness. Making a difference is so important to them that 45 percent say they would take a 15-percent pay cut to work at an organization that has a social or environmental influence, and 58 percent say they would take a pay cut to work for an organization whose values are the same as their own.

    Besides this, the survey found that female students are far more likely to put social influence in first place than their male classmates, echoing the results of a former study showing that female maths and science majors are more likely to say they go into those fields to make a difference.

    One reason for the emphasis (强调) on improving the world probably has to do with the culture of colleges, which encourages students to connect their studies back to real-world problems. Students are used to discussing important social issues (问题) with their friends and professors, and doing something about them in class or through volunteer activities. Once students develop those habits, they don't shut them off when graduation rolls around.