A good joke can be the hardest thing to understand when studying a foreign language. As a recent article in The Guardian newspaper noted, “There's more to understanding a joke in a foreign language than understanding vocabulary and grammar.”

    Being able to understand local jokes is often seen as an unbelievable ice-breaker for a language learner eager to form friendships with native speakers. “I always felt that humor was a ceiling that I could never break through,” Hannah Ashley, a public relations account manager in London, who once studied Spanish in Madrid, told The Guardian, “I could never speak to people on the same level as I would speak to a native English speaker. I almost came across as quite a boring person because all I could talk about was facts.”

    In fact, most of the time, jokes are only funny for people who share a cultural background or understand humor in the same way. Chinese-American comedian Joe Wong found this out first-hand. He had achieved huge success in the US, but when he returned to China in 2008 for his first live show in Beijing, he discovered that people didn't think his. Chinese jokes were as funny as his English ones.

    In Australia, meanwhile many foreigners find understanding jokes about sports to be the biggest headache. “The hardest jokes are related to rugby because I know nothing about rugby,” said Melody Cao, who was once a student in Australia. “When I heard jokes I didn't get, I just laughed along.”

    In the other two major English-speaking countries, the sense of humor is also different. British comedian Simon Pegg believes that while British people use irony (反话)—basically, saying something they don't mean to make a joke—every day, people in the US don't see the point of using it so often. “British jokes tend to be more subtle and dark, while American jokes are more obvious with their meanings, a bit like Americans themselves,” he wrote in The Guardian.

    Staying up late is a potential battle between parents and kids. But the solution could be as simple as changing your meal time.

    Researchers at the University of Surrey, UK, found that delaying (延迟) meals could help change one of the internal (内部的) body clocks. Besides a “master” clock in the brain, there are clocks in other parts of the body. They are usually synchronized (同步的) according to factors including light.

    During the study, researchers tested 10 participants to study the effect of changing meal times on their body clocks. The participants were given three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the first stage, participants received breakfast 30 minutes after waking. Lunch and dinner followed, after 5-hour intervals (间隔). In the second stage, each meal was delayed by 5 hours. Right after each stage, blood and fat samples (样本) were collected.

    Results showed that later meal times greatly influenced blood sugar levels. A 5-hour delay in meal times caused a 5-hour delay in the internal blood sugar rhythms (规律性变化).

    The discovery showed that meal times are in line with (与……一致) the body clock that controls blood sugar levels.

    This is a small study but the researchers believed the findings could help jet lag (飞行时差反应) sufferers and night-shift (夜班的) workers.

    In a study by the University of Surrey in 2013, researchers explored what happened when a person's body was changed from a normal pattern to that of a night-shift worker's.

    After people work through the night, over 97 percent of the body's rhythmic genes are disrupted (扰乱).

    These findings explain why we feel so bad following a long flight, or after working at night, according to Simon Archer, one of the study's researchers.

    “It's like living in a house. There's a clock in every room in the house and in all of those rooms those clocks are now disrupted, which of course leads to chaos (混乱) in the household,” fellow researcher Derk-Jan Dijk told the BBC.

    Changing meal times didn't affect the “master” body clock – the one controlling when we get sleepy – but it can reset the body clock that controls blood sugar levels.

    This wouldn't necessarily cure jet lag completely, but it might reduce the negative effects.

    A study published earlier this year suggested that just a weekend camping trip could be enough to reset our body clocks. And now this latest research shows regular food schedules could play a key part too.

    My husband David was waiting at the door when our daughter Laura and I pulled in the driveway. It wasn't like him to be home so early. The disbelief on his face told me that something was up.

    "Do you still have a job?"

    "No. Redundant," he answered, looking away from me.

    "OK. We'll figure it out," I replied calmly.

    I actually had no idea how we were going to figure it out. I immediately started to think of how we'd cut costs and who we should start to get in touch with. That night, after David had fallen asleep, I cried myself to sleep, and frequently sobbed in the shower in the days that followed.

    I knew the loss of David's income would have great effect on us. He had worked for the same insurance company for twenty-one years and was our main income. I work at home caring for Laura, and my freelance(自由职业者的)income is uncertain. We have debts, and job hunting takes time.

    Still, I was more concerned about my husband's emotional state than our financial situation. David's sense of identity was tied to his job. He called his parents to tell them about losing his job, but didn't say a word to anyone else for weeks. He told me that he felt like "a failure".

It was tough for me to watch David struggle with unemployment. One night a couple of weeks after he lost his job, David woke me just before midnight, sweating, pacing the bedroom floor and saying he felt funny. We spent the night in the emergency room waiting to see if he had a heart attack. Thankfully, it was just a serious anxiety attack. It was then that I knew I needed to do more to understand what my husband was going through. Here is what I learned from my own experience—and from talking to experts—on how to support your spouse through a job loss.

    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.

Prague VS Vienna: Which One to Visit?

    Prague and Vienna are both wonderful and exciting cities with modern cosmopolitanism and ancient history and culture. But if you've got a European vacation planned and are trying to decide which one of these amazing cities to visit, it can be daunting(困难)for sure.

    Sightseeing

    While both cities are rich in sightseeing adventures, Prague is definitely more beautiful as a city. You can walk along the Danube River for breathtaking views, sit in one of the many cafes that dot the urban landscape, and breathe in the amazing architecture  both old and modern that makes up this Central European metropolis(都市).Vienna is a hotbed of history, home to such great sites such as The Hofburg, Schonbrunn Palace and Gardens, and St. Stephen' S Cathedral.

    Shopping

    You most likely didn't travel all the way to Europe just to go shopping. But, if you happen to be a shopaholic, Vienna is definitely better. But be warned: fine goods you buy in Vienna will sometimes be three times more expensive than what they are in the United States or Canada.

    Cuisine

    When it comes to great dining, both cities are equally fascinating. Austrians are known for their love of sweets and pastries(糕点), which is reflected in the many bakeries, cafés, and restaurants scattered around Vienna. Some restaurants in either city offer local cuisine, though you're more likely to be eating a combination of Western European or even Americanized food. Bear in mind that Prague(being that it is in Central Europe)will be far less pricey than Vienna.

    Culture

    What do you hope to see on your trip? Palaces? Medieval Cathedrals? The Opera? How about museums? If you do happen to visit both cities, you'll find that culture equally as enriching. However, Vienna has more world—class museums which display the rich history of the area.

    Nola is a 41-year-old northern white rhino (犀牛) that lives at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido, California. She is one of only four remaining northern white rhinos in the world, and the only one in the western part of the earth. The other three live in Kenya (肯尼亚).

    Rhinos have lived on earth for more than 40 million years, but they are now at the risk of dying out. Hunters illegally hunt rhinos for their horns (角), which are used for art, jewelry, and decorations. They sell the horns for thousands of dollars per pound, though it is not allowed by law. Rhino horns are also prized as a key part in traditional medicine, even though scientific tests have proven that the horns cannot cure illnesses. Experts say that every eight hours, one rhino will be hunted.

    Scientists are trying to find ways to prevent rhinos from dying out. In 1975, the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research started the Frozen Zoo, a program through which researchers have collected cell samples (细胞样品) from more than 8, 000 different animal species until now, including the northern white rhino. Scientists hope that by studying the rhino cells, they will gain greater understanding of the species, and will find ways to increase its number.

    Jeanne Loring works with the Frozen Zoo. Loring's research focuses on pluripotent stem cells, which are cells that can renew and become any cell type. Coloring's lab at TSRI is working together with scientist Oliver Ryder of the San Diego Zoo to use plenipotentiary stem cells to try to increase the number of the northern white rhino. Loring said the goal is to start producing new rhinos through this method over the next couple of years.