Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 7, 9, 6. Read them loud. Now look away and spend 20 seconds memorizing them in order before saying them out loud again. If you speak English, you have about a 50% chance of remembering those perfectly. If you are Chinese, though, you're almost certain to get it right every time. Why is that? Because we most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within a two-second period. And unlike English, the Chinese language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds.

    That example comes from Stanislas Dahaene's book The Number Sense. As Dahaene explains: Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be spoken out in less than one-quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is “si” and 7 “qi”). Their English pronunciations are longer. The memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in length.

    It turns out that there is also a big difference in how number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, so one might expect that we would also say oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, and fiveteen.  But we don't. We use a different form: eleven, twelve, thirteen and fifteen. For numbers above 20, we put the “decade” first and the unit number second (twenty-one, twenty-two), while for the teens, we do it the other way around (fourteen, seventeen, eighteen). The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is two-tens-four and so on.

    That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children. Four-year-old Chinese children can count, on average, to 40. American children at that age can count only to 15. By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian friends in the most fundamental of math skills.

    The regularity of their number system also means that Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to change the words to numbers (37+22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation(等式) is right there, in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: it's five-tens-nine.

When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have a built-in advantage. For years, students from China, South Korea, and Japan — outperformed their Western classmates at mathematics, and the typical assumption is that it has something to do with a kind of Asian talent for math. The differences between the number systems in the East and the West suggest something very different — that being good at math may also be rooted in a group's culture.

    Even now, almost a year after their astonishing act of group heroism, the dozens of people who risked their lives to save two boys from drowning in Panama City Beach, are still remembered.

    The story began on July 8, 2017. Members of the Ursrey family, eight in total, were enjoying an evening together at the beach. As the sun sank lower on the horizon（地平线）, the two boys—Noah, 11, and Stephen, 8—took their skateboards and walked into the waves without the grown-ups noticing. When the boys were about 70 yards from shore, they realized that the ocean pulled them out to sea. After trying and failing to paddle（涉水）back, they started waving and screaming for help. But the lifeguards had clocked out for the evening.

    The boys had been struggling for several minutes when Brittany and Tabatha Monroe, a married couple from Georgia, wandered by. They didn't see the boys at first, but they heard them.

    They jumped into the water and easily reached the brothers, who were still in fairly shallow water. The woman reassured the frightened boys and seized their skateboards, telling them they would be safe and then discovered that they, too, were now in a world of trouble. They couldn't get back to shore and could barely and only occasionally hit the sandy bottom with their feet. After a few minutes, it was clear to the woman that they were all trapped in a terrible whirlpool.

    Then scores of tourists were walking to them, hand in hand, forming a line. Soon the first person held the woman's hand. In turn, her husband and the two boys joined her. The long line moved slowly until they were back to the safety of the beach.

    The rescuers call it the Human Chain. But it was the deeply “human” aspect of the rescuers' cooperation（合作）that made it so astonishing and successful.

    When I was 12 years old, I already knew that my teen years were going to be the worst years of my life. I was a total outsider, bullied (欺凌) at school. I felt completely alone in my small town.

    But by starting to do volunteer work when I was 14, I turned my problem into a passion for helping others. The opportunity to practice kindness made me feel like my life had a greater purpose. The more positive energy I shared, the more kindness and appreciation I received. I realized that my purpose in life would be to reach out to people, specifically teenagers, and help them feel less alone.

    Books were my true friends back then. I was so thankful that the authors wrote those books. The kindness they offered me with their books saved my life. One of my biggest dreams was to become an author so I could write books that would help other teenagers the way those books helped me.

    After surviving terrible experiences at school and at home, I made a choice to take the optimistic, positive road in the next steps of my journey. My dream career, one I thought was only possible for the authors I loved, is what I am doing now. I have been a full-time author of teen novels since 2007 and am grateful for this amazing opportunity to reach out to readers every single day.

    Kindness saved me when I needed help the most. Even small acts of kindness can change someone's life. You never know what someone else is going through. But by practicing daily kindness, you become an architect of positive change.

    People need to relax and enjoy themselves. One way they can have a good time is to watch a baseball game or another sports event. Even thousands of years ago, groups of people gathered to watch skilled athletes (运动员).

    Over 2000 years ago in Greece, certain days in the year were festival days. These were holidays when people stopped work and enjoyed themselves. They liked to watch athletes take part in races and other games of skill.

The most important festival was held every four years at the town of Olympia. It was held in honor of the Greek god Zeus (宙斯). For five days, athletes from all parts of the Greek world took part in the Olympic Games. At the Olympic Games, people could watch them box, run, jump and so on. There was a relay race between two teams of men in which a lighted torch (火矩) was passed from runner to runner. The Olympic Games were thought to be so important that cities which were at war with one another had to stop fighting. People were allowed to travel to the games safely. Thousands of people came to Olympia from cities in Greece and from her colonies (殖民地) in Africa, Asia and Italy. They met as friends to cheer their favorite athletes and to enjoy themselves.

    It was the last day of the final examination in a college. On the steps of building, a group of engineering students were waiting for the last exam. On their faces was confidence.

    They knew the exam would be easy. The professor (教授) had said they could bring any books or notes during the test.

    Right after they came into the classroom, the professor handed out the papers. There were only five questions on it.

    Three hours passed. Then the professor began to collect the papers. The students no longer looked confident. On their faces was nervous expression. The professor watched the worried faces before him, and then asked, "How many of you have completed all five questions?" No hand was raised. "How many of you have answered four?" Still no hands. "Three? Two?" The students moved restlessly in their seats. "One, then? Certainly somebody has finished one." But the class kept silent. The professor said, "That is exactly what I expected. I just want to make you know clearly that even though you have completed four years of engineering, there are still many things about the subject you don't know. These questions you could not answer are common in everyday practice." Then, smiling, he added, "You will all pass this course, but remember, your education has just begun."

    The years have obscured the name of this professor, but not the lesson he taught.

Why do you like the music you do? You would think that it is because of the music itself. But that's only half the story. Surprisingly, the other half of the story doesn't have much to do with music at all. By analyzing the public personalities (个性) of famous musicians, and the personality traits of their fans, a group of researchers found that people prefer the music of artists whose public personalities are similar to their own. 

In three separate studies of more than 80,000 people, the researchers looked at several factors: personality ratings of 50 of the most famous musicians, listener reactions to music, and the lyrics in the artists' music. The musicians studied were different, ranging from Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Whitney Houston, The Rolling Stones to Beyonce, Coldplay, Dave Matthews Band, Maroon 5, Taylor Swift, and Ozzy Osbourne. 

The results from the three studies show that the fit in personality between the listener and the musician predicts musical preferences. It's important to note that the public personalities of the musicians were measured, not their real personalities. The findings show how music gives fans a sense of pride and belonging to a social world. Even more, the results shed light on the evolutionary (进化的) origins of music, which say that music evolved as a way to communicate groups' characteristics which helped groups decide whether or not to work with each other. All of those make the findings a major advance in this area of research.

The findings are showing us how music can be a common denominator to bring people together. They can also pave the way for a new approach for record companies to attract audiences. Besides, the findings can be applied to situations involving mental health. For example, in times of stress and uncertainty, listeners can seek music of artists with similar personalities to themselves and feel understood and a sense of connection.