A new generation addiction is quickly spreading all over the world. Web holism, a twentieth century disease, affects people from different ages. They surf the net, use e-mail and speak in chat rooms. They spend many hours on the computer, and it becomes a compulsive （强迫的，强制的） habit. They cannot stop, and it affects their lives.

    Ten years ago, no one thought that using computers could become compulsive behavior that could affect the social and physical life of computer users. This obsessional behavior has affected teenagers and college students. They are likely to log on computers and spend long hours at different websites.

    They become hooked on computers and gradually their social and school life is affected by this situation. They spend all free time surfing and don't concentrate on homework, so this addiction influences their grades and success at school. Because they can find everything on the websites, they hang out there. Moreover, this addiction to websites influences their social life.

    They spend more time in front of computers than with their friends. The relation with their friends changes. The virtual life becomes more important than their real life. They have a new language that they speak in the chat rooms and it causes cultural changes in society.

    Because of the change in their behavior, they begin to keep themselves apart from the society and live with their virtual friends. They share their emotions and feelings with friends who they have never met in their life. Although they feel confident on the computer, they are not confident with real live friends they have known all their life. It is a problem for the future. This addictive behavior is beginning to affect all the world.

    They say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Well, there is one lady who believes that it's actually chocolate. At 102 years of age, she's living proof.

    According to Boonville, Indiana's Eunice Modlin, a daily dose of chocolate has been the key to a long and healthy life. Specifically, two pieces of dark chocolate. It's not just Eunice who believes this.

    Many scientists have attributed the sweet to health benefits such as lower chances of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.

    However, researchers believe that Eunice might be overlooking the fact that she has never smoked or drunk alcohol in her long life, and that chocolate might not be the significant cause of her longevity.

    "There are so many other factors to her long life and chocolate isn't the only one," nutritionist Vanessa Rissetto said. "Genes, her diet in general…are probably the main reasons."

    At any rate, Eunice is still alive and kicking. With four children, seven grandkids, 14 great-grandkids and 11 great-great grandkids, this lady has a big family.

    It must be noted that Eunice was also very athletic, being an archer in her 20s .Amazingly, she has lived through tough times such as the Great Depression and World War II .Also, the healthy blood runs through the veins of other family members. Eunice's brother is also still alive, at 101 years of age.

    No matter what you might think, Eunice's consumption of chocolate can't be ignored. In 2015, a BMJ study showed that a daily treat of one small bar would give the consumer 23% less chance of having a stroke (中风).

    What is in the sweet that makes it so beneficial? Apparently, cocoa beans have flavonoids, plant nutrients that have useful antioxidants (抗氧化剂).

    "Not all chocolate is created equal," Rissetto warns. "Dark chocolate has more flavonoids than milk chocolate, and white chocolate—which does not actually contain chocolate—is not a good source of flavonoids."

    Parallel worlds exist and interact with our world, say physicists.

    Quantum mechanics (量子力学), though firmly tested, is so weird and anti-intuitive that physicist Richard Feynman once remarked, “I think I can safely say nobody understands quantum mechanics.” Attempts to explain some of the bizarre (奇异的) consequences of quantum theory have led to some mind-bending ideas, such as the Copenhagen interpretation and the many-worlds interpretation.

    Now there's a new theory on the block, called the “many interacting worlds” hypothesis (假设) (MIW), and the idea is just as profound as it sounds. The theory suggests not only parallel worlds exist, but that they interact with our world on the quantum level and are thus detectable. Though still speculative (推测的), the theory may help to finally explain some of the bizarre consequences inherent in quantum mechanics.

    The theory is a spinoff of the many-worlds interpretation in quantum mechanics—an assumption that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual, though parallel, world. One problem with the many-worlds interpretation, however, has been that it is fundamentally untestable, since observations can only be made in our world. Happenings in these proposed “parallel” worlds can thus only be imagined.

    MIW, however, says otherwise. It suggests that parallel worlds can interact on the quantum level, and in fact that they do.

    “The idea of parallel universes in quantum mechanics has been around since 1957,” explained Howard Wiseman, a physicist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and one of the physicists to come up with MIW. “In the well-known 'Many-Worlds Interpretation', each universe branches into a bunch of new universes every time a quantum measurement is made. All possibilities are therefore realized — in some universes the dinosaur-killing asteroid (小行星) missed Earth. In others, Australia was colonized by the Portuguese.”

    “But critics question the reality of these other universes, since they do not influence our universe at all,” he added. “On this score, our 'Many Interacting Worlds' approach is completely different, as its name implies.”

    Wiseman and colleagues have proposed that there exists “a universal force of repulsion between 'nearby'(i.e. similar) worlds, which tends to make them more dissimilar.” Quantum effects can be explained by factoring in this force, they propose.

    When asked about whether their theory might imply that humans could someday interact with other worlds, Wiseman said: “It's not part of our theory. But the idea of human interactions with other universes is no longer pure fantasy.”

    What might your life look like if you made different choices? Maybe one day you'll be able to look into one of these alternative worlds and find out.

    As the parent of a 7-year-old boy, sometimes I feel like "no" is my most frequently said word. But if I look honestly at the big picture of my daily vocabulary, I probably would conclude that it actually contains too much "yes". Saying yes means opening myself up to new experiences, inviting new or deeper relationships. But too much "yes" leaves any of us feeling anxious, overcommitted（过分受约束的）and powerless to set and maintain boundaries in our lives.

    This had been on my mind when The Book of No: 365 Ways to Say It and Mean It－and Stop People-Pleasing.

    Forever came across my desk. The new edition of this decade-old book by psychologist Susan Newman is a must-read book for those of us who struggle to say "no" with authenticity, confidence and kindness.

    Newman calls people who feel forced to say yes all their way through life "people-pleasers". The chief symptoms of this condition include associating helping others with your self-respect, holding expectations that you will care for others and feeling unwilling to state your own needs when a request comes your way. For people-pleasers, "yes is the path of least resistance and the way to avoid damaging your relationship with the asker," Newman writes.

    The book offers brief dialogues for hundreds of scenarios in which "no" is the right answer, for reasons ranging from time management to financial pressures to emotional boundaries. Newman considers what came about among friends, at work, within families and in parenting. Reading through the scenarios, I realized they have some things in common－things that immediately started helping me improve my "no" skills.

    Do you think this book might be helpful to you? It's OK if the answer is "no", but I do highly recommend it for your Positive Reading List shelf.

    Better known by his stage name Kun, Cai Xukun is, without a doubt, one of the most popular stars in China.

    On July 26, the 21-year-old dropped his new single Young. Within just 20 seconds, it reached 1 million views and in only 3 days topped the music charts of Tencent's QQ music.

    Cai wrote the song by himself to share his understanding of modern-day youth. The singer has mixed R&B with electronic music to make his new beat cheerful. One reviewer wrote on QQ Music: "When you listen to the song, you just seem to go back to youth again."

    August 2 is Cai's birthday, and the song was a gift to himself. The singer hopes that he can always have the courage to follow his love of music, ignoring what anyone says. "My works are like my children and I have put my best effort into them. I want every piece of my work to have my own spirit in it. I feel more enjoyment when I am performing my own work." He told the Global Times.

    To find new inspiration, Kun attends different kinds of musical performances－from festivals to opera houses. "I just like to do everything, all for my music, all for my art," he told i-D.

    With talent and dedication(专注) to music, Cai is expected by many to make his mark in the competitive Chinese music industry.

    City trees grow faster and die younger than trees in rural forestry, a new study finds. Over their lifetimes, then, urban trees will likely absorb less CO₂ from the air thah forest trees.

    As we all know, the earth would be freezing or burning hot without CO₂. However, CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps energy from the sun as/heat. That makes temperatures near the ground rise. Human activities, especially the widespread burning-of fossil(化石)fuels, have been sending extra greenhouse gases into the air. This has led to a rise in average temperatures across the globe.

    Studies had shown forests readily absorb CO₂, but there hadn't been much data on whether city trees grow, die and absorb CO₂ at the same rate as forest trees do. So some researchers decided to find out.

    To figure out how quickly trees were growing, researchers tracked their diameters (the width of their trunks) between 2005 and 2014. A tree's diameter increases as it grows, just as a person's waist size increases as they gain weight. About half the weight of a tree is carbon, research has shown. Most of the rest is water. Over the nine years' tracking, the researchers found city trees absorbed four times as much carbon from the air as forest trees. However, they were twice as likely to die. So over the lifetime of each type of tree, forest trees actually absorbed more CO₂.

    City trees grew faster because they had less competition for light from their neighbors. In a forest, trees tend to grow close together, shading their neighbors. Street trees also benefit from higher levels of nitrogen (氮)in rainwater. Nitrogen helps plants grow. Waste gases from gas-burning cars also contain nitrogen, thus enriching city air with nitrogen. Later, rainwater may wash much of it to the ground. Some street trees may also have better access to water than trees in the country because the underground water pipes can leak.