Before birth, babies can tell the difference between loud sounds and voices. They can even distinguish their mother's voice from that of a female stranger. But when it comes to embryonic learning(胎教), birds could rule the roost. As recently reported in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, some mother birds may teach their young to sing even before they hatch(孵化)。New-born chicks can then imitate their mom's call within a few days of entering the world.

    This educational method was first observed in 2012 by Sonia Kleindorfer, a biologist at Flinders University in South Australia, and her colleagues. Female Australian superb fairy wrens were found to repeat one sound over and over again while hatching their eggs, When the eggs were hatched, the baby birds made the similar chirp to their mothers—a sound that served as their regular “feed me!”call.

To find out if the special quality was more widespread in birds, the researchers sought the red-backed fairy wren, another species of Australian songbird. First they collected sound data from 67 nests in four sites in Queensland before and after hatching, Then they identified begging calls by analyzing the order and number of notes. A computer analysis blindly compared calls produced by mothers and chicks, ranking them by similarity.

    It turns out that baby red-backed fairy wrens also emerge chirping like their moms. And the more frequently mothers had called to their eggs, the more similar were the babies' begging calls. In addition, the team set up a separate experiment that suggested that the baby birds that most closely imitated their mom's voice were rewarded with the most food.

    This observation hints that effective embryonic learning could signal neurological(神经系统的) strengths of children to parents. An evolutionary inference can then be drawn.“As a parent, do you invest in quality children, or do you invest in children that are in need? ”Kleindorfer asks. “Our results suggest that they might be going for quality. ”

    Does your local town have a nickname？If so，what does it say about the area and the people who live there?

    Many cities are recognized across the world by  their unofficial titles.New York is the Big Apple，London is the Big Smoke，and Los Angeles is famously called La La Land.

    Now Britain's National Mapping Agency(规划局)，Ordnance Survey，and the British Linguistics (语言学)Charity，the English Project，are launching an interactive project to uncover the nicknames people use for local places.

    The project，which was launched last week to coincide with English Language Day，is called Location Lingo.It aims to identify the names people use every day，whether it's a term of endearment(昵称) or a hate name.

    The University of Winchester's Professor Bill Lucas is a leader of the English Project.He explains that unofficial place names often show what people think about a place.“The name that people conjure up or create for a place forms an emotional connection，”he says.“So Basingstoke becomes Amazingstoke，Swindon is known as Swindump.Padstow，hometown of chef Rick Stein，is nicknamed Padstein.”

    Basingstoke is a town in central England.The local nickname，Amazingstoke，shows the love that locals seem to have for the area.Swindon，on the other hand，is sometimes called Swindump，showing that local people think it's a big dump.Stanford Le Hope in Essex is called Stanford No Hope by locals.And Padstow in Cornwall is so closely associated with the local celebrity Rick Stein that it's become known as Padstein.

    Since launching the online database (数据库) last week，the creators have already received 3,000 alternative  titles for places and landmarks.

    Some also say that the project could even have a practical use.Glen Hart，Ordnance Survey's head of research，says the information could be very helpful to the emergency services，for example.“By having the most complete set of nicknames，we could help the emergency services quickly locate the right place，and maybe even save lives，”he says.

    If you're looking for a challenging situation to practice your English, pick up the phone. Not being able to see the other person and the body language can make the chatting difficult. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Here are some tips to guide you through an average phone conversation in English.

1)．Greetings

    Every phone call should begin with a polite greeting such as “Hi, how've you been？” or “Nice to hear from you”. Even if you're calling a business contact for a specific purpose, it'd be rude to jump right into business.  {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

2)．Getting to the point

    There always comes the point where you want to move on from friendly chatting and get down to business. What should you do in this situation? {#blank#}3{#/blank#} However, if you are waiting to find out why someone called you, you can guide the conversation by saying “So what can I do for you？”

3)．Interrupting without offence

    Sometimes you may happen to be speaking with a very talkative person. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Keep in mind when you'd like to interrupt, and be sure to do it politely. For example, begin with “I'd like to say something here”．

4)．Closing the call

    This can be the trickiest part of the conversation! It may be the time to offer good wishes if it's appropriate. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Sometimes it's easiest to just say you enjoyed speaking to the other person. Also remember cleverly saying the word well at the beginning of a sentence can indicate you're ready to end the conversation.

    You might make a disgusted face when you notice that the person waiting in their car at the red light next to you is picking their nose,but admit it,you do it too.And while it might be the natural option when there isn't a box of tissues around,it can be bad for you.The main reasons people feel the need to pick their nose is to clear it of dried liquid,stop an itch（痒）,or just because it feels good.Boogers（鼻屎）form when dried liquid and cilia,the tiny hairs that line the nostrils（鼻孔）,trap the dust,dirt,and other things.When boogers build up in your nose,it can be uncomfortable,and sometimes just blowing into a tissue doesn't do the trick.

    Otolaryngologist Erich P.Voigt, MD ,told Business Insider that picking your nose can cause injuries and bleeding within your nostrils.That's not terribly damaging,but when the bacteria from your hands get into your body,it can cause a cold and flu.So doctors strongly suggest not picking the nose.

    If dry winter air is causing the dirty liquid to harden in your nostrils,making you want to pick,consider damping the air at home,or taking a steam shower to soften things up in there.

    Children, who are most famous for having a finger up their nose,sometimes don't realize how much injury they're causing,and sometimes it.can lead to nose bleeds.

    So, next time you go to pick your nose,think about how many bacteria are on your hands and in your boogers, and maybe reach for a tissue instead.Even if you 're alone,and not waiting for the light to turn green,please,use a tissue.

    A team of UK researchers recently compared the performances of 120 women and 120 men in a computer test involving switching between tasks of counting and shape recognition.

    Men and women were equally capable when tasks were handled one at a time. But when the tasks were mixed up, there was a clear difference. According to the paper published in the journal BMC Psychology, both women and men slowed down and made more mistakes as the switching became more rapid. But the men were slower, taking 77 percent longer to answer, whereas women took 69 percent longer.

    To make the experiment more relevant to day-to-day life, researchers tried a second test. A group of women and men were given eight minutes to complete a series of everyday tasks, such as finding restaurants on a map, doing simple math problems, answering a phone call, or deciding how they would search for a lost key in afield. Once again, women outperformed men in the test, particularly in the key-searching task.

    “It suggests that in a stressed and complex situation women are more able to stop and think about what's going on in front of them,” researcher Keith Laws of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, told BBC News. “In contrast, men had a slight impulsiveness（冲动）, answering without giving much thought to their responses.”

    So where do women get the ability to keep organized under pressure better than men? Researchers believe that it has its roots in evolution. In early human communities, women had to keep an eye on children while cooking meals. Meanwhile, men only needed to focus on hunting.

    Escaping predators (食肉动物), digestion and other animal activities—including those of humans—require oxygen. But that essential ingredient is no longer so easy for marine life to obtain, several new studies reveal.

    In the past decade ocean oxygen levels have taken a dive—an alarming trend that is linked to climate change, says Andreas Oschlies, an oceanographer at the Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Germany, whose team tracks ocean oxygen levels worldwide. "We were surprised by the intensity of the changes we saw, how rapidly oxygen is going down in the ocean and how large the effects on marine ecosystems are," he says. It is no surprise to scientists that warming oceans are losing oxygen, but the scale of the drop calls for urgent attention. Oxygen levels in some tropical (热带的) regions have dropped by an astonishing 40 percent in the last 50 years, some recent studies reveal. Levels have dropped less significantly elsewhere, with an average loss of 2 percent globally.

    A warming ocean loses oxygen for two reasons: First, the warmer a liquid becomes, the less gas it can hold. That is why carbonated drinks go flat faster when left in the sun. Second, as polar sea ice melts, it forms a layer of water above colder, more salty sea waters. This process creates a sort of lid that can keep currents from mixing surface water down to deeper depths. And because all oxygen enters the surface, less mixing means less of it at depth.

    Ocean animals large and small, however, respond to even slight changes in oxygen by seeking refuge in higher oxygen zones or by adjusting behavior, Oschlies and others in his field have found. These adjustments can expose animals to new predators or force them into food-scarce regions. Climate change already poses serious problems for marine life, such as ocean acidification, but deoxygenation is the most pressing issue facing sea animals today, Oschlies says. After all, he says, "they all have to breathe."

    Aside from food web problems, animals face various other physiological challenges as their bodies adjust to lower oxygen levels. Chinese shrimp (虾) move their tails less vigorously to preserve energy in lower oxygen environments. Some creatures, such as jellyfishes, are more tolerant of low oxygen than others are. But all animals will feel the impact of deoxygenation because they all have evolved their oxygen capacity for a reason, says Oschlies. "Any drop in oxygen is going to damage survivability and performance," he says.