When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings(缺点). Week by week her list grew: I was very thin, I wasn't a good student,I talked too much, I was too proud, and so on. I tried to hear all this as long as  could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.

    He listened to me quietly, then he asked. “Are the things she says true or not? Janet, didn't you ever wonder what you're really like? Well, you now have that girl's opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”I did as he told me. To my great surprise, I discovered that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldn't change (like being very thin), but a good number I could—and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I go to fairly clear picture of myself.

    I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it. “That's just for you,” he said. “You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. But you have to learn to listen, not just close your ears in anger and feeling hurt. When some thing said about you is true, you'll find it will be of help to you. Our world is full of people who think they know your duty. Don't shut your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you know is the right thing to do.” Daddy's advice has returned to me at many important moments. In my life, I've never had a better piece of advice.

    Pound for pound, healthy food is cheaper than junk food, according to a new research from the U. K.

    The Institute of Economic Affairs found that the average cost for a “wide range” of healthy foods was about £ 2 per kilogram, compared with £ 3 a kilogram for less-healthy products such as processed and ready-made foods.

Still, study after study finds that cost is often a barrier when it comes to healthy eating. Convenience drives consumers to care about habits more than prices, the U. K. study concluded. Taste and convenience often play a larger role in people's food choices than price or nutritional quality.

    “Processed foods are extremely expensive, especially when it comes to the nutrient value. Some of the healthiest, most inexpensive foods aren't so attractive. Beans cost next to nothing, especially when bought dry and in great amounts. They take time and some skills to prepare. ” said Ciara Foy, a nutritionist.

    Instead, busy parents reach for the chicken. “You might be getting something that has enough calories to fill you up but you're actually not getting any nutrients, so your body's going to keep wanting more and more food,” said Foy. “And that's why in North America we, re overfed and undernourished (营养不良的).”

    Makers tend to try to promote their product based on perceived health benefits, which makes consumers confused at times with what is a healthy product and how much you should pay for those benefits. The most expensive items, healthy or not, are the ones that end up in the trash. “A lot of people waste a lot of food,” Foy said. It's estimated that more than $ 30 billion of food is wasted in Canada every year. Foy recommends taking a look in your fridge to see what needs to be used up when planning for the next night's meals. “If you actually cut down on the waste you'll find that you can afford healthy food,” Foy said.

    How many men do housework? Recently a European commission (委员会) tried to find out people's ideas and reactions to the women's movement. As part of their survey (调查), they asked many men and women the question: “Who does the housework?” The men answered very differently from the women!

    The housework they asked people about were: preparing meals, washing dishes, cleaning the house and babysitting. 48% of British husbands said they did these things. 37% of Danish men helped in the house. But only 15% of Italian men said they did the housework; many of them said they never helped at all.

    But there was an interesting point of view from the wives. According to British wives, only 35% of their husbands helped in the house. And Italian wives said that their husbands hardly ever helped. The Italian and British men did not tell the truth! The Commission found that Danish men were the most trustful husbands; their answers were the same as their wives' answers.

    Do the men you know help in the house? Do you think the survey gives a true picture in your experience?

    Ten minutes of gentle exercise can immediately change how certain parts of the brain communicate and coordinate (协调) with one another and improve memory function, according to an encouraging new study.

    The scientists invited 36 people of different ages to the lab and had them sit quietly on a fixed bicycle for 10 minutes or, on a separate visit, pedal the bicycle at a pace so gentle that it barely raised their heart rates. It also was short, lasting for only 10 minutes. Immediately after each session of the sitting or slow pedaling, the people completed a computerized memory test during which they would see a brief picture of, for instance, a tree, followed by a variety of other images and then a new image of either the same tree or a similar one. The people would press buttons to show whether they thought each image was new or the same as an earlier shot. The test is difficult, since many of the images closely resemble one another. It requires rapid, skillful scanning recent memories to decide whether a picture is new or known. Next, the scientists had each people repeat this process--riding or sitting on the bike for 10 minutes and then completing memory testing--but the testing now took place inside an M. R. I. machine(磁共振成像仪)that scanned the people's brains while they responded to the images.

    Then the researchers compared results. The effects of the exercise were clear. The people were better at remembering images after they had ridden the bike, especially when the images most closely resembled one another. In other words, the harder their memories had to do their best, the better they performed after the exercise. The M. R. I. scans showed that memory parts of each people's brain lit up at the same time with parts of the brain associated with learning, indicating that these physically separate parts of the brain were better connected now than when the people had not first exercised.

    As smog forced students to stay home, the online learning industry saw a sharp increase in consumers.

    During the air pollution red alert from Dec. 8 to 10 last winter, the Beijing Commission of Education ordered all kindergartens, primary schools and middle schools to suspend classes (停课). But the commission urged that, "Teachers should guide students to make full use of digital materials and conduct online learning at home".

    According to the China Education and Research Network, the number of new users of 17zuoye. com, an online homework platform, tripled (增至三倍) on Dec. 8 compared to the previous day.

    Online courses companies also adopted special measures to meet students' demand for Internet learning during the red alert period. For example, New Oriental offered free online English classes for three days for school students as well as online question answering services.

    Recent years have seen the popularity of online courses increase sharply in China. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC), for example, originated in the United States but have become widespread in China since 2013. Some Chinese universities, including Tsinghua University and Peking University, have started their own MOOC platforms. "MOOCs have enlarged the time and space of teaching, fired up learners' interest, helped more people benefit from high quality educational resources and accelerated reform in many aspects of teaching," an official at the Ministry of Education told China Daily.

    Essentially, everyone has two ages: a chronological(按时间计算的)age, how old the calendar says you are, and a biological age, basically the age at which your body functions as it compares to average fitness or health levels.

    "Chronological age isn't how old we really are. It's merely a number," said Professor David Sinclair at Harvard University. "It is biological age that determines our health and ultimately our lifespan. We all age biologically at different rates according to our genes, what we eat, how much we exercise, and what environment we live in. Biological age is the number of candles we really should be blowing out. In the future, with advances in our ability to control biological age, we may have even fewer candles on our birthday cake than the previous one."

    To calculate biological age, Professor Levine at  ale University identified nine biomarker(生物标志)that seemed to be the most influential on lifespan by a simple blood test. The numbers of those markers, such as blood sugar and immune(免疫的)measures, can be put into the computer, and the algorithm(算式;算法)does the rest.

    Perhaps what's most important here is that these measures can be changed. Doctors can take this information and help patients make changes to lifestyle, and hopefully take steps to improve their biological conditions. "I think the most exciting thing about this research is that these things aren't set in stone," Levine said. "People can be given the information earlier and take steps to improve their health before it's too late."

    Levine even entered her own numbers into the algorithm. She was surprised by the results. "I always considered myself a very healthy person. I'm physically active; I eat what I consider a fairly healthy diet. But I did not find my results to be as good as I had hoped they would be. It was a wake-up call," she said.

    Levine is working with a group to provide access to the algorithm online so that anyone can calculate their biological age, identify potential risks and take steps to improve their own health in the long run. "No one wants to live an extremely long life with a lot of chronic(慢性的)diseases," Levine said. "By delaying the development of mental and physical functioning problems, people can still be engaged in society in their senior years. That is the ideal we should be pursuing."