The baby monkey is much more developed at birth than the human baby. Almost from the moment it is born, the baby monkey can move around and hold tightly to its mother. During the first few days of its life the baby will approach and hold onto almost any large, warm, and soft object in its environment, particularly if that object also gives it milk. After a week or so, however, the baby monkey begins to avoid newcomers and focuses its attentions on “mother” — the real mother or the mother-substitute(母亲替代物）.

During the first two weeks of its warmth is perhaps the most important psychological（心理的） thing that a monkey mother has to give to its baby. The Harlows, a couple who are both psychologists, discovered this fact by offering baby monkeys a choice of two types of mother-substitutes — one covered with cloth and one made of bare wire. If the two artificial mothers were both the same temperature, the little monkeys always preferred the cloth mother. However, if the wire model was heated, while the cloth model was cool, for the first two weeks after birth the baby monkeys picked the warm wire mother-substitutes as their favorites. Thereafter they switched and spent most of their time on the more comfortable cloth mother

    Why is cloth preferable to bare wire? Something that the Harlows called contact（接触的） comfort seems to be the answer, and a most powerful influence it is. Baby monkeys spend much of their time rubbing against their mothers' skins, putting themselves in as close contact with the parent as they can. Whenever the young animal is frightened, disturbed, or annoyed, it typically rushes to its mother and rubs itself against her body. Wire doesn't“rub”as well as does soft wire cloth. Prolonged（长时间的）“contact comfort” with a cloth mother appears to give the babies confidence and is much more rewarding to them than is either warmth or milk.

    According to the Harlows, the basic quality of a baby's love for its mother is trust. If the baby is put into an unfamiliar playroom without its mother, the baby ignores the toys no matter how interesting they might be. It screams in terror and curls up into a fury little ball. If its cloth mother is now introduced into the playroom, the bay rushes to it and holds onto it for dear life. After a few minutes of contact comfort, it obviously begins to feel more secure. It then climbs down from the mother-substitute and begins to explore the toys, but often rushes back for a deep embrace（拥抱）as if to make sure that its mother is still there and that all is well. Bit by bit its fears of the new environment are gone and it spends more and more time playing with the toys and less and less time holding on to its “mother.”

    How to Welcome Change in Your Life

    Do you embrace(欣然接受) the road you are now on or resist and avoid change at all costs when a recent event has shaken you greatly? Here are things you can do in the midst of uncertainty to choose differently to change the track of your life.

    Don't react.

    What do we do when we don't know what to do? First, stop, take a deep breath and don't do anything.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} It is having faith and trusting what you do know in the unknown.

    Reflect on the past.

    Another activity is to recall times in your life when you were faced with an unknown. Then, think about how you handled the situation.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} Use your past experiences to bring you strength, and to remain you what you are capable of.

    Make conscious decisions.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} However, more possibilities open up when we are at peace. Go over your list of what ifs and make a more balanced list of the best and worst situations possible. Then talk to loved ones about what you would do in each situation and the choices you do have.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    We often see fears as our greatest enemy, yet they provide us with an enormous opportunity for self-growth. What if we were to see them as friends who want to help us become a better person? Let your fears help you instead of hurting you. Then, write down what comes to you.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}.

A. Don't panic.

B. Befriend your fears.

C. You may be surprised by the answers.

D. When we are fearful, our options seem limited.

E. Then try to feel at ease with the state of “not knowing”.

F. Learning from past failures helps you make better decisions.

G. Remembering these incidents will remind you that you've gone through difficult situations.

    Like many people, the start of the day maybe isn't your favorite time. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Try at least one of these tomorrow…

    Stretch（伸展）every part of your body for 15 seconds.

    Try this before you open your eyes. Lift your arm and begin by stretching each finger, then your hand, then your wrist, then your arm. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Then your toes, feet, ankles and legs. In this way, you upped the flow of blood through your body, providing extra oxygen to all your tissues.

    Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} You can begin your day by lying in bed, slowly waking up, mentally ticking off the decisions you made in advance about what you're going to wear, what you're going to do…

    Brush your tongue for one minute.

    There's no better way to rid you of morning breath and begin your day fresh and clean. After all, more than 300 types of bacteria stay in your mouth every night. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}  

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    Reduce the number of choices and decisions you make to zero. Make your decisions the night before. Really, there's no need to vary your breakfast, timetable or clothes to wear every morning.

A. Avoid any decisions.

B. Repeat with the other arm.

C. Don't change your living habits.

D. These few minutes in bed are all yours.

E. You think a quick brush is going to make them all disappear?

F. By doing so, you don't have to jump out of bed and rush through your morning.

G. Here are some healthy habits you can learn without much effort.

    Slowly but surely  we're moving closer and closer to 5G world. From smart-home security to self-driving cars, all the internet-connected devices in your life will be able to talk to each other at lightning-fast speeds with reduced delay, Objectively speaking, the fastest 4G download speeds in the U. S. top out at an average of 19.42 Mbps. But by comparison 5G promises gigabit (千兆) speeds.

    “5G is one of those signs, along with artificial intelligence, of this coming data age,” said Steve Koenig, senior director of market research for the Consumer Technology Association. “The self-driving vehicle is a great emblem of this data age, and that is to say, it is a sign of time, because with one single task, driving, you have massive amounts of data coming from the vehicle itself, and a variety of sensors are collecting a lot of information to model its environment as it moves. It's pulling in data from other vehicles about road conditions down the lane. It could be weather information, but also connected infrastructure (基础设施) construction. There's lots of data behind that task, which is why we need high speed.

    Augmented reality glasses and virtual headset haven't yet broken the mainstream, but tech companies are joyfully betting that these devices will eventually replace our smartphones. With 5G, that could actually happen. This is notable because companies such as Apple are reportedly developing AR glasses to assist — or perhaps even replace — smartphones.

    Ericsson stated at February's Mobile World Congress how smart glasses could become faster and lighter with a 5G connection, because instead of being weighed down with components, the glasses could rely on hardware for processing power.

    But don't get too excited. There's still a lot of work to be done in the meantime, including various trials to make sure the radios play nicely with hardware and infrastructure construction so 5G isn't concentrated only in big cities.

    Tiny microbes(微生物)are at the heart of a new agricultural technique to manage harmful greenhouse gas. Scientists have discovered how microbes can be used to turn carbon dioxide into soil­enriching limestone(石灰石), with the help of a type of tree that grows in tropical areas, such as West Africa.

    Researchers have found that when the Iroko tree is grown in dry, acidic soil and treated with a combination of natural fungi(霉菌)and other bacteria, not only does the tree grow well, it also produces the mineral limestone in the soil around its root.

    The Iroko tree makes a mineral by combining Ca from the earth with CO₂ from the atmosphere The bacteria then create the conditions under which this mineral turns into limestone. The discovery offers a new way to lock carbon into the soil, keeping it out of the atmosphere. In addition to storing carbon in the trees leaves and in the form of limestone, the mineral in the soil makes it more suitable for agriculture.

    The discovery could lead to reforestation(重新造林) projects in tropical countries, and help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the developing world. It has already been used in West Africa and is being tested in Bolivia, Haiti and India.

    The findings were made in a three­year project involving researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Granada, Lausanne and Delft University of Technology. The project examined several microbiological methods of locking CO₂ as limestone, and the Iroko­bacteria way showed best results. Work was funded by the European Commission under the Future&Emerging Technologies(FET)scheme.

    Dr. Bryne Ngwenya of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the research, said: "By taking advantage of this natural limestone­producing process, we have a low­tech, safe, readily employed and easily operating way to lock carbon out of the atmosphere, while improving farming conditions in tropical countries."

    Forget Cyclists, Pedestrians are Real Danger

    We are having a debate about this topic. Here are some letters from our readers.

    ■ Yes, many cyclists behave dangerously. Many drivers are disrespectful of cyclists. But pedestrians are probably the worse offenders.

    People of all ages happily walk along the pavement with eyes and hands glued to the mobile phone, quite unaware of what is going on around them. They may even do the same thing while crossing a road at a pedestrian crossing or elsewhere. The rest of us have to evade (避让) them or just stand still to wait for the unavoidable collision.

    The real problem is that some pedestrians seem to be, at least for the moment, in worlds of their own that are, to them, much more important than the welfare of others.

—Michael Horan

    ■ I loved the letter from Bob Brooks about cyclists (Viewpoints, May 29). I am afraid they seem to think they own the roads.

    I was walking across Altrincharn Road one morning when a cyclist went round me and on being asked what he was doing he shouted at me.

    The government built a cycle lane on the road but it is hardly used.

    The police do nothing. What a laugh they are!

    The cyclists should all have to be made to use the cycle lanes and wear helmets, fluorescent (发荧光的)jacket and tights at night and in the morning. They should pay some sort of tax and be fined for not wearing them.

—Carol Harvey

    ■ Cyclists jump on and off pavements (which are meant for pedestrians), ride at speed along the pavements, and think they have a special right to go through traffic lights when they are on red.

    I was almost knocked down recently by a cyclist riding on the pavement when there was a cycle lane right next to him.

    Other road users, including horse riders, manage to obey the rules so why not cyclists?

    It's about time they had to be registered and insured, so when they do hit a pedestrian or a vehicle, or cause an accident, at least they can be traced and there might be an opportunity to claim.

—JML

    Write to Viewpoints of the newspaper.