Many of us still tend to think that emotions can affect reasonable thought，and sometimes land us in trouble. But in recent years psychologists have taken quite a different view. Keith Oatley，Professor of Psychology at Glasgow University，is involved in the research which shows the fundamental importance of emotions.

    He believes we are very ambivalent about them：we think of our emotions as being unreasonable，but we also consider them as essential to being human. For example，Mr. Spock，a character in the television series Star Trek，is super­intelligent and he has no emotions at all. However，he is never made captain of the spaceship. Maybe，this is because Mr Spock is not the kind of person you can share your feelings with—a person who shows his emotions.

    As Professor Oatley points out，our emotions have very important functions，for example，fear. If we cross the road and a car approaches，we usually stop moving or step back. We stop what we are doing，check what we have done and pay very careful attention to the environment. The emotion of fear makes us take this small series of actions which,on average, help protect our safety.

    On the other hand，if things are going well and small problems come up，we find we can solve them with the resources we have to hand. As a consequence, we tend to feel happy and usually continue doing the job.

    Anger is an emotion that tends to occur when someone is preventing us from doing something. Then this small “kit” of reactions enables us to prepare ourselves to be quite aggressive to that person，or to try harder，and so on.

    Professor Oatley believes emotions generally occur at these important moments in actions. With fear and anger our emotions make us decide to start doing something else, while with happiness they “suggest” we continue what we are already doing.

    Kids undergo a large amount of pressure and stress during their school exams, which can often become quite overwhelming (to much) for them. It may be the first experience of stress, at this level, they have ever experienced and therefore quite frightening. Yes, you may say that it's all a part of growing up and therefore good lessons for them to learn, and to an extent I agree with you. However, it's important to learn how to prepare for life's challenges so that they aren't overwhelming or scary and so that we are able to manage them the best we can.

    Here are some tips you can use during your kids exam time.

    Break their revision plan down into small parts. Doing this will help transform what once seemed like a huge impossible task into a more manageable one.

    Help them arrange properly so that the subjects they like the least (perhaps ones that require more time and effort) are worked on first; once they are out of the way, it will help reduce the worry.

    Plan week on week to make sure they are on track. Ticking items of a list each week will help them to feel good about themselves and their progress.

    Create rewards for all the ticks - a favourite TV programme, a delicious snack, an hour's surfing the Internet, computer games or whatever it was that they enjoy the most. This will encourage them to carry on and make them feel good.

    Think of strategies on how to deal with exams calmly so their anxieties don't get the better of them.

    Talk about times in their lives when they had been successful at something and look at the qualities they used to get them there - determination, persistence, hard work, patience, positivity, dedication - discuss how they can apply these skills to their exams.

    Acknowledge that if they do their best that is good enough.

    Ensure they realize that this period in their lives will pass and that exams are only a temporary time in their lives; nothing can and does last forever.

    Ensure they keep their eye on the prize: enjoying their long summer holiday when the exams are finished; giving them something to look forward to will help to motivate them and provide a positive end in sight.

    Scientists have found living organisms(有机体) that could be 50,000 years old recently. The organisms were found in a hot, but beautiful cave system in Naica, Mexico. These ancient life forms can be seen only with a microscope, which proves they are probably microbes(微生物).

    Penelope Boston leads the Astrobiology Institute at NASA, the space agency of the United States. These ancient organisms are able to exist by eating minerals such as iron and manganese. If the findings are confirmed, they will show how microbes can survive in extreme conditions.

    Researchers have been studying ancient microbes for nine years. Forty different kinds of microbes and some viruses were found in the underground area this time. The genetic(基因的) structures of these organisms are different from those of their nearest relatives –viruses. That is similar to that humans are genetically different from mushrooms growing in forest. The caves in Naica are 800 kilometers deep. Before the miners began working in the caves, the area was isolated from the surface and the outside world.

    Some of the caves are as big as the large religious centers built during Europe's Middle Ages. There are crystals(晶体) covering the walls. Scientists must wear special clothing to keep cool. And the clothing keeps the crystals safe from human germs or other damage. The researchers could only work for about 20 minutes at a time before they have to go to a room that is 28 degrees Celsius to cool down.

    NASA officials would not let Boston share her findings with scientific experts until the last week's announcement. So scientists could not say much about the findings. But Norine Noonan, a biologist at the University of South Florida, said she believed them. “Why are we surprised?” Noonan asked, “As a biologist, I would say life on Earth is extremely tough and versatile.” “What's more, these organisms are not the oldest life forms on Earth. Scientists published studies about living microbes that may be 500,000 years old several years ago,” she added.

    What would you say if we told you that you could learn to speak a new language in only 7 days? Pretty unbelievable right? But how could it be? To find out,we spoke to David-one of our brave Babbel learners—to see how the Babbel app successfully got him speaking Norwegian(挪威语)in just one week.

How much time did you learn each day?

    I didn't need to give my entire life over to learning Norwegian. Each Babbel lesson takes only 15 minutes, and I set myself the achievable aim of finishing three Babbel lessons daily.This took only 45minutes each day.

How did the Babbel app help you learn so quickly?

    The Babbel app has a course plan for beginners that taught me how to make sentences in Norwegian within the first few days. Then I was able to personalize my learning by selecting single-topic lessons on eating, drinking, music, culture, traveling and so on. This allowed me to quickly enlarge my vocabulary!

    This way of learning kept me highly active,and made sure I wasn't bored to tears with grammar practice that we all remember from school!

    “After 7 days I was able to introduce myself in Norwegian,talk about my hobbies and interests, and most importantly,communicating with a native Norwegian speaker in a real conversation and I could even play a joke or two!”

    Would you introduce this app to others?

    Certainly! Babbel has 14 languages to choose from so if you're thinking about brushing up on your German for a business trip, or learning a bit of Portuguese (葡萄牙语) for next year's summer vacation, you'll be happy to hear that you only need an app, 7 days of learning to get you conversational.

    This year's flu season is pretty scary. To try to minimize the effects, public officials are still urging anyone who hasn't yet gotten their flu shot to get one as soon as possible. However, even if every single person got a shot in the arm, the vaccine(疫苗)—with its excellent 36 percent effectiveness—would not prevent everyone from getting infected with the annoying virus. Knowledge is power, so here's what goes on in your body when you come down with the flu.

    The influenza virus primarily attacks your nose, throat, and the tubes that lead to your lungs. But the flu is so much more than that. Your muscles ache, your head hurts, and your appetite goes down, among other things. To our surprise, almost all of these symptoms have less to do with the virus itself than with your immune(免疫的)response to them. Unfortunately, the very defense you have in place to get rid of the flu is the reason you feel so painful when you recover.

    The virus usually enters through your mouth, typically by way of your hands. But it takes a few days for symptoms to set in. While this process might cause some harm to your nose and throat, it's nothing major, and nothing like the symptoms that typically accompany a bad or even mild case of the flu.

    The real fun starts when your immune system begins to fight. Your immune system comes in two parts: the innate system and the adaptive. The innate immune system is essentially an all-purpose tool. As soon as your body senses the presence of any injury or invader (入侵者), the innate immune system launches into action by producing tiny proteins called cytokines and chemokines. The cytokines reproduce almost immediately and start to attack the virus. This increase in immune cells creates an serious inflammation(炎症) throughout the body. But the worst is still to come. Meanwhile, the chemokines work with the adaptive immune system to help create T cells. These cells are a special type of white blood cell that works in a much more specific way: They find the influenza virus, identify what's special about it, and create something unique on their surface that finds and destroys similar invaders.

    I first met Paul Newman in 1968, when George Roy Hill, the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, introduced us in New York City. When the studio didn't want me for the film - it wanted somebody as well known as Paul — he stood up for me. I don't know how many people would have done that; they would have listened to their agents or the studio powers.

    The friendship that grew out of the experience of making that film and The Sting four years later had its root in the fact that although there was an age difference, we both came from a tradition of theater and live TV. We were respectful of craft(技艺) and focused on digging into the characters we were going to play. Both of us had the qualities and virtues that are typical of American actors: humorous, aggressive, and making fun of each other — but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the core(核心) of our relationship off the screen.

    We shared the brief that if you're fortunate enough to have success, you should put something back — he with his Newman's Own food and his Hole in the Wall camps for kids who are seriously ill, and me with Sundance and the institute and the festival. Paul and I didn't see each other all that regularly, but sharing that brought us together. We supported each other financially and by showing up at events.

    I last saw him a few months ago. He'd been in and out of the hospital. He and I both knew what the deal was, and we didn't talk about it. Ours was a relationship that didn't need a lot of words.