According to statistics published by the University of Scranton, about 45 percent of Americans usually make New Year's resolutions—and the most popular resolution is losing weight. Of those who make resolutions, a mere 8 percent achieve them.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Are we just setting ourselves up for failure? Learn how to make realistic resolutions and how to overcome the roadblocks along the way.

    Setting a resolution to lose pounds isn't a goal that's achievable now. It may be a good long-term goal. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Registered dietitian Elisa Zied says “… to be real when you make a resolution. It's okay to shoot for the stars like making a resolution, but why not set a smaller goal and train smart?”

    The same concept applies to weight loss. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} These goals should help develop healthy habits that will finally help achieve your long-term resolution.

    Notice that these goals are simple and achievable. “Instead of going from zero to 60, from never going to the gym to going four to five times a week, why not start with three days a week, get consistent and build from there,” Zied says. Set yourself up for success and map out your course by making appointments with yourself to be active. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    You also need to be aware of your current exercise and eating habits to make achievable goals. Keeping a diary of your food and exercise habits can help. Record everything you eat and drink for three to five days and review it. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}For example, if you notice a tendency to snack on unhealthy fare, set a goal to eat a fruit or vegetable with each snack. Building on these smaller goals over time can help you achieve your long-term goal.

A. So why do so many of us fail to achieve our goals?

B. Once you notice your not-so-good habits, start fixing them.

C. Set between one and three weekly goals that you want to achieve.

D. Resolutions usually involve a commitment to sticking to your goals.

E. However, in order to reach it, you need to take baby steps to get it down.

F. If you treat your goals like set appointment, you're more likely to achieve them.

G. Losing weight, as well as getting a better job, is among the most popular resolutions for adults.

    Eating spicy foods frequently may be tied to a slightly lower risk of an earlier death, according to a new study. However, more research is needed to confirm the link, experts say.

    The researchers found that the people in the study who ate spicy foods one or two days a week were 10 percent less likely to die during the study, compared with those who ate spicy foods less than once a week, according to the study published today(Aug. 4) in the journal The BMJ. Moreover, the people in the study who ate spicy foods three or more days a week were 14 percent less likely to die during the study, compared with those who ate spicy foods less than once a week.

    However, the study was observational, and so it is too early to tell whether there is a causal relationship between eating spicy food and lower mortality, said study author Lu Qi, an associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. "We definitely need more data from other populations," Qi told Live Science. “The researchers don't know why exactly the consumption of spicy food may be linked to lower mortality, but previous research on cells and animals has suggested several possible mechanisms,” Qi said.

    “It is unclear whether the observed associations are the direct result of spicy food intake, or whether spicy foods are simply a marker for other beneficial but unmeasured dietary components(成分),” said Nita Forouhi, a nutritional expect. At this point, researchers don't know for sure whether eating spicy foods can have a beneficial effect on human health and mortality, Forouhi wrote. "Future research is needed to make sure whether spicy food consumption has the potential to improve health and reduce mortality directly, or if it is merely a marker of other dietary and lifestyle factors," she said.

    The Nazca Lines are a series of large ancient geoglyphs (地画) in the Nazca Desert, in southern Peru. It is ranging from geometric patterns to drawings of different animals and stylized human-like forms. The ancient lines can only be truly taken in from high in the air, leaving generations puzzled as to how these precise works could have been completed long before the documented invention of human flight.

    The Lines were first spotted when commercial airlines began flying across the Peruvian desert in the 1920,s. Who built them and what was their purpose? Are they roads, star pointers，maybe even a gigantic map? If the people who lived here 2,000 years ago had only a simple technology, how did they manage to construct such precise figures? Did they have a plan? These markings are like a vast puzzle.

    The Nazca Lines are the most outstanding group of geoglyphs in the world. There are also huge geoglyphs in Egypt, Malta，United States (Mississippi and California), Chile，Holivia and in other countries. But the Nazca geoglyphs, because of their numbers， characteristics, dimensions and cultural continuity as they were made and remade throughout a certain history period, form the most impressive archeological (考古学的) group.

    The Nazca plain is unique for its ability to preserve the markings upon it, due to the combination of the climate (one of the driest on Earth, with only twenty minutes of rainfall per year) and the flat, stony ground which minimizes the effect of the wind at ground level. With no dust or sand to cover the plain and little rain or wind to erode (腐蚀) it, lines drawn here tend to stay drawn. These factors, combined with the existence of lighter-colored subsoil beneath the desert surface, provide a vast writing pad that is suited to the artist who wants to leave his mark eternal.

    Are you using a dating App to make friends? How do you know that Ben from London is really 25-year-old? Is his photo taken recently? Is his name even Ben? Dating apps can be tricky to operate, particularly when you're trying to know whether someone is trustworthy, but one thing you can't cheat is your gene, which is why a new dating app is using DNA as a basis for its match.

    A dating app named Pheramor requires all users to hand in a cheek sample, from which a team of in-house scientists using a specially-created tool can queue the specific genes connected with attraction and then identify which users might be suitable. The process works by separating the 11 genes that link to our pheromones（信息素）, the chemical signals that are believed to control one's attraction. Combining this data with the personal information allows the app to make very specific matches.

    “Pheramor uses both your biology and your social technology: we collect your genetic data through a cheek sample and collect your like, dislikes, and interest from your social media introductions like Facebook, Twitter, etc,” the app's website explains. “All of them will be used in our specific software, which is designed to learn what you prefer.”

    The co-founder Brittany Barreto, who has a PHD in genetics added that Pheramor's technology digs deeper than traditional dating apps, making it almost impossible for people to cheat their way to a date.

    The Houston-based app is already up and running but hopes to be officially put into market in February with 3,000 members.

    I have been lucky enough to be right next to dolphins playing in perfect surf, using the power of the waves to travel even faster than they normally swim. There is np doubt that they are enjoying themselves and, though I can't swim like a dolphin, {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

    Bodysurfing involves riding on a wave with no help from any device (装置) such as a surfboard, which makes it the "purest" form of surfing. In fact, it is one of very few extreme sports—free climbing and cliff diving are others—{#blank#}2{#/blank#}.

    However, it is more enjoyable and safer if you use flippers (脚蹼). This is because they enable you to swim faster, and so catch waves and surf along them more easily. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Another aid is a handboard, a mini-surf board about the size of an iron, held in one hand to generate more speed along the wave.

    To catch a wave, swim to where the waves break and, as one approaches, start swimming towards the beach. You must try to travel at the same speed as the wave and, if you do it correctly, you will feel the wave lifting you and pushing you forwards. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}.

    Bodysurfing is not a professional sport, {#blank#}5{#/blank#}—the Pipeline Bodysurfing

    Classic—held each year at the legendary Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii. Local bodysurfers compete against athletes from places such as Australia, Brazil, Japan or France, in terrifying walls of water above the sharp coral reef.

    For me no other sport is as much fun as bodysurfing. There's a good reason why dolphins choose not to use surfboards!

    The earliest known copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa—thought to have been painted at the same time as the original masterpiece—has been discovered at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. The work offers art-lovers an attractive clue to what the model for the world's most famous painting really looked like. Controllers of the museum found the picture hidden beneath layers of paints during restoration work on a picture initially thought to have been a later replica(exact copy) of the Mona Lisa.

    The restored version shows the same woman that Leonardo depicted (描画), against a landscape similar to that shown in the background of the original, which now hangs in the Louvre in Paris. And while the features of Leonardo's Mona Lisa have been dulled by centuries of dirt and layers of cracked paints—which are unlikely ever to be removed—in the recently-rediscovered copy, she appears fresher-faced and younger than her better-known "twin".

    News of the find was revealed at a meeting at London's National Gallery, linked to its "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan" exhibition. "This sensational (轰动的) find will transform our understanding of the world's most famous picture," the Art Newspaper reported, adding that the clues found on the Madrid version suggest that the original and the copy were begun at the same time and painted next to each other, as the work went on.

    Miguel Falomir, manager of Italian painting at the Prado, told reporters that expert analysis suggested a strong link between Leonardo and the artist who painted the copy. "The painting was done in the painter's own workshop," he said. "It is absolutely consistent with Leonardo's work, but Leonardo didn't actually do any work on it himself."