Would it surprise you to learn that, like animals, trees communicate with each other and pass on their wealth to the next generation?

    UBC Professor Simard explains how trees are much more complex than most of us ever imagined .Although Charles Darwin thought that trees are competing for survival of the fittest, Simard shows just how wrong he was. In fact, the opposite is true: trees survive through their co-operation and support, passing around necessary nutrition “depending on who needs it”.

    Nitrogen（氮） and carbon are shared through miles of underground fungi（真菌） networks, making sure that all trees in the forest ecological system give and receive just the right amount to keep them all healthy. This hidden system works in a very similar way to the networks of neurons（神经元）in our brains, and when one tree is destroyed, it affects all.

    Simard talks about “mother trees”, usually the largest and oldest plants on which all other trees depend .She explains how dying trees pass on the wealth to the next generation, transporting important minerals to young trees so they may continue to grow .When humans cut down “mother trees” with no awareness of these highly complex “tree societies” or the networks on which they feed, we are reducing the chances of survival for the entire forest.

    “We didn't take any notice of it .” Simard says sadly. “Dying trees move nutrition into the young trees before dying, but we never give them chance.” If we could put across the message to the forestry industry, we could make a huge difference towards our environmental protection efforts for the future.

    Young people frequently say that they want to exercise, but they just can't find the time.

    The solution just might be in-office interval training.

    Recent studies show that very short but intense exercise rapidly builds and maintains fitness and health, even when the workout is only a few minutes long.

    Work the stairs

    You can complete an excellent, effective — and very brief — workout in an office stairwell, says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada and an expert on interval training.

    For a study that he and his colleagues presented earlier this year, they asked 12 out-of-shape women in their 20s to warm up for two minutes by slowly walking up and down stairs in a campus office building.

    They completed three of these abbreviated stair workouts per week for six weeks.

    By the end, their aerobic fitness had improved substantially, the researchers reported, by about as much as if they had been running or cycling each week for hours.

    Fidget your way to fitness.

    Parents and teachers may once have urged you to sit still, but wiggling, tapping your toes, standing briefly, and otherwise fidgeting as much as possible at your desk is in fact good for your body.

    In one recent study, college students showed healthier blood flow in their lower legs if they fidgeted than if they did not.

    Even better, a 2008 study found that among office workers, those who frequently fidgeted burned as many as 300 calories more each day than those who resolutely stayed still.

    Thousands of persons in Peru are suffering from the disease cholera. Medical experts say it is the first time in their century that cholera has reached the western part of the world. The Untied States Centers for disease Control says the kind of cholera has been spreading throughout the world since 1961. It was discovered that year in Indonesia. Since the first case in Peru, more than sixteen thousand people have been affected and about one hundred have died.

    Cholera is caused by polluted food and water. People become infected (传染 ) when they eat the polluted food or drink the polluted water. If untreated immediately, they may die within hours. Most victims however , can be saved. treatment includes drugs and replacement of body fluids ( 液体) directly into the blood.

    Medical researchers have developed a vaccine ( 菌苗) medicines to protect against cholera. But the vaccine is only about 50% effective. And it protects against cholera for only about six months. Medical experts say the best way to fight cholera is to prevent it. They also say people should not eat uncooked food or food that has not been cooked long enough. People who live in areas where cholera has been found should wash their hands before eating and cooking. They should drink only water that has been boiled or made pure with chemicals.

    More than 135,000 UK drinkers will die from cancer caused by alcohol（酒精）by the year 2035, researchers say. A study by Sheffield University and Cancer Research UK shows that alcohol will cost the NHS (National Health Service)￡53 billion over the next ten years including ￡2 billion on cancer.

    Although alcohol is known to cause many types of cancer including breast and throat, most people don't realize the relation between alcohol and cancer. A survey of 2,100 Britons by the researchers earlier this year found nine in ten did not connect drinking with cancer. The researchers used a computer model to work out the numbers of alcohol-related cancer deaths, hospital admissions（入院）and total costs to NHS over the next 20 years.

    The study shows that a fifth of men and 1 in 10 women have alcohol every day—many of these are middle-aged and middle class. Researchers are very worried about this group as they believe cancer may be caused by drinking over long periods. The study shows that even if the cost stays as it is, alcohol-related cancer deaths will rise from 6,299 in 2015 to 7,097 in 2034. Alcohol will lead to 891,299 hospital admissions, up from 802,118 in 2015, and 65,005 will be caused by cancer.

    Earlier this year Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies studied carefully the alcohol guidance（指导）for the first time in thirty years. She told people there was no safe level of drinking and advised them to drink no more than 14 units a week. But researchers say this guidance isn't enough and want the government to increase a little price per unit of alcohol.

    The minute you start talking about what you're going to do if you lose, you have lost.

    Some people have a great fear of losing. In fact, fear is not the best description of what they have. It is more like a crazy phobia(恐惧症) that they cannot keep away from. Day after day, these people allow their fear of losing to control everything in their lives. They are so afraid of losing that they try to keep away from losing without considering the cost of doing so.

    When things start to get out of control, fear begins to come in. As the fear of losing or getting hurt overwhelms(充溢) them, they quickly look for excuses, rather than fight back or find a way to deal with their fear. They never realize that losing is just as common as eating and breathing.

    If one is given a choice, who wouldn't prefer winning over losing? After all, winning is exciting and winning is what living is all about. Although we might try hard all the time, we're not going to win every time. In fact, most of us are going to lose a lot more often than we win and, believe it or not, it's not all bad.

    In order to make the most of our abilities ，we have to take risks every now and then. When we take risks, we might get knocked down, or even knocked flat, but with each failure and each loss, we have an opportunity to get better and get closer to the life we expect.

    A few years ago I had an “aha!” moment regarding handwriting.

    I had in my hand a sheet of paper with handwritten instructions on it for some sort of editorial task. It occurred at first that I did not recognize the handwriting, and then I realized whose it must be. I finally became aware of the fact that I had been working with this colleague for at least a year, maybe two, and yet I did not recognize her handwriting at that point.

    It was a very important event in the computerization of life-a sign that the informal. Friendly communication of people working together in an office had changed from notes in pen to instant messages and emails. There was a time when our workdays were filled with little letters, and we recognized one another's handwriting the way we knew voices or faces.

    As a child visiting my father's office, I was pleased to recognize, in little notes on the desks of his staff, the same handwriting I would see at home in the notes he would leave on the fridge—except that those notes were signed “dad” instead of “RFW”.

    All this has been on my mind because of the talk about The Rise and Fall of Handwriting, a book by Florey. She shows in her book a deep concern about the fall of handwriting and the failure of schools to teach children to write well, but many others argue that people in a digital age can't be expected to learn to hold a pen.

    I don't buy it.

    I don't want to see anyone cut off from the expressive, personal associations that a pen still promotes better than a digital keyboard does. For many a biographer, part of really getting to know their subjects is learning to read their handwriting.

    What some people advocate is teaching one of the many attractive handwritings based on the handwriting of 16^th-century Italy. That may sound impossibly grand-as if they want kids to learn to draw by copying classical paintings. However, they have worked in many school systems.