Paying a higher price than usual for a ticket to see a film in 3D is the annoyance of many a cinema-goer's life.

    But there may be a benefit to doing so, as a study has found that 3D films exercise the brain and improve short-term functioning in a similar way to brain-training tests.

    The research found that people who watched a movie in 3D improved cognitive (认知) skills, compared to those who watched it in 2D.

    The research was led by neuroscientist(神经学家) Dr Patrick Fagan from Goldsmiths University in London. More than 100 people took part in the experiment, where participants watched Disney film Big Hero 6 in either standard format or RealD 3D.

    They also carried out a brain-training-style test before and after seeing a section from the film. The test covered memory, reaction times and cognitive function and the results were compared later.

    According to the research, which was carried out in partnership with science group Thrill Laboratory, participants experienced a 23 percent increase in cognitive processing, as well as an 11 percent increase in reaction times.

    Dr Fagan said that the results showed enough of an improvement in brain function to suggest that 3D could play a part in improving brain power in the future.

    "These findings are more significant than you might think," he said. "It is a fact that people are living longer and there is a noticeable decline in cognitive brain function in old age which can worsen future quality of life. There has never been a better time to look at ways to improve brain function. The initial results of this study show that 3D films may potentially play a role in slowing this decline."

    A second part of the experiment involved those watching the film being fitted with headsets that scanned brain activity and this too showed heightened (加强的) activity when watching 3D. According to the results, participants were seven percent more engaged with what they were watching, adding to argument that 3D movies are more like watching real-life—something Professor Brendan Walker from Thrill Laboratory agreed with.

    "As Professor Brendan Walker's test concluded, 3D films are more attractive and heighten the senses — this, in turn, makes the brain run at quicker speeds," Dr Fagan said.

    Life may have evolved on at least three planets within a newly discovered solar system 39 light years from Earth. Astronomers at the NASA have discovered no less than seven roughly Earth-sized worlds orbiting a dwarf star in the system. Scientists had previously identified a tiny number of "exoplanets", which are believed to have the qualities needed to support life. However, the new system contains an unprecedented(前所未有) number of Earth-sized, probably rocky planets, and is being acknowledged as an "accelerated leap forward" in the search for extraterrestrial (外星球的)life.

    Three of the new planets are said to be particularly promising because there might exist oceans. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA, told a press conference in Washington: "This gives us a hint that finding a second Earth is not a matter of 'if', but 'when'."

    The planets were discovered using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which was able to track how fast each of the planets crossed the star Trappist-l and completed an orbit. From this the research team calculated how far the planets were from their star, and therefore how likely they are to be habitable.

    NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is already being used to search for atmospheres around the planets. Future telescopes, including the proposed European Extremely Large Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, may be powerful enough to discover markers of life, such as oxygen in the atmospheres of exoplanets.

    Astronomers believe there could be as many as 40 billion potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Prof Zurbuchen said that now was a "gold-rush phase" in the search for these exoplanets.

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    The next time someone asks you where the biggest ocean is, point them toward Jupiter. While earth harbours about 320 million cubic miles(1,333 cubic km)of water, our planet is practically a desert compared to the rest of the Solar System.

    A moon of Jupiter called Europa, for example, which is roughly the size of our own Moon, likely hides a subsurface ocean with more than twice as much water as there is on Earth.

    Yet even that pales into insignificance in comparison to Europa's neighbour Ganymede; more than 30 times as much water as our home planet is thought to reside there as liquid and ice.

    And scientists keep finding more water wherever they look. On September 28, researchers reported that Dione — a small moon of Saturn — probably has a subsurface ocean, too.

    To see just how Earth stacks up against other ocean worlds, Business Insider contacted Steve Vance, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who's calculated the numbers on just how much water might be out there.

    In order of how much water they have, from the least to the most, they are: Enceladus, Dione, Earth, Europa, Pluto, Triton, Callisto, Titan, and Ganymede. Mimas, a moon of Saturn, and Ceres, the largest asteroid in the Solar System, are also thought to have subsurface oceans —but scientists aren't yet sure how big each one might be.

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    Obama, Lady Gaga and Steve Jobs—what do they have in common? They are, of course, all Americans. And according to a survey by social networking site baidu. com, they all best illustrate(举例说明) the word “cool”.

    But just what does it mean to say someone is “cool”? Most would answer that it is something to do with being independent-minded and not following the crowd.

    Yale University art professor Robert Farris Thompson says that the term “cool” goes back to 15th century West African philosophy. “Cool” relates to ideas of grace under pressure.

    “In Africa, ” he writes, “coolness is a positive quality which combines calmness, silence, and life.”

    The modern idea of “cool” developed largely in the US in the period after World War II. “Post-war ‘cool' was in part an expression of war-weariness (厌战情绪), ... it went against the strict social rules of the time,” write sociologists Dick Pountain and David Robins in Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude.

    But it was the American actor James Dean who became the symbol for “cool” in the hugely successful 1955 movie Rebel without a Cause. Dean plays a tough guy who disobeys his parents and the authorities. He always gets the girl, smokes cigarettes, wears a leather jacket and beats up bullies. In the movie, Dean showed what “cool” would mean to American young people for the next 60 years.

    Today the focus of “cool” has changed to athletics (体育运动) stars. Often in movies about schools, students gain popularity on the athletics field more than in the classroom. This can be seen quite clearly in movies like Varsity Blues and John Tucker Must Die.

    But many teenagers also think being smart is cool. Chess and other thinking games have been becoming more popular in schools.

    “Call it the Harry Potterization of America—a time when being smart is the new cool,” writes journalist Joe Sunnen.

    Welcome to one of the largest collections of footwear(鞋类)in the world that will make you green with envy. Here at the Footwear Museum you can see exhibits from all over the world. You can find out about shoes worn by everyone from the Ancient Egyptians to pop stars.

    Room 1

    The celebrity(名人)footwear section is probably the most popular in the entire museum. Started in the 1950s there is a wide variety of shoes and boots belonging to everyone from queens and presidents to pop stars and actors! Most visitors find the celebrities" choice of footwear extremely interesting.

    Room 2

    Most of our visitors are amazed-and shocked-by the collection of “special purpose” shoes on exhibition here at the Museum of Footwear. For example, there are Chinese shoes made of silk that were worn by women to tie their feet firmly to prevent them from growing too much！

    Room 3

    As well as shoes and boots, the museum also exhibits shoe­shaped objects. The variety is unbelievable. For example, there is a metal lamp that resembles(类似于) a pair of shoes, and Greek wine bottles that look like legs！

    The Footwear Library

    People come from all over the world to study in our excellent footwear library. Designers and researchers come here to look up information on anything and everything related to the subject of footwear.

    Darrell Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippine city of Davao, received a call from the Philippines, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (渔业与水产资源局) early Friday morning reporting a death of a young whale.

    When the necropsy (尸检) was performed, Blatchley told NPR, he was not prepared for the amount of plastic they found in the whale's stomach. "It was full of plastic nothing but nonstop plastic." he said "It was filled to the point that its stomach was as hard as a baseball." That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more," Blatchley added.

    Blatchley is the founder and owner of the D'Bone Collector Museum, a natural history museum in Davao. In the coming days, the museum will display all the items found in the whale's system. Blatchley and his team work with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and other organizations to assist in rescue and recovery of marine animals.

    "Within the last 10 years, we have recovered 61 whales and dolphins just within the Davao Gulf," he said. "Of them, 57 have died due to man whether they took plastic or fishing nets or other waste, or gotten caught in pollution — and four were pregnant."

    Blatchley said he hoped that the latest incident would launch the issue of plastic pollution in the Philippines and across the globe. "If we keep going this way, it will be more uncommon to see an animal die of natural causes than it is to see an animal die of plastic," he said.