September is an exciting month in every college freshman's life. For many, it's the first time that they've left home to live in a new environment. But after the hustle and bustle（喧嚣）of a few weeks, excitement gives way to a less enjoyable emotion— homesickness.

    Homesickness manifests（显露）itself in many ways. You may miss mum's cooking, your pets, or even your old bed. All this becomes a fond memory of the past. Homesickness can be a bitter feeling for many students, especially when faced with the challenges of settling into an unfamiliar environment.

    But remember, you're not alone. According to a recent BBC article, 70 percent of British college students experience homesickness. In this increasingly globalized world in which people migrate to faraway places for a relationship, education or work, homesickness is a feeling shared by many adults.

    Homesickness can have similar symptoms to depression and in extreme cases it can develop into a panic attack. As for the term, homesickness or nostalgia wasn't invented until the 17th century. It was considered a disorder by a Swiss physician, who attributed soldiers' mental and physical discomfort to their longing to return home, “nostos” from Greek, and the accompanying pain, “algos”.

    Studies in recent years, however, have shown that nostalgia may have some benefits to our mental health. After a decade of surveys and researches, Constantine Sedikides, a US social psychologist, found that nostalgia is what makes us human. He explains that nostalgia can resist loneliness, boredom and anxiety. Therefore, it's necessary for college students to learn some ways to overcome the uncomfortable feeling.

    Should you work out in the gym in the morning instead of in the evening? It all depends. Of course, there are advantages of working out(运动) in the morning.

    You will increase your energy for the rest of the day. “Morning workouts result in better energy levels throughout the day and give you more mental sharpness,” says Dr. Cedrie Byrant, Chief Science Officer of the American Council on Exercise.

    Here is another advantage. In 2017, health researchers found that exercising in the morning helps you sleep better at night. According to the study, in all cases, those who exercised at 7:00am experienced about a 10 percent drop in blood pressure that carried through the rest of the day. They also had about a 25 percent drop in blood pressure at night, slept longer and had more beneficial sleep cycles than when they exercised at other times of the day.

    However, there are disadvantages, too.

    If you are not an early riser, getting out of the bed in the morning can be very difficult. Byran says that if you're not used to exercising in the morning and force yourself to get up, you may not put as much effort into the exercise as you would later in the day. Also, if you aren't careful, you can damage your sleep schedule, which can lead to insufficient sleep.

    Besides, hitting the gym before work can cause a challenge in terms of scheduling. If you work a 9-to-5 job, getting ready for work and going to work can cut your morning workout short, Byrant notes.

    To sum up, it has both advantages and disadvantages. If it suits you better to work out in the morning, you can do so.

    Last week, Donna Strickland was awarded the 2018 Nobel prize for physics jointly with Arthur Ashkin and Gérard Mourou. It's the first time in 55 years that a woman has won this famous prize, but why has it taken so long? We look at five other pioneering female physicists — past and present — who actually deserve the prize.

    Jocelyn Bell Burnell

    Perhaps the most famous snub(冷落): then student Bell discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967, when she was a PhD student at Cambridge. The Nobel prize that recognised this landmark discovery in 1974, however, went to her male supervisor, Antony Hewish. Recently awarded a £2.3m Breakthrough Prize, which she gave away to help under-represented students, she joked to the Guardian: "I feel I've done very well out of not getting a Nobel prize."

    Lene Hau

    Hau is best known for leading the research team at Harvard University in 1999 that managed to slow a beam of light, before managing to stop it completely in 2001. Often topping Nobel prize prediction lists, could 2019 be Hau's year?

    Vera Rubin

    Rubin discovered dark matter in the 1980s, opening up a new field of astronomy. She died in 2016, without recognition from the committee.

    Chien-Shiung Wu

    Wu's "Wu experiment" helped disprove the "law of conservation of parity". Her experimental work was helpful but never honoured, and instead, her male colleagues won the 1957 Nobel prize for their theoretical work behind the study.

    Lise Meitner

    Meitner led groundbreaking work on the discovery of nuclear fission. However, the discovery was acknowledged by the 1944 Nobel prize for chemistry, which was won by her male co-lead, Otto Hahn.

    Since his students began using Quizlet, English teacher Tristan Thorne has noticed an improvement in their ability to learn and use new words. Quizlet is a learning App, a computer program you use on your mobile phone. It can help users build and test their knowledge of English words. Quizlet has word sets for millions of subjects. And, it is quickly becoming a useful mobile tool for language learners.

    Thorne teachers at Columbia University in New York City. Thanks to learning Apps, Jeff Strack, another English teacher, has also notice improvement in his students' ability to remember information. He teaches at Hostos Community College, also in New York. He and Thorne are part of a growing number of language educators adding mobile Apps to their classes.

    Strack and Thorne seem to agree that the days when teachers would not permit the use of mobile phones are gone. When they use Apps, language learners communicate more differently than in a traditional classroom. Users act on or respond to something, instead of just listening to new information.

    Thorne believes that Apps can help learners become more active in learning. For example, each week, his students are required to add vocabulary words into Quizlet for others to use. He says some Apps also make it easy for students to know their language strengths and weaknesses.

    The biggest improvement Strack has seen in his students is that they are much more active inwhole-class or small-group discussions. “Apps let all students take part in the activity, whether it's a game, quiz or practice activity.” he says.

    Many existing learning Apps are designed for students of all ages and levels. Some are designed for group activities. Some support independent learning. Still some are good for homework. Thorne says he especially likes Quizlet and three other Apps: QR Codes, Socrative and Evernote.

    No one likes to make mistakes. But a new study says organizations learn more from their failures than from their successes, and keep that knowledge longer.

    One of the researchers was Vinit Desai, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. He worked with Peter Madsen from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University in Utah.

    They did not find much long-term "organizational learning" from success. It is possible, they say. But Professor Desai says they found that knowledge gained from failure lasts for years. He says organizations should treat failures as a learning opportunity and not try to ignore them.

    The study looked at companies and organizations that launch satellites and other space vehicles. Professor Desai compared two shuttle flights. In two thousand two, a piece of insulating (隔热的) material broke off during launch and damaged a rocket on the Atlantis. Still the flight was considered a success. Then in early two thousand three, a piece of insulation struck the Columbia during launch. This time, the shuttle broke apart on re-entry and the seven crew members died. NASA officials suspended all flights and an investigation led to suggested changes.

    Professor Desai says the search for solutions after a failure can make leaders more open-minded. He points to air-lines as an example of an industry that has learned from failures in the past. He advises organizations to look for useful information in small failures and failures they avoided. He also urges leaders to encourage the open sharing of information. The study appeared in the Academy of management Journal.

    The mistakes we learn from do not have to be our own. We recently asked people on our Facebook page to tell us a time they had done something really silly. Fabricio Cmino wrote: Not long ago I wanted to watch TV, but it wouldn't turn on, so I did everything I could to start it. Thirty minutes later my mum showed up and, passing by, said to me "Did you try plugging it?" "I'm just dusting, Mum!" So she wouldn't notice how dumb I am sometimes!

    Bruno Kanieski da Silva told about a time he looked everywhere for his key. It was in his pocket. He wrote: I always promise I will never do it again, but after a few weeks, where is my wallet? For sure it will be in a very logical place.

    While faking and fierce looks are among animals great defenses, many species know that everyone runs from a big stink (臭气) too.

    Vulture (秃鸳)

    Vultures, are street sweepers that feast on the rotting flesh of dead animals, which benefits us by ridding our highways and landscapes of animal bodies and the bacteria they might carry. When vultures feel threatened they vomit, and the smell of vomited-on dead bodies puts of most predators. Throwing up allows the vulture to fly away more quickly-and the vomit can hurt the aggressor's eyes and face.

    Opossum (负鼠)

    In some ways opossums have it easy. In order to become "dead", they don't have to fax anyone a death certificate. They just lie there with their tongues hanging out with the smell of dead flesh, sometimes for hours, effectively convincing potential predators they can find a much fresher meal elsewhere. Even if they keep getting attacked, they won't move any more than a human statue until the threat has passed.

    Hoatzin (磨雉)

    Hold your nose and meet the hoatzin, a bird of distinctions, not the least of which is that it smells like fresh cow shit. The animal mostly eats leaves and it's the only bird known to digest by fermentation, like a cow. This process is what causes its smell and has earned it the nickname the "stink bird

    Millipedes (千足虫)

    Millipedes are tricky. For starters they look wormy. Their name is deceptive, too: Their legs number about 750. Their major defense is to curl up into a ball. They, though, also release a harm eyes, and leave a horrible smell on their attackers.

    Sea Hare (海兔)

    The graceful sea hare is plain in taste in the first place, so it's not the most popular dish in the seafood chain. Nonetheless this type of sea creature has a pretty creative smell-related defense that is almost the opposite of its smelly companions on this list. The sea hare gives out a slimy, purple ink, the substance which makes food less palatable to predators.

    Researchers using lobsters (2-f) as model predators found that the sea blocks the lobsters receptive mechanism. In other words, the sea hare gives its attacker the equivalent of a stuffy nose so they don't know how appealing it is.