Sweet or salty? What kind of tastes do you like? If like me, you have a sweet tooth and you probably can't resist eating cakes, biscuits or chocolate and will sweeten your tea or coffee with spoonfuls of sugar-delicious! But the taste makes it very easy to ignore the warnings that too much of the white stuff（东西）is bad for our health.

    Consuming sugar is an addiction-the more we eat, the more we want. Today's processed food, like ready meals, is related to the stuff and many fizzy（起泡的）drinks contain seven teaspoons of sugar in just one can. In the UK, statistics show that sugar consumption is at its highest level in history and the government is trying to get the food industry to cut the amount of sugar in popular products like chocolate bars by 20% by 2020.

    Of course, sugary food tastes nice, it can help lift our mood, and a part in it can refresh us. But there are dangers too :a high-sugar diet is linked to putting on weight, and being overweight can increase the risk of getting type 2 diabetes（糖尿病）. With these warning signs, I have considered changing my diet by replacing sugary snacks with fruit and salty biscuits-but that's boring!

I'm not alone. BBC journalist Radhika Shanghani, has gone one step further. Encouraged by some well-knowns and nutritionists promoting a 'zero tolerance' approach to sugar, she gave it up altogether, thinking it would make her healthier. Initially she says, “My first fortnight involves mood swings. I have disturbing headaches and feel permanently hung-over.” These symptoms disappeared but she still found food shopping hard as she was stressing about buying the right things.

    Her experiment wasn't a success. She eventually sought advice from Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University who said: “Lots of people enjoy sugar and gain pleasure from it, so one has to find a balance between enjoyment and eating the right amount.”

C

    Teens and younger children are reading a lot less for fun, according to a Common Sense Media report published Monday.

    While the decline over the past decade is steep for teen readers, some data in the report shows that reading remains a big part of many children's lives, and indicates how parents might help encourage more reading.

    According to the report's key findings, "the proportion (比例) who say they 'hardly ever' read for fun has gone from 8 percent of 13-year-olds and 9 percent of 17-year-olds in 1984 to 22 percent and 27 percent respectively today."

    The report data shows that pleasure reading levels for younger children, ages2-8, remain largely the same. But the amount of time spent in reading each session has declined, from closer to an hour or more to closer to a half hour per session.

    When it comes to technology and reading, the report does little to counsel(建议)parenst looking for data about the effect of e-readers and tablets on reading. It does point out that many parents still limit electronic reading, mainly due to concerns about increased screen time.

    The most hopeful data shared in the report shows clear evidence of parents serving as examples and important guides for their kids when it comes to reading. Data shows that kids and teens who do read frequently, compared to infrequent readers, have more books in the home, more books purchased for them, parents who read more often, and parents who set aside time for them to read.

    As the end of school approaches, and school vacation reading lists loom(逼近)ahead, parents might take this chance to step in and make their own summer reading list and plan a family trip to the library or bookstore.

    Keeping fit often means sharing a busy pathway with cyclists, runners and walkers, but imagine facing the task of doing it all without being able to see or hear. It is a challenge many disabled athletes face, unless someone agrees to be their eyes and ears.

    Newly formed group Achilles Brisbane pairs vision－and hearing－impaired（视觉和听觉受损的）athletes with a person who would like to guide them.

    “When we go out, we're always going out into an unknown course,”said Achilles Brisbane president Jane Britt, who is both vision and hearing impaired. “It's much less frightening to have someone beside you that has full hearing to listen for you and tell you what's there.”

    Ms. Cullen and Ms. Britt meet up most Saturday mornings to take part in the free five－kilometer Southbank park run. Their partnership is built on trust, but Ms. Britt said that it took time to develop.

    Ms. Britt said it took an unexpected storm for her to trust Ms. Cullen completely. “There was violent rain, my glasses were broken and we were walking together,”she said. “I suddenly had to tell her I couldn't see anything, and I was going to have to completely trust her. From that time I knew it was going to work because she was so good about dealing with the special situation we both found ourselves in. ”

    Isabella Allen and her seeing-eye dog Tatum are two new additions to the Achilles programme. Ms. Allen kept active by running and cycling but found it difficult to keep going as her vision became worse. After nearly giving up completely, she worked up the courage to ask Brisbane to find someone to share a boat with her.

    Ms. Alien said the fear of not finding anyone to row with almost stopped her from reaching out to Achilles Brisbane. “But, they found people and matched me to them.”she said, “It's the best thing I've ever done. ”

    We can video chat with astronauts aboard the International Space Station and watch live footage from the frozen heights of Everest. But communicating with a submarine (潜艇）or a diver is not so easy. The lack of practical methods for sharing data between underwater and airborne devices has long been a frustration for scientists. The difficulty stems from the fact that radio signals work perfectly in air travel but poorly in water. Sonar (声呐）signals used by underwater sensors reflect off the surface of the water rather than reaching the air.

    Now, researchers at MIT have developed a method with the potential to revolutionize underwater communication. "What we've shown is that it's actually feasible to communicate from underwater to the air," says Fadel Adib, a professor at MJT's Media Lab, who led the research.

    The MIT researchers designed a system that uses an underwater machine to send sonar signals to the surface, making vibrations (震动)corresponding to the ls and Os of the data. A surface receiver then reads and decodes these tiny vibrations. The researchers call the system TARF. It has any number of potential real-world uses, Adib says. It could be used to find downed planes underwater by reading signals from sonar devices in a plane's black box and it could allow submarines to communicate with the surface.

    Right now the technology is low-resolution. The initial study was conducted in the MIT swimming pool at maximum depths of around 11 or 12 feet. The next steps for the researchers are to see if TARF is workable at much greater depths and under varying conditions—high waves, storms, schools of fish. They also want to see if they can make the technology work in the other direction— air to water.

    If the technology proves successful in real-world conditions, expect "texting while diving" to be the latest underwater fashion.

    A company in San Francisco, California, has found a way to turn used plastic bottles into women's shoes.

    Every day, millions of Americans drink water and other liquids from plastic bottles. More than 60 million of them are thrown away each day. Many of the plastic bottles end up in landfills or are burned with other waste products.

    A San Francisco start-up company called Rothy's, however, turns this plastic waste into environmentally friendly shoes. Roth Martin is the company's co-founder. He explains how they turn plastic into soft material for women's feet. They take the plastic, clean it, and break it down into small pieces. Then they press them through a device that makes soft fibers. Those fibers arc then combined together. This is done by a 3D machine. It is designed to reduce waste while making the shoes. The knitted stuff and the inner part of the shoe arc then attached to the shoe's outer part, called the sole (鞋底).This outer sole is also made from environmentally friendly material: responsibly responsibly sourced no-carbon rubber.

    Rolhy's shoes are sold online. They are flat shoes, with either a rounded or pointed toe. They come in different colors and designs. They cost either $ 125 or $ 145 per pair, depending on the design. After American actress Gwyneth Paltrow discovered them last year, the demand for the shoes grew. Martin says there is no shortage of material to fill that demand. "We're not going to run out of water bottles any time soon. So we have a limitless supply of material, and I think that is a good sign for our future." When the environmentally friendly shoes wear out, customers can return them at no cost to a company that uses the recycled material to make other products.

    For now, the shoes are only available to be shipped in the United States. However, the company says it will add international shipping in the near future.

    Positive thinking is a significant element of happiness. In order to become a positive thinker, determination and consistency are important. The first thing to know about positive thinking is that everyone can do it.  With certain cognitive (认知的) and behavioral changes, we can all become positive thinkers. Another important factor is that being a positive thinker does not mean you become numb to anything that is not working properly in your life or is negative - it just means that you approach life and face challenges with a healthier outlook.

    Instead of selectively attending to negative events, focus on the positive ones. Then pay attention to the delayed consequences of your behavior rather than the immediate ones. For example, if a job is not going like you want, focus on the fact that you have a job and how you can take your time to make the situation better.

    Challenge any internal attributions and see if you compare your behavior to standards that are excessively rigid and perfectionistic. If so, change these and be reasonable with your comparisons. For example, if you constantly compare your weaknesses with other people's strengths, then switch this and compare yourself with those who are doing poorer than you as well. Overall, people who focus more on their strengths than their weaknesses but at the same time are aware of their weaknesses have a healthier self-evaluation result.

    When faced with too much fear about a situation, imagine the worst case and visualize a solution for it, then let go of fear. This way, you will be prepared for anything and your fear will not block you from being open and creative to different solutions. For example, if you are constantly worried about losing your job up to a point where it is creating a lot of anxiety and fear and is effecting your performance and your happiness negatively, then think of losing your job, visualize how you will handle it, find solutions in your mind and then let go of the thought and the fear attached to it.

    So positive thinkers are better problem solvers and have better interactions. In addition to that, people who are positive thinkers are happier and more satisfied with their life.