Speedy eaters are three times more likely to be too fat, a problem which is made even worse by the popularity of fast food and the decrease of regular dining habits, some Japanese researchers said on Wednesday.

    The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, pay special attention to how eating styles, and not just what or how much is eaten, can affect an obesity epidemic(肥胖流行病) that is becoming more and more severe because of the speed of the Western-style diet in many parts of the world.

    The World Health Organization considers around 400 million people in the world as too fat, 20 million of whom are under the age of five. The researchers are concerned that the condition raises the risk of diseases like type 2 diabetes (糖尿病) and heart problems.

    For their study, Hiroyasu Iso and the team at Osaka University asked more than 3000 Japanese volunteers (志愿者) who are 30 to 69 years old about their eating. About half of the men and a little more than half of the women said they ate until full. About 45 percent of the men and 36 percent of the women said they ate quickly.

    Those who said they ate until full and ate quickly were three times more likely to be fat than people in the “not eating until full and not eating quickly” group, the researchers found.

    They believe that the main causes are both the popularity of eating cheap fast food and bad habits such as watching television while eating.

    To fight against the bad effect of eating quickly and being too full that can lead to obesity, parents should encourage children to eat slowly and in calm environments, the study suggested.

    The BBC was founded in 1922, including radio and television services. It is based at Broadcasting House in London.

    The BBC is controlled by some governors chosen by the government, but these people have freedom and the government can't interfere(干扰). That is, the BBC is supposed not to be the mouthpiece(代言人)of the government. It has to be as fair as possible in giving radio and television time to, for example, political parties and religious groups.

    There is a kind of interesting service in British­rental services. Many people prefer to rent their television sets instead of buying them.

    The rent for a black and white set is about 80 pence a week. The rent of a color set is more than twice that of a black and white set. If the sets go wrong, people can have them repaired free of charge or replaced immediately.

    Everyone has to buy a yearly license, since there is no advertising on BBC radio or television. It is from the sale of licenses that the BBC gets most of its money. A license for a black and white set costs 8 pounds, and for a color set 18 pounds a year.

    There are four special radio channels, which broadcast different kinds of programmes. Radio 1 is mainly pop music. Radio 2 deals with light music, sports and other programmes. Radio 3 broadcasts serious music, talks on serious subjects, etc. News broadcasts are mainly given by Radio 4.

    There are special programmes for Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and certain parts of England. It also broadcasts programmes about Britain — in many different languages as well as in English to all parts of the world.

Low-Cost Gifts for Mother's Day

Gift No. 1

    Offer to be your mother's health friend. Promise to be there for any and all doctor's visits whether a disease or a regular medical check-up. Most mothers always say "no need," but another set of eyes and ears is always a good idea at a doctor's visit. The best part? This one is free.

Gift No. 2

    Help your mother organize all of her medical records, which include the test results and medical information. Put them all in one place. Be sure to make a list of all of her medicines and what times she takes them. "Having all this information in one place could end up saving your mother's life," Dr. Marie Savard said.

Gift No. 3

    Enough sleep is connected to general health conditions. "Buy your mother cotton sheets（床单）and comfortable pillows to encourage better sleep," Savard said. "We know that good sleep is very important to our health."

Gift No. 4

Some gift companies such as Presents for Purpose allow you to pay it forward this Mother's Day by picking gifts in which 10 percent of the price you pay goes to a charity (慈善机构). Gift givers can choose from a wide variety of useful but inexpensive things —many of which are "green" — and then choose a meaningful charity from a list. When your mother gets the gift, she will be told that she has helped the chosen charity.

    A biologist once criticized for stealing eggs from the nests of the rarest bird in the world has been awarded the "Nobel Prize" of conservation after his methods saved nine species from extinction.

Professor Carl Jones won the 2016 Indianapolis Prize — the highest accolade in the field of animal conservation — for his 40 years of work in Mauritius, where he saved an endangered kestrel from becoming the next Great Auk.

    When the 61-year-old first travelled to the east African island in the 1970s, he was told to close down a project to save the Mauritius kestrel. At the time there were just four left in the wild, making it the rarest bird on Earth. However, he stayed, using the techniques of captive breeding (人工繁殖), which involved snatching eggs from the birds' nests and hatching(孵化)them under incubators, prompting the mothers to lay another set of eggs in the wild.

    A decade later, the number of Mauritius kestrels had soared to over 300 and today there are around 400 in the wild. The biologist has also been necessary in efforts to bring other rare species back from the edge of extinction, including the pink pigeon, echo parakeet and Rodrigues warbler.

    Prof Jones was awarded the $250,000 (£172,000) prize at a ceremony in London.

"As a young man in my 20s, I certainly didn't enjoy the stress and the tension of the criticism I received," reflecting on the start of his career, he said the Maurutius kestrel project had been seen as a "dead loss" at the time. In the 1970s there was fierce opposition to the captive breeding techniques, with critics arguing that they were too risky and took the emphasis off breeding in the wild.

    Prof Jones has devoted his whole life to his work, only becoming a father for the first time eight years ago, at 53. He said receiving the prize was particularly important to him, because it proved that his work to save birds was right.

    Yesterday I cleared up my house and I mean really cleared up my house. The room that gave the most results was my husband's "office". There I found: one right-footed shoe, size 10 (he lost the other one somewhere), a set of Star Wars videos and two small china cats someone gave me last birthday. I collected these "finds" and took them downstairs and logged (登录）on to eBay: the answer to all our rubbish.

    What is eBay? It aims to provide a global trading platform where almost anyone can trade almost anything. The idea came from Pierre Omidyar. Born in Paris, Omidyar moved to Washington when he was still a child. At High School he became very interested in computer programming and after graduating from Tufts University in 1988, he worked for the next few years as a computer engineer. In his free time he started eBay as a kind of hobby, originally offering the service free by word of mouth. By 1996 there was so much traffic on the site that he had to upgrade and he began collecting fees. Joined by a friend, Peter Skoll and in 1998 by his dynamic CEO, Meg Whitman, he has never looked back. Even in the great dot-com crashes of the late 1990s eBay went from strength to strength. It is now one of the ten most visited online shopping sites on the Internet.

    If you think about it, it's a perfect Internet idea. All you have to do is take an e-photo, write a description, fill out a sales form and you're in business; the world is your market place.

    Some of the more bizarre goods up for offer have been a piece of French bread, partially eaten by Justin Timberlake, advertising space on a man's head, and a pair of used false teeth.

    One week later I am proud of having a clean and tidy home and € 110 in cash. Someone even bought the shoe.

    I believe children have a very pure sense of humor. Well, I would like to share my experiences with you.

    The other day when I was out with a friend and her daughter Jane at a restaurant, Jane ordered an apple dessert, which was the most attractive dish in that restaurant. However, when she had a bite of the pie, she shouted loudly, "Mom, why does it look good but tastes like rubber?" My friend was uneasy. Then the waiter gave us another dish.

    A child can say funny things. I was at a friend's home for tea and her son, Mark, wanted her to get up. His mom replied, "I can't, because my foot has fallen asleep now." Little Mark then sang a song and asked, "Mom, will it wake up now?" We laughed together.

    The other day we were having an interesting conversation over lunch and my friend, an animal activist (积极分子) , was arguing with another group member. Her son Tommy suddenly stood up, “Mom, people should never be allowed to shoot extinct animals!” That was funny and the child did manage to turn the argument into a pleasant conversation.

    Well, children sometimes really surprise us. I think we can have a lot to learn from them. They can help us understand the simple world through their eyes.