No one can deny that buttons are an important device. Whenever we see a button, we are eager to press it because we know something will happen. This is true in most cases, for example on a doorbell and on the “on/off” button on the TV. But some buttons are actually fake, like the “close” button on a lift.

    Many people are in the habit of pressing the “close” button because they don't have the patience to wait for the lift doors to shut. But lifts' “close” buttons are a complete scam (骗局), at least in the US － the doors will not close any faster no matter how hard you press.

    It started in the 1990s when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in the US, making sure that all lifts stayed open long enough so that people with disabilities could enter. Only US firefighters and repairmen can use the buttons to speed up the door-closing process if they have a code or special keys.

    But to normal lift riders, the buttons aren't completely useless. According to psychologists, fake buttons can actually make you feel better by offering you a sense of control.

     “Perceived (能够感知的) control is very important. It reduces stress and increases well-being,” Ellen J. Langer, a psychology professor, said, “ having a lack of control is associated with depression.”

    Experts have revealed that a lot of buttons that don't do anything exist in our lives for this same purpose. For example, many offices in the US have fake thermostats (温度调节器) because people tend to feel better when they think they can control the temperature in their workspace.

    But psychologists found it interesting that even when people are aware of these little “white lies”, they still continue to push fake buttons because as long as the doors eventually close, it is considered to be worth the effort.

     “That habit is here to stay,” John Kounios, a psychology professor, said. “Even though I have real doubts about the traffic light buttons, I always press them. After all, I've got nothing else to do while waiting. So why not press the button in the hope that this one will work?”

    Recently I had a conversation in Beijing with an adult Chinese friend who was complaining how difficult it was to study English. No surprises there. It is a difficult language to master, just like Chinese. I made a few suggestions based on my experience. One involved a very valuable fact which I learned from my high school Latin and Greek teacher, Dr. Smith．He is a gifted linguist （语言学家），and has an amazing ability to remember things, like poetry, essays, speeches, etc．His advice to us students is that for memorization purposes, there is forty minutes each day in which our memory is more acceptable than it is during the other 23 hours and 20 minutes.

    This 40-minute "super memory" period is divided into two parts: the 20 minutes before we sleep, and the 20 minutes after we first awake. The theory supporting this is pretty simple. First, the last information we input into our brain before bed has a better chance of taking root than information gained during the noisy daytime; and second, our mind is free of disturbance(干扰) when we first awake in the morning一so more receptive to inputs, like a blank slate（石板）．

    I took the advice to heart and it served me well in my school years. In my university days, our Chinese teacher would assign us 200 new vocabulary words each day, on which we would be quizzed（测试）the following day. Without the "magic" 40-minute technique, there's no way I would have passed those daily quizzes.

    As far as language study goes, it's not only useful for memorizing vocabulary. It's also a very useful window of time to listen to the language we're studying even with background noise, and even if it's at a level we find difficult to understand. It might be audio（声音的）language study, aids, or just radio, TV or whatever.

    Beyond our years of formal(正式的) education, memory skills are hugely important in any career. How many times have we heard a speaker read their speech from a prepared text, or read the word-by-word content of a PowerPoint presentation as they present each slide（投影片）? These are annoying, boring, and less effective ways of communicating. They are almost guaranteed(保证) to lose the audience's close attention and interest, let alone persuade or inspire anyone to do anything. And yet lots of people still make this mistake.

    If we use the 40-minute technique, we may not succeed in memorizing our presentation content on a 100% word-by-word basis, but we'll be familiar enough so that we can spend much more time making eye contact with our audience. We will get them in the process, while looking at our text instead of staring at it. This will also free up our hands and arms to convey some extra messages through gesture．

    As you see, the technique really works, but like many things, it takes practice to perfect it. Therefore, we'd better find ways to use the language outside of the classroom, as regularly and frequently as possible. One basic rule of language learning is, "Use it, or lose it·”

Seize the forty-minute learning window and we'll bring in a rich harvest of language learning.

    NGS Scholarship (NGSS)

    The NGS Scholarship is awarded to talented students with a strong interest in innovative(创新的) PhD research.

    Terms:

    Monthly stipend(津贴) of $3,200 for up to 4 years of PhD studies, or up to date of graduation, whichever is earlier.

    Payment of full tuition(学费) fees for up to 4 years of PhD or up to date of graduation, whichever is earlier.

    Other allowances include:

    Computer allowance

    Book allowance

    Conference allowance

    Eligibility(资格):

    Open worldwide.

    Graduates should have an affection for research.

    Graduates should hat at least Upper 2nd Class Honors, or equal qualification.

    GRE is compulsory（必须做的，义务的） for students applying from overseas.

    TOEFL is compulsory (ONLY) for applicants whose native tongue or medium of undergraduate instruction is not in English).

    Application:

    Click here to apply online.

    All supporting documents, together with a printed copy of the application form are to be submitted (提交) by post to :

    NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences & Engineering (NGS)

    Center For Life Sciences (CeLS)

    28 Medical Drive, #05-01

    ONLY Online Applications are accepted.

    Closing date: 15May 2017.

    Two new studies suggest that modem running shoes could increase the risk of injuries to runners.

    One study involved sixty-eight healthy young women and men who ran at least twenty-four kilometers a week. The runners were observed on a treadmill machine (跑步机). Sometimes they wore running shoes. Other times they ran barefoot.

    Researchers from the JKM Technologies Company in Virginia, the University of Virginia and the University of Colorado did the study.

They found that running shoes create more stress that could damage knees, hips and ankle joints than running barefoot. They observed that the effect was even greater than the effect reported earlier for walking in high heels.

    The study appeared in the official scientific journal of the American Academy of Physical Medicine.

    The other study appeared in the journal Nature. It compared runners in the United States and Kenya. The researchers were from Harvard University in Massachusetts, Moi University in Kenya and the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

    They divided the runners into three groups. One group had always run shoeless. Another group had always run with shoes. And the third group had changed to shoeless running.

    Runners who wear shoes usually come down heel first. That puts great force on the back of the foot. But the study found that barefoot runners generally land on the front or middle of their foot. That way they ease into their landing and avoid striking their heel.

    Harvard's Daniel Lieberman led the study. He says the way most running shoes are designed may explain why those who wear them land on their heels. The heel of the shoe is bigger and heavier than other parts of the shoe, so it would seem more likely to come down first. Also, the heel generally has thick material under it to soften landings.

    But the researchers do not suggest that runners immediately start running barefoot. They say it takes some training. And there can be risks, like running when your feet are too cold to feel if you get injured.

    The study was partly supported by Vibram, which makes a kind of footwear that it says is like running barefoot. The findings have gotten a lot of attention. But the researchers say there are many problems in the way the press has reported in their paper. So they have tried to explain their findings on a Harvard Website.

    In the fall of 1985, I was a bright-eyed girl heading off to Howard University, aiming at a legal career and dreaming of sitting on a Supreme Court bench somewhere. Twenty-one years later I am still a bright-eyed dreamer and one with quite a different tale to tell.

    My grandma, an amazing woman, graduated from college at the age of 65. She was the first in our family to reach that goal. But one year after I started college, she developed cancer. I made the choice to withdraw from college to care for her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to wait.

    Then I got married with another dream: building my family with a combination of adopted and biological children. In 1999, we adopted our first son. To lay eyes on him was fantastic－and very emotional. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then followed son No,3. In 2003, I gave birth to another boy.

    You can imagine how fully occupied I became, raising four boys under the age of 8! Our home was a complete zoo — a joyous zoo. Not surprising, I never did make it back to college fulltime. But I never gave up on the dream either. I had only one choice: to find a way. That meant taking as few as one class each semester.

    The hardest part was feeling guilty about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to quit, but I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.

    In 2007, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to get my college degree!

    I am not special, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you're looking at a big challenge from the outside, it looks huge, but when you're in the midst of it, it just seems normal Everything you want won't arrive in your life on one day. It's a process. Remember: little steps add up to big dreams.

    When hospital staff are in full scrubs (手术衣), their faces are almost completely covered by their caps and face masks, and we can only see their eyes and eyebrows. In order to solve the problem, a doctor in Sydney, Australia, called Rob Hackett launched a campaign named "Theatre (手术室) Cap Challenge"-encourage hospital staffs to write their' names and roles on their caps. At first, his colleagues didn't take it seriously. However, with time going on, it has been adopted around the world with studies from the US and UK reporting how this simple idea can decrease human errors in healthcare.

    "I went to a theatre where there were about 20 doctors and nurses in the room," Dr. Rob Hackett said. "I struggled to even ask to be passed some gloves because the person I was pointing to thought I was pointing to the person behind them, because I don't know their names." said Rob. As we all know, doctors are a stressful profession. When faced with life and death, they need to save the patient's life for a second. At the moment, effective communications are important.

    "The 'Theatre Cap Challenge' is in response to concerns about how easily avoidable mistakes and poor communication are contributing to rising harmful events for our patients." said Rob. "We need to develop systems which reduce mistakes and misunderstanding without causing harm. For this to happen, we need to let everyone know we're human." he added On the other hand, from the patients' viewpoint, caps with names on them can make patients more unworried. When everyone appears the same, it is extremely difficult to distinguish who is who. Knowing them relaxed.