Transparent animals let light pass through their bodies the same way light passes through a window. These animals typically live between 

the surface of the ocean and a depth of about 3,300 feet—as far as most light can reach. Most of them are extremely delicate and can be 

damaged by a simple touch. Sonke  Johnsen, a scientist in biology, says, “These animals live through their life alone. They never

touch anything unless they're eating it, or unless something is eating them.”

And they are as clear as glass. How does an animal become see-through? It's trickier than you might think.

      The objects around you are visible because they interact with light. Light typically travels in a straight line. But some materials slow and

 scatter(散射) light, bouncing it away from its original path. Others absorb light, stopping it dead in its tracks. Both scattering and absorption

 make an object look different from other objects around it, so you can see it easily.

But a transparent object doesn't absorb or scatter light, at least not very much, Light can pass through it without bending or stopping.

That means a transparent object doesn't look very different from the surrounding air or water. You don't see it —you see the things

behind it.

   To become transparent, an animal needs to keep its body from absorbing or scattering light. Living materials can stop light because they

contain pigments(色素) that absorb specific colors of light. But a transparent animal doesn't have pigments, so its tissues won't absorb

 light. According to  Johnsen, avoiding absorption is actually easy. The real challenge is preventing light from scattering.

Animals are built of many different materials—skin, fat, and more—and light moves through each at a different speed. Every time light

moves into a material with a new speed, it bends and scatters.Transparent animals use different tricks to fight scattering. Some animals are

simply very small or extremely flat. Without much tissue to scatter light, it is easier to be see--through. Others build a large, clear mass of

 non-living jelly-lie(果冻状的)material and spread themselves over it .

    Larger transparent animals have the biggest challenge, because they have to make all the different tissues in their bodies slow down light 

exactly as much as water does. They need to look uniform. But how they're doing it is still unknown. One thing is clear for these larger animals, staying transparent is an active process. When they die, they turn a non-transparent milky white.

    If you want to slow aging, you might want to eat less. This finding is good news—if you were a mouse. The researchers studied mice, not people.

    John Price and other researchers studied two groups of mice. One group was able to eat as much as it wanted. The researchers limited what the mice in the other group ate. Their diet had 35 percent fewer calories than the first group of mice.

    Price says the mice with the diet restrictions were “more energetic and suffered fewer diseases.” They were not just living longer but seemed to stay younger for a longer period of time.

    The researchers found that fewer calories slow down a natural mechanism in cells called ribosomes. Price explains that ribosomes are responsible for making important proteins in the cells. But with fewer calories, they slow down. This gives the cells more time to repair themselves.

    The researchers say ribosomes use from 10 to 20 percent of the cell's energy to make those proteins. Price wrote that “because of this, it is impractical to destroy an entire ribosome” when it starts to break down. However, “repairing individual parts of the ribosome on a regular basis enables ribosomes to continue producing high quality proteins for longer than they would otherwise. This top quality production, in turn, keeps cells and the entire body functioning well.”

    Price said, “ribosome is a very complex machine, like a car.” They need “maintenance to replace the parts that wear out the fastest. When tires wear out,” he explained, “you don't throw the whole car away and buy a new one. It costs less to replace the old tires.”

    “Food,” he said, “isn't just material to be burned—it's a signal that tells our body and cells how to respond.” Price said the findings help to explain how exactly our bodies age. And this may “help us make more educated decisions about what we eat.”

Dear Alcohol,

    You've been around forever. I can remember all the pain you've caused me.

    Do you remember the night when you almost took my father's life? I do. He loves you. Sometimes I think he loves you more than he loves me. He's addicted to you, to the way you promise to rid him of his problems only to cause more of them. You just sat back and laughed as his car went turning through the street, crashing into two other cars. He wasn't the only one badly hurt by you that night.

    Do you remember the night of my first high school party? My friends were intrigued by you. They treated you as if they were never going to see you again, drinking all of you that they could. I spent two hours that night helping my friends who had fallen head over heels for you. “I'm so embarrassed,” they said as I held their hair back so that they could throw up. “I'm sorry,” they said when I called taxis for them, walking them out and paying the driver in advance. “This won't happen again,” they said as they were sent to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped. Two 15-year-old girls slept in hospital beds that night due to you.

    Do you remember the night when you took advantage of my 17-year-old neighbor who had to drive to pick up his sister from her dance lesson? Do you know how we all felt when he hit another car head-on and killed two people in the other car? He died the next morning, too. His sister walked home from her dance lesson, and passed police cars and a crowd of people gathering on the sidewalk just two blocks away from the dance studio. She didn't realize her brother was among them at all. She never saw him again. And it was all your fault.

    I wish you'd walk out of my life forever. I don't want anything to do with you. Look at all the pain you've caused. Sure, you've made people happy too from time to time. But the damage you've caused in the lives of millions is not excusable. Stop attracting the people I love! Stop hurting me, please!

Sincerely,

Me

Holidays

    Imagine this: You're at the movies seeing the latest box-office hit. The leading actor chases down the film's bad guy before winning over the beautiful leading lady. What does he do next? He sucks on a cigarette.

    What's wrong with this picture? Doesn't the beautiful woman see her hero's yellow teeth? Doesn't she smell his smoky breath? And wouldn't the good guy have trouble chasing, since smoking causes a person to cough?

    But you don't see any of that when someone smokes cigarettes in the movies. And there is a lot of smoking in movies. Actors light up in more than 50 percent of youth-rated (G, PG, PG-13) movies, according to the American Legacy Foundation, which aims to put an end to smoking among young people. That means that Hollywood is showing 14 billion images of smoking to young people every year.

    All that exposure to on-screen smoking can influence teens to smoke. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) argues that 44 percent of teens who begin smoking do so because they've seen smoking in movies. The CDC reports that teens are two to three times more likely to start smoking after seeing repeated smoking scenes in movies than teens who are lightly exposed to smoking in movies.

    Several organizations are working to remove smoking in youth-rated movies. And adults are not the only ones who care about this issue. Many teens are actively involved. Livia Clandorf, 16, of Chatham, New York, is a member of Reality Check, an organization that educates teens about what it considers to be the manipulative(巧妙处理的) practices of tobacco companies. Livia participated in an event called a "movie stomp(跺脚)". Reality Check rents out a movie theater and screens a youth-rated film that shows smoking, they stomp their feet and show disapproval by shouting “boo”.

Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recently declared children's mental health is a national crisis. 

In December 2021, Dr. Murthy issued a report to highlight the additional pressures the economic depression had put on the country's youth, and the urgent need to address this. The impact of this crisis is far-reaching, and new research shows that it's affecting parents' well-being, plus their ability to succeed at work and provide for their families. 

"On Our Sleeves, a national movement that aims to break shame around children's mental health, surveyed more than 3,000 working parents across the US and found that 8 in 10 parents have been very concerned about their child's mental health and development or behavior in the past two years. Children's mental health concerns have been hiding in plain sight for many years, surrounded by confusion and shame," says Marti Bledsoe Post, the director of On Our Sleeves. 

The survey found that 53% of working parents have missed work at least once per month to deal with their children's mental health. And 71% of parents said issues with their child's mental or emotional well-being made the stresses of work much more difficult to cope with. 

"Employers need to know that many of their employees are struggling and it is impinging their work as a result," says Marti. "Our mission with On Our Sleeves is to provide every family in America access to free, evidence-based educational resources. We see this study as incredibly important in starting the conversation and providing solutions for working families."

As Marti points out, for some parents, taking a child to weekly therapy (心理治疗) appointments and attending meetings at school consume a lot of time. These parents should be helped.