Will you be playing some music at work?

    Music is particularly popular in the medical profession, especially among surgeons（外科医生）. A recent survey shows that 90% of surgeons in the UK put music on the sound system in the theatre during operations. Plastic surgeons（整形外科医生）play the most music; it appears that ear, nose, and throat specialists the least.

    But it isn't only in surgeries(外科手术) where music is popular. In another recent survey, one-third of the 1,613 people said they listen to music while working. And 79% of them said that humming（哼歌）along improves their job satisfaction or productivity.

    Is listening to music at work a good idea? Yes, say the experts. Many surgeons say that music helps to create a “calm atmosphere”, and a third of them added that it avoids getting bored! Also, listening to music raises the levels of a brain chemical that can help people focus. Office workers say it improves job satisfaction. Several studies suggest that it's also good for hospital patients. Those listening to music through headphones during surgery require less anesthetic（麻醉剂）, up to 50% less in some cases, and recover more quickly afterwards. “Sure, music reduces anxiety before surgery,” says Zeev Kain, an anesthetist at Yale University.

    So, what type of music should we be listening to? Surgeons from the previous survey preferred rock, pop music and classical. And hip-hop is popular too. However, whatever the kind, it appears that self-selected music is the best choice. Pennsylvania State University research showed that when people chose their own music there was more stress reduction(下降). And other researchers found that when listening to self-selected music, surgeons did the maths faster and more accurately than when they were listening to music chosen for them.

    Peng Liyuan, wife of President Xi Jinping, has drawn extensive attention from people both at home and abroad for her charisma and grace. Accompanying her husband on his first overseas trip after becoming president, Peng Liyuan exhibited graceful demeanor, a pleasant personality and well-chosen dress, prompting people to coin the term “Liyuan style”.

Peng Liyuan, as one of China's best-known singers, was popular among Chinese people long before her husband became the president. Loved by her fans, she has been in touch with the people for years.

    “Liyuan style” is not only representative of a fashion idol, but also overpass cultural and diplomatic barriers. The beautiful handbags Peng has carried, and the plain but elegant and delicate dresses she has worn have become popular. Her choice of clothing, made-in-China instead of luxurious foreign brands, shows her belief in domestic dress designs.

But “Liyuan style” is not only about clothing and a woman's paraphernalia. It is also about diplomacy and promoting China's soft power. In Moscow, Peng visited a boarding school for orphans and children estranged (疏远) from their parents, encouraging them to strive for a better life, which brought out the maternal side of her character. In Tanzania, she donated sewing machines and school bags to women and children. And as a World Health Organization ambassador in the fight against AIDS, Peng is devoted to many public causes, including those relating to charity and healthcare.

    Some observers have already started saying that Peng's activities have become part of public diplomacy in China.

Also, “Liyuan style” has boosted the confidence of the Chinese people. Modem but not flashy, elegant but not arrogant, Peng has all the virtues of a Chinese woman and carries them to the international stage.

Since the 18th Party Congress and the annual sessions of the NPC and CPPCC, the country's new leadership has vowed to adopt a down-to-earth work style to connect with the people. Peng's plain but elegant style shows that thriftiness and an earthy style need not be drab and boring.

    So it can be said that Peng's first appearance on the international stage has kicked off well.

    My parents grew up during the Depression(大萧条) attending small country churches. At the close of Christmas Eve services, each child was given a brown paper bag containing an apple, an orange, nuts and several chocolates.

Years later, whenever Dad recalled that tradition, his eyes shone reliving the memory. My mother didn't share his enthusiasm. She always said the chocolates tasted cheap and old.

    Cheap chocolates or not, the paper bags with goodies were an event. Gifts of any sort during the Depression were rare, especially in large farm families with seven children.

    When our children were young and we were home for Christmas one year, Mom and Dad gave each of the grandkids a brown paper bag holding an apple, an orange, nuts and several chocolates. When we finished the 8-hour drive home after the holiday, there was a message waiting on the phone when we walked in the door. “Your ungrateful kids left their apples and oranges in the back of our refrigerator. No more fruit for them!” Grandpa and Grandma were joking, of course, but still there was a degree of disrespect in the kids leaving behind thoughtfully chosen gifts.

    But the paper bag didn't have a context for our children. They had never known fruit to be a scarcity(缺乏). They didn't appreciate the gift because they had never experienced the need the gift was meant to fill.

    The same is true of Christmas today. We don't appreciate the true gift of the season because we don't understand the need the gift was given to fill.

It's not like we don't know we have needs. We know them, all right—patience, love, self-control, strength, courage, faithfulness, forgiveness—it's just that we have become experts at numbing(使麻木) ourselves to our needs.

    The true gift of the season is a perfect fit for our every need. When a gift like apples and oranges fits a need, there is a cheerful satisfaction. When the gift of a Christmas tree fits a need, there is the joy of Christmas.

    Minutes after the last movie ended yesterday at the Plaza Theater, employees were busy sweeping up popcorns and gathering coke cups. It was a scene that had been repeated many times in the theater's 75-year history. This time, however, the cleanup was a little different. As one group of workers carried out the rubbish, another group began removing seats and other theater equipment in preparation for the building's end.

    The film classic The Last Picture Show was the last movie shown in the old theater. Though the movie is 30 years old, most of the 250 seats were filled with teary-eyed audience wanting to say good-bye to the old building. Theater owner Ed Bradford said he chose the movie because it seemed proper. The movie is set in a small town where the only movie theater is preparing to close down.

    Bradford said that large modem theaters in the city made it impossible for the Plaza to compete. He added that the theater's location (位置) was also a reason. "This used to be the center of town," he said. "Now the area is mostly office buildings and warehouses."

    Last week some city officials suggested the city might be interested in turning the old theater into a museum and public meeting place. However, these plans were given up because of financial problems. Bradford sold the building and land to a local development firm, which plans to build a shopping complex on the land where the theater is located.

    The theater audience said good-bye as Bradford locked the doors for the last time. After 75 years the Plaza Theater has shown its last movie. The theater will be missed.

    For centuries, mankind and dogs have suffered from a communication failure. We can tell dogs what we want them to do and sometimes they comply, but we've always struggled when it comes to understanding the true meaning of their barks and whimpers. There is exciting news now – a dog translator has been invented to help you communicate with your furry friend.

    Researchers at North Carolina State University have fashioned some kind of miracle dog translator body harness(束腰带). What's special about it is that it doesn't just rely on the dog's vocalizations to interpret what Fido is banging on about.

    Oh no – this miracle harness reads and interprets the ordinary dogs' body language as well, giving us a full two-way dog communication experience.

    Researcher David Roberts says: "Dogs communicate primarily through body language, and one of our challenges was to develop sensors that tell us about their behavior by observing their posture remotely."

    Sensors on the harness monitor the dog's heart rate and body temperature and software builds up a vocabulary, letting the human know what the dog is feeling.

    What would dogs say if they could talk to us? The human can even communicate back through the harness thanks to vibration motors, supposedly by tapping into the dog's senses so that it can understand what you're trying to say to it.

    The dog harness is designed for dogs involved in search and rescue and other front-line work, but it's got us dreaming of a beautiful future, one where humans and dogs can co-exist as equals, with the dog able to fully express itself at all times.

    It sounds almost too good to be true, but a new study on sleeping brains suggests that listening to languages while you sleep can actually help you to learn them.

    For the study, researchers played recordings of foreign words and their translations to subjects enjoying slow-wave sleep, a stage when a person has little consciousness of their environment. To ensure that the results were not compromised by foreign language words that subjects may have had some contact with at some point in their waking lives, researchers made up totally nonexistent foreign words.

    When the subjects woke up, they were presented with the made-up words again without their translations. The subjects were then asked to imagine whether this made-up word indicated an object that was either smaller or larger. This vague(模糊的)way of testing their understanding of the words is an approach that is supposed to tap into the unconscious memory.

    Unbelievably, the subjects were able to correctly classify the words in this way at an accuracy rate that was 10 percent higher than random chance. That's not a rate high enough to have them suddenly communicating in a foreign tongue, but it is enough to suggest that the brain is still absorbing information on some level, even during sleep.

    Researchers have long known that sleep is important for memory, but previously its role in memory was thought to relate only to the preservation and organization of memories acquired during wakefulness. This is the first time that memory formation has been shown to be active during sleep.

    In other words, our brains are listening to the world, and learning about it, even when our conscious selves are not present.

    The next step for researchers will be to see if new information can be 1earned quicker during wakefulness if it was already presented during sleep. If so, it could forever change how we train our brains to learn new things. Sleep learning might become a widespread practice.