Multitasking

    What is the first thing you notice when you walk into a shop? The products displayed (展示) at the entrance? Or the soft background music?

    But have you ever notice the smell? Unless it is bad, the answer is likely to be no. But while a shop's scent may not be outstanding compared with sights and sounds, it is certainly there. And it is providing to be an increasing powerful tool in encouraging people to purchase.

    A brand store has become famous for its distinctive scent which floats through the fairly dark hall and out to the entrance, via scent machines. A smell may be attractive but it may not just be used for freshening air. One sports goods company once reported that when it first introduced scent into its stores, customers' intension to purchase increased by 80 percent.

    When it comes to the best shopping streets in Pairs, scent is just as important to a brand's success as the quality of its window displays and goods on sales. That is mainly because shopping is a very different experience to what it used to be.

    Some years ago, the focus for brand name shopping was on a few people with sales assistants' disproving attitude and don't touch what you can't afford displays. Now the rise of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has opened up famous brands to a wider audience. But while e-shops can use sights and sounds, only bricks-and-mortar stores (实体店) can offer a full experience from the minute customers step through the door to the moment they leave. Another brand store seeks to be much more than a shop, but rather a destination. And scent is just one way to achieve this. Now a famous store uses complex man-made smell to make sure that the soft scent of baby powder floats through the kid department, and coconut (椰子) scent in the swimsuit section. A department store has even opened a new lab, inviting customers on a journey into the store's windows to smell books, pots and drawers, in search of their perfect scent.

    If you're showering every day, you're probably over doing it. In fact, showering too often can actually hurt your body in the long run.

    As Time's public health column explains, daily showers are common due to social norms more than any proper health need. We connect being freshly showered with being attractive and pleasing, so we tend to showering often to feel better.

    But what's the ideal shower frequency? In terms of your health — not how you look or smell — probably once or twice a week, assistant professor of dermatology at George Washington University, Dr. C. Brandon Mitchell says. “Your body is naturally a well-oiled machine,” he says. “A daily shower isn't necessary.”

    Of course, your situation may vary. If you have a job like car maintenance or construction, you'll obviously have a visible layer of dirt you'll need to wash off every single day. Similarly, if you work out every day, you may not have any health risks by washing every day, but you'll still be smelly. If you feel like you need to take daily showers for aesthetic（审美的）reasons, at least make most of them light showers. “I tell patients who shower daily not to soap their whole bodies,” Mitchell says. Hit your pits, butt and groin, which are the areas that produce strong smells. The rest of your body doesn't need much soaping, he says.

    Too much time spent under the hot water can dry out your skin, cause cracks（裂纹）that can lead to infections or germs getting into your skin, and take away the natural oils on your skin that help keep it healthy. So, even if you're aiming to be your most presentable, be sure to keep it moderate to avoid hurting your skin in the long run.

    One night about nine o'clock, Dr. Eyck, a surgeon, had a phone call from Dr. Haydon at the hospital in Clens Falls. The surgeon was asked to go there at once to operate on a very sick boy who shot himself while playing with a gun.

    The doctor was soon on his way to Clens Falls. It was 60 miles away. And it was snowing heavily in the city. The surgeon thought he could get there before 12 o'clock.

    A few minutes later, the doctor was stopped by a man in an old black coat. Gun in hand, the man ordered the doctor to get out. Then the man drove the car down the road, leaving the doctor in the falling snow.

    It was after 2 o'clock in the morning when the doctor arrived at the hospital in Clens Falls. Dr. Haydon told him that the boy had died an hour before.

    The two doctors walked by the door of the hospital waiting room. There sat the man in the old black coat with his head in his hands.

    "Mr. Cuninghan," said Dr. Haydon to the man, "This is Dr. Eyck. He is the surgeon who walked all the way from Albany to save your boy."

    I grew up in New York my whole life. I studied in a perfect college that happened only to be an hour away from home. Then, about three weeks before the spring term was over, my parents told me we were moving to Arizona that summer. They asked me if I was going to transfer (转学) to another college. I said no. I was not going to change everything in my life at one time and I loved my college and all the amazing things I was doing there. It was my second home; I would not leave everything I knew at the same time since that was asking for trouble.

    I never imagined it would be this hard but, at the same time, the best thing that could have happened to me.

    When out in Arizona, life was hard. I didn't know anyone other than my family and friends. I couldn't bear the extreme heat. But it has helped me so much. I have started working on my writing. I also have time to work out in the gym. It has helped me realize that no matter where you are or who you know you can always find something that you enjoy.

    When back at school in New York, it was hard as well. Living close to home was my security blanket. If something was wrong I could get in my car and drive home and see my family. After my family moved to another city, I lacked security and was always controlled by anxiety. However, it helped me learn independence and forced me to be brave.

    I' m so thankful that I didn't transfer to a different school, which has given me the opportunity to go back and see best friends in my hometown. A year ago, I officially left my hometown for good. It has helped me grow and I am so thankful that I have had this experience. Now, when I graduate from college, I can go anywhere I want. I am no longer afraid to go out on my own into the world. The world is full of opportunities and pleasure and I can't wait to see where I will be next.

    Birdbrain has long been a term when laughing at somebody. The common opinion is that birds' brains are simple. But that opinion has increasingly been called into question because crows and parrots, among other birds, have shown behaviors as smart as that of chimpanzees.

    The conflict of simple brain and complex behavior has led some neuroscientists (神经学家) to create a new map of the birdbrain.

    Today, in the journal Nature Neuroscience Reviews, an international group of bird experts is showing their opinion. Nearly everything written in anatomy (解剖学) textbooks about the brains of birds is wrong, they say. The bird brain is as complex, and creative as any mammal brain, they argue, and it's time to use a more exact term that shows a new understanding of the anatomies of bird and mammal brains.

    "Names have a powerful influence on the experiments we do and the way we think," said Dr. Erich, a neuroscientist at Duke University and a leader of the Bird Brain Terms Association. "Old term has prevented scientific progress."

    The association of 29 scientists from six countries met for seven years to develop new, more exact names for structures in both bird and mammal brains. For example, the bird's seat of intelligence or its higher brain is now named the pallium (大脑皮层).

    "The change of terms is a great advance," said Dr. Jon Kaas, a leading expert in neuroanatomy at Vanderbih University. "It's hard to get scientists to agree about anything."

    Scientists have come to agree that birds are indeed smart, but those who study bird intelligence differ on how birds got that way. Experts are split into two warring camps. One holds that birds' brains make the same kinds of internal (内在的) connections as do mammal brains and that intelligence in both groups arises from these connections. The other holds that bird intelligence developed through increasing an old part of the mammal brain and using it in new ways and it questions how developed that intelligence is.

    Monty Hempel is a professor of environmental sciences at Redlands University in California. He studies ecological literacy­or eco-literacy, for short. Eco-literacy is the ability to think about and understand the natural processes that make life possible.

    Monty Hempel says eco-literacy gives people knowledge about environmental problems. But he says it does not always work on getting them to change their behavior.

    Mr. Hempel wrote part of the Worldwatch Institute's latest State of the World report. He says in his article, "Some people think that eco-literacy is just a green form of science literacy. And what I have tried to ask is whether that's enough. In other words, what an ecologically-literate person needs to know might include things like the effect of environmental pollution on ecosystem, the energy systems, and all of those kinds of things that we would call the science of ecology."

    "That doesn't seem to lead to action to protect our environment ­ to protect our life-support system to the level that we need to. Just knowing a lot about the environment doesn't mean that we actually act to save it. After all, actions speak louder than knowledge."

    He adds that people may not be very worried about environmental problems if they seem far away. "Some people call it psychological distance. A lot of climate issues are worse in the Arctic and most of us don't spend time in the Arctic. And so, there's a certain distance. But there's also a distance that's happening in the world as it urbanizes ­ people spending more time in front of screens and less time out in nature. We become, if you will, disconnected from the natural systems that used to be the key to success for a human being."

    To help children discover the wonders of nature, he adds that children should learn about nature in school. But he also points out we have a high mountain for people to climb from knowledge to action.