The Intelligent Transport team at Newcastle University have turned an electric car into a mobile laboratory named “DriveLAB” in order to understand the challenges faced by older drivers and to discover where the key stress points are.

    Research shows that giving up driving is one of the key reasons for a fall in health and well-being among older people, leading to them becoming more isolated(隔绝) and inactive.

    Led by Professor Phil Blythe, the Newcastle team are developing in-vehicle technologies for older drivers which they hope could help them to continue driving into later life.

    These include custom-made navigation(导航) tools, night vision systems and intelligent speed adaptations. Phil Blythe explains: “For many older people, particularly those living alone or in the country, driving is important for preserving their independence, giving them the freedom to get out and about without having to rely on others.”

    “But we all have to accept that as we get older our reactions slow down and this often results in people avoiding any potentially challenging driving conditions and losing confidence in their driving skills. The result is that people stop driving before they really need to.”

    Dr Amy Guo, the leading researcher on the older driver study, explains, “The DriveLAB is helping us to understand what the key points and difficulties are for older drivers and how we might use technology to address these problems.

    “For example, most of us would expect older drivers always go slower than everyone else but surprisingly, we found that in 30mph zones they struggled to keep at a constant speed and so were more likely to break the speed limit and be at risk of getting fined. We're looking at the benefits of systems which control their speed as a way of preventing that.

    “We hope that our work will help with technological solutions(解决方案) to ensure that older drivers stay safer behind the wheel.”

    Last summer I sat at a long picnic table near a breathtaking mountain. While the parents were eating dinner, the kids ran up a trail in search of a secret fort. Twenty minutes later one excited little boy, James, interrupted the adult conversation.

    “Mom, Mom, you can't believe what we found!”

    Lovingly, his mother smiled and whispered, “I can't wait to hear, James, but grown-ups are talking, and there will be a pause in the conversation. Please wait for the pause.”

    On my other side, another boy came running up to his mother with equal enthusiasm.

    “Mom, Mom, we had so much fun—”

    “I am talking! Don't interrupt,” she said.

    “But, Mom—”

    “Be quiet! Can't you see that I am talking?”

    “But Mom we found the—”

    “Shut up, Steve!” she yelled.

    My heart sank. I knew what was coming. James, on my right, patiently waited for the pause, enthusiasm still alive and well. Steve, on my left, walked away from the table, looking shamed, carrying with him stories of secret forts never to be shared.

    What markedly different messages to the child! “Wait for the pause” versus “Shut up” gets incorporated (包含)so differently into a child's developing sense of self.

    Harsh(刺耳的) words have bad effects. That's why I want you to promise to delete the phrases “Shame on you” or “You should be ashamed” from your vocabulary. I have seen countless patients whose parents' thoughtless words echoed in their heads and chipped(消除) away at their self-worth, even decades later.

    So we have to discipline ourselves to make our instructions constructive. One great tool is to look for positive behavior to reinforce. Don't ignore the things that your kids are doing right. Thank your children. Tell them that you noticed how they waited patiently or cleared their plate without being asked. Chances are that they will do it again. Let them feel noticed, appreciated, and valued. There's no better way to shape behavior.

    The number of insects in the world has fallen by 45 percent in the past 35 years. Scientists say this could be dangerous for humans. A report on insect numbers has been published in the journal "Science". It says the human population has doubled since 1980 while the number of insects has nearly halved. One of the biggest reasons for this loss of insects is the act of cutting down trees or burning them. Many of the places where insects live are disappearing because of new cities and land being used for farming. Another reason is global warming. Scientists say that in the UK, the number of butterflies, bees and wasps(黄蜂) has fallen by up to 60 percent. Many countries are worried about the disappearance of them.

    Scientists say the decline in insect populations will lead to many problems for humans. One of the biggest dangers is that there will be fewer insects to pollinate flowers. This means that farmers will have problems growing food. The lead author of the report, Professor Rodolfo Dirzo, said falling numbers of insects could also lead to more diseases in humans. He said rats and mice would have less food to eat so they will move to cities and bring diseases with them. Dr. Ben from London University said we needed to stop more insects from dying. He added that scientists must understand what species(物种) are winning and losing in the fight for survival. He said this knowledge would help us to protect the "helpful" insects.

    Researchers have found bees can do basic mathematics, in a discovery that deepens our understanding of the relationship between brain size and brain power. Recently, A study conducted by researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia showed that bees could perform arithmetic operations like addition and subtraction (减法).

    Solving math problems requires a complex level of involving the mental management of numbers, long-term rules and short-term working memory. The finding that even the tiny brain of a honeybee can grasp basic mathematical operations has a possible effect on the future development of Artificial Intelligence, particularly in improving rapid learning.

    RMIT's Professor Adrian Dyer said numerical (数字的) operations like addition and subtraction are complex because they require two levels of processing. “You need to be able to hold the rules around adding and subtracting in your long-term memory, while mentally using skillfully a set of given numbers in your short-term memory,” Dyer said. “On top of this, our bees also used their short-term memories to solve arithmetic problems, as they learned to recognize plus or minus as abstract concepts.”

    The findings suggest that advanced numerical cognition (认知) may be found much more widely in nature among non-human animals than previously suspected.

    “If math doesn't require a massive brain, there might also be new ways for us to include interactions of both long-term rules and working memory in designs to improve rapid AI learning of new problems,” said Dyer.

    Many species can understand the difference between quantities and use this to search for food, make decisions and solve problems. But numerical cognition, such as exact number and arithmetic operations, requires a more complex level of processing.

    Previous studies have shown some primates (灵长目动物), birds, babies and even spiders can add and/or subtract. The new research, published in Science Advances, adds bees to that list.

Keeping secrets is a burden

    "Don't tell anyone". We hear these words when someone tells a secret to us. But it can be hard to keep a secret. We're often tempted to "spill the beans(说漏嘴)",even if we regret it later.

    According to Asim Shah, professor in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, US, keeping a secret may well "become a burden". This is because people often have an "obsessive and anxious urge to share it with someone".

    An earlier study, led by Anita E. Kelly, a scientist at the University of Notre Dame, US, suggested that keeping a secret could cause stress. People entrusted(受委托 ) with secrets can suffer from depression, anxiety, and body aches, reported the Daily Mail.

    But with secrets so often getting out, why do people share them at all? Shah explained that people often feel that it will help them keep a person as a friend. Another reason people share secrets is guilt over keeping it from someone close to them. A sense of distrust can develop when people who are close do not share it with each other. "Keeping or sharing secrets often puts people in a position of either gaining or losing the trust of someone," according to Shah.

    He added that talkative people could let secrets slip out (泄露).But this doesn't mean that it is a good idea only to share secrets with quiet people. A quiet person may be someone who keeps everything inside. To tell such a person a secret may cause them stress, and make them talk about the secret. Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret.

    Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret, you'd better put yourself in their position. Think about how you would feel to be told that you mustn't give the information away. Shah also recommended that if you accidentally give up someone's secret you should come clean about it. Let the person know that their secret isn't so secret anymore.

    Some people think going to the gym takes time and effort, it often hurts, and it can be extremely boring. Most weight-related exercises are a combination of sets and reps(几次几组). In order to see any significant change from any one exercise, it will probably need to be repeated six to eight times, for a minimum of three sets, for about three months: Then there's aerobics(有氧运动). For some, there's nothing more boring than endless miles spent running on a treadmill(跑步机).

    But what if there is a way to reduce the boredom of exercise while still getting a good workout? Luckily for us, there's virtual reality (VR).

"In the past, playing video games was a sedentary(久坐不动的) experience," says Jo Stauffer of the VR Heaitn-institute, but VR changes all of that. " Many VR games are played while standing In order to play properly, the players are forced to move around swinging their arms or using their legs. After an hour of this on a regular enough basis, it's not surprising, that many people unexpectedly find themselves a little fitter. There are already a number of virtual reality games which, deliberately or not, result in their player "getting a good sweat on" if played for enough time. For example, there's a music game which forces players to shadow box(做空拳攻防练习) in order to hit the notes—that's an upper-body workout.

    The benefit of VR has been noticed by one company. They want to take the whole experience into the gym. They are making a resistance machine, designed to be used in combination with a VR headset. Players challenge a virtual competitor in a series of games, which results in a 30-minute full-body workout. However, the cost of the equipment is expensive and there are safety concerns to be worked out, says J. P. Gownder from the consultancy Forrester.

    Although it's early days, for those: of us who struggle to overcome the boredom of exercise, a new solution could be coming. And a world where a person can exercise and have fun at the same time might be something that many people would want-virtual or not. So don't give up exercising.