The more hours that young children spend in child care, the more likely they are to turn out aggressive and disobedient by the time they are in kindergarten, according to the largest study of child care and development ever conducted. Researchers said this correlation (相关性) held true regardless of whether the children came from rich or poor homes, were looked after by a relative or at a center, and whether they were girls or boys.

    What is uncertain, however, is whether the child care actually causes the problem or whether children likely to turn out aggressive happen to be those who spend more hours in child care. It also remains unclear whether reducing the amount of time in child care will reduce the risk that a child will turn into a mean person. What's more, quality child care is associated with increased skills in intellectual ability such as language and memory, leading some academics to suggest that child care turns out children who are “smart and naughty”.

    The government-sponsored research, which has tracked more than 1,300 children at 10 sites across the country since 1991, is bound to cause the debate over child care again: How should people balance work and family? And how should parents, especially mothers. Resolve the demands that are placed on them to be both breadwinners and supermoms?

    That debate was already on display at a news briefing yesterday, where researchers themselves had different opinions about the data and its implications (含义). “There is a constant relationship between time in care and problem behavior, especially those involving aggression and behavior,” said Jay Belsky of Birkbeck College in London, one of the lead investigators of the study who has previously annoyed women's groups because of his criticisms of child care. “On behalf of fathers or mothers?” interrupted Sarah Friedman, a developmental psychologist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and one of the other lead scientists on the study. “On behalf of parents and families,” responded Belsky.

    “NICHD is not willing to get into policy recommendations.” said Friedman, contradicting her colleague. “There are other possibilities that can be entertained. Yes it is a quick solution—more hours in child care is associated with more problems. The easy solution is to cut the number of hours but that may have implications for the family that may not be beneficial for the development of the children in terms of economics.” In an interview after the briefing, Friedman said that asking parents to work fewer hours and spend more time with their children usually meant a loss of family income, which adversely(不利地) affects children.

    Scientists said that the study was highly reliable. But the researchers said they had no idea whether the behavioral difficulties persisted as the children moved to higher grades.

    Do you want to live with a strong sense of peacefulness, happiness, goodness, and self-respect? The collection of happiness actions broadly categorized(把……归类) as “honor” help you create this life of good feelings.

    Here's an example to show how honorable actions create happiness.

    Say a store clerk fails to charge us for an item. If we keep silent, and profit from the clerk's mistake, we would drive home with a sense of sneaky (暗中的) excitement. Later we might tell our family or friends about our good fortune. On the other hand, if we tell the clerk about the uncharged item, the clerk would be grateful and thank us for our honesty. We would leave the store with a quiet sense of honor that we might never share with another soul.

    Then, what is it to do with our sense of happiness?

    In the first case, where we don't tell the clerk, a couple of things would happen. Deep down inside we would know ourselves as a type of thief. In the process, we would lose some peace of mind and self-respect. We would also demonstrate that we cannot be trusted, since we advertise our dishonor by telling our family and friends. We damage our own reputations by telling others. In contrast, bringing the error to the clerk's attention causes different things to happen. Immediately the clerk knows us to be honorable. Upon leaving the store, we feel honorable and our self-respect is increased. Whenever we take honorable actions we gain the deep internal rewards of goodness and a sense of nobility.

    There is a beautiful positive cycle that is created by living a life of honorable actions.

    Honorable thoughts lead to honorable actions. Honorable actions lead us to a happier existence. And it's easy to think and act honorably again when we're happy. While the positive cycle can be difficult to start, once it's started, it's easy to continue. Keeping on doing good deeds brings us peace of mind, which is important for our happiness.

    The American believe that anybody can become President of the United States. In a recent Hollyhood comedy(喜剧), that is exactly what happens.

    Dave Kovic, played by Kevin Kline, is a kind-hearted man who runs a business that finds people jobs. He leads a typical(典型的) American way of life, except for one thing— he looks exactly like the President, Bill Mitchell. In fact, the only thing that makes him different from the nation's leader is that he is very nice!

    The president has started using look-alikes during some public appearance. Dave is offered a chance to “serve his country” by becoming one. However, things go wrong. The President becomes very ill and Dave ends up acting as the President forever.

    Director Ivan Reitman, who made the popular and successful comedies like Twins, Ghostbusters and Legal Eagles, could have gone for easy laughs by making fun of the American government. Instead, Dave is an attractive comedy about an ordinary man in extraordinary situations. Kevin Kline gives a double performance as Dave and the President, and Sigourney Weaver is at her best as his First Lady. The love story that develops between her role and Dave is a real classic(经典).

    The film is 100% American. However, if you've ever felt that anybody could do a better job running the country than the people in power, then you'll enjoy Dave!

    A complaint was received by the president of a major car company:“This is the fourth time I have written to you , and I don't blame you for not answering me because must sound crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of having ice-cream for dessert after dinner each night. Every night after we've eaten, the family votes on which flavor(味道)of ice-cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. I recently purchased a new Pantsmobile from your company and since then my trips to the store have created a problem. You see, every time I buy vanilla(香草)ice-cream my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice-cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to t now I'm serious about this question , no matter how silly it sounds: What is there about a Pantsmobile that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice-cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?'

    The Pantsmobile company president understandably doubted about the letter, but he sent an engineer there anyway. The engineer had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two got into the car and drove to the grocery store. The man bought vanilla ice-cream that night and sure enough, after they came back to the car it wouldn't start for several minutes. The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man got chocolate. The car started right away. The second night, he got strawberry and again the car started right up. The third night he bought vanilla and the car failed to start.

    There must be a reason why the man's car wouldn't start when he bought vanilla ice-cream. What was it? After doing more research into the case, the engineer eventually found out. The cause. Vanilla ice-cream was the most popular flavor and was on display in a little case near the express check out, while the other flavors were in the back of the store and took more time to choose and check out. This mattered because the man's car was experiencing vapor(蒸汽) lock, which is excess(过度的)heat boiling the fuel in the fuel line and the resulting air bubbles (气泡) blocking the flow of fuel until the car has enough time to cool. When the car was running, there was enough pressure to move the bubbles along, but not when the car was trying to start.

    Crossing your legs is an extremely common habit; most people don't even notice that they're doing it when they sit down. While you may find it comfortable to sit with one knee crossed over the other, it might be causing health problems that you are not aware of.

    A study published in Blood Pressure Monitoring stated that sitting with your legs crossed can increase your blood pressure. The reason this happens is because the blood in your legs has to work against gravity to be pumped back to your heart, crossing one leg over the other increases resistance, making it even harder for the blood to circulate. This causes your body to increase your blood pressure to push the blood back to the heart. You won't feel any immediate effects, but if you sit for long periods of time it's important that you take note of how long you have your legs crossed for. You shouldn't have your legs crossed for more than 15 minutes, and it's important that you get up and walk around at least once every hour.

    Crossing your legs can also lead to neck and back pain. Ideally, it's best for our bodies to sit with our feet planted flat, hip width apart, on the floor, but it's not easy to maintain perfect posture all day at the office.

    You also might notice that when you sit with your legs crossed for long periods of time your feet and legs get tingly(刺痛的) or have the feeling of being asleep. While the feeling of discomfort may only last a minute or two, repeatedly crossing your legs until they feel numb can cause permanent nerve damage.

    So next time you sit down, try to get yourself in the habit of sitting with both of your feet on the floor. Not only will it help your posture and stability, but it will also save your health in the long run.

Recently I read Nineteen Eighty-Four,a novel by George Orwell set in a state where even the language they use is controlled.Adjectives are forbidden and instead they use phrases such as "ungood","plus good" and "double plus good" to express emotions.As I first read this I thought how impossible it would be in our society to have such vocabulary.However,the more I thought about it,the more I realised in its own way it's already happening.I type messages to my friends and alongside each is the emoji.I often use it to emphasise something,or to not seem too serious,or because this specific GIF conveys my emotions much better than I ever could using just words.And I wonder,with our excessive use of emojis,are we losing the beauty and diversity of our vocabulary?

English has the largest vocabulary in the world,with over one million words,but who's to say what it'll be like in the future?Perhaps we will have a shorter language,full of saying "cry face" if something sad happens or using abbreviations(缩写) like LOL(laugh out loud) or BRB(be right back) instead of saying the full phrase.So does this mean our vocabulary will shrink?Is it the start of an exciting new era?Will they look back on us in the future and say this is where it all began—the new language?Or is this a classic case of the older generations saying,"Things weren't like that when I was younger.We didn't use emoticons to show our emotions"?

Yet when you look back over time,the power of image has always been there.Even in the prehistoric era they used imagery to communicate,and what's even more incredible is that we are able to analyse those drawings and understand the meaning of them thousands of years later.Pictures have the ability to transcend time and language.Images,be it cave paintings or emojis,allow us to convey a message that's not restrictive but rather universal.