More student than ever before are taking a gap-year (间隔年)before going to university.It used to be called the “year off” between school and university.The gap-year phenomenon originated(起源) with the months left over to Oxbridge applicants between entrance exams in November and the start of the next academic year.

    This year, 25,310 students who have accepted places in higher education institutions have put off their entry until next year, according to statistics on university entrance provided by University and College Admissions Service (UCAS) .

    That is a record 14.7% increase in the number of students taking a gap year. Tony Higgins from UCAS said that the statistics are good news for everyone in higher education. “Students who take a well-planned year out are more likely to be satisfied with, and complete, their chosen course. Students who take a gap year are often more mature and responsible,” he said.

    But not everyone is happy. Owain James, the president of the National Union of Students(NUS), argued that the increase is evidence of student had ship – young people are being forced into earning money before finishing their education. “New students are now aware that they are likely to leave university up to ￡15,000 in debt. It is not surprising that more and More students are taking a gap year to earn money to support their study for the degree.NUS statistics show that over 40% of students are forced to work during term time and the figure increases to 90% during vacation periods,”he said.

    What are the biggest problems that society will have to deal with in the new age? There re diseases like AIDS and cancer. There's climate change, of course. And what about producing enough cheap food and energy for the world's growing population? Who's going to solve all these terrible problems? Yes, politicians and world leaders will have a big part to play. Yes businesses will need to create the economic wealth to pay for some of these things. But who's going to make a much greater difference to something like AIDS or climate change. It's going to be a scientist. It is the scientist who can turn some new bit of science into a new technology to solve these problems. If you like thinking about the world around you, why not become a scientist? It doesn't mean you have to wear a white coat and plastic glasses and spend all your time in a lab as most people often imagine! Scientists do all kinds of amazing things that are actually interesting!

    Military scientists develop not only new weapons but new military technologies that could help make wars out of date. Forensic(法医的) scientists work with the police to find quite small clues to catch criminals. Scientists work in schools and colleges as the teachers and professors who will train tomorrow's scientists. Don't think a scientist is far away! Maybe you like cooking? You could be a food technologist helping to keep fruit and vegetables fresher for longer. Perhaps sport is your thing? Do you know that most top athletes work with sports scientists in order or improve their performance? You could even be the science writer who gets to spend the life studying the latest advances and sharing them with the world.

    Looking for something to do for the rest of your life? My advice? Take a long and hard look at science. It is interesting and ever.

    Most people looking for ways to quit smoking worry about weight gain, and with good reason. Smokers who quit tend to pack on an average of 5 pounds after they stop smoking cigarettes. A new study, published by the journal Science, explains why this happens.

    The new research explains that nicotine appears to combine with appetite-regulating neurons (调节食欲的神经元) in the brain, besides the receptors (感受器) that bring about addiction. These neurons help regulate how much food gets consumed, but under the influence of nicotine, they lose their self-control. This is why when smokers quit, they tend to eat more and gain weight.

    The researchers believe that their discovery will lead to the development of drugs that aim at nicotine receptors on brain cells that control appetite. In the future, weight gain may no longer be a reason for smokers to delay the decision to kick the habit, but that's no reason to wait. Nicotine-replacement treatment, while not for everyone, can help. Here are a few more ways to quit smoking and stay slim.

    Drink water. To improve metabolic (新陈代谢的) rates, make half of those glasses ice water. Juice can be too high in calories, something you'll want to keep an eye on your journey toward being a slimmer non-smoker. Plan your snacks. Healthy snacks help keep your metabolism working, so you continue to burn calories while stopping wild hunger pain, or fake hunger.

    Keep moving. Exercise kills two birds with one stone. It helps you burn calories and prevents you from eating when you're not truly hungry. It's also a feel-good stress reliever (缓解物). Focus on your fitness and how being healthy makes you feel. Make exercise a goal and think of quitting as your reward for being physically fit.

Internet time tied to teen depression(抑郁) symptoms

    Spending time online is normal behaviour for teenagers. But too much Internet use by teens —or too little, for that matter —might be related to depression, a new study finds.

    The findings, reported in the journal of Pediatrics, do not mean that the Internet is to blame. For one, teens in the study who spent no time online were also at increased risk of depression symptoms. Instead, the researchers say that both heavy Internet use, and non-use, could serve as signals that a teenager is having a hard time.

    For the study, Dr. Pierre-Andre Michaud and his colleagues at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, surveyed 7,200 individuals aged 16 to 20 about their Internet use.

    Those who were online more than two hours per day were considered "heavy" Internet users, while those online anywhere from several times per week to two hours per day were considered "regular" users.

    The teenagers also answered a number of health-related questions, including some standard questions about "depressive tendencies" that gauge(判定) how often a person feels sad or hopeless. Compared with regular Internet users, the study found, kids who were heavy users or non-users were more likely to be depressed or very depressed.

    Among male teens, heavy users and non-users were both around one-third more likely to have a high depression score, compared to "regular" users. Among girls, heavy Internet users had an 86 percent greater chance of depression, while non-users had a 46 percent greater likelihood compared to regular users.

    That was with factors like family income and any chronic health problems taken into account.

    Since teenagers typically go online to contact with friends, the researchers speculate(推测) that those who are never online may be more socially isolated.

    Depression and suicidal thoughts have doubled in young Americans, according to a new study from the American Psychological Association.

    Likely triggers? Cell phones and social media.

    "More US adolescents and young adults in the late 2010s, vs the mid-2000s, experienced serious psychological distress, major depression and more attempted suicide (自杀)", says lead researcher Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University. "These trends are weak or non-existent among adults 26 years and over, suggesting a generational shift in mood disorders instead of an overall increase across all ages."

    Twenge believes this trend is partially due to the explosion of digital culture over the past decade, which may have twisted modes of social interaction enough to affect mood disorders.

    The study analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which tracked drug and alcohol use and mental health issues in more than 200,000 youths aged 12 to 17 from 2005 to 2017 and almost 400,000 adults from 2008 to 2017.

    Major depression in the last 12 months increased by 52 percent in kids from 2005 to 2017 and 63 percent in young adults aged 18 to 25 from 2009 to 2017. There was also a 71 percent jump in young adults experiencing serious psychological distress in the previous 30 days from 2008 to 2017.

    So what's so different now? Twenge says research shows young people just aren't getting as much shuteye as they did in previous generations.

    Whereas older Americans might have established more stability in their lives, sleep-disrupting social stressors are likely at their peak for teens and young adults in this digital era, she says. Older adults are also less likely to let devices interfere (干预) with sleep.

    These results suggest a need for more research to understand how digital communication versus face-to-face social interaction influences mood disorders and to develop specialized interventions for younger age groups.

    Her suggestion? Put your phone down at least an hour before bedtime.

    Microsoft PowerPoint is the world's most common presentation tool. It emerged from software company Forethought Inc in the 1980s. Bob Gaskins was the man behind it.

    "I knew in the early 80s that there were as many as a billion, a thousand million presentation slides being made per year just in America," Gaskins says, but they were all made by hand and almost nobody was using computers to do them.

    "It was clear to me that here was a huge application worth billions and billions of dollars a year that could be done on computers as soon as there was a revolution in the kinds of computers that we had."

    Gaskins was onto something, but it was a hard sell at the time. The software wouldn't run on any existing personal computers. Anyone wanting to use it had to buy a new machine. Even so, people bought personal computers for the first time in order to be able to use PowerPoint, says Wired magazine journalist Russell Davies.

    Davies explains that before PowerPoint, people used slides to convey information to groups — but anyone creating a presentation had to send away to get their materials made. It took a long time to do, was difficult to make changes and because it was so expensive, only the most senior people in an organisation got to do it.

    "PowerPoint," Davies says, "made it possible for everyone in an organisation to stand up and say their piece."

    PowerPoint has helped turn us all into presenters — but it' s also been accused of over-simplifying ideas and distracting (干扰)us from clear thinking.

    Sarah Kaplan is a management professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. She has noticed that, rather than people asking for new analysis or insights in meetings, they were asking for more PowerPoint slides.

    Kaplan says that some CEOS, such as Amazon's Jeff Bezos, have banned its use. "He felt, and I think many people feel, that PowerPoint became such an object of the process that they lost the ideas inside of it and that is the risk."