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.

    Traveling without a map in different countries, I find out about different ways of directions every time I ask “How can I get to the post office?”

    Foreign tourists are often puzzled in Japan because most streets there don't have name signs. In Japan, people use landmarks (地标) in their directions instead of street names. For example, the Japanese will say to travelers, “Go straight down to the corner. Turn left at the big hotel and go past a fruit market. The post office is across from the bus stop.”

    People in Los Angeles, the US, have no idea of distance on the map: they measure distance by time, not miles. “How far away is the post office?” you ask. “Oh,” they answer, “it's about five minutes from here.” You don't understand completely, “Yes, but how many miles away is it, please?” To this question you won't get an answer, because most probably they don't know it themselves.

    People in Greece sometimes do not even try to give directions because tourists seldom understand the Greek language. Instead, a Greek will often say, “Follow me.” Then he'll lead you through the streets of the city to the post office.

    Sometimes a person doesn't know the answer to your question. What happens in the situation? A New Yorker might say, “Sorry, I have no idea.” But in Yucatan, Mexico, no one answers “I don't know.” People there believe that “I don't” is impolite. They usually give an answer, but often a wrong one. So a tourist can get lost very easily in Yucatan! However, one thing will help you everywhere in the world. It's body language.

    Sometimes I have to admire people's imagination but what I admire most is the businessmen's sense of smell. China's Singles Day, which falls on Nov. 11 every year, has far surpassed its U.S. counterparts of Black Friday and Cyber Monday—combined. Last year, Americans spent a record $12.8 billion online between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday. It's impressive until you compare it to the $17.6 billion in sales made by Chinese consumers in a single 24-hour period during 2016's Singles Day.

    Singles Day is known as “Bare Sticks Day” or “Bare Branches Day” in Chinese—because the date “11/11” looks like bare branches and “one” is the loneliest number. Singles Day began in the early 1990s in the dorm rooms of Nanjing University when a group of single friends were sorry about the lack of significant others and decided to mark the day by organizing activities as a group of singles and reducing their loneliness by buying themselves a gift.

    Then in 2009, sensing s break between the sales period of China's National Day on Oct. 1 and Chinese New Year in late January or early February, Alibaba's Jack Ma saw an opening: sell to comfort lonely hearts.

    The first year did only $7.5 million in sales, but just 8 years later, shoppers spent $25.3 billion, or 168.2 billion yuan, this year—a 40 percent jump from last year's $17.6 billion. Foe comparison, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the U.S. only netted $6.79 billion in 2016. Amazon doesn't release sales figures for July's Prime Day, but it's pretty safe to believe the not-quite-national-holiday doesn't come close to $25 billion.

    “More than $25 billion in one day is not just a sales figure,” Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang said in a statement. “It represents the desire for quality consumption of the Chinese consumer, and it reflects how merchants and consumers alike have now fully accepted the combination of online and offline sales.”

    We know that our pet dogs and cats can recognize our faces, but our pet fish? A team of scientists from the UK and Australia have discovered that archer-fish(喷水鱼) can distinguish human faces!

    This marks the first time that a species of fish has shown such an ability. Such abilities have been previously shown in birds, but unlike fish, they have been proven to possess structures similar to the neocortex(大脑新皮层), the researchers added.

    "Being able to distinguish between a large number of human faces is a surprisingly difficult task," Dr Newport said, "mainly due to the fact that all human faces share the same basic features."

    During their experiments, Dr Newport and her colleagues presented archerfish with two images of human faces, and trained them to choose one by spitting jets(喷射流)of water at that picture. Next, the fish were presented with the familiar face and several that were unfamiliar, and were able to correctly pick the one that they had been trained to recognize, even when features such as head shape and color were removed from the selected pictures.

    In the first experiment, the archerfish were tasked with picking the previously learned face from a group of 44 new ones, which they did with 81 percent accuracy. In the second, the researchers decided to make things a little harder. They took the pictures and made them black and white and evened out (使平均) the head shapes. You would think that would throw the fish for a loop. But no, they were able to pick the familiar face even then—and with more accuracy: 86%!

    "Fish have a simpler brain than humans and entirely lack the section of the brain that humans use for recognizing faces. Despite this, fish may still be capable of finding the face they are trained to recognize," Dr Newport said. "The fact that archerfish can learn this task suggests that complicated brains are not necessarily needed to recognize human faces."

    Londoners are great readers. They buy vast numbers of newspapers and magazines and of books-especially paperbacks, which are still comparatively cheap in spite of ever­increasing rises in the costs of printing. They still continue to buy "proper" books, too, printed on good paper and bound (装订) between hard covers.

    There are many streets in London containing shops which specialize in book­selling. Perhaps the best known of these is Charring Cross Road in the very heart of London. Here bookshops of all sorts and sizes are to be found, from the celebrated one which boasts of being "the biggest bookshop in the world" to the tiny, dusty little places which seem to have been left over from Dickens' time. Some of these shops stock, or will obtain, any kind of books, but many of them specialize in second­hand books, in art books, in foreign books, in books on philosophy, politics or any other of the countless subjects about which books may be written. One shop in this area specializes only in books about ballet!

    Although it may be the most convenient place for Londoners to buy books, Charring Cross Road is not the cheapest. For the really cheap second­hand books, the collector must venture off the beaten track, to Farringdon Road, for example, in the East Central district of London. Here there is nothing so impressive as bookshops. The booksellers come along each morning and pour out their sacks of books onto small handcarts. And the collectors, some professionals and some amateurs, have been waiting for them. In places like this they can still, occasionally, pick up for a few pence an old one that may be worth many pounds.

Nowadays, for many people, buying a house or flat is just too expensive. However, the total amount of rent paid by tenants in Britain in 2017 rose to more than 50 billion-more than double the level of ten years prior. Consequently, a lot choose to share the flat.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

The pros? People rent a room and share the kitchen, living room and bathroom to save money.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}You may not even need to ask; just leave an IOU. Additionally, there's the fact that you gain access to their social networks. Living with people means meeting their friends, who may then become your friends.{#blank#}3{#/blank#}Due to the nature of communal living, you're not just dealing with your own life events. Most likely, there will always be a shoulder to cry on when you need one. But don't forget to pay back when they need it.

Now the cons.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}In most cases, the kitchen, for example, will be divided up into designated shelves and areas. Worse, many people may not respect these boundaries. You might well come home to find someone steal your milk or shower gel, and no one owns up to it. Furthermore, there are the unexpected guests. If a flatmate forgets to keep you informed of a party they're throwing and it can be challenging for you to have a quiet night.

{#blank#}5{#/blank#}Some people prefer their own space while other s thrive in a social environment. Regardless, for many who lack the means to buy their own property, a flat-sharing is, and will continue to be, a necessity.

A. Lastly, there's the emotional support.

B. Those flat-sharing can share the secrets.

C. To start with, do you lack private space?

D. There's limited storage space, for a start.

E. Whether the pros outweigh the cons depends.

F. Then what are the pros and cons of flat-sharing?

G. Also, living with others means that you can pool your resources.