An interesting study posted on Facebook recently shows how men and women develop new interests as they mature(成熟).

    While women tend to take exercise seriously from the age of 34, men will wait until their 45th birthdays before working hard to get in shape.The average woman spends more time talking about sports, politics, career and money as she gets older.

    Women's interest in books reaches its peak(顶峰) at the age of 22, while that of men does so when they are in their 50s.

    Men start to change their focus from the workplace to other things after age 30, while women do not do so until eight years later. Both, however, care most about fashion at age 16.

    The research used anonymous(匿名的) data donated by thousands of Facebook users, recording the statuses, 'likes' and 'interests' they had posted on their profiles.

    It found the average woman talks about television most at 44, while men peak much younger, at age 31.

    Men are also most likely to see a film in a cinema at age 31, while women go out to see films most when they are only 19.

    Men are most interested in travel at 29, women at 27, while women talk most about food and drink at 35, and men at 38.

    And if you are middle aged, a safe topic for any audience is the weather, which is a key interest for many as they approach 60.

    Stephen Wolfram, the British scientist who carried out the research, says, “It's almost shocking how much this tells us about the changes of people's typical interests.

    “People talk less about video games as they get older, and more about politics.”

    Imagine you're standing in line to buy a snack at a store. You step up to the counter and the cashier scans your food. Next, you have to pay. but instead of scanning a QR Code（二维码）with your smart phone, you just hold out your hand so the cashier can scan your fingerprint. Or, a camera scans your face, your eyes or even your ear.

    Now, this type of technology might not be far away. As technology companies move away from the traditional password, biometric（生物特征识别的）security, which includes fingerprint, face and voice ID, is becoming increasingly popular.

    In 2013, Apple introduced the iPhone 5s, one of the first smart phones with a fingerprint scanner. Since then, using one's fingerprint to unlock a phone and make mobile payments has become commonplace, bringing convenience to our lives. And since 2016, Samsung has featured eye-scanning technology in its top smart phones, while Apple's new iphone X can even scan a user's face. But despite its popularity, experts warn that biometrics might not be as secure as we imagine. “Biometrics is ideally good in practice, not so much,” said John Michener, a biometrics expert.

    When introducing the new iPhone's face ID feature, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president, said. “The chance that a random person in the population could look at your iPhones X and unlock it with their face is about one in a million.” But it's already been done. In a video posted on a community website Reddit, two brothers showed how they were each able to unlock the same iPhone X using their own face. And they aren't even twins.

    “We may expect too much from biometrics,” Anil Jain, a computer science professor at Michigan State University, told CBS News. “No security systems are perfect.”

    Earlier last year, Jain found a way to trick biometric security. Using a printed copy of a thumbprint, she was able to unlock a dead person's smart phone for the police, according to a tech website Splinter. “It's good to see biometrics being used more,” Jain told CBS News, “because it adds another factor for security. But using multiple security measures is the best defense.”

    Listed below are the stories of women you may not know about, but definitely should.

    Hedy Lamarr

    Hedy Lamarr starred in many films. But her film career is far from her only noteworthy achievement; she was also a brilliant inventor. In 1942, she and composer George Antheil received a patent（专利）for a device that could change radio signal frequencies. The purpose of the technology was to keep military enemies from figuring out messages. But it did more than that - it laid a foundation for the wireless technology we use today.

    Maria Sibylla Merian

    Today, children can happily explain how a caterpillar（毛虫） tums into a butterfly. But there was a time when no one knew this. Until the 1670s, scientists thought that caterpillars and butterflies were two totally different creatures. Thanks to Maria, we know the truth about these beautiful winged insects. Fascinated by insects, she began collecting, studying and drawing them as a child. It was through her study of caterpillars that she discovered the truth about their life cycles. She published two volumes of naturalist research, which provide major contributions to the field of entomology（昆虫学）.

    Ada Lovelace

    Ada Lovelace, the daughter of celebrated British poet Lord Byron, wasn't a poet herself but the world's first computer programmer. We think of computers as a recent invention, but people were toying with the idea of "computing machines" in the mid – 19th century when Lovelace was alive. Lovelace's mathematical genius was apparent at a young age and caught the attention of Cambridge professor Charles Babbage, who was working to design early computing machines that would be able to quickly solve math problems. Lovelace wrote some suggestions as to how to program the machines to work out numbers.

    In addition to designing this early computer program, she was also the first to surest that these computers might be able to do more than compute. She imagined them doing almost everything, from producing images to composing music.

    Scientists in Argentina have created the world's first cow with two human genes that will enable it to produce human-like milk.

    Genetic engineering was used to introduce the "mothers' milk" genes into the animal before birth, according to the National Institute of Agribusiness Technology in Buenos Aires.

    As an adult, the cloned cow "will produce milk that is similar to that of humans", which will prove "a development of great importance for the nutrition of infants(婴儿)", said the institute. "The cloned cow, named Rosita ISA, is the first in the world with two human genes that contain the proteins present in human milk," said the statement.

    In April, scientists in China published details of research showing that they had created dairy cows which produced milk containing proteins found in human breast milk. But the Argentine team said the Chinese only introduced one human gene, while their research involved two, meaning the milk will more closely resemble that of humans.

    “Our goal was to raise the nutrition value of cows' milk by adding two human genes, which do good to the immune system of infants,” said Adrian Mutto, from the National University of San Martin which worked with the institute.

    Cristina Kirchner, President of Argentina, said that the scientific institute made all Argentines proud. She also said that she had refused the "honor" of having the cow named after her. "They came to tell me that the name is Cristina, but what woman would like to have a cow named after her? It appeared to me to be more proper to call it Rosita.”

    America's top education official says many schools are spending too much time teaching the "basics"—reading, math and writing. It might seem opposite to what educators have been promoting. But U.S. Education Secretary John King says children really deserve access to a well-rounded education that includes music and arts because it will help them go into being well-rounded, well-educated persons.

    King spoke about his own education when explaining why schools need to teach more than math, reading and writing.

    King grew up in New York. Both his parents died when he was quite young. In his house, things were often crazy and frightening. It was his teacher, Mr. Osterwei, who helped him escape his difficult life. Quite often, the teacher took him and his classmates to the theater, the zoo, the ballet and famous Museum of Natural History. "Those were powerful, life-changing experiences, "King says. King graduated from Harvard University. He received his law degree from Yale University. He took charge of New York State public schools from 2011-2015. The U.S. Senate approved him as Education secretary last month.

    Many schools spend almost all funding on the "basics" because they lack money for other subjects, King says. Or they want students to do better on tests used to compare student performance.

    Students need to connect their studies and things that matter to them personally, such as music if they are to become "sophisticated(水平高的) thinkers". A 2013 report by UNESCO says today's world needs people able to solve new and unusual problems. It says arts can help students find those answers. In the report, UNESCO said teaching the arts in China, South Korea and Japan is different.

    From that in many Western countries, the emphasis(重点) in those three countries is "on joyful experiences and children's interests." In the West, educators are more likely to connect the arts to reading, writing and math. A 2014 report tried to compare how well countries teach children how to solve problems. It found Singapore, South Korea, Japan, China, Canada, Australia and Finland with the highest scores for 15-year-olds. Singapore led the way with a score of 562 out of a possible 1, 000. The average score was 500. The United States had a score of 508.

    Is any economist so dull as to criticize Christmas? At first glance, the holiday season in western economies seems a treat for those concerned with such vagaries(奇思遐想)as GDP growth. After all, everyone is spending; in America, retailers make 25% of their yearly sales and 60% of their profits between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even so, economists find something to worry about in the nature of the purchases being made.

    Much of the holiday spending is on gifts for others. At the simplest level, giving gifts involves the giver thinking of something that the recipient would like--he tries to guess her preferences, as economists say--and then buying the gift and delivering it. Yet this guessing of preferences is not easy; indeed, it is often done badly. Every year, ties go unworn and books unread. And even if a gift is enjoyed, it may not be what the recipient would have bought if they had spent the money themselves.

    Interested in this mismatch between wants and gifts, in 1993 Joel Waldfogel, then an economist at Yale University, sought to estimate the difference in dollar terms. In a study, he asked students two questions at the end of a holiday season: first, estimate the total amount paid(by the givers) for all the holiday gifts you received; second, apart from the sentimental value of the items, if you did not have them, how much would you be willing to pay to get them? His results were gloomy: on average, a gift was valued by the recipient well below the price paid by the giver.

    In addition, recipients may not know their own preferences very well. Some of the best gifts, after all, are unexpected items that you would never have thought of buying, but which turn out to be especially well picked. And preferences can change. So by giving a jazz CD, for example, the giver may be encouraging the recipient to enjoy something that was ignored before. This, a desire to build skills, is possibly the hope held by many parents who ignore their children's desires for video games and buy them books instead.

    Finally, there are items that a recipient would like to receive but not purchase. If someone else buys them, however, they can be enjoyed guilt-free. This might explain the volume of chocolate that changes over the holidays. Thus, the lesson for gift-givers is that you should try hard to guess the preference of each person on your list and then choose a gift that will have high sentimental value.