Hi Judy!

    You often complain to me that you always buy goods unreasonably on sale promotion（促销）and feel it shameful after going back to your school dormitory with new things not needed, considering all the money you spend is your parents' income.

    In fact, this is a common phenomenon, called impulsive buying, a buying unplanned and hard to control. It usually happens when a store offers discounts（打折）or sales promotion—a special way used by stores to get more customers, which means you may fall into its traps even without notice. ,

    Stores, with a good knowledge of customers' psychology（心理）, make use of it to drive business. Avoiding all the impulsive buying is a hard thing. However, knowing our psychology behind it and reducing the times when influenced by sales promotion may be useful. So you should keep calm when facing the sales promotion by keeping in mind what you really need.

    Find out the conditions where you are likely to buy things blindly. When seeing a dress advertised at 20% off, do not concentrate on the discount, but warn yourself against falling into the trap of “saving money''.

    Besides, do not forget the long-term effects of your choice when meeting a sales promotion. Short-term benefits, like excited feeling just after buying items encourage impulsive buying. But the long-term costs such as waste of money and the sense of shame really annoy you. When seeing the advertisements, remember what you really want to buy originally and warn yourself of that terrible feeling. Only in this way can you save money for really needed things.

Yours,

Rachel

    Many people thought a computer wasn't supposed to be able to beat a top master at the ancient Chinese game, Weiqi, for at least another 10 years. But AlphaGo, an artificially intelligent system(人工智能系统) designed by Google, made it. It easily beat Lee Sedol last year, one of the best players in the world. It challenged the world's top players to show how much progress it had made over the past few years.

    In the late of May, 2017, AlphaGo appeared in China and played against 19-year-old Ke Jie in Wuzhen, China. He is No. 1 player now in the world. However, the result wasn't out of people's expectation. He lost the matches. Though Ke Jie tried his best and he once saw the victory just a step away, he lost his best chance when he became excited.

    At the press conference(新闻发布会) after the match, Ke Jie was interviewed by the reporters. He said he had realized how powerful AlphaGo was, and it was getting perfect. When a Chinese reporter asked him in English, the reporter spoke so fast that the interpreter(口译员 ) couldn't catch him. Ke Jie got kind of angry and told him that it was unnecessary for two Chinese to speak English. The reporter apologized to him and offered to ask him for a coffee.

    The cat and mouse game is over, but the challenge between man and robots will still go on.

    Newborns begin to develop language skills long before they begin speaking. And, compared to adults, they develop these skills more quickly. People have a hard time learning new languages as they grow older, but babies have the ability to learn any language easily.

    For a long time, scientists have tried to explain how such young children can learn the complicated (复杂的) grammatical rules and sounds of a language. Now, researchers are getting a better idea of what's happening in the brains of the tiniest language learners. This new information might help kids with learning problems as well as adults who want to learn new languages. It might even help scientists who are trying to design computers that can communicate like people do.

    Most babies go "ma ma" by 6 months of age, and most children speak in full sentences by age 3. For many years, scientists have wondered how the brains of young children figure out how to communicate using language. With help from new technologies, scientists are now finding that babies begin life with the ability to learn any language. They get into contact (接触) with other people, listen to what they say and watch their movements very closely. That is why they quickly master the languages they hear most often.

    Studies show that, up to about 6 months of age, babies can recognize all the sounds that make up all the languages in the world. Starting at around 6 months old a baby's brain focuses on the most common sounds it hears. Then, children begin responding only to the sounds of the language they hear the most.

    In a similar way older babies start recognizing the patterns that make up the rules of their native language. For example, English children who are about 18 months old start to figure out that words ending in "-ing" or "-ed" are usually verbs, and that verbs are action words.

    A scientist once said: "I have concluded that the earth is being visited by intelligently controlled vehicles from outer space."

    If we take this as a reasonable explanation for UFOs (unidentified flying objects), questions immediately come up.

    "Why don't they get in touch with us, then? Why don't they land right on the White House lawn and declare themselves?" people asked.

    In reply, scientists say that, while this may be what we want, it may not necessarily be what they want.

    "The most likely explanation, it seems to me," said Dr. Mead, "is that they are simply watching what we are up to—that responsible society outside our solar system is keeping an eye on us to see that we don't cause a chain reaction that might have unexpected effects for the outside of our solar system."

    Opinions from other scientists might go like this: "Why should they want to get in touch with us? We may feel we're more important than we really are! They may want to observe us only and not interfere(干涉) with the development of our civilization  They may not care if we see them but they also may not care to say 'hello'."

    Some scientists have also suggested that Earth is a kind of zoo or wildlife reserve. Just as we set aside wilderness areas and wildlife reserves to allow animals and growing things to develop naturally while we observe them, so perhaps Earth was set aside ages ago for the same purpose.

    Are we being observed by intelligent beings from other civilizations in the universe? Are they watching our progress in space travel? Do we live in a huge "zoo" observed by our "keepers," but having no communication with them?

    Never before in our history have we had to face ideas bravely like these. The simple fact is that we, who have always regarded ourselves as supreme in the universe, may not be so. Now we have to recognize that, among the stars in the heavens, there may very well be worlds lived by beings who are to us as we are to ants.

Tales From Animal Hospital David Grant

    David Grant has become a familiar face to millions of fans of Animal Hospital. Here Dr Grant tells us the very best of his personal stories about the animals he has treated, including familiar patients such as the dogs Snowy and Duchess, the delightful cat Marigold Serendipity Diamond. He also takes the reader behind the scenes at Harmsworth Memorial Animal Hospital as he describes his day, from ordinary medical check-ups to surgery. Tales From Animal Hospital will delight all fans of the program and anyone who has a lively interest in their pet, whether it be cat, dog or snake!

    £14.99 Hardback 272pp Simon Schuster

    ISBN 0751304417

    Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer Micheal White

    From the author of Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science, comes this colorful description of the life of the world's first modern scientist. Interesting yet based on fact, Michael White's learned yet readable new book offers a true picture of Newton completely different from what people commonly know about him. Newton is shown as a gifted scientist with very human weaknesses who stood at the point in history where magic ended and science began.

    £18.99 Hardback 320pp Fourth Estate

    ISBN 1857024168

     Fermat's Last Theorem Simon Singh

    In 1963 a schoolboy called Andrew Wiles reading in his school library came across the world's greatest mathematical problem: Fermat's Last Theorem ( 定 理 ). First put forward by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in the seventeenth century, the theorem had baffled and beaten the finest mathematical minds, including a French woman scientist who made a major advance in working out the problem, and who had to dress like a man in order to be able to study at the Ecole Polytechnique. Through unbelievable determination Andrew Wiles finally worked out the problem in 1995. An unusual story of human effort over three centuries, Fermat's Last Theorem will delight specialists and general readers alike.

    £12.99 Hardback 384pp Fourth Estate

    ISBN 1857025210

Sleep is essential for a person's well-being. Researchers have found that sleep loss increases a person's risk of developing serious medical conditions. Now, a new study has found that getting enough sleep is also the key to improving academic performance.

Jeffrey Grossman, who led the research, was not trying to find the correlation(相关性) between sleep and grades when he handed out a device to the students in his class. Instead, the professor hoped the popular wrist-worn electronic device, which tracks a person's activity 24/7, would show a connection between physical exercise and academic achievement.

As part of the research, a quarter of the participants chose a fitness class specially created for the study. After the school term ended, the researchers carefully analysed the data. Much to Grossman's surprise, they found no measurable difference in test performance between the group that had been physically active and the group that had not.

However, the study presented a surprising viewpoint in the journal Science of Learning. Going through the large amount of data, Grossman noticed an interesting trend(趋势) from the participants' sleep patterns. There was a straight-line relationship between the average amount of sleep and his/her grade in the exams.

Besides, it was not enough for students to just head to bed early the night before a test. Grossman says, "We've heard the phrase ‘Get a good night's sleep. You've got a big day tomorrow.' It turns out this does not relate at all to test performance. Instead, it's the sleep you get during the days when learning is happening that matters most."

The time when students went to bed each night was similarly important. Those who went to bed in the early hours of the morning performed poorly, even if the total sleep time was the same as a higher-performing student.

The research does not prove that sleep is the only component that helps improve academic performance. However, Grossman says the results are a strong indication that sleep really matters. Who knew getting A's just required some extra ZZZ's?