B

    Two weeks before my 12th birthday, my teacher asked me to conduct an experiment. When I mixed some powder together, they exploded. Molten liquid hit me in the face, but I felt no pain.

    I vividly remember standing there in a state of calm. I thought I was in a dream, but however hard I struggled to swim to the surface of consciousness, I couldn't wake up. I didn't understand how terrifying it was until I heard people saying, ＂Who's that?＂ That's when I knew I was unrecognizable.

    I was taken to hospital, but the doctors didn't know what to do with me. Later I was flown to Houston for surgery. Between the ages of 13 and 16, I had 40 operations. As each operation came and went, my vision would come back, then fade again. Eventually, it faded completely and I had what was left of my eyes removed for cosmetic reasons.

    Since then, I have lived in total darkness. Most blind people, even if they don't have any sight they're aware of, are still able to sense light. That gives them a sense of day and night. But not me. I absolutely lost that sense of time passing.

    For many years, I felt my sight loss darkening my life like the loss of my parents from which I would never recover. But when I was in my 40s, I realized I had to find a way to live. I trained to become a counselor, and that has helped me see my experiences in a different way. I can't fix people's broken lives — just like I can't fix my sight — but I can help them find a way to manage.

    Sometimes it feels as if all the struggles and negative experiences I've lived through were in fact a kind of preparation for helping others to make their own way towards the light.

    A large body of research has been developed in recent years to explain many aspects of willpower. Most of the researchers exploring self-control do so with an obvious goal in mind: How can willpower be strengthened? If willpower is truly a limited resource, as the research suggests, what can be done to make it stay strong?

    Avoiding temptation (诱惑）is an effective method for maintaining self-control, which is called the “out of sight, out of mind” principle. One recent study, for instance, found office workers are less attracted to candy in the desk drawer than that on top of their desks, in plain sight.

    The research suggesting that we possess a limited reservoir of self-control raises a troubling question. When we face too many temptations, are we to fail? Not necessarily. Researchers don't believe that one's willpower is ever completely exhausted. Rather, people appear to hold some willpower in reserve, saved for future demands. The right motivation allows us to tap into those reserves, allowing us to carry on even when our self-control strength has been run down. High motivation might help overcome weakened willpower—at least to a point.

    Willpower may also be made less vulnerable (脆弱) to being exhausted in the first place. Researchers who study self-control often describe it as being like a muscle that gets tired with heavy use. But there is another aspect to the muscle comparison, they say. While muscles become exhausted by exercise in the short term, they are strengthened by regular exercise in the long term. Similarly, regular practices of self-control may improve willpower strength.

    The evidence from willpower-exhaustion studies also suggests that making a list of resolutions on New Year's Eve is the worst possible approach» Being exhausted in one area can reduce willpower in other areas, so it makes more sense to focus on a single goal at a time. In other words, don't try to quit smoking, adopt a healthy diet and start a new exercise plan at the same time. Taking goals one by one is a better approach. Once a good habit is in place, Baumeister says, you'll no longer need to draw on your willpower to maintain the behavior. Eventually healthy habits will become routine, and won't require making decisions at all.

    Many questions about the nature of self-control remain to be answered by further research. Yet it seems likely that with clear goals, good self-monitoring and a little practice, you can train your willpower to stay strong in the face of temptation.

B

    When I was 17, I read a magazine article about a museum called the McNay, once the home of a watercolorist named Marian McNay. She had requested the community to tum it into a museum upon her death. On a sunny Saturday, Sally and I drove over to the museum. She asked, "Do you have the address? ""No, but I'll recognize it, there was a picture in the magazine. "

    "Oh, stop. There it is!"

    The museum was free. We entered, excited. A group of people sitting in the hall stopped talking and stared at us.

    "May I help you?" a man asked. "No," I said. "We're fine." Tour guides got on my nerves. What if they talked a long time about a painting you weren't that interested in? Sally had gone upstairs. The people in the hall seemed very nosy(爱窥探的), keeping their eyes on me with curiosity. What was their problem? I saw some nice sculptures in one room. Suddenly I sensed a man standing behind me. "Where do you think you are?" he asked. I turned sharply. "The McNay Art Museum!" He smiled, shaking his head. "Sorry, the McNay is on New Braunfels Street." "What's this place?" I asked, still confused. "Well, it's our home." My heart jolted(震颤). I raced to the staircase and called out, "Sally! Come down immediately! "

    "There's some really good stuff(艺术作品）up there."She stepped down, looking confused. I pushed her toward the front door, waving at the family, saying, "Sorry, please forgive us, you have a really nice place." Outside, when I told Sally what happened, she covered her mouth, laughing. She couldn't believe how long they let us look around without saying anything.

    The real McNay was splendid, but we felt nervous the whole time we were there. Van Gogh, Picasso. This time, we stayed together, in case anything else unusual happened.

    Thirty years later, a woman approached me in a public place. "Excuse me, did you ever enter a residence, long ago, thinking it was the McNay Museum?"

    "Yes. But how do you know? We never told anyone. "

    "That was my home. I was a teenager sitting in the hall. Before you came over, I never realized what a beautiful place I lived in. I never felt lucky before. You thought it was a museum. My feelings about my home changed after that. I've always wanted to thank you."

    Swiss researchers said Monday they have developed a wireless camera system to monitor vital signs in premature babies, a move that could replace uncomfortable and highly inaccurate skin sensors (传感器) which produce false alarms in up to 90 percent of cases, mainly set off by the baby's movement.

    “This is a cause of discomfort for the babies, because we have to check on them every time,” said Jean-Claude Fauchere, a doctor at University Hospital Zurich's newborn clinic.

    His hospital is preparing to begin tests of a new, contactless system created by researchers at the EPFL polytechnical university in Lausanne and at the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology.

    The system designed in Switzerland should allow premature babies kept warm in incubators (恒温箱) to be medically monitored using highly sensitive cameras that detect the newborn's pulse by analyzing its skin color, which changes so slightly every time its heart beats.

    “Breathing is monitored by measuring movements of its chest and shoulders. At night, infrared (红外线的) cameras take over, and monitoring can be carried out non-stop,” the statement said.

    The visual system was designed by CSEM researchers, who chose cameras sensitive enough to detect minute changes in skin color, while the EPFL researchers designed algorithms (运算程序) to process the data in real time.

    “We ran an early study on adults, where we looked at a specific part of skin on their foreheads,” EPFL doctoral student Sibylle Fallet said. “With our algorithms we can track this area when the person moves, and use tiny changes in their color to determine the pulse,” she said. “The tests showed that the cameras produced practically the same results as conventional sensors.”

    Once the system has been widely tested on premature babies, it could one day replace skin sensors altogether, the schools said.

    Sleep deprivation(缺失)is an important hidden factor in lowering the achievement of school pupils, according to researchers carrying out international education tests.

    It is a particular problem in richer countries with sleep experts linking it to the use of mobile phones and computers in bedroom late at night. Sleep deprivation is such a serious problem that lessons have to be dragged down to a lower level to suit sleep-deprived learners, the study found. The international comparison, carried out by Boston College, found the United States to have the highest number of sleep-deprived students, with 73% of 9- and 10-year-olds and 80% of 13- and 14-year-olds identified by their teachers as being negatively affected.

    In literacy(读写能力) tests there were 76% of 9- and 10-year-olds lacking sleep. This was much higher than the international average of 47% of primary pupils needing more sleep and 57% among the secondary age group.

    Other countries with the most sleep-deprived youngsters were New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Australia, England, Ireland and France. High-performing Finland is also among the most lacking in sleep. Countries with the best records for getting enough sleep include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Japan and Malta.

The analysis was part of the huge date-gathering process for global education rankings, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study(TIMSS)and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study(PIRLS)

    “I think we underestimate the impact of sleep. Our data show that across countries internationally, on average, children who have more sleep achieve higher in maths, science and reading. That is exactly what our data show,” says Chad Minnich of the TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center.

    “It's the same link for children who are lacking basic nutrition,” says Mr Minnich, based at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College. “If you are unable to concentrate, to attend mentally, you are unable to achieve at your best level, because your mind and body are in need of something more basic. Sleep is a fundamental need for all children. If teachers report such large proportions of children suffering from lack of sleep, it's having a significant impact. But worse than that, teachers are having to adjust their instruction based on those children who are suffering from a lack of sleep. The children who are suffering from a lack of sleep are driving down instruction.”

    That means that even the children who are getting enough sleep are still suffering from this sleep-related lowering.

    A couple had a son eleven years after they married. They were a loving couple and the boy was the apple of their eye. When the boy was around four years old, one day the father was very tired after work so he asked his wife to pick up their son. The mother, who was very busy in the kitchen, totally forgot about it.

    Later the boy lost his way on the street. When the son was found missing, the mother hurried to look for him, but she didn't find him. The mother felt very sad and didn't know how to face her husband.

    When the father went to the police station after hearing that the son was missing, he looked at his wife and said just four words. What do you think the four words were? The husband just said "I love you, darling."

    The son was missing. If he had picked him up earlier, this would not have happened. There is no point in blaming (责备) anyone. His wife had also lost her only child. What his wife needed at that moment was comfort and understanding from her husband. That is what the husband gave his wife. Several weeks later, with the help of the police, the couple finally found their lost son. The family's relationship became stronger over that time.

    Sometimes we spend lots of time asking who is to blame. We miss many chances to give each other support and let each other feel the warmth of human relationships. Get rid of all your unwillingness to forgive, selfishness, and fears and you will find the world is much more wonderful.