Are you interested in students in other countries: Do they also have so much homework like you?What do they do in their spare time?

    On April 8,a report came out on the lives of high school students in China,Japan,South Korea and the US.It surveyedaround 6,200 students from the four countries last year.You will find the answers to many of your questions in this report.

    Who study hardest?

    Chinese students spend the most time studying.Nearly half of Chinese students(48.6%) spend more than two hours on their homework every day.That's much more than students of the US(26.4%),Japan(8.2%) and South Korea (5.2%).

    Who sleep most often in class?

    Japanese students fall asleep in class most often.About 45% of them said they sometimes sleep in class.In South Korea,it's 32%;in the US,21%;and 5% in China.

    Who are the most distracted（分心的）?

    American students are the most active in class,but also the most distracted.64.2% said they chat with friends in class;46.9% said they eat snacks in class;and 38.9% said they send emails or read storybooks in class.

    What do they do after school?

    In their spare time,most Chinese students study or surf the Internet.Most American students go out to play with their friends.Most Japanese students do physical exercise.Most Korean students watch TV.

    Obviously, most people who try to lose weight generally focus all or most of their attention on the food they eat. But what about their behavior? Are there habits they could be breaking that would also help them lose weight?

    According to the Ohio State University Extension, which summarized the findings, the researchers learned people who routinely ate breakfasts, lunches, and dinners tended to have more success losing weight than people whose eating schedules were irregular. As a bonus, they were also more likely to eat a larger quantity of fruits and vegetables.

    One activity that brought a disaster to people who wanted to lose weight was watching television, particularly if they ate while watching TV--especially if they ate while watching TV after 7 p.m. People who did these things, including simply watching a lot of television, tended to have a higher body mass index (BMI), as well as a higher intake of fat and sugars.

    Those who ate out a lot also tended to take in more fat and sugars, while eating fewer fruits and vegetables. For the purposes of the study, eating away from home was defined not only as eating in restaurants but also eating food provided by an employer or colleagues at work, buying food at convenience stores or gas stations, or buying food for fund-raisers.

    Finally, the best results were achieved by those motivated people who kept writing the track of the amount and type of exercise they did and how many calories they ate, who planned meals, and used meal replacements. Those who did these things the most generally lost more weight, ate less fat and sugars, ate more fruits and vegetables, and engaged in more physical activities.

So cutting out all those high-calorie snacks will help you lose weight. If so, apparently, will change some of your habits and behavior.

    One of the questions surrounding climate change is how it might affect the food supply for a growing global population. A new study suggests that researchers have been overlooking how two key human responses to climate—how much land people choose to farm, and the number of crops they plant—will affect food production in the future. The new study focused on the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, an emerging（新兴的）global breadbasket（产粮地区）that as of 2013 supplied 10 percent of the world's soybeans. The researchers used variations in temperature and precipitation（降水）across the state over an eight-year period to estimate the sensitivity of the region's agricultural production to climate change. Those historical comparisons can help in making predictions about the sensitivity of agriculture to future climate change.

    The study found that, if the patterns from 2002 to 2008 hold in the future, an increase in average temperature in Mato Grosso of just 1 degree will lead to a 9 to 13 percent reduction in overall production of soy and corn. “This is worrisome given that the temperature in the study region is predicted to rise by 2 degrees by 2050,” said Avery Cohn, who led the study.

    Most studies of this kind look only at the extent to which climate shocks affect crop output. But researchers can miss critical dynamics（动力）that can affect overall output, says Leah VanWey, one of the study's senior authors. “If you look at output alone, you're not looking at all of the information because there are economic and social changes going on as well,” said VanWey.

    If output decreases, farmers may put less land area into production because it's not profitable. Farmers may also vary the number of crops they plant in a growing season. Double cropping is common in Mato Grosso. But if the weather is bad, farmers may change their decision to plant a second crop.

    The English language is full of phrases about the weather. Some of these phrases are easy to understand, but others are not really about the weather at all. If you say you "hit rough weather", you may not be struck by a real storm, but you do experience difficulties or problems. If you don't know what such phrases mean, they might leave you "in a fog (雾)"!

    In English, you can "shoot the breeze", or have an informal chat. But things can also be a breeze. If you take an exam and find it very easy, you'd tell your friends: "It was a breeze!" The wind can also bring information. You can "get wind of" a piece of news, and if someone "knows which way the wind blows", they have a good idea about how things will work out. But don't "throw caution (警惕) to the wind" — that means taking a great risk!

    Clouds sometimes bring rain, and in English they often represent problems or difficulties. If someone "sees a cloud on the horizon (地平线)", there may be problems ahead. And if someone is "under a cloud", then people think the person might have done something wrong. But clouds are not always bad; in fact, people say that "every cloud has a silver lining". This means that there is a good side to every situation, no matter how bad it may seem. You may even end up "on cloud nine", which means you are very happy! But some people have their "heads in the clouds", not paying attention to reality.

    No one likes to be stuck in the rain or storm, so it's no surprise that phrases about them are generally negative. When someone says "it never rains but it pours", they are complaining (抱怨) that when things go wrong, they go very wrong. People who talk about "weathering a storm" just want to get through a difficult period or situation.

    Vinegar makes salad, fries and dumplings taste better, and you can even use it to clean your windows. And now, according to scientists, it may even the planet's population survive climate change.

    Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science （CSRS） in Japan found that growing plants in vinegar makes them more resistant to droughts. This could mean that in the future, worries about climate change affecting the world's supply of food will be much lower. The discovery was made after the researchers studied the Arabidopsis, a plant known for its ability to survive in dry weather. It was found that when the plant was placed in drought﹣like conditions, it produced a chemical called acetate（醋酸盐）﹣the main component of vinegar.

    After discovering this, the scientists experimented further by adding acetate to the soil of other plants, before they stopped giving them water completely. After leaving the plants for 14days, they found that the ones treated with acetate had survived, while the untreated plants had dried up and died.

    It's hoped that this simple method of survival could soon be used to help farmers in dry countries keep their crops alive. "In the experiment, we targeted the staple foods of the world﹣rice, wheat and maize﹣and the basic plant of breeding species, rapeseed（油菜籽）," Jong Myong Kim, co﹣author of the study, told Popular Science magazine.

    Kim also told the magazine he's already been in touch with people all over the world who are interested in trying this simple and cost﹣effective method out for themselves from flower growing companies to amateur gardeners. Although at this point keeping thirsty plants alive isn't as easy as just pouring vinegar over them, Kim said he and his team are working on making the process as simple as possible. "Now we are trying to cooperate with some farmers, and also some companies, to make a method to apply this system, "he said. And for those of us who always forget to ask our neighbors to water our plants when we go away, hopefully this means the end of returning home from a trip to find our favorite flowers have died.

    "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is one of the most common sayings in the English languages. This is because apples were one of the first foods that medical professionals recognized as healthy­their benefits became obvious when  quite simply, doctors found that people who ate apples were sick less often than those who did not. Today we have a more specific understanding of why apples are so beneficial to overall health.

    Apples can help keep your levels of bad cholesterol (胆固醇) down. The pectin (果胶) in apples helps you to maintain cardiovascular health and reduce LDL cholesterol(which is the "bad" kind). Apples themselves do not add cholesterol to your diet and are full of water and fiber to help prevent the cholesterol in other foods you might digest. According to Health Diaries, people who eat two apples per day may lower their cholesterol by as much as 16 percent.

    Apples are naturally low in calories and high in water content. Eating an apple can satisfy your hunger and keep you from reaching for high-sugar, high-calories snacks. By eating apples, you will be more able to maintain a healthy weight because they fill you up, potentially stopping you from eating food that encourages a waistline increase.

    Apples contain respectable levels of boron (硼) which helps build healthy bones, and can also prevent diseases like arthritis. Apples are rich in vitamin C, which is known to help build immunity.

    Studies have shown that apples can decrease the risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, and liver cancer. One theory is that the apple skins are responsible for this, so be sure not to peel your apple before you eat them, as you could remove some of the health benefits.