Have you ever run into a careless cell phone user on the street? Perhaps they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new “species” of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name —phubbers(低头族).

    Recently, a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes selfie in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events eventually leads to the destruction of the world.

    Although the ending sounds overstated, the damage phubbing can bring is real.

    Your health is the first to bear the effect and result of it. “Constantly bending your head to check your cell phone could damage your neck,” Guangming Dailyquoted doctors as saying, “the neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching.” Also, staring at cell phones for long periods of time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.

    But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. At reunions with family or friends, many people tend to stick to their cell phones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Beijing Evening News reported.

    It can also cost you your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.

    At thirteen, I was diagnosed（诊断） with kind of attention disorder. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

    In my first literature class, Mrs. Smith asked us to read a story and then write on it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, “Mrs. Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it.”

    She glanced down at me through her glasses, “You are not different from your classmates, young man.”

    I tried, but I didn't finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home. In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn't get much education. But Louis didn't give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots（点）, which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

    Wasn't I the “blind” in my class, being made to learn like the “sighted” students? My thoughts spilled out and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was no different from others; I just needed a quieter place. If Louis could find his way out of his problems, why should I ever give up?

    I didn't expect anything when I handled in my paper to Mrs. Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day- with an “A” on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: “See what you can do when you keep trying?”

    Eating spicy foods frequently may be tied to a slightly lower risk of an earlier death, according to a new study. However, more research is needed to confirm the link, experts say.

    The researchers found that the people in the study who ate spicy foods one or two days a week were 10 percent less likely to die during the study, compared with those who ate spicy foods less than once a week, according to the study published today(Aug. 4) in the journal The BMJ. Moreover, the people in the study who ate spicy foods three or more days a week were 14 percent less likely to die during the study, compared with those who ate spicy foods less than once a week.

    However, the study was observational, and so it is too early to tell whether there is a causal relationship between eating spicy food and lower mortality, said study author Lu Qi, an associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. "We definitely need more data from other populations," Qi told Live Science. “The researchers don't know why exactly the consumption of spicy food may be linked to lower mortality, but previous research on cells and animals has suggested several possible mechanisms,” Qi said.

    “It is unclear whether the observed associations are the direct result of spicy food intake, or whether spicy foods are simply a marker for other beneficial but unmeasured dietary components(成分),” said Nita Forouhi, a nutritional expect. At this point, researchers don't know for sure whether eating spicy foods can have a beneficial effect on human health and mortality, Forouhi wrote. "Future research is needed to make sure whether spicy food consumption has the potential to improve health and reduce mortality directly, or if it is merely a marker of other dietary and lifestyle factors," she said.

    I was once told, “You are wasting your time on a career that will give you no money or comfort”.

    I explored my interests for years and finally decided to be a journalist. However, I'm still influenced by others' arguments: print publications are being replaced by web versions where content is updated nearly every time you refresh the browser. But I hold onto my decision. Why? For the simple, yet powerful reason that it makes me happy in a way that no amount of money ever could.

    Rarely have I found others who think like this, and I find it very disappointing when I hear students trying to design their lives on the basis of factors (因素) other than keeping to their passions and interests.

    Factor number one is parents. They certainly have a right to be a part in their children's lives, but sometimes their words create more stress than encouragement. Instead of trying to make their children happy, as their original purpose may have been, parents can end up limiting their children's dreams and desires until nothing remains but the hard seeds of a cruel reality.

    The second factor is money. I had a conversation with my college friend one afternoon, which explains this point.

    “What happened?” I asked him after he said he had changed his major. “I thought you wanted to be a photographer.”

    “I do,” he said, “But there is no money in it. Don't worry,” he added, probably feeling my worry. “I'm happy where I am.” I was ready to believe that, but as we kept on talking, he continuously interrupted me to point out the beauty of this view and that view, saying he wished he had taken his camera with him.

    Naturally, we cannot predict where we will end up with our choices. Our ideas and plans could change as we progress. However, at this stage in our lives when so many voices are telling us who we should be, we need to value our individual dreams, not to abandon them, because they may be the only things left that tell us who we are.

    Anyone who cares about what schools and colleges teach and how their students learn will be interested in the memoir (回忆录) of Ralph W. Tyler, who is one of the most famous men in American education.

    Born in Chicago in 1902, brought up and schooled in Nebraska, the 19-year-old college graduate Ralph Tyler became hooked on teaching while teaching as a science teacher in South Dakota and changed his major from medicine to education.

    Graduate work at the University of Chicago found him connected with honorable educators Charles Judd and W. W. Charters, whose ideas of teaching and testing had an effect on his later work. In 1927, he became a teacher of Ohio State University where he further developed a new method of testing.

    Tyler became well-known nationally in 1938, when he carried his work with the Eight-Year Study from Ohio State University to the University of Chicago at the invitation of Robed Hutchins.

    Tyler was the first director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a position he held for fourteen years. There, he firmly believed that researchers should be free to seek an independent spirit in their work.

    Although Tyler officially retired (退休) in 1967, he never actually retired. He served on a long list of educational organizations in the United States and abroad. Even in his 80s he traveled across the country to advise teachers and management people on how to set objectives (目标) that develop the best teaching and learning within their schools.

    Michelle Kwan was born on July 7, 1980, in Torrance, California. The daughter of Hong Kong immigrants (移民), Kwan watched her older brother play ice hockey as a kid. She began skating when she was five, and entered and won her first figure skating competition at seven. She won the world title in the 1994 World Championships at the age of 13, and earned a spot as an alternate (候补者) for the 1994 Olympic Games. Kwan went on to capture the world title in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2003.

    At the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, Kwan was believed to win gold, but ended up with a disappointing silver medal when fellow US skater Tara Lipinski surprisingly took first place. Shortly before the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002, Kwan, who was then the reigning world champ, surprisingly fired both her choreographer (编舞者), Lori Nichol, and longtime coach, Frank Carroll. Once again, she failed to get the gold medal when she finished third behind Irina Slutskaya of Russia and US skater Sarah Hughes, who took first.

    As a student at the University of California at Los Angeles, Kwan has continued to compete since her defeat (战败) in Salt Lake City. In February 2006, she was unable to take part in the Olympic Games in Torino, Italy because of a serious injury. Though Michelle Kwan did not compete during the 2006－2007 figure skating season, she has turned down an offer to work for NBC Sports and says she is not retiring.