The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place

    Diet Coke ,diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet…We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically.

    Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.

    On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink,we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don't have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.

    The danger of diet products lees not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients. Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products my not be nutritional,and the chemicals that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.

    Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.

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    Hello,everybody.Welcome to surf on a new Web site—SCIENCE NEWS FOR KIDS!

    Our goal is to offer timely items of interest to kids,accompanied by suggestions for hands on activities,books, articles,Web resources,and other useful materials.

    Our emphasis is on making the Web site attractive by offering kids opportunities to comment on and grade the subject matter,get ideas for science projects,and try out math puzzles.At the same time,we offer teachers creative ways of using science news in their classrooms.

    The Science News for Kids Web site,supported by several corporations and foundations,strengthens the usefulness of Science News in the middle－school classroom and offers entertaining reading and activities for students interested in science.

    A section of the Science News for Kids Web site is devoted to particular interests.At present,we have six such zones: a weekly brainteaser（难题）for those who enjoy solving and inventing puzzles (PuzzleZone),entertaining science－fiction composition exercises for those interested in writing (SciFiZone),and weekly science short description along with science project ideas and tips (ScienceFairZone).The GameZone contains a small selection of logic and memory games.The TeacherZone has materials,including question sheets related to the feature article of the week,so that teachers can bring science news topics to the classroom.The LabZone features a weekly hands on activity or science project idea.In the future,we might add additional zones,for example,for kids interested in robotics,the environment,computers,math,or veterinary（兽医的）medicine and animals.

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    This may be music to your ears.

    Researchers P. Jason Rentfrow and Samuel Gosling gave 3,500 people a personality quiz. “We found that the musical styles people like are closely linked to their personalities,” Gosling says.

    RAP/HIP-HOP

    Known for their quick speech, some rappers can say more than 700 syllables（音节）a minute!

    If you like rap/hip-hop, you are energetic（精力充沛的）and have a way with words. You put a fresh spin on things, whether it's new moves on the dance floor or your hip style.

    CLASSICAL

    In the 18th century, classical musicians were like rock stars. Beethoven and Mozart, for example, played in crowded concert halls.

If you like classical, you are open to new ideas and like debating with friends. Creative and imaginative, you can easily spend many hours scrapbooking, writing or painting.

    COUNTRY

    Country music came from the folk songs of English, Scottish, and Irish settlers of the southeastern United States.

    If you like country, you express your opinions well, which makes you the ideal class president or team captain. Traditional and loyal, you enjoy spending time with your family.

    POP

    Pop music is designed to attract almost everyone, and it does. Each year, the industry brings in about 30 billion dollars!

    If you like pop, you are attractive to your friends. You can make big things happen, like planning for a huge party or inspiring your team to victory.

ROCK/ALTERNATIVE

    In the 1950s, rock music created a brand-new culture. Teenagers, for the first time, had an identity separate from adults and children.

    If you like rock/alternative, you are a risk-taker who never accepts no for an answer. You rise to any challenge, like doing very well in a big exam or landing the lead in the school play.

    If these personality profiles（人格剖析）don't match you, that's OK. These are just for fun.

China is a land of bicycles. At least it was back in 1992 when I traveled the country. Back then everyone seemed to be riding a bicycle. Millions of them, all black. Cars were rare. Yet since my arrival in Beijing last year, I've found the opposite is true. There are millions of cars. However, people still use their bicycles to get around. For many, it's the easiest and cheapest way to travel today. Bicycles also come in different colors—silver, green, red, blue, yellow, whatever you want.

    It's fun watching people biking. They rush quickly through crossroads, move skillfully through traffic, and ride even on sidewalks(人行道). Bicycles allow people the freedom to move about that cars just can't provide.

    Eager to be part of this aspect of Chinese culture, I decided to buy a bicycle. Great weather accompanied (伴随) my great buy. I immediately jumped up on my bicycle seat and started home.

    My first ride home was orderly(守秩序的). To be safe, I stayed with a large group of bikers while cars on the streets came running swiftly out of nowhere at times. I didn't want to get hit. So I took the ride carefully.

    Crossing the streets was the biggest problem. It was a lot like crossing a major highway back in the United States. The streets here were wide, so crossing took time, skill and a little bit of luck.

    I finally made it home. The feeling on the bicycle was amazing. The air hitting my face and going through my hair was wonderful. I was sitting on top of the world as I passed by places and people. Biking made me feel alive.

    Like people, plants experience stress. And also, like people, the response to that stress can determine success.

    Bad environmental conditions, such as drought, flood, heat and other stresses, affect yields (产量) more than crop pests and diseases. We are trying to find a way to equip plants with the ability to tolerate environmental stress and maintain high yields, said Stephen Howell, a professor of genetics and cell biology.

    Plant cells produce proteins (蛋白质) and ship them to different parts of the cell. Under normal conditions, these proteins are folded into their normal, healthy structures as they are produced. When a plant is under stress, its cells produce poorly folded or unfolded proteins. Then a built-in system senses this and “sets off an alarm in the cell,” said Howell.

    In response to the alarm, another protein (IRE1) starts working and creates a different process which activates (激活) the stress response genes whose products bring about defensive measures that help the plant survive.

    “As it turns out, responses that are activated under stress conditions actually inhibit the growth of plants,” said Howell. “This allows them to preserve their energy to survive the stress conditions.”

    For plants in the wild, this response is a help for survival, he said. In production of agriculture crops, however, this response reduces yields.

    “You don't want crop plants to stop growing,” Howell said. “You want them to continue to grow and produce even though they are under stress.”

    With the new understanding of this stress response, the next step may be to silence the alarm system, said Howell. “What may be important is to disable some of these stress responses. That may make the plant more productive under stress conditions.”

    Language learning apps are very popular now and offer opportunities to learn vocabulary and practice grammar. But there has been a discussion about just how effective such apps can be.

    Among the most popular apps are Duolingo and Busuu. A previous research found positive results on the use of them. But it mainly concentrated on studies with learners who had signed up to language courses and these apps worked as an after-class support, so the results were not always reliable. A recent study of 4,095 Busuu users has been carried out aimed to find out if users can actually learn a language with an app.

    Busuu provides learning materials for 12 different languages. It offers special model where some content is available for free while some content is not. We find that its users are an even mix of men and women. More than half consider themselves to be at the beginner level as there is a decrease in users as their language levels go up. Most people use the app because of personal interest, or because they want to study or live abroad. Female users tend to use it less often but for longer periods of time than male users.

    Getting any feedback on Busuu depends on whether your answer is correct or not. While it is helpful, this is not the sort of feedback language teachers prefer, as it does not explain why the answer is right or wrong. In spite of this, feedback in the app is very highly rated.

    More than 92% of respondents state that the app has met their expectations and 86% rate the app as very good or good. In fact, more than 80% of the users surveyed strongly agree that using the app has helped them improve their knowledge of the language they are learning.

    Besides, language learning apps also create an environment where mistakes are only known to the users, and this can address the performance anxiety that many learners suffer from when asked to speak a foreign language. So language teachers should encourage their students to use them to do the grammar work, leaving precious class time for more language communication.