Loneliness is like a disease, and what's worse, it's contagious. It can spread from one person to another, according to the recent research that stresses the power of one person's emotions to affect even people he doesn't know.

    The new analysis, involving 4,793 people who were interviewed every two years between 2005 and 2015, showed that a friend of a lonely person was 52％ more likely to develop feelings of loneliness by the time of the next interview. A friend of that person was 25％ more likely, and a friend of a friend of a friend was 15％ more likely.

“Loneliness is not just the property of an individual. It can be transmitted across people—even people you don't have direct contact with,” said John T. Cacioppo, a psychologist of the University of Chicago who led the study published in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

    Loneliness has been linked to medical problems, including depression, sleep problems and generally poorer physical health. Identifying some of the causes could help reduce the emotion and improve health, experts said.

Although the study did not examine how loneliness spreads, Cacioppo said another research has provided clues. “Let's say for whatever reason you get lonely. You then interact with other people in a more negative fashion. That puts them in a negative mood and makes them more likely to interact with other people in a negative fashion and they minimize their social ties and become lonely,” Cacioppo said.

According to Cacioppo, loneliness spread more easily among women than men, perhaps because women were more likely to express emotions.

Lonely people become less and less trusting others. This makes it more and more difficult for them to make friends－and more likely that society will reject them. Therefore, it is important to recognize and deal with loneliness．Cacioppo emphasizes people who have been pushed to the edges of society should receive help to repair their social networks.

    Ever walked to the shops only to find, once there, you've completely forgotten what you went for? Or struggled to remember the name of an old friend? For years we've accepted that a forgetful brain is as much a part of ageing as wrinkles and grey hair. But now a new book suggests that we've got it all wrong.

    According to The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain, by science writer Barbara Strauch, when it comes to the important things, our brains actually get better with age. In fact, she argues that some studies have found that our brain hits its peak between our 40s and 60s— much later than previously thought.

    Furthermore, rather than losing many brain cells as we age, we retain （保留）them, and even produce new ones well into middle age. For years it's been assumed that brain, much like the body, declines with age. But the longest, largest study into what happens to people as they age suggests otherwise.

    This continuing research has followed 6,000 people since 1956, testing them every seven years. It has found that on average, participants performed better on cognitive （认知的）tests in their 40s and 50s than they had done in their 20s. Specifically, older people did better on tests of vocabulary, verbal memory (how many words you can remember) and problem solving.

    Where they performed less well was number ability and perceptual speed－how fast you can push a button when ordered. However, with more complex tasks such as problem-solving and language, we are at our best at middle age and beyond. In short, researchers are now coming up with scientific proof that we do get wiser with age.

    Neuroscientists are also finding that we are happier with ageing. A recent US study found older people were much better at controlling and balancing their emotions. It is thought that when we're younger we need to focus more on the negative aspects of life in order to learn about the possible dangers in the world, but as we get older we've learned our lessons and are sub-consciously aware that we have less time left in life: therefore, it becomes more important for us to be happy.

    You're out to dinner. The food is delicious and the service is fine. You decide to leave a big fat tip. Why? The answer may not be as simple as you think.

    Tipping, psychologists have found, is not just about service. Instead, studies have shown that tipping can be affected by psychological reactions to a series of different factors from the waiter's choice of words, to how they carry themselves while taking orders, to the billl's total.

Even how much waiters remind customers of themselves can determine how much change they pocket by the end of the night.

    "Studies before have shown that mimicry (模仿)brings into positive feelings for the mimicker, "wrote Rick van Baaren, a social psychology professor. "These studies show that people who are being mimicked become more generous toward the person who mimicks.

    So Rick van Baaren divided 59 waiters into two groups. He requested that half serve with a phrase such as, "Coming up!" Those in the other half were instructed to repeat the orders and preferences back to the customers. Rick van Baaren then compared their takehome pay. The results were clear-it pays to mimic your customer. The copycat (模仿者)waiters earned almost double the amount of tips to the other group.

    Leonard Green and Joel Myerson, psychologists at Washington University in St Louis, found the generosity of a tipper may be limited by his bill. After research on the 1,000 tips left for waiters, cabdrivers, hair stylists, they found tip percentages in these three areas dropped as customers' bills went up. In fact, tip percentages appear to plateau (稳定期)when bills topped $100 and a bill for $200 made the worker gain no bigger percentage tip than a bill for $100.

    "That's also a point of tipping," Green says. "You have to give a little extra to the cabdriver for being there to pick you up and something to the waiter for being there to serve you. If they weren't there, you'd never get any service. So part of the idea of a tip is for just being there."

    Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) needs to prove its worth through rigorous clinical trials, according to the head of one of China's largest herbal remedy companies, as a contentious new law to boost the $40bn sector comes into effect.

    Traditional Chinese Medicine is estimated by analysts to account for a third of sales in China's $117bn pharmaceutical (药学) market, the world's second largest. But most of those sales are of relatively cheap over-the-counter drugs, with many Chinese hospital doctors unwilling to prescribe TCM remedies because of the lack of evidence for their effectiveness.

    China's first law promising equal status for TCM and western medicine in the country's state-dominated healthcare system comes into effect this weekend. Provisions include encouragement for hospitals to set up TCM centres, and a licensing system for practitioners (从业者). "This law is very important for securing the status of TCM," said Wu Yiling, chairman of Yiling Pharmaceutical, a company that makes herbal remedies based on traditional recipes in the northern province of Hebei.

    Listed in Shenzhen, Wu Yiling has a market capitalization of RMB 20.7bn ($3bn). Mr Wu, the son of a herbal practitioner, controls a family fortune of $1.6bn, according to the Hurun Rich List.

    Mr Wu is both a supporter of the nature of Qi—the mystical energy force that provides the basis for much of TCM theory—and the clinical trials vital to western pharmaceutical companies. "TCM needs to develop using modern research methods," he said.

    For instance, researchers from Peking and Cardiff Universities tested the health benefits of Yiling's herbal medicine Yangzheng Xiaoji, publishing papers in the International Journal of Oncology that showed the drug can slow the growth of cancer tumours. "The theory and recipe is TCM, but in practice the evaluation of our medicines is carried out according to western evidence-based methods," Mr Wu said.

    Analysts say such tests can help gain support from doubtful hospital doctors and boost prescriptions. "Doctors need strong evidence that drugs definitely work," said Serena Shao, healthcare analyst at brokerage CLSA. "Some of these companies are currently doing clinical trials, and getting proof that their drugs have the same efficacy (功效) as chemical drugs. That's the way to go." she added.

    The TCM law has been greeted with doubt from China's western-schooled medical establishment, which points to a lack of rigorous training for TCM doctors, and a recent series of shocking events involving herbal injections believed to have been harmful. "Officials will try and encourage TCM, but also will be very cautious about what kinds of TCM they use in hospitals," added Ms Shao.

    A man going abroad to work leaves his young lady crying. "Don't worry, I will write to you every day," he said. For years he did write to her. But since he was happy with his job, he had no immediate plans of going home. One day, he received a wedding invitation. His girlfriend was scheduled to be married. To whom? To the mailman bringing regularly the letters of her boyfriend! Indeed, distance does make hearts struggle.

    While presents are important, love demands what is basic: presence of the beloved.

    Martha was busy with her job. She believed she had to work harder because she loved her father who had serious disease. She had to provide for his expensive medicine. Her brothers and sisters meanwhile stayed with their father most of the time. They bathed him, sang for him, spoon­fed him or simply kept him company.

    One day Martha was hurt. She overheard her father telling her mother, "All our children love me except Martha." "How can this be?" Martha thought. "Am I not the one killing myself in my work to earn money to buy for his medicine? My brothers and sisters do not even provide their share in the expenses as much as I do."

    One night, as Martha was as usual late in going home, she peeped for the first time in the room where her father was lying. She noticed that her father was still awake. She decided to come close at his bedside. Her father held her hands and said, "I miss you. I don't have much time. Stay with me." And she stayed with her father holding his hand the whole night.

    The next morning Martha said to everyone, "I have taken a leave of absence. I would like to be with my father. I will bathe him and sing for him from now on." Her father had a beautiful smile. He knew this time Martha loved him.

    As children, we need the assuring presence of our loved ones. Adult people need no less.

Workers are returning to their careers, or starting new ones after age 65.

More than ever, work is where many of us get our sense of purpose. That doesn't end at age 65. After being retired for only three months, Sue Ellen King returned to work at the University of Florida Health in Jacksonville, Florida, where she had been a care nurse and nursing educator for 38 years. She is now working part-time in a position created just for her. "It's perfect," she told The New York Times. "I get the satisfaction of having people appreciate what I do." With the average lifespan for those who reach age 64 now getting all the way to 84 years old, those who reach retirement age still have many potential years of work to go.

Job sites connected toward part-timers, temporary positions, and some can also turn up opportunities that may lead to longer-term work. Fred Dodd tried a part-time job after his unemployment as a clerk for large banks at age 63. He'd thought about retiring then. "But part of me just wanted to keep working partly for the money, but more just because I felt I wanted to do more in my career, " he said.

The retired have the advantage of not needing to focus on the earnings potential of whatever jobs they take on, so these older workers are attracted to more meaningful work. And since they are voluntarily putting their skills and experience to good use, they may well have more flexibility than mid-career people. Two-thirds of retirees who'd come back to the work world were doing meaningful work they enjoyed. Legal work and community service were popular choices, as was teaching—all areas in which older workers might have an opportunity to make their own schedules.

Earning more money rarely seems like a bad idea, but it can cause issues for retirees, including effects when they claim Social Security (申请社会保障) benefits early.