You get anxious if there's no wi-fi in the hotel or mobile phone signal up the mountain. You feel upset if your phone is getting low on power and you secretly worry things will go wrong at work if you're not there. All these can be called “always on” stress caused by smart phone addiction.

    For some people, smart phones have set them free from the nine-to-five work. Flexible working has given them more control over their working lives and enabled them to spend more time with their friends and families. For many others though, smart phones have become cruel masters in their pockets, never allowing them to turn them off and relax.

    Pittsburgh-based developer Kevin Holesh was worried about how much he was ignoring his family and friends in favor of his iPhone. So he developed an app — Moment — to monitor his usage. The app enables users to see how much time they're spending on the device and set up warnings if the usage limits are broken. “Moment's goal is to promote balance in your life,” his website explains. “Some time on your phone, some time off it enjoying your loving family and friends around you.”

    Dr. Christine Grant, an occupational psychologist at Coventry University, said, “The effects of this ‘always on' culture are that your mind is never resting, and you're not giving your body time to recover, so you're always stressed. And the more tired and stressed we get, the more mistakes we make. Physical and mental health can suffer.”

    And as the number of connected smart phones is increasing, so is the amount of data. This is leading to a sort of decision paralysis (瘫痪) and is creating more stress in the workplace because people have to receive a broader range of data and communications which are often difficult to manage. “It actually makes it more difficult to make decisions and many do less because they're controlled by it all and feel they can never escape the office,” said Dr. Christine Grant.

    CHICAGO -- New research on vegetables and aging gives mothers another reason to say "I told you so." It is found that eating vegetables appears to help keep the brain young and may slow the mental decline（下降） sometimes associated with growing old.

    On measures of mental sharpness, older people who ate more than two servings of vegetables daily appeared about five years younger at the end of the six-year study than those who ate few or no vegetables.

    The research in almost 2,000 Chicago-area men and women doesn't prove that vegetables reduce mental decline, but it adds to mounting evidence pointing in that direction. The findings also echo（回应） previous research in women only.

    Green leafy vegetables including spinach（菠菜）, kale and collards （甘蓝） appeared to be the most beneficial. The researchers said that may be because they contain healthy amounts of vitamin E, an antioxidant（抗氧化剂） that is believed to help fight chemicals produced by the body that can damage cells.

    Vegetables generally contain more vitamin E than fruits, which were not linked with slowed mental decline in the study. Vegetables also are often eaten with healthy fats such as salad oils, which help the body absorb vitamin E and other antioxidants, said lead author Martha Clare Morris, a researcher at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.

    The fats from healthy oils can help keep cholesterol（胆固醇）low and arteries （动脉）clear, which both contribute to brain health. The study was published in this week's issue of the journal Neurology and funded with grants from the National Institute on Aging.

    The world's insects are going down the path of extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems", according to the first global scientific review. More than 40％of insect species are declining and third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.

    "It should be of huge concern to all of us, for insects are at the heart of every food web. They pollinate (授粉) the large majority of plant species, keep the soil healthy, recycle nutrients, control pests, and much more. Love them or 1oathe them, we humans cannot survive without insects, "said Prof Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex in the UK.

    The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive (集约型) agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanisation and climate change are also significant factors.

    "If insect species losses cannot be stopped, this will have catastrophic consequences for both the planet's ecosystems and for the survival of mankind. It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none," said review author Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, at the University of Sydney, Australia.

    One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects. "If this food source is taken away, all these animals starve to death," he said. Such effects have already been seen in Puerto Rico, where a recent study revealed a 98％fall in ground insects over 35 years.

    Matt Shardlow, at the conservation charity Buglife, said: "It is thoughtful to see this evidence that shows the pitiful state of the world's insect populations. It is increasingly obvious that the planet's ecology is breaking and there is a need for a strong and global effort to prevent and change these terrible trends."

    The effects of coffee consumption on health have long been a subject of conflict and uncertainty. Since the 1980s, some have spoken out against coffee as harmful to health, while others have welcomed coffee for its supposed benefits to health.

    According to a scientific report, mild coffee consumption, three to five cups per day, can be taken as a healthy dietary pattern, along with other healthful behaviors. The report also says that coffee consumption helps reduce the risk of heart disease and it protects against Parkinson's disease.

    According to Dr. Donald Hensrud of Mayo Clinic, high consumption of coffee has health risks. Dr. Hensrud mentions the dangers of high coffee consumption for people with a certain illness that slows the breakdown of caffeine in the body. Some studies said that drinking two or more cups of coffee daily can actually increase the risk of heart disease in these people.

    According to conclusions from a recent study led by Dr. Gregory Marcus, a doctor from the University of California San Francisco, daily moderate consumption of caffeine, less than 4 cups, is not associated with these issues.

    Until the scientific community reaches a general agreement on the effects of coffee consumption on human health, it will be up to the individual to decide whether the benefits of drinking coffee are greater than the risks.

    When informed of these possible health benefits and harms of drinking coffee, Harwood, a high school student stated, "Even though there might be some negative effects of drinking coffee, for the most part, coffee drinking sounds good for health. Not to mention I need coffee to stay awake."

    Australia was first used as an island prison by Britain to solve their problem of having a fast growing prison population. These early settlers were those who were sent from all over Great Britain, including Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. Later events, such as the gold rush, caused several waves of immigration (移居) from Europe, Asia and other parts of the world. It is commonly thought that Australians are offspring (后代) of those criminals (罪犯)! In fact, only a part of Australians are those criminals' offspring. Also, in those days, people could be put into prison or sent to Australia for small crimes, like stealing a loaf of bread. Today Australia is home to the largest Greek and Italian communities in the world, outside Greece and Italy. This has helped the Australian accent develop.

    Australian English was created by the first generation of children born in the new area. Since they talked with people who have different accents, they began to speak a distinct dialect of English that was to become the language of the nation. These differences were first noted by late arrivals in the early 1800s, and the language sounds like Cockney English, spoken by the working­class in London.

    Soon, words from native languages were to become part of the Australian English. Here are some words you may consider them to be Standard English. In fact, they are from native Australian languages!

    The names of many places and animals, including Canberra (the Australian capital, meaning "meeting place" in a local language).

    Hard yakka — meaning "hard work", coming from the language of the Brisbane area.

    Cooee — a call used traditionally by native Australians to attract attention, because the sound can travel long distances.

    Bung — meaning "dead", but also used to mean broken or useless, for example, "He has a bung eye".

    With the explosion of consumer choices in recent history, the latest must-haves would surely need to be upgraded more often than every 10 years. In 2002 a computer and basic mobile phone would have been enough for most people, but now? The public need a trendy notebook computer and a smart phone with WiFi connection to feel they are up-to-date. So when will we have enough things? When will we finally be happy? Well, it looks like the things we buy today will barely keep us satisfied for a few months.

    In the eyes of some psychologists, far from making us happy, greater consumer choice creates many serious psychological problems. A fundamental principle of the society is that more freedom is better and more choice in the marketplace means more freedom. Therefore more choice leads to more happiness. This is not the case, however.

    Imagine you go to a café offering chocolate and vanilla ice cream. You choose the chocolate and eat it happily. But what if the café serves 50 kinds of ice cream? You choose chocolate and then start to worry, "maybe blueberry would have been better, perhaps the half-fat ice cream would have been healthier. Stupid me, all these choices and I didn't make the best one! "

    In China's major cities we have now passed the point where more consumer choice is making us happier. We are annoyed by all the options we have, disappointed because our expectations are so high and angered at ourselves when we don't make a perfect choice every time.

    A newspaper reporter tells a story about traveling on a plane with high-speed Internet access. He thought this was amazing—the newest piece of technology he had heard of. Then the service went down. The man next to him was angry and swore. The reporter thought, "How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago!"