How old are the apps on your smartphone? Is it time for an update? Here are three apps for you. Try them out and have fun.

Duolingo

    Learning a foreign language doesn't always mean you have to sit in a class and take endless exams. An app called Duolingo has been designed to help you memorize (记住) new words and grammar in creative ways，such as online lessons，games and interesting exercises. For example，one exercise asks you to put words in the right order to make the correct sentence. You can also try translation practice.

Douban FM

    A music app is a necessity for almost every smartphone now. Douban FM might be the right thing for you.

    There is no playlist on Douban FM--songs just keep streaming (播放) one by one. You can use the “heart”, “trash” and “skip” buttons (按钮) to mark the songs you like，don't like and want to cut short, respectively (分别地). Those marked with a heart will be stored in another list as your favorites for you to listen to anytime you want. Douban FM also has different channels (频道). There are many types of music, such as blues, jazz, and pop. You can choose the music for outdoor activities, work or studying depending on your mood (心情).

Flipboard

    It is one of the hottest news apps right now. With Flipboard, you can make everything personal to you. All you have to do is open up the app, “flip through” to select whatever interests you，and click the “+” button. At the end you'll have your own magazine, complete with a front page, new articles, and information.

    Why Do Dogs Watch--and React to--TV?

    Domestic dogs can perceive images on television similarly to the way we do, and they are intelligent enough to recognize onscreen images of animals as they would in real life-even animals they've never seen before-and to recognize TV dog sounds, like barking.

    A 2013 study published in the journal Animal Cognition showed that dogs could identify images of other dogs among pictures of humans and other animals, using their visual sense alone.

    However, there are some differences between ourselves and man's best friend-for one, dogs' eyes register images more quickly than do ours. So older television sets, which show fewer frames(帧数) per second than modern televisions, would appear to a dog to be flickering(忽隐忽现的) like a "1920s movie," said Nicholas Dodman, a veterinary behaviorist(动物行为学家) at Tufts University, in Massachusetts.

    Dogs also have dichromatic vision, which means they see a range of two primary colors, yellow and blue. Human vision is trichromatic, so we see the full range of colors, according to Binghamton University's Ask a Scientist web page.

DogTV, an HDTV cable channel designed for dogs, interests canines(犬) because HDTV has a much higher number of frames per second and is specially colored to accommodate dogs' dichromatic vision, said Dodman, who is the channel's chief scientist.

    DogTV has modes for relaxation, which shows images like dogs recreate themselves in a grassy field; stimulation, which depicts scenes like dogs surfing in southern California; and exposure which shows things like a dog reacting to a ringing doorbell and obeying commands to adapt to such situations at home.

Zero Waste Awards

    Who should enter?

    Entries(参赛作品) are welcomed from anyone who processes waste. While we expect

    most entries to come from the UK, we welcome international entries, too. Entrants have been split into the following groups: private sector, public sector, community sector and partnerships.

    What are the categories?

    There're five categories which are based on the Waste Hierarchy(层级). We appreciate that companies will have different strengths within those categories as they work towards Zero Waste. The broad categories are: waste prevention, re-use, recycle/recover, energy recovery, general.

    How do I enter?

    Submitting an entry is really easy! Just follow these few simple steps:

    1) Carefully read through the category information;

    ). Write your entry--it should be a maximum of 1,500 words and a word document;

    3) Arrange your supporting material into a single document--maximum six pages long;

    4) Complete the simple online entry form.

    Important dates

    While entries are welcomed all year round, these are key dates—this is to give the judges plenty of time to read through all the entries! These are listed in entry deadlines column below. Don't worry if you have just missed one of the entry deadlines, your submission will be automatically entered into the next session.

    You can submit a maximum of two entries per year—six months apart.

    Awards

    We understand that working towards Zero Waste is an ongoing journey and as such the

    Zero Waste Awards scheme offers organizations a structure to celebrate their progress along the way. The four awards are: Gold (76-100), Silver (51-75), Bronze (26-50), Highly Commended(0-25).

    Is reading better than watching TV? I believe it is. Is reading better than playing video games? I'm not so sure if it is. If learning is important to you, but not necessarily so, and if pleasure is what you want, these activities can be pleasant in their own way. Reading might be better than many activities if you want to educate yourself and improve your chances of succeeding in your work.

    If you're serious about creating the habit of reading, what's important is finding a time you can read every day-often that's early morning or late at night, or both. For others, it might be during their lunch break. You only need to read for 10 to 20 minutes a day to form the habit. Then, you need to find a place that's comfortable. Make sure it has good lighting, the temperature is nice and you're in a good chair. Or you can find some place that you can reiax in without failing asleep, although there's nothing wrong with a sleep.

    Next, be sure to shut off the TV, Internet, cell phone, radio, or other music .Let reading be a quiet time. Mark an “x” on your calendar every day you read, and try to keep your unbroken “x”es going as long as possible. A habit is much easier to form if it's something you enjoy, not something you are made to do. So make the time you spend reading a joy. I've been a lifelong reader, so the pleasure of a good book is one of my favorite things in the world. I love to lose myself in the world of a book.

    Being sociable looks like a good way to add years to your life. Relationships with family, friends, neighbours, even pets, will all do the trick, but the biggest longevity(长寿) boost seems to come from marriage or an equivalent relationship. The effect was first noted in 1858 by William Farr, who wrote that widows and widowers(鳏夫) were at a much higher risk of dying than their married peers. Studies since then suggest that marriage could add as much as seven years to a man's life and two to a woman's. The effect holds for all causes of death, whether illness, accident or self-harm.

    Even if the odds are stacked against you (the conditions are not favourable), marriage can more than compensate. Linda Waite of the University of Chicago has found that a married older man with heart disease can expect to live nearly four years longer than an unmarried man with a healthy heart. Likewise, a married man who smokes more than a pack a day is likely to live as long as a divorced man who doesn't smoke. There's a flip side, however, as partners are more likely to become ill or die in the couple of years following their spouse's death, and caring for a spouse with mental disorder can leave you with some of the same severe problems. Even so, the odds favour marriage. In a 30-year study of more than 10,000 people, Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School describes how all kinds of social networks have similar effects.

    So how does it work? The effects are complex, affected by socio-economic factors, health-service provision, emotional support and other more physiological mechanisms(机制). For example, social contact can boost development of the brain and immune system, leading to better health and less chance of depression later in life. People in supportive relationships may handle stress better. Then there are the psychological benefits of a supportive partner.

    A life partner, children and good friends are all recommended if you aim to live to 100.The best social network is still being mapped out, but Christakis says: “People are interconnected, so their health is interconnected.”

    Doing business nowadays without a cellphone? Living a very private life? I can't imagine it anymore.

    Journalist Chris Stokel-Walker explained it very well: For the average working person, there's no greater feeling than powering down your computer and kissing goodbye to your work emails for the day. If we're lucky enough to disconnect from the job on evenings and weekends, we're overjoyed to leave work emails and the stress that comes with it in the office.

    But experts say we're increasingly failing to do so, instead bringing the burden home with us and dealing with emails during our free time. Unsurprisingly, this routine has some serious consequences.

    Working abnormal or long hours has long been linked with depression(抑郁症), anxiety and even heart disease. In addition, the importance of weekend recovery has also been linked with weekly job performance and personal initiative(主动性). And further research showed psychological detachment(脱离) during off-work time reduced emotional exhaustion caused by high job demands and helped people stay engaged.

    So, if we know all this, it begs the question: Why are we still letting work bother our precious weekend? According to Cary Cooper, professor of Organizational School, the recent trend even spills into the way we access our work communications and projects.

    Today, says Cooper, work emails are just a tap of a smartphone away. "You don't carry your laptop around when you're out to dinner, but you do carry your mobile phone," he says. "The smartphone does not make up for what is lost." So delete your work email account from your inbox(收件箱), and leave the worries until Monday.