Will you be playing some music at work?

    Music is particularly popular in the medical profession, especially among surgeons（外科医生）. A recent survey shows that 90% of surgeons in the UK put music on the sound system in the theatre during operations. Plastic surgeons（整形外科医生）play the most music; it appears that ear, nose, and throat specialists the least.

    But it isn't only in surgeries(外科手术) where music is popular. In another recent survey, one-third of the 1,613 people said they listen to music while working. And 79% of them said that humming（哼歌）along improves their job satisfaction or productivity.

    Is listening to music at work a good idea? Yes, say the experts. Many surgeons say that music helps to create a “calm atmosphere”, and a third of them added that it avoids getting bored! Also, listening to music raises the levels of a brain chemical that can help people focus. Office workers say it improves job satisfaction. Several studies suggest that it's also good for hospital patients. Those listening to music through headphones during surgery require less anesthetic（麻醉剂）, up to 50% less in some cases, and recover more quickly afterwards. “Sure, music reduces anxiety before surgery,” says Zeev Kain, an anesthetist at Yale University.

    So, what type of music should we be listening to? Surgeons from the previous survey preferred rock, pop music and classical. And hip-hop is popular too. However, whatever the kind, it appears that self-selected music is the best choice. Pennsylvania State University research showed that when people chose their own music there was more stress reduction(下降). And other researchers found that when listening to self-selected music, surgeons did the maths faster and more accurately than when they were listening to music chosen for them.

    We all wish we had just a bit more time. Just think what you could do with an extra hour or two each day: you could finally stick to an exercise routine, or spring-clean the house, or write your novel, or learn the guitar and so on. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} But I can help you find more hours in your day for the things that really matter.

1）. Get Out of Bed Earlier

If you normally get up at 7: 30 a. m. , try getting up at 7: 00 a. m. That half-hour might not sound like much, but it could be time that you use to exercise, to read that book you've been meaning to finish. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

2）. Do the Important Tasks First

    Once you get to work, get the important ones done first (not the easy ones, or even the urgent ones). You can afford to spend at least an hour working on big, important tasks rather than on all those little urgent ones. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}The urgent tasks will still get done, and you won't miss the important ones.

3）. Reduce Interruptions

    If colleagues have a habit of hanging around your desk to chat, or if the phone is constantly ringing, you might find that it takes you half the day to finish a simple task like writing a letter. Constant interruptions don't just eat up time, they also break your concentration.

    When you've got a big task to focus on, let your calls go to voicemail. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Wearing headphones makes it less likely that people will try to strike up a conversation.

4）. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    A few minutes chatting, browsing the web, and so on, can easily turn into hours of wasted time over the course of a day. When you're working, work. If your concentration is slipping, take a proper break: go and get a glass of water, or stretch your legs a bit. And if you're facing a difficult task, try breaking it into small steps or stages so that it's easier to deal with.

A. Or simply to get your day off to a calm and organized start.

B. I can't magically make all your days 25 hours long.

C. Would you want me to make your day longer?

D. Take Breaks When Necessary

E. If you have an office door, close it.

F. If you work like this, you'll usually save time.

G. Stay Focused on Your Work

    To fight for the conservation of forest ecosystem, several ecologists including Daniel Janzen convinced Del Oro, an orange juice producer, to donate part of their forestland to a national park. In return, Del Oro was allowed to throw large amounts of waste in the form of orange peels (皮) on a 3-hectare piece of land within the national park at no cost. Dealing with tons of leftover peels usually involved burning them or paying to have them poured into a landfill, so the proposal was very attractive.

    But a year later, another juice company challenged the deal in court, arguing that their competitor was “polluting a national park”. They ended up winning, and the deal between Del Oro and the national park fell through.

    Then in 2013, while discussing possible research avenues with Timothy Treuer, Daniel Janzen mentioned the orange story. Feeling interested, Treuer decided to stop by that piece of land that had been covered with fruit waste 15 years earlier. What he found shocked him.

    “While I would walk over exposed rock and dead grass in the nearby fields, I'd have to climb through undergrowth and cut paths through walls of vines (藤) in the orange peel site itself.” said Timothy Treuer.

    Treuer and his team spent months picking up samples (样品), analyzing and comparing them. They found great differences between the areas covered with orange peels and those that were not. The area with orange waste had richer soil.

    The effect that the orange peels had on the land is probably not that surprising to people familiar with composting (施肥), but what is really shocking is that a judge actually thought the waste of orange “mined” a national park and stopped it from going forward. Now that Timothy Treuer's study has received worldwide attention, this type of “ruining” is being seriously considered as a way of bringing forests back to life.

    A European Union program is letting blind people experience famous paintings for the first time. It uses three dimensional (3-D) printing to re-create famous paintings so they can be touched.

    One painting printed with the new technology is Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss." It is a popular attraction at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, Austria. The painting shows a man and a woman standing in a field filled with flowers. They are wearing gold robes and have their arms around each other. The man leans down to kiss the woman.

    Klimt finished the painting in 1908. Until now, people who had trouble seeing could not appreciate the artwork. But thanks to the reproduction they can touch the piece and feel the ridges and depressions. Andreas Reichinger started making 3-D versions of artwork in 2010. He said this reproduction was his most difficult project because the couple's robes are so detailed.

    Dominika Raditsch is a blind museum visitor. She touched the reproduction. As she moved her hands around it she said, "Exactly, can you see these? There are so many details." Raditsch said she can imagine what the original painting looks like when she touches the reproduction. "It's somehow round. You can feel it. It comes with it. And in many places it's so smooth. And then I think to myself: it probably shines too!" Raditsch said.

    The Belvedere is not the only museum to have 3-D versions of its artwork. Some of the pieces at the Prado, in Madrid, Spain, have reproductions that can be touched. But the piece in Vienna has one special part: it is made with widely available 3-D printing technology. That means one day, blind art fans anywhere in the world could download the source files and print the reproductions themselves.

    Walk down any British shopping street and you will find shops with strange names. Why is the opticians (眼镜店) called "Eyediology"? And who decided to name the butchers (肉铺) "Meat you there" ? What's going on?

    Puns are jokes based on words that sound the same. You've probably noticed that many words in English which are spelt in different ways and have different meanings are pronounced in the same way. Think about the name of the restaurant: "plaice" is a kind of fish so our restaurant is "the place" to eat fish. Butchers sell meat – so we'll "meet you there" – and opticians look after our eyes in a scientific way – so eyed – iology (ideology) is a name that fits. Hairdressers shear (cut) your locks (hair) and comb it – say the three words together quickly and you have the name of a famous detective. In shop titles and adverts, puns are used to get our attention.

    Puns are very old. The ancient Egyptians and Romans liked to pun. Shakespeare uses many puns in his plays – King Richard the Third (the son of York) brings "glorious summer" – just think about a word that has the same sound as son.

    Many people enjoy a good pun (pun / fun for all the family!) – others hate them. Puns aren't really designed to make you laugh. Here are some puns that might leave you asking for no more puns please. Have you heard about the bears who voted in the North Poll? Or the cheetah (印度豹) who couldn't be trusted at cards? Or how about the clever little Australian animal that had lots of koalaifications or the camel (骆驼) with no humps (驼峰) that was called Humphrey (and so was free of humps...)

    Puns can be funny but they sometimes make important points. Here's a fashion tip: "skinny genes make skinny jeans": so don't worry if your jeans don't fit. Look at your parents!

It takes just four minutes for brain cells to be permanently damaged due to a severe lack of oxygen in cases of sudden cardiac arrest (心搏停止). If medical workers do not arrive at the scene of such emergencies within 10 minutes, the chances of a victim surviving are minimal.

In September, a 45-year-old man fell unconscious at Huoying station on Line 13 of the Beijing Subway. He died later in the hospital, despite attempts by two passengers to revive him by using cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR. However, if an automated external defibrillator, or AED, had been a vailable at the scene, the man's chances of survival would have been greatly improved.

An AED can recognize an abnormal lheart rhythm and quickly correct it through an electric shock. The devices are viewed in medical circles as a more efficient and effective method of saving lives in emergencies than using CPR. After a brief training period, people with no medical knowledge can master the basic skills needed to use an AED.

In May last year, a student at Tsinghua University in Beijing fainted in a dormitory after experiencing head sweats. Several students began to perform CPR and also used a newly installed AED to help the stricken freshman. After two electric shocks were administered, the student's heart beat was restored and he was sent to the hospital for further treatment. An emergency doctor from the hospital who attended the scene said it was highly likely the student would have died, had not a series of the correct first aid measures been applied, along with the AED.  

PeiZheng, a staff member from Tsinghua University's Policy Research Office, said it was "really cool" that AEDs were available at the institution. "It's so good that we have these life-saving machines on campus, otherwise we would have heard tragic news," she said. The devices have been installed around the campus in stages.