While watching the Olympics the other night, I came across an unbelievable sight. It was not a gold medal, or a world record broken, but a show of courage.

    The event was swimming and started with only three men on the blocks. For one reason or another, two of them false started, so they were disqualified. That left only one to complete. It would have been difficult enough, not having anyone to race against, even though the time on the clock is important.

    I watched the man dive off the block and knew right away that something was wrong. I'm not an expert swimmer, but I can tell a good dive from a poor one, and this was not exactly medal quality. When he resurfaced, it was evident that the man was not out for gold—his arms were waving in an attempt at freestyle. The crowd started to laugh. Clearly this man was not a medal competitor.

    I listened to the crowd begin to laugh at this poor man who was clearly having a hard time. Finally he made his turn to start back. It was pitiful. He made a few desperate strokes and you could tell he was worn out.

    But in those few awful strokes, the crowd had changed.

    No longer were they laughing, but beginning to cheer. Some even began to stand and shout “Come on, you can do it!” and he did.

    A clear minute past the average swimmer, this young man finally finished his race. The crowd went wild. You would have thought that he had won the gold, and should have. Even though he recorded one of the slowest times in Olympic history, this man gave more heart than any of the other competitors.

    Just a short year ago, he had never even swum, let alone race. His country had been invited to Sydney.

    In a competition where athletes remove their silver medals feeling they have somehow been cheated out of gold, or when they act so proudly in front of their competitors, it is nice to watch an underdog.

    Andy never wanted to go to bed on time. His parents had explained to him how important it was to go to bed early and get a good rest. But Andy paid no attention to them, and they didn't know what to do until one weekend when they were visiting Andy's grandparents.

    Grandpa Peter heard all about it and said, "This sounds like a job for Tubby." So Andy's parents loaded the cat onto the car and returned home.

That night, at bedtime, the same problem happened. Andy didn't want to go to bed, and even though his parents waited a while to see if Tubby would solve the problem, nothing happened.

    Hours later, Andy finally decided to go to bed. But what a surprise when he entered his bedroom! Tubby was in his bed, totally sprawling out, pot-belly in the air, and snoring like an express train.

    Andy tried to move the cat, but there was no way of moving him an inch. That night he hardly slept, lying on one tiny corner of his bed.

    The next day the same thing happened, even though Andy was much more tired from not having slept well. When the third day arrived, he had understood that if he wanted to sleep in his bed, he would have to get into it before Tubby did. That night, when his parents only started to mention the topic of bedtime, Andy rushed upstairs and dived into bed. His parents could not believe it. They knew nothing about Tubby in the bed, nor did they understand why Andy went to bed on time without complaint. They were so happy about this that they stayed up quite late, celebrating.

    Biologists believe that love is fundamentally a biological rather than a cultural construct, because the capacity for love is found in all human cultures and similar behavior is found in some other animals. In humans the purpose of all the desire is to focus attention on the raising of offspring. Children demand an unusual amount of parenting, and two parents are better than one. Love is a signal that both partners are committed, and makes it more likely that this commitment will continue as long as necessary for children to reach independence. But what does science have to say about the notion of love at first sight?

    In recent years the ability to watch the brain in action has offered a wealth of insight into the mechanics of love. Researchers have shown that when a person falls in love, a dozen different part of brain work together to release chemicals that trigger feelings of euphoria, bonding and excitement. It has also been shown that the unconditional love between a mother and a child is associated with activity in different regions of the brain from those associated with pair-bonding love.

    Passionate love is rooted in the reward circuitry of the brain—the same area that is active when humans feel a rush from cocaine. In fact, the desire, motivations and withdrawals involved in love have a great deal in common with addiction. Its most intense forms tend to be associated with the early stages of a relationship, which then give way to a calmer attachment form of love one feels with a long term partner.

    What all this means is that one special person can become chemically rewarding to the brain of another. Love at first sight, then, is only possible if the mechanism for generating long-term attachment can be triggered quickly. There are signs that it can be. One line of evidence is that people are able to decide within a second how attractive they find another person. This decision appears to be related to facial attractiveness, although men may favor women with waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7, no matter what their overall weight is. (This ratio may indicate a woman's reproductive health.)

    Another piece of evidence comes from work by a psychologist at Ben-Gurion University, who found in a survey that a small percentage (11%) of people in long-term relationships said that they began with love at first sight. In other words, in some couples the initial favorable impressions of attractiveness triggered love which sustained a lengthy bond. It is also clear that some couples need to form their bonds over a longer period, and popular culture tells many tales of friends who become lovers.

    One might also assume that if a person is looking for a partner with traits that cannot be quantified instantly, such as compassion, intellect or a good sense of humor, then it would be hard to form a relationship on the basis of love at first sight. Those more concerned with visual appearances, though, might find this easier. So it appears that love at first sight exists, but is not a very common basis for long-term relationships.

    Six people are talking about the newly-built garden on the roof of their building.

    Jasmine: I loved the idea when Wilber first told me about it. We had lots of meetings with our neighbors, trying to make them understand why it's good to build a garden on the roof. Now people love coming here, and we have made a lot of friends!

    Wilber: The whole thing wasn't easy at first. But Jasmine helped a lot. And she was really good at making people happy to donate (捐赠) money for the roof garden.

    David: My kids love going up there. They sit there watching butterflies and birds. The roof garden brings them closer to nature.

    Samuel: You want something green? Visit the park! It's only one block away! After the roof garden was built, small insects started flying into my room! And the kids leave mud on the stairs when they come down from the roof!

    Rosie: Our building is now cooler in the summer. My baby sleeps well even on hot summer days!

    Flora: Guess where these tomatoes are from! Not from the supermarket. They're from our roof! It's wonderful, isn't?

    Imagine a brand-new, magical pill which can measurably improve your memory, overall cognitive (认知的) performance, ability to learn new information, mood, ability to handle problems and more. Would you buy it?

    Yeah, yeah, you saw this coming: That pill exists, but not in pill form. You can have all of those benefits for free, and all it takes is going to bed a little bit earlier. So what are we to do to get a better night's sleep?

    First, learn how much sleep you need. Generally, if you're waking up tired, you're not getting enough. However, the gold standard of eight hours per night might not be right for you. A study from 2015 brought into question whether we need that magical number, so following your body is the best way to figure out the right rhythm. The only real guideline is to get as much sleep as you need to feel refreshed and energized the next day.

    Next, figure out your body's natural rhythm. Maybe after years of trying, you need to acknowledge that you're just not a morning person. And that's perfectly fine! Click the link and take the quiz to find out what kind of sleeper you are, and don't fight your body's natural sleep tendencies.

    Last, keep a consistent sleep schedule. This can be the most important part of your overall sleep quality We're all equipped with circadian clock (生物钟), which s that internal 24-hour timer that naturally tells us when to sleep, and the best way to getting rest and feeling rested is to keep this consistent. Fall asleep and wake up at the same time every day, and try to build as much regularity into your schedule as possible. And don't forget to keep your bedroom cool.

    Owning a smartphone may not be as smart as you think. They may let you surf the Internet, listen to music and snap photos wherever you are…but they also turn you into a workaholic, it seems. A study suggests that, by giving you access to emails at all times. The all-singing, all-dancing mobile phone adds as much as two hours to your working day.

    Researchers found that Britons work an additional 460 hours a year on average as they are able to respond to emails on their mobiles. The study by technology retailer Pixmania, reveals the average UK working day is between nine and ten hours, but a further two hours is spent responding to or sending work emails, or making work calls.

    Almost one in ten admits spending up to three hours outside their normal working day checking work emails. Some workers confess they are on call almost 24 hours a day, with nine out of ten saying they take work emails and calls outside their normal working hours. Nearly two-thirds say they often check work emails just before they go to bed and as soon as they wake up, while over a third have replied to one in the middle of the night.

    Ghadi Hobeika, marketing director of Pixmania, said:" The ability to access literally millions of apps, keep in contact via social networks and take photos and video as well as text and call has made smartphones valuable for many people. However, there are drawbacks. Many companies expect their employees to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and smartphones mean that people literally cannot get away from work. The more constantly in contact we become. The more is expected of us in a work capacity."