True happiness is such a rare commodity(有价值之物)that the whole of the world is continuously seeking it and failing to find it. Why is happiness such an elusive(难捉摸的) thing? Is it that it cannot simply be achieved? Or is it that it is not where all of us have been looking for it?

    What is it that we consider happiness? This is how I see it: Happiness is what you feel when what you want to happen happens. And the then we can conclude that unhappiness is what we feel when what we want to happen does not happen.

    The main keyword in definition is "want". The whole trouble starts when we want something. Every moment of our lives we keep on wanting something or the other. Only a small percentage of all our wishes is fulfilled in spite of all our endeavors(努力). The frustration of failing to fulfill most of our wishes sets in. We start feeling weighed down. Desire is a seed which grows fruits of unhappiness. Actually the trouble is that we demand too much. The only solution to this problem is to break out of this cycle of desires and struggles.

    Actually, happiness and unhappiness are two sides of the same coin. The desire for happiness is like asking only for the light and not for darkness. But there is not much difference between light and darkness. It is matter of degree only.

    If we think deeper, we will realize that it is this pain of failure, pain of frustrated desires which is of greater significance to us. It is actually like good health. One can only define health as an absence of diseases. In order to have good health we strive to avoid diseases. You cannot purchase or achieve good health directly. You have to take steps which keep your body free of diseases. Then only the organs of body keep functioning properly and you experience good health. Similarly, when one destroys the root cause of unhappiness, the problems are over. And the root cause of all our unhappiness is DESIRE.

    Children who do better than their companions at school tend to go on to enjoy better health as adults, research suggests. The study was based on a 30-year follow-up of more than 14.000 children born in Sweden in 1953.

    The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health study found the least popular children had a nine times higher risk of heart disease. They were also more at risk of diabetes (糖尿病),drugs, alcohol and mental health problems.

    The degree of popularity, power and status enjoyed by each child, was evaluated when the children reached sixth grade in 1966 by asking them who they most preferred to work with at school. Individual children were classified into five status bands depending on how many nominations (提名) they have received.

    The leader researcher Ylva Almquist, from the Center for Health Equity Studies at the University of Stockholm, said children with a low status might lack social support and information, this will lead to a more negative self-image, which could lead to lower expectations and poor choices in life.

    “For example, children in lower peer status may adopt a more health-damaging lifestyle, including behaviors such as heavy smoking and drinking. These behaviors are known to be major risk for heart disease.” she said.

    She said the study shows that schools should work to promote social equality in the classroom, and to improve children's self-image.

    Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said, “Children who feel undervalued or are bullied (欺凌) at school often grow up lacking self-confidence. They then seek comfort in overeating, smoking or drinking, and all too often find themselves in poor health. It is important to do whatever we can to help children and young people feel valued.”

    Every year, millions of people head to London's Trafalgar Square to see Nelson's Column, and the four lion statues that “guard” it. And last month, during the London Design Festival, a bright red lion sculpture was added to the collection.

    But this was more than just a statue: It had a large open mouth, with an LED screen inside it. At the same time, passersby could type in random words on a screen close to the lion, which were used to produce an AI-created poem. The most interesting part of the poems lies in their randomness, as the words that people choose to enter include many things, such as the time, the weather and their mood. In the daytime, the finished poem appeared on the LED screen, but at night, it was projected (投射) onto the lion's body and the famous Nelson's Column, in a 1ovely light display.

    Es Devlin, the sculpture's creator, was inspired by the history behind the four historic lion statues. Edwin Landseer, the designer of the lions, wanted them to look much more animated, but Queen Victoria refused his plan. This made Devlin wonder, "What if we could give a lion a poetic voice?" According to Devlin, although England has seen many poems about national identity in recent years, these works have been lacking imagination. "I wanted to make a piece that was poetic and collective" he told BBC News.

    After standing for almost 180 years, the purpose of Trafalgar Square has changed over the years. But thanks to the high-tech lion and its poetry, the square is standing the test of time.

    For art, the year 2115 will be one full of events. In May of that year in Berlin, the philosopher-artist Jonathon Keats' "century cameras" — cameras with a 100-year-long exposure (曝光)time — will be brought back from hiding places around the city to have their results developed and exhibited Six months after that, the Future Library in Oslo, Norway, will open its doors for the first time, presenting 100 books printed on the wood of trees planted in the distant past of 2015.

    As Katie Paterson, the creator of the Future Library, puts it: "Future Library is an artwork for future generations". These projects, more than a century in the making, are part of a new wave of "slow art" intended to push viewers and participants to think beyond their own lifetimes. They aim to challenge today's short-term thinking and the brief attention spans of modem consumers, forcing people into considering works more deliberately. In their way, too, they are fighting against modem culture — not just regarding money, but also the way in which artistic worth is measured by attention.

    In a similar fashion, every April on Slow Art Day, visitors are encouraged to stare at five works of art for 10 minutes at a time — a tough task for the average museum visitor, who typically spends less than 30 seconds on each piece of art.

    Like the Future Library, the century cameras are very much a project for cities, since it's in cities that time runs fastest and the pace of life is fastest. "Since I started living in a city, I've somehow been quite disconnected/' Anne Beate Hovind, the Future Library project manager, who described how working on the library drew her back to the pace of life she knew when she was growing up on a farm in her youth, told the Atlantic magazine.

    Some years ago, Michel-Andre found himself staring at the body of a dead whale on a beach in the Canary Islands. It was obvious that the animal had been struck violently by a ship——but why? Only later, after surveying the whales which lived in the area and measuring the increase of sound pollution from ships did it become clear that there was a link.

    The whales had become desensitised to the noise of approaching boats and were being struck by them, often seriously. "We never thought that this could be something that could kill," recalls (回忆) Andre, who is the director of the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona.

    Andre has spent 20 years developing an advanced system to better understand why incidents like this happen. His underwater microphones have exposed a world of deafening sound and animal communication never observed with such clarity(清晰) before.

    It was not an easy task. Sound waves don't travel through water in the uniform, predictable way they do through the air. Instead, the temperature, salinity (盐度) and, flow of water have great effects on their path.

    What can be done? One solution is to change shipping routes to courses where ships are statistically less likely to meet animals. It's also possible to slow ships down to 18km/h or less, which is less likely to seriously injure a whale.

    As for dealing with the root cause of the problem, the UN's International Maritime Organisation has already published guidelines on how to quieten ships, but it will be a while before the effects of such changes might be observed.

    "The ocean is not our world," comments Andre. But it is ours to look after. And thanks to his work, we can better understand the effects of subsea sound pollution.

When was the last time something important slipped your mind?. Maybe it was the answer to a test question, the name of an acquaintance or where you left your keys. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}People's ability to remember has less to do with natural talent than it does with training and practice. When students want to prepare for a test they often try to study by simply reading over the material. again, copying notes, etc. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} People remember more when they actively engage with the material they are learning rather than passively receiving it.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#} Come up with questions about the topic, and try to answer them without looking at your notes. It also helps. to try to engage with the material in different ways. For example; you could sketch or diagram the information, or you. could write your own outline or study guide. The more you use the information, the more likely you are to remember it.

A psychologist(心理学家) named . Herman Ebbinghaus made. an important discovery about memory and forgetting. He found that people tend to forget information in a regular pattern. They forget the most information shortly after learning it. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Every time the person reviews the information, it causes them to forget less of it——which means they remember more. So it is essential to review things you want to remember shortly after learning them. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

Applying these strategies will help improve your memory so that you can access everything you learn whenever you need it.

A. Practice makes perfect.

B. Strike while the iron is hot.

C. Fortunately, memory can be improved.

D. Over time, you can review them less and less frequently.

E. The rate at which they forget then slows down over time.

F. One great way to do this is to test yourself on the material.

G. But these methods of remembering are not always effective.