Expensive perfumes (香水) come in tiny bottles, but many hide a whale-sized secret.

    To perfect a particular smell, perfume-makers often use an ingredient that comes from sperm whales, called ambergris (龙涎香). But using ambergris, which helps a perfume last longer, is strongly opposed by many people who think it is wrong to kill whales just so we can smell sweet. Joerg Bohlmann is neither a perfumer nor a whale expert. He's a plant biologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada. But his discovery of a new plant gene (基因) might push whales out of the perfume business.

    The gene comes from fir trees, found throughout North America and commonly used as Christmas trees. The trees produce a chemical that can be used in perfume in place of ambergris-but with a catch. "There's a problem that many people wouldn't consider. In the tree, the chemical is mixed with many others. That makes separation a challenge," Bohlmann says. "lt's like trying to isolate sugar from a biscuit. "

     This is where science becomes useful. When Bohlmann learned that fir trees produce the ambergris-like chemical, he decided to use his gene know-how to find the instructions for how to make the ambergris-substitute.

    Bohlmann found that gene and took it out of the tree cells. Then he did something that might sound strange to someone who doesn't work in genetics: Bohlmann put the gene from the tree into yeast (酵母) cells.

    Yeast may sound familiar because it's used to make things like bread, wine and beer. Biologists like to work with yeast because it easily adopts new genes and changes its features and behaviour. When Bohlmann put the fir tree gene into the yeast, the yeast started making the same chemical that had been produced by the tree.

    Perfumers pay big money for ambergris because it is a fixative, which means it holds a smell in place on a person's body.

    "Cheap perfumes smell good in the first hour or so and then everything is gone," explains Bohlmann. "But expensive perfumes are much more stable.  Their smell lasts much longer, for hours or even a day after you apply them. "

    The new chemical, made from the tree genes, can be used as a fixative, too. And using yeast to make it is far cheaper than acquiring ambergris.

    Bohlmann admits he never thought he'd get into the perfume business. But now, he says, producers have been calling to find out how to use his technology in new perfumes.

    Many people think that listening is a passive business. It is just the opposite. Listening well is an active exercise of our attention and hard work. It is because they do not realize this, or because they are not willing to do the work, that most people do not listen well.

    Listening well also requires total concentration upon someone else. An essential part of listening well is the rule known as 'bracketing'. Bracketing includes the temporary giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices and desires, to experience as far as possible someone else's world from the inside, stepping into his or her shoes. Moreover, since listening well involves bracketing, it also involves a temporary acceptance of the other person. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will seem quite willing to open up the inner part of his or her mind to the listener. True communication is under way and the energy required for listening well is so great that it can be accomplished only by the will to extend oneself for mutual growth.

    Most of the time we lack this energy. Even though we may feel in our business dealings or social relationships that we are listening well, what we are usually doing is listening selectively. Often we have a prepared list in mind and wonder, as we listen, how we can achieve certain desired results to get the conversation over as quickly as possible or redirected in ways more satisfactory to us. Many of us are far more interested in talking than in listening, or we simply refuse to listen to what we don't want to hear.

    It wasn't until toward the end of my doctor career that I have found the knowledge that one is being truly listened to is frequently therapeutic(有疗效的) In about a quarter of the patients I saw, surprising improvement was shown during the first few months of psychotherapy(心理疗法), before any of the roots of problems had been uncovered or explained. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but chief among them, I believe, was the patient's sense that he or she was being truly listened to, often for the first time in years, and for some, perhaps for the first time ever.

    Are some people born clever, and others born stupid? Or is intelligence developed by our environment and our experience? Strangely enough, the answer to these questions is yes. To some degree our intelligence is given to us at birth, and no amount of education can make a genius out of a child born with low intelligence. On the other hand, a child who lives in a boring environment will develop his intelligence less than one who lives in rich and varied surroundings. Thus the limits of person's intelligence are fixed at birth, whether or not he reaches those limits will depend on his environment. This view, now held by most experts, can be supported in a number of ways.

    It is easy to show that intelligence is to some degree something we are born with. The closer the blood relationship between two people, the closer they are likely to be intelligent. Thus if we take two unrelated people at random from population, it is likely that their degree of intelligence will be completely different. If, on the other hand, we take two identical twins, they will very likely be as intelligent as each other. Relations like brothers and sisters, parents and children, usually have similar intelligence, and this clearly suggests that intelligence depends on birth. Imagine now that we take two identical twins and put them in different environments. We might send one, for example, to a university and the other to a factory where the work is boring. We would soon find differences in intelligence developing, and this indicates that environment as well as birth plays a part. This conclusion is also suggested by the fact that people who live in close contact with each other, but who are not related at all are likely to have similar degree of intelligence.

    During my elementary school years, I used to compare my mom with my best friend Tiffany's mom.

    Tiffany's mom always gave her lots of money to buy the most fashionable clothes and favorite food. Her mom allowed her to do anything she liked. I really admired Tiffany. My mom didn't give me much pocket money and she always told me that I should behave myself. I was annoyed with her.

Whenever I didn't get what I wanted, I would complain to my mom, Tiffany's mom would give her that! I wish she were my mom. Every time, my mom would calmly say "Poor Tiffany". I couldn't understand her. "She shouldn't be feeling sorry for Tiffany!" I thought. "She should be feeling sorry for me."

One day, I couldn't help saying to Mom, "Poor Tiffany? Lucky Tiffany! She gets everything she wants! Why do you feel sorry for her?" I burst into tears.

My mom sat down next to me and said softly. "Yes, I do feel sorry for her. I have been teaching you a lesson that she will never be taught."

I looked up at her. "What are you talking about?"

Mom said with care, "One day she will really want something. Maybe she'll find out that she can't have it. Her mother won't always be around to give her money, and what's more, money can't buy everything."

She continued, "I have taught you valuable lessons by not giving you everything you want. You'll know how to look for bargains and save money, but she won't. You'll understand that you need to work hard to get the things that you want but she won't. When Tiffany is a grown woman, she'll wake up one day and she will be wishing that she had a mom like the one you've got. Life lessons are more important than modern clothes and delicious food."

    It took some time, but I eventually understood my mom's words. Now I am a happy and successful woman.

    Many people, both men and women in the world love drinking. The popular wisdom for years has been that drinking in moderation (适度) —that's one “standard” drink a day for women and two for men—is linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular (心血管的) disease. But recent studies are casting some doubt on that long-held learning. Science now says it depends on your age and drinking habits.

    A 2017 study of nearly 2 million British with no cardiovascular risk found that there was still a modest benefit in moderate drinking, especially for women over 55 who drank five drinks a week. Why that age? Alcohol can influence the substance in the blood in positive ways, experts say, and that's about the age when heart problems begin to occur.

    Also, a 2018 study found that drinking more than 100 grams of alcohol per week—equal to roughly seven standard drinks in the United States or five to six glasses of wine in the UK—surely increases your risk of death from all causes and in turn lowers your life expectancy. Links were found with different forms of cardiovascular disease, with people who drank more than 100 grams per week having a higher risk of stroke, heart failure.

    Another 2018 study found that consistently drinking moderately, within the recommended amount of alcohol, had a protective effect on the heart over time. Unstable drinking habits were associated with a higher risk of heart disease, which the authors reflected might indicate broader lifestyle changes, such as poor health or stress. Former drinkers were also at greater risk.

    Overall, however, the latest thinking is that any heart benefit may be outweighed by other health risks, such as high blood pressure, certain cancers and liver damage.

    Women who drink are at a higher risk for breast cancer; alcohol contributes about 6% of the overall risk, possibly because it raises certain dangerous hormones in the blood. Drinking can also increase the chance you might develop liver, mouth and oral cancers. One potential reason： Alcohol weakens our immune systems, making us more likely to inflame (发炎)—a driving force behind cancer.

    The following are some of history's most inspirational women recommended by Therese Borchard.

    Who Was Mother Teresa? ￥66.00

    Born in Macedonia, Mother Teresa(1910—1997)taught at St. Mary's High School, in Calcutta, India, but was forced to do something about the suffering and poverty. In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity. Although her devotion to the poor is inspiring, it's her persistence(坚持不懈)through years of doubt, as recorded in her private journals, that inspired me the most.

    The Diary of a Young Girl ￥55.10

    In The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank (1929—1945) documented her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944 during the German Occupation of the Netherlands. She is a role model of honesty, strength, and hope for me — that even in the most miserable circumstances, you can lead with love.

    A Life of Discovery ￥111.10

    "Do one thing every day that scares you," wrote Eleanor Roosevelt (1884—1962). She had a lot to choose from, as her life was full of challenges. Eleanor inspires me to bravely deal with problems that matter to me, and to find her way through life's trials and hardships with gracefulness and determination.

    Story of My Life ￥32.50

    A deaf-blind author from Alabama, Helen Keller (1880—1968) provides a powerful example of a woman through two major disabilities to achieve a meaningful life. "We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world," she said. Her attitude of hope and optimism inspires me to use my suffering to become a better and wiser person, to go beyond my pain into service of others.