Dust on furniture may be bad news for waistlines (腰围). But it's far too early to add dusting to a weight-loss plan. Dietary fats and other materials that make up indoor dust can send a signal to human fat cells, telling them to grow. That process, in turn, might slow the body's rate of burning energy. Such changes could add to any weight problems a person might have.

    “We don't know what that means to long-term health and certain diseases yet,” says Heather Stapleton, one of the study's authors. But she notes that her team's findings also raise a question of whether pollutants in dust might play some role in the growing, global problem of obesity (肥胖).

    Stapleton and her colleagues collected dust from homes and offices. Studies found that some materials in the dust could turn on a protein (蛋白质) called PPAR-gamma 1. It's found in many human tissues. Turning this protein on can cause fat cells to grow. Researchers think this protein may be involved in obesity. But a second study now finds evidence that certain fats are mostly to blame. Cooking oils may send out some of these fats into the air, where they eventually find their way into house dust. Or, the authors say, the fats might enter house dust as part of the hair or skin cells shed (脱落) by people or pets.

    “While the findings are amazing,” says Mitchell Lazar, another study author, “these findings need to be taken as very limited.” Indeed, he adds several cautions about how the findings should be understood. “For one thing, people eat these fats in foods all of the time. That is likely to be a lot more than would be consumed from indoor dust,” he said.

    Following news of the potential for life on the recently-discovered TRAPPIST-1 system, there may be another competitor ready to take its place.

    With the help of the Cassini spacecraft, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) scientists have picked up the first evidence that chemical reactions are taking place deep below the surface of Enceladus, Saturn's (土星的) sixth-largest moon. This means that there could be life in Enceladus' warm underground seas.

    An early study found that liquid oceans exist miles below Enceladus' surface. But to reveal what is happening down there, scientists must rely on the plumes (股) of water that spray (喷射) through cracks in Enceladus' icy surface. In October 2015, NASA sent Cassini into a deep dive into one of the plumes.

    Cassini's findings, published on April 13 in the journal Science, showed that hydrogen (氢) not only exists on Enceladus, but is also responsible for a chemical reaction between hot rocks and water in the ocean beneath its surface.

    This same process on Earth provides energy for entire ecosystems around volcanic vents (火山口). There, tiny creatures are able to survive without sunlight, using hydrogen and carbon dioxide as fuel in a process known as “methanogenesis (甲烷生成)”.

    The discovery of this chemical energy source on Enceladus means it could be a very good candidate to host life.

    “Confirmation (确认) that the chemical energy for life exists within the ocean of a small moon of Saturn is an important milestone (里程碑) in our search for habitable (可居住的) worlds beyond Earth,” Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA, told the Daily Mail.

    Alien life was once only thought possible on habitable planets within the “Goldilocks zone” – far enough from our sun not to be a fireball, but not so far as to be freezing.

    Research on Enceladus is still in its early stages, but the recent findings have important meanings for future exploration.

    “At present, we know of only one genesis (诞生) of life, the one that led to us,” David Rothery, professor of planetary geosciences (行星与地球科学) from the Open University in the UK, told The Telegraph.

    “If we knew that life had started independently in two places in our solar system, then we could be pretty confident that life also got started on some of the tens of billions of planets and moons around other stars in our galaxy,” he said.

    Alex Elman runs a big business—something hard to imagine after she lost her sight in her twenties. But Elman says that losing her sight helped her focus on finding success.

    Elman's father planted a hillside vineyard(葡萄园)in western Massachusetts in 1981. It's where Elman spent the darkest period of her life. When she was 27 years old, she went blind as a result of diabetes(糖尿病) 17 years ago. She recalled，“I hid in my home. I hid in the place，to me, that was the safest place in the world.”

    However, she found a new way forward.

    Elman is the founder of Alex Elman Wines, a growing competitor of organic wines from all around the world: Chianti from Italy, Torrontes from Argentina.

    Elman's isn't solitary in her work. Instead, she has a good assistant, a guide dog named Hanley. Hanley is something of a professional wine taster and travels to all of the wine factories that Elman runs, from South America to Europe.

    At first, Elman wouldn't accept a guide dog. Now it's hard to imagine her life, or her business, without him. She said, "When someone tells me something is organic and I don't really believe it because I taste something funny on it, m put it in front of his face and if he likes the wine, he'll actually go in and sniff it. If if s not right, he'll turn his head away. That's how we know whether the soil is actually organic.”

    Elman believes the loss of her sight was a gift from God. She said, “It allowed me to pay attention to what I thought was important. Therefore, adapt to a situation, and you'll be all right. Because you can't change it anyway, right?”

    Chicago is considering firm measures to prevent the Asian carp, a giant fish native to the Far East, from coming into North America's Great Lakes in large numbers. Such a move could cost up to$18bn, a heavy economic burden to the city.

    This species, more than a metre in length, was originally introduced to southern US states three decades ago to control weeds in sewage (污水) treatment plants. But they escaped into the Mississippi River and increased in number quickly, making their way north towards the Great Lakes and threatening the native fish species along the way.

    "Dozens of them will often leap out of the water as boats approach." Michael Beecham, a local environmental expert, described how frightening the scene was. "I've gone down the river and seen these fish jump up and hit me in the face. It is a big problem for our native species." he said.

    A meeting has been organized to find a technological solution to the carp problem, one of which involves blocking parts of Chicago's canal system. Listening at the meeting was John Goss, who was worried about the effect that having barriers in the canal system would have on industry. "It would certainly increase the cost of transportation," he told. "It is currently very cheap and efficient to bring materials and finished goods down the Chicago ship canal.''

    Another cheaper option is to eat the fish out of existence. Dirk Fucik is selling carp burger(鲤鱼汉堡包) at his fish shop not far from downtown Chicago. He thinks the carps are a great resource. "To catch it and throw it away is a waste," he says. "Eating them helps solve the problem and also provides jobs." But the idea has not yet caught on. So far, he is the only person in Chicago selling carp burgers.

    Adding math talk to story time at home is a winning factor for children's math achievement, according to a new research from a university. The study from psychologists Sian Beilock and Susan Levine shows a marked increase in math achievement among children whose families used Bedtime Math, an iPad app that delivers engaging math story problems for parents and children to solve together.

    Even children who used the app with their parents as little as once a week saw gains in math achievement by the end of the school year. The app's effect was especially strong for children whose parents tend to be anxious or uncomfortable with math.

    Previous research from this group has demonstrated the importance of adults' attitudes about math for children's math success. For example, a recent study found that math-anxious parents who help their children with math homework actually weaken their children's math achievement.

    The new findings demonstrate that structured, positive interactions around math at home can cut the link between parents' uneasiness about math and children's low math achievement.

    "Many Americans experience high levels of anxiety when they have to solve a math problem, with a majority of adults feeling at least some worries about math," said Beilock, professor in Psychology and author of Choke, a book about stress and performance. "These math-anxious parents are probably less likely to talk about math at home, which affects how competent their children are in math. Bedtime Math encourages a dialogue between parents and kids about math, and offers a way to engage in high-quality math interactions in a low-effort, high-impact way."

    Study participants included 587 first-grade students and their parents. Families were given an iPad installed with a version of the Bedtime Math app, with which parents and their children read stories and answer questions involving math, including topics like counting, shapes and problem-solving. A control group received a reading app that had similar stories without the math content and questions related to reading comprehension instead. Children's math achievement was assessed at the beginning and end of the school year. Parents completed a questionnaire about their nervousness with math.

    The more times parents and children in the math group used the app, the higher children's achievement on a math assessment at the end of the school year. Indeed, children who frequently used the math app with their parents outperformed similar students in the reading group by almost three months in math achievement at year's end.