We get it: You're tired. You're busy. And your shoes are away over there. Excuses are OK sometimes, but not every day—and especially not today. So put on your sneakers, get up off the couch, and let us kick your excuses to the curb (路边).

    “I…dislike…panting !”

    Being really out of breath may mean you're trying too much too soon, which will kill your confidence. But you don't have to be huffing and puffing to get a workout. Being active doesn't have to mean high-intensity. It's just about moving.

    “I hate exercise.”

    It may seem unbearable, but you just have to get started. Exercise releases endorphins (your brain's own feel-good chemicals), which can be habit-forming. What' s the best exercise? The one you'll do regularly. So you may hate running. Don't run! Ride your bike or just dance. Even cleaning your room is active. As long as you're moving and getting your blood pumping, it counts. So get creative.

    “I don't have time.”

    You may not have lots of time to spare when you're busy with schoolwork, but we bet you can find 10 minutes. Bonus: An activity break will send oxygen to your brain, making you super-alert and more creative too. Famous thinkers like Aristotle and Steve Jobs liked “walking meetings," and you can follow in their footsteps by moving around while you brainstorm about a tough task or memorize your English vocabulary.

    “I never see results!”

    Even if you train with the help of a professional, you won't see results right away. But you will feel them almost immediately. Don't focus on how your body looks—focus on how you feel. Keep a journal of when you exercise (or don't) and how you feel that day: Stressed? Focused? Tired? When you start noticing the amazing effects of exercise, you'll have no excuses.

    Were you into skateboarding, surfing or snowboarding when you were a kid? We can remember our first (less than successful) go at skateboarding, as well as the first time we managed to stand up on surfboards.

    It was so much fun that we were hooked on extreme sports. However, not everyone thinks that introducing children to extreme sports is a good idea.

    Writer Jon Lackman considers whether sports like snowboarding, climbing and skateboarding could be dangerous to the growing bodies of young children. Lackman also looks for advice from medical professions.”

    “Kids aren't mentally ready for these activities,” says a doctor, Vani Sabesan. “They cannot realize the risks, and their parents can't always be trusted to stop them.”

    Sabesan is particularly worried about the influence of extreme sports on TV and the Internet on children. “What we're seeing is that a lot of kids think they can do what the professional athletes can do.”

    If someone, who was encouraged to go surfing at the age of five, was presented with a surfboard when he/she was seven, I think these worries are a little overstated(夸大的), if not misplaced.

    Extreme sports can be dangerous, but there's as much chance of falling off your bike or your roller skates(四轮滑冰鞋鞋) as off a skateboard or surfboard.

My own experience of extreme sports leads me to think that I'll allow my own kids to try them in the same way my parents allowed me.

    In sports such as surfing and snowboarding, there's a sense of adventure and courage. It is important to tell young children about it.

Did I fall off my surfboard? All the time. Did I get back on? Every time.

    I think a close friend is someone you get on well with, who helps you when you have problems, who gives you advice, and who always has time for you. I didn't use to have many close friends when I was at school because I was very shy, but now I have several. They are all women. I think it's difficult to have a close friend of the opposite sex（异性）.

—Marie

    I think a close friend is someone who you've known for a long time, and who you still get on with. They have similar hobbies to you so you can do things together. I've got three close friends who I was at middle school with and we often go out together （without our parents of course）. We often go camping, play football, or walk outside in the open air.

—David

    I'm not sure how to answer the question because I don't really have any close friends. I know a lot of people but mainly through work, and the social occasions（场合） when we meet are business dinners, things like that. I think if you come from a really close family, friends are a bit unnecessary. I like spending my free time with my family.

—Richard

    For me close friends are the people you spend your free time with. I go out at weekends with a group of people, and they are all my close friends. They're also people who live near me. I don't think you can have close friends at a distance because you need to be able to see each other often. But I don't think you need to be doing the same things. I mean I'm at school but none of my friends are.

—Anna

    What's it like to become a music star with millions of fans? These young artists know the feeling. Over the course of their short careers, they have attracted the attention of the biggest stars in the world and taken home prizes from major shows. For now they're just kids that everyone in music is watching. Check out the next generation of stars below.

    FIFTH HARMONY

    The 1990s was a brilliant period for girl groups. But after that few groups have been able to make much of an influence. This doesn't seem to bother Fifth Harmony, who landed the biggest hit of their career in 2016 with "Work from Home", a pop song that encourages everyone to ask for leave more often. When it climbed to No.4 on the Billboard Hot100, it was the first time that a girl group had entered the top 5 in the past ten years.

    LORDE

    It's been four years since the release of Born Heroine — the hot selling CD that made her a 16-year-old global sensation and the spokeswoman for a new generation of smart, strong-minded, creative female pop artists. She contributed to The Hunger Games soundtrack (插曲) in 2014, and for this time setting foot in Hollywood production also brought her more opportunities in her following career.

    TROYE SIVAN

    You might recognize the rising star Troye Sivan from YouTube, where he's been uploading videos since he was 12 and his channel already has millions of fans, or from the movies, where he played the role of young Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

    Do you often feel like you want to wash your hands again and again? Or do you ever have the urge to line up the items on your desk? These all may be symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (强迫症), or OCD, which affects about 2 percent of the world's population.

    Those who suffer from OCD have difficulty finding successful treatment because doctors don't clearly understand its causes. But now, a new study has given hope for a future cure.

    For the study, which was published in the journal Nature in October, researchers observed humans, dogs and mice. They discovered four genes that may be responsible for obsessive-compulsive behaviors in humans.

    But why observe dogs and mice to learn about humans?

    "Dogs, it turns out, are surprisingly similar to people," study author and geneticist Elinor Karlsson, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, US, told NPR. "They're chasing their own tail or chasing shadows like normal, but they're doing it for hours."

    In the study, researchers made a list of about 600 genes in mice, dogs and humans that they thought might cause OCD, reported NPR. They then compared those genes in two large groups of people – those who don't have OCD and those who do. In the end, they identified just four genes with mutations (突变) in the OCD group. The genes are active in a neurological pathway (神经通路) in the brain, which is believed to help control actions. But the mutations could block the neurological pathway.

    For example, for people without OCD, when they finish washing their hands, a signal will come, telling them to stop. But for people with OCD, the neurological pathway is blocked, so the message isn't getting through. As a result, the person will continue to wash their hands.

    "OCD and anxiety are kind of like learning disorders," Marcos Grados, an OCD researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told NPR. "Often with OCD, people have a fear of germs (细菌). You can't touch tables or door knobs (把手) and every time it's the same sensation (感觉). You didn't learn that the last time you touched a door knob, nothing happened. It's like touching it for the first time ever."

    However, that doesn't mean people who have these genetic mutations will always have obsessive-compulsive behaviors, the researchers said. That's because the disorder also relies on other things, such as one's environment.

    According to reports, various existing treatment methods have low success rates in patients. But now that we know where OCD comes from, let's hope we will soon find an effective way to treat it.

    Now in 2019, jazz music is an important part of Indianapolis' art culture. Jazz clubs around the city still host concerts with local jazz musicians like Rob Dixon and Joel Tucker. One of these clubs, the Chatterbox Jazz Club, still has live jazz seven nights a week.

    But the real history of jazz in Indy is much less simple. Along with the Avenue's culture, jazz music was gone from the streets for many years.

    Indiana Avenue was the heart of a neighborhood along the White River. It was a center for black music and live street music. The wealthy avoided this area. So it became a place that poorer families, including many African-American and immigrant (移民) families, moved to.

    Jazz prospered in the mix of American cultures around the Avenue in the 1930s and 1940s. But in the 1950s, things changed. After the war, there were projects to make the city beautiful and build a university nearby. Both of these seemed like good changes. However, the new university and buildings caused poorer families to have to leave the area. This destroyed the Indiana Avenue community - and with it, its jazz culture.

    After many years, Indianapolis remembered the value of its arts and music culture. It began to bring back lost cultures such as live music on the Avenue. To do so, it began to make new changes. The changes included repairing historic areas like the Avenue. Once again, the high living costs in these historic arts areas pushed low-income families out.

    Today there are several old-style jazz clubs where friends can meet up to remember the past or just enjoy a summer evening. It might seem at first that jazz is alive again, but there is a sad reality behind these jazz clubs: Modern Indy jazz is only a shadow (影子) of the lively culture that was once on Indiana Avenue.