Money is the root of all evil (邪恶) and new study claims there may be some truth behind the saying. Scientists at the University of California Berkeley, US, announced on February 27 that rich people are more likely to do immoral things, such as lie or cheat, than poorer people. The scientists did a series of eight experiments. They published their findings online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNA《美国国家科学院院刊》).

    They carried out the first two experiments from the sidewalk near Berkeley. They noted that drivers of newer and more expensive cars were more likely to cut off other cars and pedestrians at crosswalks. Nearly 45 percent of people driving expensive ears ignored a pedestrian compared with only 30 percent of people driving mow modest cars.

    In another experiment, a group of college students was asked if they would do immoral things in various everyday situations. Examples included taking printer paper from work and not telling a salesperson when he or she gave back more change. Students from higher — class families were more likely to act dishonestly.

    According to the scientists, rich people often think money can get them out of trouble. This makes them less afraid to take risks. It also means they care less about other people's feelings.

    Finally, it just makes them greedier. “Higher wealth status seems to make you want even more, and that increased want leads you to bend the rules or break the rules to serve your self- interest,” said Paul Piff, lead scientist of the study.

    Piff pointed out that the findings don't mean that all rich people are untrustworthy or all poor people honest. He said the experiments were to show how people living in different social situations express their instincts（本能）and values in different ways.

    The setting was a packed gymnasium just before the start of a game against another school. There were five girls who were members of the Danville High School basketball team—all of them starters. They were not in uniform to play that night and would not be on the team for the rest of this season. They were there to admit their breaking of team rules. They were there to support their coach's decision to take them off the team. They were there to let the town know there was a problem in their little community that needed to be addressed. And they did it with sincere regret rather than defensiveness.

    While the school had been out for the New Year's holiday, the five girls had gone to the party with several of their friends. There was alcohol there. And they all drank some.

    Coach Rainville has a zero tolerance rule on drugs and alcohol for her members though it was a hard decision to make. When classes resumed and accounts of holiday parties were shared, rumors about the five girls began closing in on them. The coach said she couldn't back down on her rules. And the players—two junior students and three senior students—agreed. That night in the gym was part of their public support of the coach's decision.

    “We hope you will understand that we are not bad kids. What we did was definitely not worth it. We hope this event will make everyone realize that there is a big drug and alcohol problem in our community,” one of the senior students said, “And if you work with us to try to solve this problem, you will help us feel that we have not been thrown off our basketball team for nothing.” The five left the floor to deafening applause.

    The team may not win another game this year. But they've learnt something about personal responsibility, the effect of one's action on others, and honesty that will serve them well throughout life.

    CHICAGO -- New research on vegetables and aging gives mothers another reason to say "I told you so." It is found that eating vegetables appears to help keep the brain young and may slow the mental decline（下降） sometimes associated with growing old.

    On measures of mental sharpness, older people who ate more than two servings of vegetables daily appeared about five years younger at the end of the six-year study than those who ate few or no vegetables.

    The research in almost 2,000 Chicago-area men and women doesn't prove that vegetables reduce mental decline, but it adds to mounting evidence pointing in that direction. The findings also echo（回应） previous research in women only.

    Green leafy vegetables including spinach（菠菜）, kale and collards （甘蓝） appeared to be the most beneficial. The researchers said that may be because they contain healthy amounts of vitamin E, an antioxidant（抗氧化剂） that is believed to help fight chemicals produced by the body that can damage cells.

    Vegetables generally contain more vitamin E than fruits, which were not linked with slowed mental decline in the study. Vegetables also are often eaten with healthy fats such as salad oils, which help the body absorb vitamin E and other antioxidants, said lead author Martha Clare Morris, a researcher at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.

    The fats from healthy oils can help keep cholesterol（胆固醇）low and arteries （动脉）clear, which both contribute to brain health. The study was published in this week's issue of the journal Neurology and funded with grants from the National Institute on Aging.

    Language Learning and Immersion programs Worldwide for Teens

    Language skills and inside knowledge about other cultures through immersion are becoming more and more important in the globalized world.

    Accademia Europea di Firenze

    The Accademia Europea di Firenze is one of the main Italian language, culture, and music school in Italy. Our method allows students to learn and practice Italian language through their subjects of greatest interest, whether art, music, or culture.

    Dates: Starts every Monday the year round except on holidays

    Contact: Isabel Berger, Accademia Europea di Firenze, Via Cavour,37.50129

    Website: www.italianlanguageflorence.com

    Spanish Immersion Programs for Teens in Costa Rica & Peru

    Take your Spanish to the next level while experiencing Costa Rica's breathtaking biodiversity (生物多样化) or the cultural tapestry (织棉) of Peru. GLA integrates (使融入) Spanish language learning into many aspects of the program, providing students opportunities to take away more of the culture, and also leave more behind.

    Dates: Summer (June, July, August); spring break

    Contact: Global Leadership Adventures, 10509 San Diego Mission Road, Suite A, San Diego, CA 92108

    Website: www.experiencegla.com

    Homestay French Summer School Program in Cannes, France

    If you are looking to learn French, then there is no better option than a language homestay learning program in France. Live like a local with a French family, learn French and culture, have fun, make new friends, and get a head start on your academic (学院的) /university year !

    Dates: Summer (June, July, August)

    Contact: Passeport pour les langues—French Summer Classes

    Website: www.frenchsummerclasses.com

    Mandarin & Cultural Immersion Programs for Teens in China

    Take your Mandarin to the next level while experiencing China's two worlds: one rural and traditional, the other fast-paced and urban. GLA weaves Chinese cultural immersion with language learning and adventure to provide students with a deeper, more meaningful experience.

Dates: Summer (June, July, August)

    Contact: Global Leadership Adventures, 10509 San Diego Mission Road, Suite A, San Diego, CA 92108

    Website: www.experiencegla.com

    Ride-hailing apps and robot cars promise to change how we get around and the effects are already being felt. Traffic in New York is slowing down. Jams are common in Manhattan, especially in its business districts. Daytime traffic in the busiest areas now moves almost 20% more slowly than it did five years ago.

    It seems a place ripe for wide use of ride-hailing apps that, you might think, would reduce some of the jams. However, those apps appear to be making things worse as traffic has slowed in line with the growing popularity of apps such as Uber and Lyft, a study by transport expert Bruce Schaller suggests.

    Over the four years of the study, the number of cars in Manhattan seeking ride-hailing fares increased by 81%. There are now about 68, 000 ride-sharing drivers across New York. That's about five times the number of the yellow cabs licensed to operate there, he found. There are so many drivers, his work suggests, who spend about 45% of their spare time just touring for fares. That is a lot of unused cars blocking a lot of busy streets.

    Simple physics explains why ride-sharing vehicles are causing, not curing jams, said Jarrett Walker, a public transport policy expert who has advised hundreds of cities about moving people.

    "Lots of people are deciding that, 'Oh, public transport is just too much trouble this morning,' or whenever, which causes a shift from it," he told the BBC. "That means moving people from larger vehicles into smaller ones, which means more vehicles to move the same people. Therefore, more traffic."

    Data gathered about ride-sharing drivers illustrates how they contribute to congestion (塞车), said Prof. Christo Wilson, a computer scientist at Northeastern University who has studied the services. "You can look at the traffic pattern for the Uber vehicles and it perfectly matches the peaks for the rush hour and the peak time of a day," he said. They are out there in force at the worst possible times.

Adults check their phones, on average,360 times a day, and spend almost three hours a day on their devices in total. The problem for many of us is that one quick phone-related task leads to a quick check of our emails or social media feeds, and suddenly we've been sucked into endless scrolling.

It's an awful circle. The more useful our phones become, the more we use them. The more we use them, the more we lay neural（神经的） pathways in our brains that lead to pick up our phones for whatever task is at hand-and the more we feel an urge to check our phones even when we don't have to.

What we do know is that the simple distraction of checking a phone or seeing a notification（通知）can have negative consequences. This isn't very surprising; we know that, in general, multitasking does harm to memory and performance. One of the most dangerous examples is phone use while driving. One study found that merely speaking on the phone, not texting, was enough to make drivers slower to react on the road. It's true for everyday tasks that are less high-risk, too. Simply hearing a notification "ding" made participants of another study perform far worse on a task-almost as badly as participants who were speaking or texting on the phone during the task.

It isn't just the use of a phone that has consequences-its me re presence can affect the way we think.

In one recent study, for example, researchers asked participants to either put their phones next to them so they were visible（like on a desk）, nearby and out of sight（like in a bag or pocket）, or in another room. They were found to perform far better when their phones were in another room instead of nearby-whether visible, powered on or not.