If you feel like you've been listening to the same three songs on a loop（循环地）, maybe it's time to discover some new songs. With these apps (almost all of which are free, by the way) and some patience, you might just find your new favorite songs:

Indie shuffle

    Allows you to browse through lesser-known artists' music based on genre（类型）, release date and various other categories（类别）. You can save songs or artists you like and find bands with similar sounds.

Rormix

    Rormix searches your music library to find out what genres and artists you already listen to. Based on its findings, the app suggests music videos you might like just as much. It's an easy way to find new artists without getting too far away from the genres you know and love.

Band of the day

    Provides you with new lesser-known artists and groups to listen to every single day! Download the app, turn on notifications, and you'll get a daily recommendation.

Bandsintown

    If you live for live music, Bandsintown will automatically download your library and suggest concerts you might like based on that list. If a new concert is announced in your area, you will get an automatic e-mail with the details. Basically, you will never miss another show. Here is the best part: You can buy tickets through the app.

Soundcloud

    It is the place to find up-and-coming musicians and remixed singles. Anyone can share and ad music, leading to endless possibilities. The app is a streaming（流媒体）service, online community, and creative outlet. For fans, it makes it possible to keep up with your favorite artists' latest releases.

    The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on well with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly-held image of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.

    An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it had ever been in the past. “We were surprised by just how positive today's young people seem to be about their families,” said one member of the research team. “They're expected to be rebellious(叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds: they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There's more negotiation(商议) and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don't want to rock the boat.”

    So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends. “My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17-year-old Daniel Lazall. “I always tell them when I'm going out clubbing. As long as they know what I'm doing, they're fine with me.” Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees. “Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I'd done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”

    Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenage rebellion(反抗) is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments, “Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over. ”

    Most dog owners are convinced that their four-legged friends know exactly what they mean when they use certain words like sit, stay or treat. However, researchers have always wondered whether dogs really understand human speech or if they rely on other information to get the meaning. For example, does the word “fetch” form a picture of a stick or ball in the dog's mind, or does the dog bring back the object based on the owner's voice or gesture? A new study by scientists at Atlanta's Emory University seems to indicate that “man's best friend” does indeed know what the owner is saying.

    The researchers began by asking the owners of twelve dogs of various kinds to train their pets to identify two toys of different materials, such as a toy animal and a ball. Once the dogs had mastered the task, they took turns inside a special scanner. The owners then tested their dog's language skill by first calling out the names of the toys they had been trained to recognize and then saying meaningless words such as “bobbu” and “bodmick” while holding up random objects the dogs hadn't seen before.

    The scans suggested that the parts of the dogs' brains responsible for processing of sounds showed different brain patterns when they heard words they were familiar with, compared with the ones they had never heard before. While that was not enough to prove that the dogs were picturing their toys when they heard the word, it did indicate some sort of recognition. The researchers believe this is an important step forward in understanding how dogs process language.

    Even more interesting was that the dog's brains showed a higher level of neural(神经)activity at the sound of unknown words. This is the exact opposite of what happens in human brains, which get more active at the sound of familiar words. The researchers say the dogs may become cheerful at the sound of new words to try to understand them in the hope of delighting their masters. “Dogs want to please their owners, and perhaps also receive praise or food,” says Empty neuroscientist Gregory Burns, senior author of the study.

    However, though your pet may understand human speech, the scientists recommend using visual signals and smell for training. “When people want to teach their dog a trick, they often use spoken command because that's what humans prefer, ”Prichard says.“ From the dog's view, however, a visual command might be more effective, helping the dog learn the trick faster.”

Dark Sky Parks around the World

    Warrumbungle National Park

    Situated in the central west slopes of New South Wales is Australia's only dark sky park, Warrumbungle. The park has served as a dark sky park since July 2016. Its crystal-clear night skies and high altitude make it a natural, educational, and astronomical heritage site in the southern half of the earth. Tourists can use Australia's largest optical telescope within the park boundaries to view the auroras (极光), the Milky Way, and faint shooting stars.

    Sark

    Sark is a Channel Island near the coast of Normandy under the protection of the UK. It was the World's First Dark Sky Island set up in January 2011. Its historical and cultural blend attracts over 40,000 tourists annually. With no motor vehicles and public lighting on the island, there is an exceptional view of the dark skies. A rich Milky Way is visible in the dark night skies from the shores of the island.

    Pic du Midi de Bigorre

    Pic du Midi de Bigorre in France was designated as a dark sky park in December 2013 making it the second largest dark sky park in the world. The park covers 3. 112 square kilometers spread across the Pyrenees National Park and UNESCO's World Heritage site, Pyrenees-Mont Perdu. The park attracts over one hundred star watchers every year. The Observatory Midi-Pyrenees, which was built in 1870, is one of the world's highest museums at a height of 2,877 meters above sea level.

    Ramon Crater/Makhtesh Ramon

    Ramon Crater is a unique 1,100-square-kilometer nature reserve located in the Negev Desert in Israel. In 2017, the Ramon Crater became the first designated dark sky park in the Middle East. Its location, rough climate, and forbidding landscape that are characteristic of the Negev have largely defeated historical attempts for human settlement, making it a great place to view the night skies. Stargazers usually camp in the desert to have an uninterrupted view of the stars, planets, and the Milky Way.

    Donald was not very good at math. He could not understand the teacher's explanations. Even when the teacher explained something a second time, Donald still could not understand it. "Never mind," Donald told himself, "I'm quite good at other subjects. I'll cheat in the math exam, and then I won't be in trouble."

    "I will sit next to the boy who's good at math,'' he thought, "and copy down his answers." The day of the exam came, and Donald sat next to Brian Smith, who was always at the top of the class in math. Donald carefully copied Brian's answers onto his own exam paper. At the end of the exam, the teacher collected the papers and graded them. Then she said, "Well, boys and girls. I've decided to give a prize to the student who got the highest grade. However, it's difficult for me to decide who to give the prize to, because two students, Donald and Brian, got the same grade."

    "Let them share it,'' one of the other students said.

    "I have thought about that,'' the teacher said, "but I have decided to give the prize to Brian." Donald was angry when he heard this. He stood up and said, "That is not fair. I got the same grade as Brian." "That is true," the teacher said. "However, Brian's answer to Question 18 was 'I don't know', while yours was 'Neither do I'."

    For 63 percent of Americans, coffee is one of their daily essentials. This number has been this high since 2017, according to the National Coffee Association. The rise of coffee is due to its numerous benefits like preventing DNA damage, but it works best if you do this simple thing first: Eat.

    "Drinking coffee on an empty stomach, or early in the morning before you've had breakfast, can raise the level of cortisol (皮质醇) in your body. From the moment you open your eyes in the morning, your body starts releasing cortisol. It's a hormone (激素) that's responsible for ruling your immune response, metabolism (新陈代谢), and stress response," says Dr. Nikola Djordjevic, MD.

    "If you pump your body with caffeine(咖啡因) when your cortisol is at its peak," Djordjevic says, "you'll be forcing your body to bear even more stress." In a study that evaluated preference for caffeinated drinks among medical students, it's shown that 25 percent of students drank coffee in the morning on an empty stomach.

    These students are at an increased risk of mood changes and possible long-term effects on their health, as explained in the study. "Drinking coffee on an empty stomach can greatly encourage the acid in your stomach, producing a more acidic environment," says Dr. Jamie Long, a licensed clinical psychologist. Thus, a full stomach is important to control the amount of stomach acid produced.

    Since coffee increases your stomach acid, you're highly likely to experience heartburn and even develop gastric ulcers (胃溃疡), Djordjevic says. Clearly, drinking coffee on an empty stomach affects physical health. But it does harm to mental health, too. The overproduction of acid in the stomach can cause mood swings, nervousness, shaking and other withdrawal symptoms (症状). "And if you've already had the sign of experiencing anxiety, you're even more possible to be attacked by the effects of coffee," says Long.

    Base line: Know your limits so you can fully experience what coffee can offer, because here's exactly what happens to your body when you drink coffee daily.