Eating spicy foods frequently may be tied to a slightly lower risk of an earlier death, according to a new study. However, more research is needed to confirm the link, experts say.

    The researchers found that the people in the study who ate spicy foods one or two days a week were 10 percent less likely to die during the study, compared with those who ate spicy foods less than once a week, according to the study published today(Aug. 4) in the journal The BMJ. Moreover, the people in the study who ate spicy foods three or more days a week were 14 percent less likely to die during the study, compared with those who ate spicy foods less than once a week.

    However, the study was observational, and so it is too early to tell whether there is a causal relationship between eating spicy food and lower mortality, said study author Lu Qi, an associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. "We definitely need more data from other populations," Qi told Live Science. “The researchers don't know why exactly the consumption of spicy food may be linked to lower mortality, but previous research on cells and animals has suggested several possible mechanisms,” Qi said.

    “It is unclear whether the observed associations are the direct result of spicy food intake, or whether spicy foods are simply a marker for other beneficial but unmeasured dietary components(成分),” said Nita Forouhi, a nutritional expect. At this point, researchers don't know for sure whether eating spicy foods can have a beneficial effect on human health and mortality, Forouhi wrote. "Future research is needed to make sure whether spicy food consumption has the potential to improve health and reduce mortality directly, or if it is merely a marker of other dietary and lifestyle factors," she said.

A few years ago, I read about an eight-year-old girl who studied elephant poaching in school and made a poster for her local grocery store. The slogan read, "Save the elephants. Don't buy Ivory Soap, or they will die out." What the girl had done taught me a lesson. Since then, I have looked at eight-year-olds in a different way. As an environmental educator, I used to teach eight-year-olds about the harm of elephant poaching, rainforest destruction, and global warming. I had a degree in natural science—but not in child development. What did I think I was accomplishing by putting my environmental concerns on the shoulders of kids who still believe in fairy tales?

Kids develop the fear of nature when their primary contact with the natural world is hearing bad news about the environment. If I wanted to inspire conservation action, I needed to change my ways, but now? I came across a research by psychologist Louise Chawla. She wanted to know what had gone on in the childhoods of adults who are good environmental citizens. She found two things most common. They had free time to explore the rivers or woods down the street, and they had an adult in their lives who was enthusiastic about the natural world. I understand now that what turned me into a good person today was a childhood spent playing in the field and having a dad who knew that finding a lobster under a rock was better than finding treasure.

    So that's what I was doing when I was eight years old—looking under rocks, climbing trees, and picking wild .flowers. I didn't know a thing about the Clean Air Act that was being debated in congress at that time. I didn't hear a lot of environmental problems. But I built a relationship with nature and I grew up to care. Now I treat my own kids like the child I was. My kids turn off the water when they brush their teeth and turn off the lights when they leave a room.

    Microsoft has developed a new smartphone app that interprets eye signals and translates them into letters, allowing people with motor neurone disease to communicate with others from a phone.

    The GazeSpeak app combines a smartphone's camera with artificial intelligence to recognize eye movements in real time and convert them into letters, words and sentences. For people suffering from ALS（渐冻症）, also known as motor neurone disease, eye movement can be the only way they are able to communicate.

    "Current eye-tracking input systems for people with ALS or other motor impairments are expensive, not robust under sunlight, and require frequent re-calibration and substantial, relatively immobile setups," said Xiaoyi Zhang, a researcher at Microsoft who developed the technology.

    "To mitigate the drawbacks…we created GazeSpeak, an eye-gesture communication system that runs on a smartphone, and is designed to be low-cost, robust, portable and easy to learn."

    The app is used by the listener by pointing their smartphone at the speaker. A chart that can be stuck to the back of the smartphone is then used by the speaker to determine which eye movements to make in order to communicate.

    The sticker shows four grids of letters, which each correspond to a different eye movement. By looking up, down, left or right, the speaker selects which grids the letters they want belong to. The artificial intelligence algorithm is then able to predict the word or sentence they are trying to say.

    Zhang's research, Smartphone-Based Gaze Gesture Communication for People with Motor Disabilities, is set to be presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May.

A Brief Introduction to Some Dictionaries

Norman Merriam Webster BES—1850 Dictionary

    This handy translator provides you with 5,000,000 total translation to and from Spanish and English! This dictionary is specially designed for all levels of language skill from beginner to advanced.

Brand V7 Dictionary / Translator

    This special model features the largest and most complete Russian-English dictionary. Advanced English speech, accent correction function and specialized terms database will help you communicate. Business organizers will allow you to stay in touch with the world through all kinds of advanced features.

Seiko WP1500 Rogets III Thesaurus Dictionary

    It is the nearest word finder. It is also great for cross word puzzles. It will show you the time, day and date of local time zone and the same for over 100 cities throughout the world by simply entering the first letter of the name of the city.

Ectaco KD-800 Dictionary / Translator

    This advanced talking handheld translator features the following dictionaries: the general English-Korean dictionary for 215,905 entries（词条）；popular Korean-English dictionary for 183,279 entries, and the dictionary of Chinese traditional characters for 7,744 entries.

The Lingo Traveler 18

    It is a great value as well as an International translator. Draw on over 96,000 words and 8,000 useful phrases. Equipped with a powerful databank, The Lingo Traveler 18 allows you to store all of your appointments, telephone numbers, and addresses.

    On a freezing cold day, a couple had to move into a small apartment because of their failure in business. The husband worked day and night to support the family but gave no care of his wife. So she thought, "He doesn't love me any more. He just cares about his business ... not me"．

    One day, she was about to take a shower when he stopped her at the door, "Let me take it first, okay?" "Why not me first?" she asked. "I am tired, honey, you take it later, okay?" She was entirely unhappy.

    One day, she found nothing to do and turned on his computer. A few words came into her sight. Reading them, she burst into tears. It was his diary：

    Today, I was quite sad. She asked me why I was always taking the shower first, and I said to her, "I was exhausted." She was unhappy. In her mind, I treated her not as well as usual, but what could I do? I was not as rich as before! We moved to the small apartment, and there was only one shower in the bathroom. It was so cold to take a shower in such a cold winter. But I found that if one person took the shower first, the room could get a little warmer. So every day I rushed to the bathroom first. I was thinking that, when she took the shower, the room would get warmer, even if it was only 1℃.

    Now I cannot give her a comfortable life, take her to good restaurants, or buy expensive dresses for her, but at least, I can give her 1℃ love.

    New England is the six northeastern states of the United States: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The six states were among the first colonies (殖民地) in America. The colonies were ruled by England, and this is how the area became known as New England. After the Revolutionary (革命的) War the colonies became states.

    Many things are similar in the six New England states. For example, there are many stone walls, fishing villages and forests in these states. The houses and buildings are similar, too. People cut down trees from the forests to make space for their farms and villages.

    They then used wood from the trees and stones from the field to build houses, schools, and churches. Even today, most of the houses in New England are made of wood.

    There are big cities in New England, but there are also small cities and farms, especially in the northern part. There is much industry and business and New England is one of the most populous (人口稠密的) parts of the United States. It has many busy seaports on its long coast. There are always many tourists who enjoy the beautiful lakes, beaches, and mountains and who visit the historical places.