If a woman has an extra piece of cake, don't blame it on greed, blame it on her brain.

    Scientists have found that women's brains react to food very differently—and much more strongly—than men's. Academics found that decades of dieting pressure on women and advertising have programmed certain parts of the female brain to react strongly when faced with any kind of food. Men, on the other hand, are not usually as obsessive (着迷的) about what they eat.

    Dr. Rudolf Uher and his colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry in King's College London used brain scanning technology, known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), to look at the brains of eighteen men and women.

The volunteers were given images of food to look at, as well as food to taste. Their brain reactions were observed by the scientists.

    They found that the female brains reacted much more strongly than those of males.

    The same reaction did not happen when they were shown non-food images. The team believe this means women think more about food than men tend to do.

    Dr. Uher said, “This could be related to biological differences between men and women. But the more likely explanation is that women have a more complicated reaction to food because of social pressure.

    Professor Carey Cooper, psychology and health professor at Lancaster University, said, “For centuries women have had a providing role — preparing and cooking food for their families. And it is part of that rule to make sure the food is safe. They will therefore be much more sensitive to food than men are, and I would not be surprised if that was now built into their DNA. If the female brain reacts to food because it historically has developed neural (神经的) pathways to do this, then food will be the way they express their stress. Food actually, is a comfort for women.”

    But other experts have said that more research must be done before the results can be proved. American scientist Angelo del Parigi of the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut, said, “Looking at an FMRI alone cannot make sure whether the stronger reaction in women is due to innate (天生的) differences or a learned process.

    Four days after Dad's 67th birthday, he had a heart attack. Luckily, he survived. But something inside him had died. His enthusiasm for life was gone. He refused to follow doctor's orders, and his sour attitude made everyone upset when they visit him. Dad was left alone.

    So I asked Dad to come to live with me on my small farm, hoping the fresh air would help him adjust. Within a week after he moved in, I regretted the invitation. He criticized everything I did. I became frustrated. Something had to be done.

    One day I read an article which said when given dogs, depressed patients would be better off. So I drove to the animal shelter that afternoon. As soon as I got there, a pointer's eyes caught my attention. They watched me calmly.

    A staff member said: “He got here two weeks ago and we've heard nothing. His time is up tomorrow.”

    I turned to the man in horror. “You mean you're going to kill him?”

    “Ma'am,” he said gently. “We don't have room for every unclaimed dog.”

    The staff member's calm brown eyes awaited my decision. “I'll take him,” I said.

    I drove home with the dog on the front seat beside me. I was helping it out of the car when Dad walked onto the front porch. “Look what I got you!” I said excitedly.

    Dad wrinkled his face. “I don't want it,” he muttered, turning back towards the house. Then, suddenly, the dog pulled free from my grasp. He sat down in front of my Dad.

    Dad's anger melted, and soon he was hugging the dog.

    This was the beginning of a warm friendship. Dad named the dog Cheyenne. Together they spent long hours walking down dusty lanes and relaxing on the banks of streams.

    Dad's bitterness faded, and he and Cheyenne went on to make many friends. Then, late one night two years later, I felt Cheyenne's cold nose burrowing(搜寻) through my bed covers. He had never before come into my bedroom at night. I ran into my father's room and found that he had passed away.

    Two days later, my shock and grief deepened when I discovered Cheyenne lying dead beside Dad's bed. As I buried him near their favorite stream, I silently thanked the dog for restoring Dad's peace of mind.

    Say you're in the supermarket parking lot，holding your baby，bags of goods，and trying to open your car. A stranger walks up and says，" Here，let me hold your baby." Should you let him?

    According to a new New York University study，knowing whether or not to trust someone is so important that we can tell whether a face is trustworthy before we even consciously know it's there. The researchers knew from previous studies that people are fairly similar when it comes to how they judge a face's trustworthiness. They wanted to find out whether that would be true if people only saw a face for a quick moment—an amount of time so short that it would prevent making a conscious judgment.

    To carry out their study，the researchers monitored the amygdala (扁桃腺结构) of 37 volunteers while showing them 300 faces for 33 milliseconds each. Those faces had already been tested with a different set of 10 subjects，who saw them for much longer. In those earlier tests，people agreed about whether to trust each face. In this new study，fascinatingly，different parts of the amygdala lit up when a subject saw an untrustworthy face and a trustworthy one—and it lit up more when the face in question was suspicious (可疑的).

    " Faces that appear likely to cause harm are suddenly tracked by the amygdala，so it could then quickly change other brain processes and make fast responses to people—approach or avoid，" says Jon Freeman，the study's senior author. "Our talents for making instant judgments could either come from birth or be learned from the social environment."

    So should you trust the guy in the parking lot? Your brain already knows.

    Most people have flown a kite or have seen one ride and dip in strong spring wind. Not so many people know that kites were first made in China thousands of years ago. The ancient Chinese were making and flying kites even before they were writing.

    A long time ago, the Chinese made kites to use in wars. They would fly these war kites in the dark. The kites were fixed so that they made strange sounds. Men who were at war with them would hear these sounds and run away. They thought those strange sounds were made by gods in the sky.

    The ancient Chinese also flew kites to bring good luck and to make their crops grow rich and tall. Sometimes they tied long strings and hooks to their kites. Then they would fly the kites over water, letting the hooks hang down to catch fish.

    The Chinese use sticks, strings and paper for their kites. Some of these kites look like animals or trees. Others look like birds or houses.

    My daughter Kelly is a cautious person. She needs to warm up to situations, and is hesitant to try new things. When with close friends, she becomes a leader who laughs loudly and chants, "Girls rule, boys drool." But when that comfort zone is not around her, she is shy and nervous.

    This has been challenging for me at times. "Shy" is not a word that I think has ever been used to describe me. But this has been a year of firsts for my girl that has filled her with a new sense of confidence. This year she moved to lap lane in swimming where she was preparing for a swim team. This year she learned to ride a bike without training wheels. And this year she completed her first kids' triathlon(三项全能).

    On Saturday, with a thunderstorm coming soon and my son's birthday party later in the day, we all went out in the dark of the morning for Kelly to participate in her first triathlon. We practiced transitions from swim to bike to run with her, we got all the equipment she'd need, and we kept talking about the race. But as we waited the two hours for the older kids to finish before her turn, she held my leg a little harder and told me she loved me a few too many times. She was nervous but trying to keep it together.

    And then it was her turn. From the second she jumped into the water, my heart soared. My daughter transformed into the most confident human being I had ever seen. She dominated that swim, crushed that bike ride and ran to the finish with the biggest smile on her face.

    I can honestly say that I never felt so proud of someone in my entire life. It wasn't because she did a sport or anything like that. It was because she was afraid of something and conquered that fear with confidence and a fire I hadn't seen before.

    All day I would find myself just looking over at her and smiling. She might be wearing the finalist medal but I felt like I won that day. I won the chance to see my girl shine.

    Shine on, sweet baby.

    An exciting landing process of Chang'e-4 lunar probe (月球探测器 ) was seen through the monitor at Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, Jan. 3, 2019. It touched down on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time, becoming the first spacecraft soft-landing on the moon's unknown side never visible from Earth.

    China's Chang'e-4 probe has started the exploration on the far side of the moon thanks to the relay satellite that provides a communication link with ground control. The relay satellite, named Queqiao, meaning Magpie Bridge, after a Chinese legend (传说) , was launched on May 21, 2018, and became the first communication satellite operating in the halo orbit, nearly 500,000 km from the earth. It can also provide communication for probes from other countries. The relay satellite will also be used for scientific and technological experiments. The maximum distance between the satellite and the Chang'e-4 probe on the far side of the moon is 79,000 km. The satellite processes data from the probe and sends it to Earth.

    The satellite can stay in its orbit for a long time due to its relatively low fuel consumption, as the earth's and moon's gravity balances its orbital moving. While in orbit, it can "see" both the earth and the far side of the moon.

    The concept of using a relay satellite in the halo orbit was first put forward by U.S. space experts in the 1960s, but was realized by Chinese space engineers.

    Researchers hope to use the cameras on the satellite to record asteroids (小行星 ) hitting the far side of the moon. To control the cost of the Chang'e-4 probe, the relay satellite was designed to be relatively small, weighing about 400 kg.

    Researchers had just 30 months to develop the satellite, putting them under high pressure. To promote public interest in space exploration, the China National Space Administration invited people to write down their wishes for lunar and space exploration, and the relay satellite carries the names of tens of thousands of participants and their messages.