The sound of a mosquito can mean trouble in many parts of the world. The bite of the mosquito can be deadly. The insects carry serious diseases like malaria (疟疾). It is estimated that almost 630,000 people died from malaria and malaria­related causes in 2012, and most of these cases were in African countries.

    In the United States, a group of California scientists are working to develop a more effective and less costly substance (物质) to protect people from mosquitoes. The researchers are investigating the sense of smell in mosquitoes. They found the insects use the same receptor for identifying carbon dioxide in human breath as they do for the smell of our skin. Anandasankar Ray, who is leading the investigation, says scientists tested more than a million chemical compounds (化合物) until they found a substance called Ethyl Pyruvate. He says Ethyl Pyruvate makes the mosquitoes' receptors inactive. “When we apply Ethyl Pyruvate to a human arm and offer it to hungry mosquitoes in a cage, very few of the mosquitoes are attracted to the human arm because only a few of them are able to smell it out,” said Ray.

    Genevieve Tauxe, a member of the research team, says it was not easy to find the neurons (神经元) of noble cells that recognize both the smell of human breath and skin. “With the device used to examine the mosquito, we are able to insert a very small electrode (电极) into the part of the mosquito's nose, where its smelling neurons are and where the smell is happening,” said Tauxe.

    Anandasankar Ray says a product based on Ethyl Pyruvate may cost less to produce than DEFT, the most effective chemical treatment now in use. He says DEFT is too costly for most people who live in areas affected by malaria.

    “Perhaps by finding smells that can attack other target receptors, we will be able to improve upon DEFT and finally have the next generation of insect behaviour control products,” said Ray.

    In January, 2016, Harry Styles made a bold decision. He left the popular boy band One Direction and went solo (单飞). Now he is making his own voice heard. The 23-year-old British singer released his first solo single called Sign of the Times. His self-titled album (个人同名专辑) is coming out on May 12.

    Going solo is a journey for him to find his identity (身份). Though at the time, he was uncertain about his future, he kept a word in his mind - “honesty”. “I didn't want to write ‘stories',” he told Rolling Stone. “I wanted to write my stories, things that happened to me. The number-one thing was I wanted to be honest. I hadn't done that before.”

    He is indeed full of stories since beginning his solo career. Last fall, he spent two months recording on a remote island in Jamaica (牙买加).Along with some musicians, he filled a two-floor house with instruments. They hung out at the bar that looked like a tree house. Many mornings began with a swim in the river down the hill. They watched many romantic comedies. Styles always held a black notebook and looked like a college student who was studying, Rolling Stone reported.

    His coming album is about rock music. In fact, he grew up with it. His father Desmond was a rock music fan. When Styles was very young, he danced to The Dark Side of the Moon, a classic song by British rock band Pink Floyd. “I couldn't really get it. But I just remember (thinking that) this is really cool.”

    Harry said, “At the very beginning, all I wanted was to be the granddad with the best stories.” Surely, now he is on the right track (轨道).

    “He is the best choice for goodwill ambassador.” Indian movie fans in China say.

    Indian actor Aamir Khan has got his major celebrity status in China. Aamir Khan was in China last week to promote his latest Hindi film Secret Superstar. During his weeklong stay, first in Shanghai and then in Beijing, the Indian actor also found out that he has become a major celebrity in a country where Hollywood's reach has been traditionally limited.

    Some local analysts compare his star status in China to that of Hollywood actors Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio. Others wonder if Khan is an activist actor. Still others describe him as a feminist（女权主义者）. The Chinese media seem to have called him Mishu, or Uncle Aamir. The surprising rise in popularity of the 52-year-old Bollywood star is owing to his striking movies. At more than 1 million, Khan has the most followers as an Indian on Sina Weibo, the country's Twitter-like platform.

    Secret Superstar had made more than 400 million yuan（$63 million）earlier this week. The story of a teenage Muslim girl's fight against ugly patriarchy（父权制）to realize her dreams was released in China on Jan 19.

    Last year, his film Dangal, inspired by the real journey of an Indian wrestler through a conservative landscape to turn his daughters into world-class athletes, had made nearly 1.3 billion yuan.

    In 2011, Khan's work first got major attention from Chinese moviegoers with Three Idiots, which was released in India much earlier. A statement on India's orthodox education system, similar to that of China, the Hindi film went along with the local audience. Film critics and fans alike recommended it to their friends.

    Some film critics say the education systems, gender discrimination（性别歧视）and domestic violence（家庭暴力）that Secret Superstar shows are among similarities of social issues in India and China. A series of “masterpieces” have made Khan an effective brand in China, in addition to his movie marketing and film devotion.

    "Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts," Marion Brando once said. But for scientists, working out what is going on in an actor's head has always been something of a puzzle.

    Now, researchers have said actors show different patterns of brain activity depending on whether they are in character or not.

    Dr Steven Brown, from McMaster University in Canada, said, "It looks like when you are acting, you are suppressing (压制) yourself; almost like the character is possessing you."

    Brown and colleagues report how 15 actors, mainly theatre students, were trained to take on a Shakespeare role — either Romeo or Juliet — in a theatre workshop. They were then invited into the laboratory, where their brains were scanned in a series of experiments.

    Once inside the MRI scanner, the actors were asked to answer a number of questions, such as: would they go to the party? And would they tell their parents that they had fallen in love?

    Each actor was asked to respond to different questions, based on two different premises (前提). In one, they were asked for their own perspective, while in the other, they were asked to respond as though they were either Romeo or Juliet.

    The results revealed that the brain activity differed depending on the situation being tested. The team found that when the actors were in character, they use some third-person knowledge or inferences about their character.

    The team said they also found additional reduction in activity in two regions of the prefrontal cortex (前额皮质) linked to the sense of self, compared with when the actors were responding as themselves.

    However, Philip Davis, a professor at the University of Liverpool, was unimpressed by the research, saying acting is about far more than "pretending" to be someone — it involves embodying (体现) the text and language.

    The summer I turned 16, my father gave me a car, which permitted Hannah and me to drive around Tucson whenever we wanted to.

    Hannah was my best friend. "Hannah's amazing," my mother always said. And sure enough, that summer she signed with a modeling agency. She was already doing runway work.

    One day, Hannah and I went to the movies. On the way home, we stopped at the McDonald's drive-through, putting the fries on the seat between us to share. "Let's ride around a while," I said. It was a clear night, moonlight shone over the desert. Taking a turn too fast, I hit a patch of dirt and fishtailed.

    French fries on the floor. An impossible amount of blood on Hannah's face. They took us in separate ambulances. In the ER, my parents spoke quietly Best plastic surgeon in the city. End of her modeling career.

    We'd been wearing lap belts, but the car didn't have shoulder harnesses. I'd cracked my cheekbone: Hannah's forehead had split wide open. What would I say to her?

    When her mother, Sharon, came into my hospital room, I started to cry, bracing myself for her anger. She sat beside me and took my hand. "I almost ended my best friend when I was your age," she said, "I totaled her car and mine."

    "I'm so sorry," I said.

    "You're both alive," she said, "The rest is window dressing." I started to protest, and Sharon stopped me. "I forgive you. Hannah will too."

    Sharon's forgiveness allowed Hannah and me to stay friends throughout life. I think of her gift of forgiveness every time I want to resent someone for a perceived wrong. And whenever I see Hannah, the scars are a symbol of grace for me.

    "What kind of rubbish are you?" This question might normally cause anger, but in Shanghai it has aroused complaints over the past week. On July 1st the city introduced strict rubbish-sorting regulations as a model for the country. Residents must divide their waste into four separate categories and throw it into specific public bins. They must do so at scheduled times, when monitors are present to ask the nature of one's rubbish, otherwise, they will face fines or worse.

    Shanghai authorities are responding to an obvious environmental problem. It generates 9 million tonnes of garbage a year, more than London's annual output and rises quickly. But like other cities in China, it lacks a recycling system. Individuals who fail to recycle could be fined up to 200 yuan (＄29). For repeat, the city can add black marks to their credit records, making it harder for them to obtain bank loans or even buy train tickets.

    Some object to this. Peng Feng of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences warns that the use of the credit system is overkill, raising a risk that officials will abuse their power. But others say a tough campaign is necessary. "Slowly people will get used to it," says Li Changjun of Fudan University.

    Many residents support recycling but are frustrated by the details. Rubbish must be divided according to whether it is food, recyclable, dry or harmful, the distinctions among which can be confusing, though there are apps to help work it out. Some have complained about the rules surrounding food waste. They must put it straight in the requisite public bin, forcing them to tear open plastic bags and toss (撕开) it by hand. Most upsetting are the short windows for throwing rubbish, typically a couple of hours, morning and evening. Along with the monitors at the bins, this means that people go at around the same time and can keep an eye on what is being thrown out; no one wants to look bad.