Have you ever felt a sudden feeling of joy because you heard a favorite song playing? Then you know that music can have a strong effect on your emotions.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}It can help get you out of a bad mood (心情) or stay in a good one, says Alicia Ann Clair, professor at the University of Kansas. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    To cheer up, listen to Latin music or anything with a strong beat or a fast speed {#blank#}3{#/blank#} When you want to relax after a busy day, music with a slower speed can calm you down.

    Listen to calming music before you start any stressful activities, advises Dr. Clair. "Once you' re in a good state of mind, it' s easier to keep it." You can lower stress at work with music, too, by playing relaxing tunes (曲调).{#blank#}4{#/blank#}"If you listen to them all day long, you' 11 stop noticing them," Dr. Clair explains. Then the music won't have any effect.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}"To feel energetic, start with something relaxing, and then gradually increase the speed and beat," says Dr. Clair. For example, first play some nice slow love songs, and then listen to something more energetic. When you want to calm down after a busy week at work, just do the opposite.

A. Music can also help you relax and feel active.

B. Try to take advantage of this power of music.

C. But only play them when you really need them.

D. Loud and fast music can fill you with energy.

E. There are different kinds of music around the world.

F. Put on your favorite song, but only if it is one that can lift your spirits.

G. You can change your mood by changing from one kind of music to another.

    Ever wondered whether punishment actually makes people cooperate (合作)? A team of scientists created an experiment to figure it out and the results were pretty unexpected.

    To understand what they found, you have to know why these scientists were studying punishment. They were trying to figure out why people cooperate when it's often so easy to profit at others expense. Why don't friends steal from each other? Why do parents bother to feed their children? If the answer to these questions is obvious to you, congratulations, you are ahead of scientists. They're still trying to figure it out.

    In this experiment, researchers had 225 Chinese students play a game, where if the students cooperated, they'd all get a number of points. But if one defected (变节) and everyone else cooperated, the defector would get a lot of points, and the cooperators would lose out. This game represents a lot of real life situations where you struggle with a decision: work together and do OK, or run off with the rewards, ruining everybody else's day.

    This is actually a pretty ordinary economic experiment. But the researchers added two changes to see if they could mimic(糢拟)the real world better. Change one: some students played many rounds together, so they'd learn who they could trust. Change two: people could punish each other, sacrificing a point or two to destroy another player's score.

    In the end, the researchers found that playing multiple rounds made people cooperate more, which definitely mimics human society. But the whole punishment thing led to a surprise: punishing didn't actually make people cooperate more. In fact, it made them cooperate less.

    So the scientists still don't know why people cooperate, though it looks like it has more to do with groups sticking together than it does with punishment.

    We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices (装置)well after they go out of style. That's bad news for the environment—and our wallets—as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

    To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life—from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s.Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992.Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997.And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

    As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones.“The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids' room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house,” said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007.We're not just keeping these old devices—we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (排放)more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

    So what's the solution (解决方案)?The team's data only went up to 2007,but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

    When I was six, Dad brought home a dog one day, who was called "Brownie". My brothers and I all loved Brownie and did different things with her. One of us would walk her, another would feed her, and then there were baths, playing catch and many other games. Brownie, in return, loved each and every one of us. One thing that most touched my heart was that she would go to whoever was sick and just be with him/her. We always felt better when she was around.

    One day, as I was getting her food, she chewed up (咬破) one of Dad's shoes, which had to be thrown away in the end. I knew Dad would be mad and I had to let her know what she did was wrong. When I looked at her and said "bad girl", she looked down at the ground and then went and hid. I saw a tear in her eyes.

    Brownie turned out to be more than just our family pet. She went everywhere with us. People would stop and ask if they could pet her. Of course she'd let anyone pet her. She was just the most lovable dog. There were many times when we'd be out walking and a small child would come over and pull on her hair. She never barked (吠叫) or tried to get away. The funny thing is she would smile. This frightened people because they thought she was showing her teeth. Far from the truth, she loved everyone.

    Now many years have passed since Brownie died of old age. I still miss the days when she was with us.

    A small school in rural India is gaining attention over the fact that all 300 students are ambidextrous(左右手都灵巧的). Data shows that only one percent of the global population is ambidextrous, but the ambitious founder of Veena Vandini School, in Madhya Pradesh, is aiming to change that, starting at a local level.

    A former soldier and Veena Vandini School founder VP Sharma stated that he was inspired to focus on ambidexterity training by India's first president Rajendra Prasad who was in office from 1950 to 1962. Unexpectedly, the president was ambidextrous. "I read in a magazine that Dr. Rajendra Prasad, India's first president, used to write with both hands. This inspired me to give it a try, “Mr. Sharma said.”Later when I launched my school at my native village, I tried training the students. "

    "We begin training students from standard Ⅰ and by the time they reach standard Ⅲ, they are comfortable writing with both the hands,” Sharma added. "Students of up to standard Ⅶ can write with speed and accuracy. Further, they can write two scripts at the same time, one with each hand. Students also know several languages, including Urdu."

    Every 45-minute class at Veena Vandini includes 15 minutes devoted to handwriting practice, ensuring that every student develops the ability to write with both hands. VP Sharma also believes that the skill better enables students to learn multiple languages, and has them practice writing the same words in different languages at the same time. Although it is widely believed to help increase concentration, more recent studies have found that this is false and studying to become ambidextrous can, in fact, harm cognitive development.

    A Scientific American study revealed that ambidextrous children performed worse than left- or right-handers on a range of skills, especially in math, memory, and logical reasoning. A study in northern Finland indicated that children who are ambidextrous are much likelier to develop mental health issues, including ADHD, language problems, and academic problems.

When I was a kid, my mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at hospital.

On that evening so long ago, my mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage and extremely burned toast in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was to reach for his toast, smile at my mom and ask me how my day was at school. I don't remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him spread butter and jelly on that toast and eat every bite!

When I got up from the table that evening, I remember bearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the toast. And I'll never forget what he said: "Honey, I love burnt toast."

Later that night, I went to kiss daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his toast burnt. He took me in his arms and said, "Your momma put in a hard day at work today and she's really tired. And besides, a little burnt toast never hurt anyone!"

You know, life is full of imperfect things and imperfect people. What I've learned over the years is that learning to accept each other's faults is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship. This good quality is the base of any relationship—husband­wife or parent­child or friendship! As far as I'm concerned, I'm not the best engineer as expected. However, I have made my efforts. That's enough.

So learn to take the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life. Burnt toast isn't a deal­breaker! Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket but into your own. You will appreciate the value of every soul including yourself.