Vitamin B could help reduce the effects of the dangerous type of air pollution, according to a new study published on Monday. In the first study of its kind, a team of international researchers looked into the damage caused by one of the pollutants that have the severest impact on health—PM2.5.

    They found that Vitamin B supplement could effectively reduce the impact of the tiny particles     （颗粒）on the human body, although they stressed that the research was in its early stages. According to the WHO, 92% of the world's people are living in places where the PM2.5 level goes beyond the recommended level. So it's urgent to find a solution to the problem.

    According to this study, published in the PNAS, 10 volunteers were initially exposed to clean air and given a placebo (安慰剂）to check their baseline responses. The group then kept on taking placebos tor tour weeks before being exposed to heavily polluted air from downtown Toronto, where an estimated 1,000 cars passed every hour. The bad air was delivered to the volunteers through an "oxygen type" face mask. The experiment was then repeated, with each volunteer taking a Vitamin B supplement daily, made up of 2.5mg of folic acid, 50mg of Vitamin B6, and l mg of Vitamin B12.

    Vitamin B6 can be found in liver, chicken, nuts and other things, and Vitamin B12 in fish, meat, eggs, milk and some cereals. The researchers found that four weeks of Vitamin B supplements — the damage of PM2.5 effects by 28-76%. The results emphasized how prevention at an individual level could be used to fight against the damage of PM2.5, the researchers said.

    A drug that is used to treat serious bleeding could save thousands of lives of mothers giving birth. A world test of the drug found it reduced (降低) the risk of bleeding deaths during childbirth by nearly one third. The study included 20,000 women in 21 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. The test was carried out by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The drug is called tranexamic acid (凝血酸). It is low-cost and researchers said it does not cause serious side effects (副作用) for mothers or babies.

    The drug is used to treat mothers for serious bleeding during childbirth. Postpartum hemorrhage (产后出血) is the main cause of mothers' death around the world, according to the World Health Organization.

    Haleema Shakur is the project director for the test. She said though medical condition is improved in many countries, serious bleeding after childbirth remains a big problem in some parts of the world. “It's one of the biggest killers of mothers. In Africa and Asia, about 10% of women will end up with serious bleeding.” The drug works after a mother gives birth.

    Shakur said the best results were reported when the drug was given to women as soon as possible after childbirth. “The earlier you give it — within the first three hours after giving birth — the better the result is.”

    The next step will be to provide training for doctors and nurses on how to use it and then to find where the drug is needed. During the test, women were given the drug in a hospital. But researchers are looking for easier ways to use the drug so it can be more widely used in small clinics and the countryside.

    There are two factors (因素) which decide an individual's intelligence (智商). The first is the sort of brain he is born with. Human brains differ greatly, some being more capable (有能力) than others. But no matter how good a brain he has to begin with, an individual (个体) will have a low order of intelligence unless he has opportunities to learn. So the second factor is what happens to the individual—the sort of environment in which he is brought up. If an individual has less chances environmentally, it is likely that his brain will fail to develop and he will never arrive at the level of intelligence of which he is capable.

    The importance of environment in deciding an individual's intelligence can be shown by the case history of the twins. When they were three months old, their parents died, and they were placed in different homes. Peter was brought up by parents of low intelligence in a separate community with poor educational opportunities. Mark was brought up in the home of well-to-do opportunity to be encouraged intellectually.

    This environmental difference continued until the twins were in their late teens, when they were given tests to measure their intelligence. Mark's IQ was 125, twenty-five points higher than the average and fully forty points higher than his twin brother. Given equal opportunities, the twins, having similar brains, would have tested at roughly the same level.

    A long-term American study shows the importance of early education for poor children. The study is known as the Abecedarian Project. It involved more than one-hundred young children from poor families in North Carolina.

    Half of the children attended an all-day program at a high-quality child-care center. The center offered educational, health and social programs. Children took part in games and activities to increase their thinking and language skills and social and emotional development. The program also included health foods for the children.

    The children attended the program from when they were a few weeks old until the age of five years. The other group of children did not attend the child-care center. After the age of five, both groups attended public school.

    Researchers compared the two groups of children. When they were babies, both groups had similar results in tests for mental and physical skills. However, from the age of eighteen months, the children in the educational child-care program did much better in tests.

    The researchers tested the children again when they were twelve and fifteen years old. The tests found that the children who had been in the child-care center continued to have higher average test results. These children did much better on tests of reading and mathematics.

    A few years ago, organizers of the Abecedarian Project tested the students again. At the time, each student was twenty-one years old. They were tested for thinking and educational ability, employment, parenting and social skills. The researchers found that the young adults who had the early education still did better in reading and mathematics tests. They were more than two times as likely to be attending college or to have completed college. In addition, the children who received early education were older on average, when their first child was born.

    The study offers more evidence that learning during the first months and years of life is important for all later development.

    The researchers of the Abecedarian Project believe their study shows a need for lawmakers to spend money on public early education. They believe these kinds of programs could reduce the number of children who do not complete school and are unemployed.

    Over the past 40 years, China has helped more than 700 million rural residents out of being poor, and the poverty rate(贫困率) — the proportion of people living below the Chinese poverty line — had fallen among the rural population from 97.5 percent in 1978 to 3.1 percent at the end of 2017, official figures shows. China's achievements in poverty alleviation(扶贫) made the world look at China with admiration.

    "For me, it is unbelievable that over 40 years, that is, over the course of one working lifetime, China has gone from one of the poorest countries in the world to one that is about to eliminate(消除) absolute poverty," said Craig Allen, president of the US-China Business Council.

    Varaprasad Sekhar Dolla, a professor of Chinese studies at India's Jawaharlal Nehru University, also spoke highly of China's achievements in poverty reduction. "If global poverty came down greatly in the last three or four decades, it's partly because of the Chinese contribution to reducing poverty within its own national boundaries," said the Indian scholar.

    In the eyes of Khairy Tourk, a professor of economics with the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, "many countries look up to China to learn from its experience." "The Chinese experience is based on building a modern infrastructure(基础设施) and then on setting up special economic zones that would help underdeveloped countries to become more industrial," he added.

    In the government work report delivered at the opening of the annual NPC session (全国人大会议) on March 5, China promises to reduce its population of rural poor by over 10 million this year.

Making the decision to invest in healthy lifestyle changes is more than just flipping a switch. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Psychologists have found that it takes an average of 66 days for a new habit to become automatic, but the truth is that building and maintaining lifestyle changes is highly dependent on each individual. However, there are some easy strategies that can help you develop a lifestyle change plan that works for you.

Focus on the whole picture. Lifestyle changes are like a puzzle. There are many pieces that must be added up to the whole picture. Building habits in only one area of the puzzle will leave your overall picture lacking dimension. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} So it is important to understand how they all interact when setting up your lifestyle change plan.

Set realistic and achievable goals. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Focus on setting goals that are realistic. Instead of expecting to run a marathon in six months, shoot for running a 5-kilometer race and then work up to the marathon. Setting realistic goals that you can achieve and then building on them will help you maintain momentum（动力） and stay motivated.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#} Building habits takes time. Be patient with yourself and understand that the fastest way forward isn't always the smartest way forward. The goal in creating lifestyle changes isn't to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. The goal is to build habits that are sustainable in your everyday life. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}