Here is an astonishing and significant fact: Mental work alone can't make us tired. It sounds absurd. But a few years ago, scientists tried to find out how long the human brain could labor without reaching a stage of fatigue(疲劳). To the amazement of these scientists, they discovered that blood passing through the brain, when it is active, shows no fatigue at all! If we took a drop of blood from a day laborer, we could find it full of fatigue toxins(霉素) and fatigue products. But if we took blood from the brain of an Albert Einstein, it would show no fatigue toxins at the end of the day.

    So far as the brain is concerned, it can work as well and swiftly at the end of eight or even twelve hours of efforts as at the beginning. The brain is totally tireless. So what makes us tired?

    Some scientists declare that most of our fatigue comes from our mental and emotional(情感的) attitudes. One of England's most outstanding scientists, J. A. Hadfield, says, “The greater part of the fatigue from which we suffer is of mental origin. In fact, fatigue of purely physical origin is rare.” Dr. Brill, a famous American scientist, goes even further. He declares, “One hundred percent of the fatigue of a sitting worker in good health is due to emotional problems.”

    What kinds of emotions make sitting workers tired? Joy? Satisfaction? No! A feeling of being bored, anger, anxiety, tenseness, worry, a feeling of not being appreciated—those are the emotions that tire sitting workers. Hard work by itself seldom causes fatigue. We get tired because our emotions produce nervousness in the body.

    If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice: There are four skills in learning English. They are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills you should first master the skills of reading and listening.

    Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentence, the meaning of the unfamiliar words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammars or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across ， but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example, in other passages or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.

    As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening.

    For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.

    If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve automatically, and you can be sure that with a little effort they will become perfect.

    With five breakout(破纪录的) games, Jeremy Lin has become the NBA's newest star.

    In the New York Knicks' 92-85 won over the Los Angles Lakers last Saturday, Lin had a career-high 38 points. A day later, he led the Knicks to their fifth victory, 100-98 to Minnesota Timberwolves. In his previous games, Lin, 23, had 23 points against the Washington, 25 points against New Jersey and 28 against Utah in his first start.

    Lin is smart. Before graduating from high school in California, he had sent his application to all the Ivy League Schools(常青藤联盟). He only got into Harvard and Brown, and he chose Harvard. In 2010, Lin graduated with a degree in economics.

    Lin is the first Chinese-American player in the NBA. He was born in the US and his family is Asian. Although not born in China, Lin has attracted nearly all Yao Ming's old fans, who see him as a powerful role model.

    He started off on the Golden State Warriors. Lin first signed with the Warriors in July, 2010, but seldom played in games before the start of the fourth quarter. His first time on the court for the Warriors earned him seven points, three rebounds(篮板球) and two assists in just 11 minutes.

    He is really perfect for the Knicks. The New York Knicks has been in need of a reliable point guard and to Mike D'Antoni, the Knicks coach who's going through a difficult season, Lin is a most unexpected figure. Lin just does everything easy and the rest of the guys around him are playing the way we want to," D'Antoni said. "I think it's for real, and it can only get better."

    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.

    At least 12 other murders since 1997 have been linked to an addiction to violent video games. This year, the parents of a 14-year-old murder victim in the UK blamed the killer's addiction to the game Manhunt, causing a government review of legislation (立法) to protect children.

    But is there any scientific evidence that mere games can make children and young adults more aggressive, or possibly have the desire to murder? There is no doubt children are being exposed to more games violence than ever: around a quarter of all games released in the US contain some violence. And the violence is becoming more obvious as increases in computing power make the games look ever more realistic.

    Psychologists think there may be many reasons why violent games are more harmful to children than violent movies. Firstly, players are actively involved in violence, and may begin to use weapons as second nature. Secondly, violent games provide repetitive aggressive experiences that are rewarded by more killing.

    Many studies have shown that people who play violent games regularly are more likely to show high levels of aggression. For instance, in 2000, Craig Anderson of Iowa State University in Ames and his colleague Karen Dill found that people who played violent games were more likely to admit to aggressive behaviour, including attacks or robberies.

    Earlier this year, Krahe and her colleague Ingrid Miller reported a study of 13 to 14-year-old children. More than half had played games recommended only for over-18s. The more violent the games they played, the more they considered physical aggression to be acceptable. Other authors in the same edition report that children who play violent games more likely to argue with teachers and fight with others.

    Experimental studies have also pointed out a possible link. In one, Anderson and Dill asked a group of students to play a violent game, Wolfenstein 3D, while another group played the non-violent Myst. Those who played the violent game were faster to react to aggressive words flashed on screen and appeared more aggressive.

    The issue is controversial, however. Jeffrey Goldstein, a psychologist at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and a consultant to some video games publishers, agrees that there is good evidence that children, who are exposed to violent media, including video games, are more aggressive. But he warns it might not be a simple case of cause and effect: aggressive kids might be most attracted to violent games.