主旨大意题 知识点题库

    Before I studied psychology, I used to think that people would laugh when funny things occurred. While I was right about that, I discovered there are lots of other psychological factors that make people laugh other than the funny part of a joke. When someone laughs at a joke, there will usually bemore than one reason that makes him laugh—and the more reasons there are, the more powerful the joke will be.

    I was attending a stand-up comedy show in Egypt, and when the man started to make fun of pedestrians crossing streets, everyone laughed their hearts out. The main reason those people strongly laughed was that almost allof them felt angry towards pedestrians who crossed streets carelessly. The joke wasn't only funny, it also made the audience feel that they were right about being angry at those pedestrians. That is, people were laughing both because ofthe funny joke and because of the happiness experienced as a result of the psychological support they got.

    The better a joke makes a person feel, and the more it includes other psychological factors, the more the person will like it. For example, if you envy one of your friends, and someone tells a joke that is funny and, at the same time, makes your friend seem stupid, then you will probably laugh atit louder than if you weren't jealous of him.

    In short, we don't laugh only when we hear something funny; we also laugh when we experience some kind of happiness that results from the other psychological factors involved in the joke. I strongly discourage making fun of anyone or belittling someone to make someone else laugh. All Iwant to explain is that if your joke supports a person's emotions, he will certainly like it a lot.

    Using too much water or throwing rubbish into our rivers are clear ways that humans can put our water supply in danger , but we also affect our water supply in less obvious ways. You may wonder how paving(铺砌) a road can lead to less useable fresh water. A major part of the water we use every day is groundwater. Groundwater does not come from lakes or rivers. It comes from underground. The more roads and parking lots we pave ，the less water can flow into the ground to become groundwater.

    Human activity is not responsible for all water shortages(短缺). Drier climates are of course more likely to have droughts(干旱) than areas with more rainfall, but in any case, good management can help to make sure there is enough water to meet our basic needs.

    Thinking about the way we use water every day can make a big difference, too In the United States , a family of four can use 1.5 tons of water a day! This shows how much we depend on water to live, but there's a lot we can do to lower the number.

    You can take steps to save water in your home. To start with use the same glass for your drinking water all day. Wash it only once a day. Run your dishwasher (洗碗机)only when it is full 。Help your parents fix any leaks in your home. You can even help to keep our water supply clean by recycling batteries instead of throwing them away.

    I was never very neat，while my roommate Kate was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place，but mine always hid somewhere. She even labeled(贴标签) everything. I always looked for everything. Over time，Kate got neater and I got messier. She would push my dirty clothing over，and I would lay my books on her tidy desk. We both got tired of each other.

    War broke out one evening. Kate came into the room. Soon，I heard her screaming，“Take your shoes away！Why under my bed！” Deafened，I saw my shoes flying at me. I jumped to my feet and started yelling. She yelled back louder.

    The room was filled with anger. We could not have stayed together for a single minute but for a phone call. Kate answered it. From her end of the conversation，I could tell right away her grandma was seriously ill. When she hung up，she quickly crawled(爬) under her covers，sobbing. Obviously，that was something she should not go through alone. All of a sudden，a warm feeling of sympathy rose up in my heart.

    Slowly，I collected the pencils，took back the books，made my bed，cleaned the socks and swept the floor，even on her side. I got so into my work that I even didn't notice Kate had sat up. She was watching，her tears dried and her expression one of disbelief. Then，she reached out her hands to grasp mine. I looked up into her eyes. She smiled at me，“Thanks.”

    Kate and I stayed roommates for the rest of the year. We didn't always agree，but we learned the key to living together：giving in，cleaning up and holding on.

    First, I want to tell you how proud we are. Getting into Columbia shows what a great well-rounded student you are. Your academic, artistic, and social skills have truly blossomed（开花）in the last few years. You have become a talented and accomplished young woman. You should be as proud of yourself as we are.

    College will be the most important years in your life. It is in college that you will truly discover what learning is about. I want to tell you: “education is what you have left after all that is taught is forgotten”. What I mean by that is the materials taught isn't as important as you gaining the ability to learn a new subject, and the ability to analyze a new problem. That is really what learning in college is about—this will be the period where you go from teacher-taught to master-inspired, after which you must become self-learner.

    Follow your passion in college. Take courses you think you will enjoy. Steve Jobs says when you are in college, your passion will create many dots, and later in your life you will connect them. In his great speech given at Stanford, he gave the great example where he took calligraphy（书法）, and a decade later, it became the basis of the beautiful letters in Microsoft Word. So don't worry too much about what job you will have, and don't be too utilitarian（功利的）, and if you like Japanese or Korean, go for it! Enjoy picking your dots, and be assured one day you will find your calling, and connect a beautiful curve through the dots.

    Most importantly, make friends and be happy. College friends are often the best in life, because during college you are closer to them physically than to your mom and I. Pick a few friends and become really close to them-pick the ones who are honest and sincere to you. Don't worry about their hobbies, grades, looks, or even personalities. You have developed some real friendships in high school in your last two years, so trust your instinct, and make new friends.

    College is the four years where you have the greatest amount of free time, the first chance to be independent, the most possibilities to change and the lowest risk for making mistakes. So please treasure your college years! May Columbia become the happiest four years in your life, and may you blossom into just what you dream to be.

    On a cold morning in 2015, five-year-old Lucas stood on the bank of Blue Star River, hugging a dead salmon（鲑鱼）against his thick yellow coat. He looked up at his father, Steve, who nodded encouragingly. "Go ahead," he said. "Put it in." The young boy dragged his feet forward and held the fish as far as he could into the shallow water. "It's floating!" Lucas yelled, delighted. For a moment, it's almost as if the handsome salmon could come back to life.

    Lucas' salmon was just one of 100 or so dead bodies that will land in Blue Star River in a half-hour activity this morning, delivered by dozens of volunteers. None of the salmon will rise from the dead, but Andy, president of the Fish Rescue Society, who has promoted this gathering, is carrying out the resurrection （复活）project of salmon.

    Andy led the group's campaign to recover this urban waterway's salmon population. "The Fish Rescue Society started exploring the possibility of recovering the salmon in the river in the mid-1990s, and they also focused on river recovery in cities worldwide."

    Andy and his group are devoted to giving the river a full make-over. This monumental repair job, supported by approximately $95,000 of funding from the Pacific Salmon Foundation over the past 15 years, has involved recovering the river-habitat of salmon and preventing it from wearing away. Work on the river's final section was completed in October 2016.

    As the weather gets colder, we start wearing jackets, and most of us stop thinking about the sun. But the sun's rays can be just as harmful when it's cold and cloudy outside. "Any exposed area of your body can still get sunburned," Dr. Apple Bodemer, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Live Science.

    Whether you spend a day on the slopes, skating on a pond or clearing snow out of your driveway, your face is still getting exposed to the sun's radiation in the form of ultraviolet (紫外线) (UV) light, which can go deep into your skin cells causing DNA damage, according to Bodemer.

    The sun's long ultraviolet A (UVA) waves can cause earlier aging, sunspots and wrinkles, while its short ultraviolet B (UVB) rays are known for causing skin reddening and burns.

    Skin damage caused by UV exposure increases over time. More exposure to radiation contributes to more severe damage, even skin cancer. In addition, snow and ice can also make sun damage worse. They reflect up to 80 percent of UV rays reaching the ground. That means you get hit from both the sky and the ground. And skiers and snowboarders increase their risk of getting sunburned even more because UV exposure increases at higher altitudes.

    "Generally, the biggest factor for sun-sensitivity is how pale your skin is," he said. "But, the reality is that even the darkest individual can get sun damage."

    Luckily, the solution for protecting your skin is simple: Wear sunscreen every day. Rigel recommended using sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 30, and going higher at high altitudes. As a rule of thumb, SPF 30 will block 97 percent of UVB rays, SPF 50 blocking 98 percent, and SPF 100 blocking 99 percent. Whatever kind of sunscreen you use, it's important to apply SPF about once every 2 hours.

    Rigel also suggested sunscreens with "broad spectrum (光谱)"—to protect against both UVB and UVA rays—as well as sunscreens that are water resistant for up to 80 minutes. That way, you can go about your day without it wearing off too quickly.

    Children have their own rules in playing games. They seldom need a referee (裁判) and rarely trouble to keep scores. They don't care much about who wins or loses, and it doesn't seem to worry them if the game is not finished. Yet, they like games that depend a lot on luck, so that their personal abilities cannot be directly compared. They also enjoyed games that move in stages, in which each stage, the choosing of leaders, the picking-up of sides, or the determining of which side shall start, is almost a game in itself.

    Grown-ups can hardly find children's game exciting, and they often feel puzzled at why their kids play such simple game again and again. However, it is found that a child plays games for very important reasons. He can be a good player without having to think whether he is a popular person, and he can find himself being a useful partner to someone of whom he is ordinary afraid. He becomes a leader when it comes to his turn. He can be confident, too, in particular games, that it is his place to give orders, to pretend to be dead, to throw a ball actually at someone, or to kiss someone he has caught.

    It appears to us that when children play a game they imagine a situation under their control. Everyone knows the rules, and more importantly, everyone plays according to the rules. Those rules may be childish, but they make sure that every child has a chance to win.

    Plants are living things. So can they feel pain? Plants don't feel pain the same way animals and people do, says Anke Steppuhn. She is a scientist at the Free University of Berlin in Germany. "What we define as pain usually has to do with a nervous system," Steppuhn explains. When you put your hand too close to a hot stove, nerve cells send a signal to your brain. Your brain decodes (解码) that signal as pain. This causes you to pull your hand away before any serious damage is done.

    Plants don't have nerves or brains, so they can't feel pain like we do. "But plants do recognize when something is hurting them," Steppuhn says. Because they are rooted to the ground, they can't escape a dangerous situation. So they need other ways of fighting back.

    The biggest threat to a plant's life is getting eaten. Some plants grow sharp little hairs. Other plants produce bad-tasting or even harmful chemicals. These force an attacker to abandon its meal. A plant called bittersweet nightshade does something even smarter, Steppuhn found. When a slug (蛞蝓) chews holes in a nightshade' s leaf, liquid begins dripping (滴) around the wound. It is almost as if the plant were bleeding. The liquid is sugary nectar (花蜜), and it happens to be a favorite food of ants. In their effort to collect the nectar, the ants swarm (蜂拥而至) all over the injured plant. They will attack anything that stands in their way. That includes the slug that damaged the plant in the first place. It's a very clever trick. Whenever a slug attacks a plant, the plant calls an army of ants to kill the slug.

    Nectar isn't the only way plants attract bodyguards. They also release certain chemicals into the air when they are being eaten. People usually can't detect these smells. But wasps (黄蜂) can. When a wasp detects this cry for help, it races to the scene of the crime. If it finds the right kind of insect chewing down on the plant, the wasp will interrupt the attacker's meal. It will do this by laying eggs inside the insect's body!

    Living on mountainous La Gomera, one of Spain's Canary Islands off West Africa, Juan Cabello takes pride in not using a mobile phone or the Internet to communicate. Like his father and grandfather, he uses Silbo Gomero, a language that is whistled (吹口哨), not spoken, and that can be heard more than two miles away.

    "I use it for everything: to talk to my wife, to tell my kids something, to find a friend if we get lost in a crowd," Cabello says. "I also make a living from Silbo, performing daily exhibitions at a restaurant."

    People throughout La Gomera are known to have used Silbo in the past as a way of communicating over long distances. A strong whistle saved farmers from walking over the hills to give messages or news to neighbors. Then came the phone. Nowadays, it's hard to know how many people still use Silbo. In 1999, it was introduced as a compulsory subject (必修学科) in La Gomera's primary schools, in an effort to prevent the language from going silent. Now 3,000 students are studying it, but only a few people are believed to be able to communicate fully in the whistling language.

    "Silbo is said to be the most important cultural heritage (遗产) we have," said Moises Plasencia, the director of the Canary Islands'government's historical heritage department.

    In fact, little is known about Silbo's origins. Silbo-like whistling has been found in parts of Greece, Turkey, China and Mexico, but none is as developed as Silbo Gomero. One study is looking for signs of Silbo in Venezuela, Cuba and Texas, all places to which Gomerans have gone in the past during hard economic times.

    "Silbo has many historical and linguistic (语言学上的) values," Plasencia said. And, as Cabello explains, "It's good for just about anything except for romance: everyone on the island would hear what you're saying!"

    Challenging work that requires lots of analytical thinking, planning and other managerial skills might help your brain stay sharp as you age, a study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology suggests.

    Researchers from the University of Leipzig in Germany gathered more than 1, 000 retired workers who were over age 75 and assessed the volunteers' memory and thinking skills through a battery of tests. Then, for eight years, the scientists asked the same group to come back to the lab every 18 months to take the same sorts of tests.

    Those who had held mentally stimulating(刺激), demanding jobs before retirement tended to do the best on the tests. And they tended to lose cognitive(认知) function at a much slower rate than those with the least mentally challenging jobs. The results held true even after the scientists accounted for the participants' overall health status.

    "This works just like physical exercise," says Francisca Then, who led the study. "After a long run, you may feel like you're in pain, you may feel tired. But it makes you fit. After a long day at work-sure, you will feel tired, but it can help your brain stay healthy. "

    It's not just corporate jobs, or even paid work that can help keep your brain fit, Then points out. A waiter's job, for example, that requires multitasking, teamwork and decision-making could be just as stimulating as any high-level office work. And "running a family household requires high-level planning and coordinating(协调), " she says. "You have to organize the activities of the children and take care of the bills and groceries."

    Of course, our brains can decline as we grow older for lots of reasons-including other environmental influences or genetic factors. Still, continuing to challenge yourself mentally and keeping your mind busy can only help.

    Pinocchio may be just a children's fairy tale, but Spanish scientists at the University of Granada recently investigated the so-called ''Pinocchio effect'' and found that our noses don't grow when we tell a lie, but actually shrink a bit.

    Dr. Emilio Gómez Milán and his team developed a lie detector test that used thermography to tell if people were lying, and found that whenever participants in their research were being untruthful, the temperature of the tips of their noses dropped up to 1.2℃, while the temperature of their forehead increased up to 1.5℃. Scientists also found that drop in temperature at nose level actually caused it to slightly shrink, although the difference is undetected by the human eye.

    ''One has to think in order to lie, which rises the temperature of the forehead, '' Dr. Gomez Milan explained the findings. ''At the same time we feel anxious, which lowers the temperature of the nose. ''

    For this study, researchers asked a number of 60 students to perform various tasks while being scanned by thermal imaging technology. One of these tasks involved calling a 3 to 4 minutes call to their parents, partner or a friend and telling a significant lie. Participants had to devise the lie by themselves during the call, and the thermal cameras picked up this ''reverse Pinocchio effect'' caused by the fluctuation (起伏) in temperature in the nose and forehead.

    Interestingly, the thermal lie doctor picked up the temperature difference in 80 percent of test subjects, which is a better rate of success than that of any modern lie doctor.

    ''With this method we have achieved to increase accuracy and reduce the occurrence of 'false positives', something that is frequently with other methods such as the polygraph (测谎仪),'' said Dr. Emilio Gómez Milán, who added that law enforcement interviewers could one day combine other lie detection technology with thermal imaging to achieve better results.

    The thermal lie doctor has been the most reliable in the world  10% more than the popular polygraph.

A letter to the editor complained about someone stringing toilet paper on their trees. That letter brought a flood of responses defending this act as being harmless to friends:" It's an honor to get toilet papered", said one writer," and good fun for teenagers."

Reading these letters brought me chuckles (轻声笑)and then tears as they woke old memories of my mother's ninety-second year. She was seriously ill that autumn. And I watched, powerless.

A decade before, I helped her break out" of the nursing home. It was a fine place with a caring staff. But Mom didn't want skilled care: she wanted to live on her own and just needed some assistance to do so. Being in a more restrictive environment than necessary was bad for her condition. The risk paid off, and I was rewarded by seeing my mother once again enjoying her life.

Ten years later, Mom's health declined, and my care-giving duties increased. One evening, for some unexplainable reason, I invited my mother to go toilet papering!

This outing would push my mother to her physical limits. Was I making a mistake? Secretly we went to my brother's home. In his backyard, I handed Mom a roll of toilet paper. Without hesitation she shot it skyward...

Mom papered a dozen trees in four family yards that unforgettable evening. The day after our big adventure, Mom and I sent a card to each of our victim, signed "From your decorators". We laughed all the way home from the post office, like two schoolgirls.

My mother's last year was marked by physical decline. However, we shared some simple fun each day. Those light-hearted moments were like a salve (慰藉)，and they are the ones I'll always remember. Toilet papering has taught us that play is powerful medicine!

They started the school year as strangers and they are ending the year as family. I started this school year like a regular school year and Damien like a regular student, Finn Lanning said. "One day, he showed up and just said he wasn't going to be back anymore. And when I questioned him about that, he told me that he was going back to live in the hospital for his illness."

Damien has a kidney disorder called FSGS, which requires treatment for 12 hours each day. He is in great need of a new kidney. According to Lanning, the 13-year-old wasn't suitable for a transplant because he is homeless. "When you're living in the hospital, you're not able to be on the transplant list because folks who don't have stable housing are considered high risk for them," Lanning said.

Damien ended up in the foster care system due to his medical needs. When a suitable home couldn't be found, he was forced to live in the hospital. During that time, he couldn't leave to attend school.

"As I learned more about his story and what he was facing and what his needs were, it just became really hard for me to look the other way;" Lanning said. Lanning decided to step in, and despite not having any children of his own, he offered to take Damien in.

"It's going good," said Damien. He has also been moved to the top of the waiting list for a new kidney. He is hoping he can have the transplant within the next two weeks. In addition to a second chance at life, he is also getting a second chance at having a family.

The e-commerce (电子商务) company that people talk about most these days is neither Amazon, the American giant, nor Alibaba, China's biggest. It is Pinduoduo (PDD), a Chinese firm that started in 2015 as an online food supplier, but whose success has driven its market value above $200 billion. Last year it was China's fastest-growing internet stock (股票), rising by 330%.

PDD attracts attention for two reasons. One is its business model. David Liu, vice-president of strategy, explains that it has ridden the rise of smartphone popularization rate in China to create an e-commerce experience in which people club together to buy products from computers to bananas. During the spread of Covid-19, this has expanded into a fast-growing business across thousands of towns and villages, in which PDD's users gather to order delivery of local farm produce at bargain prices. This is called "community group-buy" or "interactive commerce".

The second is the way PDD has broken the myth that the giants of online shopping are unbeatable. Until a few years ago, China's e-commerce market seemed a two-way contest between Alibaba and JD. com. It is not the case now. Experts expect PDD's share of online sales in China to be larger than that of JD in 2021 and the number of users to surpass (超过） Alibaba. And although PDD pays out huge funds to attract customers from poorer parts of China to its app, they think it may turn profitable this year.

Remarkably, PDD has done this less by replacing its bigger competitors than by employing parts of the market they have been unable to reach. Although online sales of groceries have rocketed during the pandemic, less than a tenth of the 8. 1 trillion yuan farm-produce market is bought and sold digitally. However competitive a market looks, there is opportunity for newcomers because e-commerce is at an early stage of development.

A ten-year-old boy from Howell, Michigan is being praised as a hero thanks to his persistence (坚持) that led to saving the life of an elderly neighbor. The event happened late in an evening when Danny DiPietro was being driven home from hockey practice by his mom.

That's when the young boy noticed an open garage (车库) and a figure that he believed was a dog outside an apartment building near his house. Given the freezing weather, the young boy got a feeling that something was not right. But instead of dismissing it like most kids at his age, he insisted that his mother, Dawn, find out what was going on. Dawn tried to make Danny believe that no one would leave a dog out in such cold weather, but he refused to take no for an answer.

Dawn finally gave in and decided to drive to the area with the family dog and see if there was any truth in Danny' s hunch (直觉). Sure enough, as she got closer to the apartment building she noticed a garage that was wide open and someone waving madly for help. Upon getting there, she realized that it was not a dog the young boy had seen, but Kathleen St. Onge. The 80-year-old woman had fallen down on some ice in front of her garage and had been lying there for two hours, unable to get up.

Dawn rushed home to get her husband to help and called 911. The two then returned with some blankets to cover Ms. St. Onge, while they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Though still in hospital, the elderly woman is recovering well and forever grateful to Danny for following his hunch!

We all know about the health benefits of swimming. It offers a great workout for the body—it builds endurance, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness. If you don't mind getting wet, it can be fun too. But who would enjoy swimming in water that is ice cold. Well, many people are taking the plunge, based on evidence that it can actually be good for us.

Cold-water swimming—sometimes called wild swimming—involves swimming in natural areas including ponds, rivers and the sea. Jumping in gives a short sharp shock to the body, but many participants say they get used to it. A cold dip might wake you up, but research has found it can have much bigger benefits than that for your body and mind. As well as being good exercise, spending time outdoors and by water improves wellbeing.

There is much evidence, mostly anecdotal, that suggests cold-water swimming has cured certain health conditions. One man who suffered constant pain after surgery claimed he was cured by taking a plunge in cold open water. And another swimmer, Sandria Simons, told the BBC "the immersion of your body in cold, salt water, just feeling like you're at one with nature if you like, just feels amazing."

But what is it that people are gaining from this chilly experience? Doctors say getting into cold water evokes a stress response, but the more you do it, your reaction to stress is reduced. It's also thought to have a strong anti-inflammatory effect. But there are bigger benefits to this stress-reducing exercise. Some experts believe cold-water swimming helps 'cross-adaptation', where one form of stress prepares the body for another. For example? it also helps reduce the stress of exercising at high altitude.

So, if you're convinced that this is for you, take advice: approach it with caution, swim with a friend, and maybe start in the summer, when the water temperatures are higher!

Many adults rely on caffeine to get them through the day. But that's the last thing kids need, according to the governments of England and South Korea.

England woke up to the news that the government is preparing to ban the sale of energy drinks like Red Bull to children.

The ban only applies to England, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can all follow suit if their administrations wish. In March, several major supermarket chains announced they would ban the sale of energy drinks to children under 16. Meanwhile, South Korea announced plans to ban the sale of coffee in schools by September 14.

The first reason for the ban is the high level of caffeine in the energy drinks, which has been linked to health problems for children, including head and stomach aches, as well as sleep problems.

A  can of Red Bull contains about  of caffeine, roughly the same as a similarly sized cup of coffee, but three times the level of Coca-Cola. Monster Energy, which is often sold in larger cans of , contains  of caffeine.

Energy drinks often also have higher levels of sugar than soft drinks. Sugared energy drinks have  more calories and  more sugar than normal soft drinks and sugar is one of the largest causes of obesity （肥胖症）.

British national official for education, Darren Northcott, described the drinks as "legal highs" that helped to fuel bad behavior in schools.

In addition to limiting kids' access to caffeine and energy drinks, the South Korean government has also banned TV commercials for fast food, sugary snacks and high-caffeine beverages during times when most children's programs air.

South Koreans drink an average of 181 cups of coffee a year, by far the most in Asia. That is more than the 151 consumed per person in the UK but less than the average of 266 cups in the US.

The writer Margaret Mitchell is best known for writing Gone with the Wind, first published in 1936. Her book and the movie based on it, tell a story of love and survival during the American Civil War. Visitors to the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, Georgia, can go where she lived when she started composing the story and learn more about her life.

Our first stop at the Margaret Mitchell House is an exhibit area telling about the writer's life. She was born in Atlanta in 1900. She started writing stories when she was a child. She started working as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal newspaper in 1922. One photograph of Ms. Mitchell, called "Peggy", shows her talking to a group of young college boys. She is only about one and a half meters tall. The young men tower over her, but she seems very happy and sure of herself. The tour guide explains: "Now in this picture Peggy is interviewing some boys from Georgia Tech, asking them such questions as ‘Would you really marry a woman who works?' And today it'd be ‘Would you marry one who doesn't?'"

The Margaret Mitchell House is a building that once contained several apartments. Now we enter the first floor apartment where Ms. Mitchell lived with her husband, John Marsh. They made fun of the small apartment by calling it "The Dump".

Around 1926, Margaret Mitchell had stopped working as a reporter and was at home healing after an injury. Her husband brought her books to read from the library. She read so many books that he bought her a typewriter and said it was time for her to write her own book. Our guide says Gone with the Wind became a huge success. Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for the book. In 1939 the film version was released. It won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

In many places, a moonless night sky is no longer totally black. Artificial lighting can give the night a lasting light. This so-called light pollution can affect animals. Even moderate light pollution, a new study finds, can roughly double how long a house sparrow infected with West Nile Virus (WNV) remains at high risk of spreading disease. If bitten by a mosquito, that virus can now spread to other animals, including people.

"In the United States, house sparrows are about as widespread as artificial lighting. So they made a useful test species in a new first-of-its-kind study," says Meredith Kernbach. Her team used these birds to test whether light at night might affect the spread of the West Nile Virus.

Kernbach based much of her lab test on real-world conditions. In the study, some house sparrows in the lab spent the night in an area that was dimly (昏暗地) lit. These birds were slower in fighting off West Nile Virus infections than those that spent the night in full darkness.

WNV needs a mosquito to spread from bird to bird, or from bird to human. If a mosquito doesn't pick up enough viruses from the blood of an infected animal, its new victim might be able to avoid getting sick. House sparrows kept under a dim night light typically had enough viruses in their blood to be a source of virus for at least four days, Kernbach reports. House sparrows in full darkness had enough viruses to spread the disease only for two days.

What light does to the birds is only part of the story, points out Davide Dominon, a physiologist at the Nether-lands Institute of Ecology in Wageningen. "Researchers will need to look for effects on the virus itself," he says. "And, of course, on the mosquitoes."

The closest thing to our heart is family. Most of your "firsts" happen with your family. Naturally, this leads to the establishment of a tradition. Family and its traditions greatly influence a child. Most families pass on family values as a tradition, so that parents help their children become better individuals through them.

For parents, the teenage years of their child are a test. The values you have taught your kids are put to use. The values you put in your child in the early years keep your child from walking the wrong path even when times get tough.

Many families hold the tradition of having dinner together. The flavor(滋味) of love and togetherness makes you forget about your bad day. Merely a simple meal with your loved ones can lighten your shoulders like no other thing. Small traditions like sharing a meal or cooking on Sundays help you stay connected to your family.

Having traditions makes you feel special in your own space. When you have things in common, you'll enjoy the company a little more, and no other company is better than family. Lastly, traditions may not necessarily be celebrated each year; they can be enjoyed in their own sweet way on the dining table, kitchen, or even at the door.

Daffnee Cohen told Healthy Cells Magazine in an article, "Tradition is one of the most beautiful beliefs we have created and experienced as living and loving humans."

In the current fast-paced life, family traditions bring in moments you wish to keep for a lifetime. They shape you, comfort you, give you a sense of belonging, create unforgettable memories, and make you better and stronger individuals. So, instead of doubting their presence, treasure each moment.