Is breakfast really so important? Have you ever heard someone say, "breakfast is the most important meal of the day", or give you advice about why it's vital to start the day with a healthy breakfast? It seems that this feast, for many of us, is necessary for our day to start well, but is it really that important? The word 'breakfast' comes from 'breaking the fast' – the idea of ending the period in which we didn't eat during the night. The regeneration process that takes place while we sleep consumes some of our natural food reserves to heal our bodies. Breakfast gives us an opportunity to replenish those depleted stores of things like protein and calcium. So, in that way, a healthy breakfast makes sense. There are also many often-quoted studies which seem to correlate a state of obesity with skipping breakfast. In fact, it leads many health experts to advise a healthy breakfast to not only regulate but also lose weight. In a US study, 50,000 people were monitored over seven years, and those who ate a healthy breakfast were found to have a lower BMI, which seems to suggest that breakfast may indeed help people maintain a healthy weight. But it might not be as simple as that. Some experts, like Alexandra Johnstone, professor of appetite research at the University of Aberdeen, suggest those who skip breakfast might be less aware of healthy diets and nutrition, and people who eat breakfast might have a healthier lifestyle overall – exercising and not smoking, for example. And with the rise in popularity of intermittent fasting to lose weight – there may also be some benefits to skipping breakfast. Intermittent fasting can improve blood sugar control, insulin sensitivity, and lower blood pressure. So, while breakfast has its benefits, it might not be the most important meal. It seems that a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet might be more important for many of us than just one single meal. 词汇表 vital ['vaɪt(ə)l] 至关重要的，必不可少的 feast [fiːst] 大餐，盛宴（精心准备且非常享受的一餐） break the fast 打破禁食（结束一夜未进食的时间） regeneration [rɪˌdʒenə'reɪʃ(ə)n] 再生；改造，重生 consume [kənˈsjuːm] 消耗；消费；吃 food reserves [rɪˈzɜː(r)v] 食物储备 replenish [rɪ'plenɪʃ] 补充，补足，重新装满 depleted [dɪˈpliːt] 耗尽的，枯竭的 protein [ˈprəʊtiːn] 蛋白质 calcium ['kælsiəm] 钙 often-quoted [kwəʊt] 经常被引用的 correlate ['kɒrəleɪt] 和…相关，使相互关联 obesity [əʊˈbiːsəti] 肥胖 skip breakfast [skɪp] 不吃早餐 regulate [ˈreɡjʊleɪt] 控制，调节 monitor [ˈmɒnitə] 监测；监视，密切关注 BMI 体重指数，身体质量指数(body mass index) appetite [ˈæpətaɪt] 食欲，胃口 intermittent fasting [ˌɪntə(r)ˈmɪt(ə)nt] 间歇性禁食，断食疗法 blood sugar control 血糖控制 insulin sensitivity [ˈɪnsjʊlɪn][ˌsensəˈtɪvəti] 胰岛素敏感性 blood pressure 血压 📖 翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Brain stimulation boosts memory Our brain works by firing off electrical impulses. The team at Boston University used this in order to boost memory. They asked volunteers to wear a cap filled with electrodes, then used precise electrical currents to alter their brainwaves in 20-minute sessions of brain stimulation. These took place every day for four days, and the group's ability to remember a list of words was tested. The results, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, showed improvements in memory lasted at least a month. The researchers were able to boost two types of memory. They improved the volunteers' long-term memory, which is how we can remember our first day at school, and also working memory, which is for the here and now, such as remembering what platform your train's on. The researchers are now investigating whether this technology can be used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, when brain cells have already started dying, as well as in schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. 词汇表 fire off 发射，发送 electrical impulses [ɪ'lektrɪk(ə)l][ˈɪmpʌls] 电脉冲（神经系统中传递信息的电信号） boost [buːst] 提高，改善 electrode [ɪˈlektrəʊd] 电极 precise electrical currents [prɪ'saɪs] ['kʌrənt] 精确的电流 brainwave [ˈbreɪnˌweɪv] 脑电波；灵感 brain stimulation [ˌstɪmjəˈleɪʃən] 脑电刺激 journal Nature Neuroscience [ˈdʒɜː(r)n(ə)l][ˈnjʊərəʊˌsaɪəns] 《自然-神经科学》期刊 the here and now 此时此刻，当前 brain cells [sel] 脑细胞 Alzheimer's disease [ˈæltshaɪməz] 阿尔茨海默病，老年痴呆 schizophrenia [ˌskɪtsəʊˈfriːniə] 精神分裂症 obsessive-compulsive disorder [əbˌsesɪv][kəmˈpʌlsɪv][dɪˌsɔːdər] 强迫症 🗒️翻译和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

Fake or real: What's the best tree to have at Christmas? Hello and happy Christmas! This is 6 Minute English with me, Neil. And joining me today is Sam. Hello. So, Sam, are you feeling excited about Christmas? --Of course! Time with friends and family, eating lots, partying, presents-and generally indulging-what's not to like? --Indulging-allowing yourself to have perhaps too much of something you enjoy. Well, it only happens once a year, Sam. But for those of us who do celebrate Christmas, it comes at a price. --Yes, well, buying all those presents can be expensive. Not just that, Sam. I mean it comes at a cost to the environment, as we'll explain shortly. But let's start off with a quiz question for you to answer. In 2010, a Christmas tree in Belgium was awarded the world record for having the most lights on it-but do you know how many? Were there a) 19,672, b) 94,672, or c) 194,672? What do you think, Sam? --Well, I don't think you could fit 194,673 lights on a Christmas tree, so I'll say a) 19,672. --OK. Well, we'll find out how 'bright' you are at the end of the programme! Of course, Christmas trees are the ultimate Christmas decoration. It's part of the Christmas tradition and millions are bought around the world each year. But what impact do Christmas trees-real and artificial-have on the environment? Well, before we answer that, let's hear from some of the BBC Learning English team who chose to have a real Christmas tree in their home and find out why. Well, you've got the smell of it. You've got the look of it. But more importantly, it's Christmas trees are supposed to be symbolic, aren't they? So the idea of something that stays green all year, so bringing that into your house it, it means something. --I just think a real Christmas tree is more festive and more Christmassy. And it's just the tradition to get a real Christmas tree, that's all. --There's something more beautiful about the nature, the smell, the feel, the look of the tree and I like it to be sustainable. So, as long as I get my tree from a person that promises to grow two or three in its place, then I'm really, really happy. Yes, I agree-you can't beat having a real Christmas tree. And as Phil said, it's symbolic-it represents something important-and here a Christmas tree is the symbol of Christmas. And as Jiaying mentioned, it's a tradition-something that's done regularly and has become the expected thing to do-and I do agree it makes things more festive-a word to describe the joyful feeling you get when celebrating something like Christmas. But of course all these trees are often thrown away, which is wasteful. That's why Roy mentioned his tree being sustainable-which means they can continue to be grown and cut down over a longer period so it's less harmful to the environment. Well, an alternative to a real Christmas tree is a fake or artificial one, which is what Feifei from our team has in her house. What are the reasons, why? We have a plastic Christmas tree, which we've had for about nine years. So it's plastic so you can re-use it every year and it's more economical, and we don't have to keep buying new trees. So Feifei's fake tree is made of plastic-so that's not great for recycling-but the good thing is she uses it year after year, which makes it economical-which means it doesn't cost a lot of money, it's good value. --Ah, but even Feifei admits it doesn't have the smell and feel of a real tree. It's a dilemma, isn't it, Neil? --Yes, what's best for us and what's best for the environment. The BBC's Reality Check programme found that real trees take about 12 years to grow and as they do, they absorb carbon from the atmosphere and nitrogen from the soil-so a good thing. But when it's chopped down it starts to release emissions back into the atmosphere-especially if you have to transport it to your home. And when Christmas is over, if it ends up in landfill, the tree's carbon footprint will be higher. But its carbon footprint will be lowered, if it's recycled or composted-that's the process of allowing it to decay and then adding it to the ground to improve soil quality. A fake tree on the other hand is usually imported, and can't usually be recycled but, as Feifei mentioned, it can be re-used. But without any type of Christmas tree, where would we put all those lights I mentioned earlier, Sam? I asked you: In 2010, a Christmas tree in Belgium was awarded the world record for having the most lights on it-but do you know how many? What did you say, Sam? --I think I said 19,672. --Ooo,dear, not very bright I'm afraid! There were in fact 194,672! Wow, think of the electricity that must have used! --Indeed. 📝字数限制，完整文本、翻译及pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

Why Criticism Can Hurt So Much? To be criticised is never pleasant. It is rarely a good day when we have to read an unflattering social media post about ourselves, when we are given harsh feedback on a project, or hear that we are being gossiped about by strangers. However, the question of how much criticism needs to hurt depends on something which has nothing to do with the specific attack we happen to face: how much we happen to like ourselves. The degree to which we buckle in the wake of negative comments reflects how we, deep down, feel about ourselves. When we carry within us a sufficient ballast of love, criticism need never be very much more than niggling. We can overcome it by dinner time – or at least the end of the week. We can take on board with relative good humour that we are not necessarily loved by everyone, that not everything we do is perfect, and that there may be one or two outright enemies, who would prefer us dead – even while most people tolerate us easily enough. There need be nothing surprising or terrifying in being doubted by a few others. But for the more vulnerable ones among us, there is no option but to experience criticism as an assault on our very right to exist. We don't hear that we are being mildly upbraided for an aspect of our work; we at once feel that we are being told to disappear. It isn't just one or two people who are mocking us; the whole world is apparently thinking only of how ridiculous we are. We will never get past this moment of negative assessment; the hatred will never end. It's a catastrophe. If criticism from outside proves devastating, it is because it so readily joins forces with an infinitely more strident and more aggressive form of criticism that has long existed inside of us. We are already struggling so hard to tolerate ourselves against inner voices that confidently assert how undeserving, ugly and devious we are, that there is no room left for us to take on further reminders of our awfulness. The key of present criticism has inserted itself into a lock of historic hatred – and let loose an unmasterable surge of self-loathing. When we are suffering, we should remember that we aren't exceptionally weak; we almost certainly had a far worse childhood than the average person. Once upon a time, we were probably humiliated and shamed without being soothed, held or reassured, and this is why we now take current criticism so much to heart. We don't know how to defend ourselves against our enemies because we have never been deeply appreciated. We already hate ourselves so much more than our worst enemies ever will. A part of us is responding to adult challenges with the vulnerability of a child who faced disdain on a scale they couldn't master. The present challenge feels like a catastrophe because catastrophe is precisely what was once endured. We may not easily be able to stop feeling unhappy about criticism, but at least we can change what we feel unhappy about. Our vulnerability need not be – as we initially and instinctively think – a sign that we are actively awful. It is evidence that we were, long ago, denied the sort of love that we would have needed in order to remain more steadily and generously on our own side at moments of difficulty. 词汇表 unflattering [ʌn'flæt(ə)rɪŋ] 贬损的，有损形象的，负面的 harsh [hɑː(r)ʃ] 严厉的，苛刻的，刺耳的 gossip [ˈɡɒsɪp] 闲聊，说闲话，传播流言蜚语 buckle ['bʌk(ə)l] 压垮；屈服；弯曲 in the wake of 在……之后；随着……发生 a sufficient ballast of love ['bæləst] 足够平稳的爱 ballast ['bæləst]（船的）压舱物；（气球的）镇重物 niggling [ˈnɪɡlɪŋ] 无关紧要的事，过于琐碎的工作 take on board 理解，接受，考虑 outright [aʊtˈraɪt] 完全的，彻底的；直率的 (have) no option but to 别无选择，只能 assault [əˈsɔːlt] 攻击，袭击，突击 mildly ['maɪldli] 轻微地，适度地，温和地 upbraid [ʌp'breɪd] 责备，训斥 mock [mɒk] 嘲笑，嘲弄，模仿 get past 度过困难时期（克服悲伤，走出困境） negative assessment [ə'sesmənt] 负面评价 hatred [ˈheɪtrɪd] 仇恨，憎恨，厌恶 catastrophe [kə'tæstrəfi] 灾难，灾祸，不幸事件 devastating [ˈdevəˌsteɪtɪŋ] 毁灭性的，极具破坏力的 readily ['redɪli] 容易地，迅速地；乐意地 join forces with 联合，联手，合作 infinitely [ˈɪnfɪnətli] 无限地；非常，极其 strident ['straɪd(ə)nt] 刺耳的，尖锐的，咄咄逼人的 aggressive [ə'ɡresɪv] 侵略的，攻击性的，咄咄逼人的 assert [əˈsɜː(r)t] 断言，声称，主张 undeserving [ˌʌndɪ'zɜ:vɪŋ] 不值得的，不配受到的 devious [ˈdiːviəs] 狡诈的，不正直的 insert into [ɪnˈsɜː(r)t] 插入，嵌入 let loose 释放，放任，放出 unmasterable [ʌnmɑːstərəbəl] 无法掌握的，难以驾驭的 surge [sɜː(r)dʒ]（强烈感情的）突发，爆发，翻涌 self-loathing [ˌselfˈləʊðɪŋ] 自我厌恶 exceptionally [ɪkˈsepʃ(ə)nəli] 格外地，特别地，异常地 humiliate / shame [hjuːˈmɪlieɪt][ʃeɪm] 使羞愧，使蒙辱，使丢脸 soothe [suːð] 安慰，安抚，使平静，缓和 reassure [ˌriːəˈʃʊə(r)] 安慰，使安心，使消除疑虑 take to heart 十分在意，耿耿于怀 vulnerability [ˌvʌlnərə'bɪlətɪ] 脆弱性；弱点 disdain [dɪs'deɪn] 蔑视，鄙视 endure [ɪnˈdjʊə(r)] 经受，忍受，持续存在 instinctively [ɪn'stɪŋktɪvlɪ] 本能地，凭直觉地 deny [dɪ'naɪ] 不允许，剥夺，拒绝给予 steadily ['stedɪlɪ] 坚定地，镇定地 🏫翻译、视频版和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进入【打卡交流群】

How to manage your emotions TED-Ed • Feb 2023 You and your friend need to ace Friday's exam to avoid summer classes, and after a week of studying, you both feel confident that you pulled it off. But when you get your grades back, they're much lower than the two of you expected. You're devastated. However, your friend doesn't seem too bothered, and it's making you wonder why you can't shake this off like they can. But should you really be trying to look on the bright side? And is controlling our emotions even possible in the first place? The answer to the last question is a definitive "yes." There are numerous strategies for regulating our emotions, and one framework to understand these techniques is called the Process Model. Psychologists use this tool to identify where and how to intervene in the process that forms our emotions. That process has four steps: first, we enter a situation, real or imagined, and that draws our attention. Then we evaluate, or appraise, the situation and whether it helps or hinders our goals. Finally, this appraisal leads to a set of changes in how we feel, think, and behave, known as an emotional response. Each step of this process offers an opportunity to consciously intervene and change our emotions, and the Process Model outlines what strategies we might try at each phase. To see this in action, let's imagine you've been invited to the same party as your least-favorite ex and their new partner. Your first strategy could be avoiding the situation altogether by skipping the party. But if you do attend, you could also try modifying the situation by choosing not to interact with your ex. If that's proving difficult, you might want to shift your attention, maybe by playing a game with your friends rather than focusing on your ex's new partner. Another option would be to re-evaluate how you think about the situation. After seriously reappraising things, you might realize that you don't care who your ex dates. If none of these strategies work, you can always try tempering your emotional response after the fact. But this can be tricky. Many of the easiest ways to do this, like hiding your emotions or trying to change them with recreational drugs, generally lead to more negative feelings and health concerns in the long term. More sustainable strategies here include going for a long walk, taking slow, deep breaths, or talking with someone in your support system. While using all these strategies well takes practice, learning to notice your emotions and reflect on where they're coming from is half the battle. And once you've truly internalized that you can regulate your emotions, doing so becomes much easier. But should you use these techniques to constantly maintain a good mood? That answer depends on how you define what makes a mood "good." It's tempting to think we should always try to avoid sadness and frustration, but no emotion is inherently good or bad— they're either helpful or unhelpful depending on the situation. For example, if a friend is telling you about the loss of a loved one, feeling and expressing sadness isn't just appropriate, it can help you empathize and support them. Conversely, while it's unhealthy to regularly ignore your emotions, forcing a smile to get through a one-time annoyance is perfectly reasonable. We hear a lot of mixed messages about emotions. Some pressure us to stay upbeat while others tell us to simply take our emotions as they come. But in reality, each person has to find their own balance. So if the question is: "should you always try to be happy?" The answer is no. Studies suggest that people fixated on happiness often experience secondary negative emotions, like guilt, or frustration over being upset, and disappointment that they don't feel happier. This doesn't mean you should let sadness or anger take over. But strategies like reappraisal can help you re-evaluate your thoughts about a situation, allowing you to accept that you feel sad and cultivate hope that things will get better. 🎬翻译、视频和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1" 可加入【打卡交流群】

Business Bartleby 商业板块 巴托比专栏 Faulty reasoning 错误的推理 Why pointing fingers is unhelpful 为什么说指责无益 And why bosses do it more than anyone 老板们又为什么比任何人都更爱责怪他人 Casting blame is natural: it is tempting to fault someone else for a snafu rather than taking responsibility yourself. But blame is also corrosive. Pointing fingers saps team cohesion. It makes it less likely that people will own up to mistakes, and thus less likely that organisations can learn from them. Research published in 2015 suggests that a Shaggy culture ("It wasn't me") shows up in share prices. Firms whose managers pointed to external factors to explain their failings underperformed companies that blamed themselves. Some industries have long recognised the drawbacks of fault-finding. The proud record of aviation in reducing accidents partly reflects no-blame processes for investigating crashes and close calls. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates accidents in America, is explicit that its role is not to assign blame or liability but to find out what went wrong and to issue recommendations to avoid a repeat. There are similar lessons from health care. When things go wrong in medical settings, the systems by which patients are compensated vary between countries. Some, like Britain, depend on a process of litigation in which fault must be found. Others, like Sweden, do not require blame to be allocated and compensate patients if the harm suffered is deemed "avoidable". A report published by a British parliamentary committee last year strongly recommended moving away from a system based on proving clinical negligence: "It is grossly expensive, adversarial and promotes individual blame instead of collective learning." The incentives to learn from errors are particularly strong in aviation and health care, where safety is paramount and lives are at risk. But they also exist when the stakes are lower. That is why software engineers and developers routinely conduct "blameless postmortems" to investigate, say, what went wrong if a website crashes or a server goes down. There is an obvious worry about embracing blamelessness. What if the wretched website keeps crashing and the same person is at fault? Sometimes, after all, blame is deserved. The idea of the "just culture", a framework developed in the 1990s by James Reason, a psychologist, addresses the concern that the incompetent and the malevolent will be let off the hook. The line that Britain's aviation regulator draws between honest errors and the other sort is a good starting-point. It promises a culture in which people "are not punished for actions, omissions or decisions taken by them that are commensurate with their experience and training". That narrows room for blame but does not remove it entirely. There are two bigger problems with trying to move away from the tendency to blame. The first is that it requires a lot of effort. Blame is cheap and fast: "It was Nigel" takes one second to say and has the ring of truth. Documenting mistakes and making sure processes change as a result require much more structure. Blameless postmortems have long been part of the culture at Google, for instance, which has templates, reviews and discussion groups for them. The second problem is the boss. People with power are particularly prone to point fingers. A recent paper by academics at the University of California, San Diego, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore found that people who are in positions of authority are more likely to assume that others have choices and to blame them for failures. In one experiment, for example, people were randomly assigned the roles of supervisor and worker, and shown a transcript of an audio recording that contained errors; they were also shown an apology from the transcriber, saying that an unstable internet connection had meant they could not complete the task properly. The person in the supervisor role was much more likely to agree that the transcriber was to blame for the errors and to want to withhold payment. Power and punitiveness went together. Blame also seems to be contagious. In a paper from 2009, researchers asked volunteers to read news articles about a political failure and then to write about a failure of their own. Participants who read that the politician blamed special interests for the screw-up were more likely to pin their own failures on others; those who read that the politician accepted responsibility were more likely to shoulder the blame for their shortfall. Bosses are the most visible people in a firm; when they point fingers, others will, too. If your company has a blame culture, the fault lies there. 🔆翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Why our brains love lists Productivity can be a struggle for many of us. Overflowing email inboxes, housework, social obligations – it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. However, one simple tool that can help us stay on top of everything is the to-do list. Write it down, do the tasks and cross them off – simple! There are three key reasons why lists are beneficial, according to psychologist and author David Cohen. Firstly, they help to drown out the chaos and anxiety that comes with having never-ending tasks. By writing everything down, we don't have to rely on our memory and can instead focus on the task at hand. Secondly, lists provide structure and guidance, giving us a plan to follow. As well as this, our brains are more likely to retain information that is presented in a structured and organised manner. And finally, lists serve as proof of what we have achieved, which can help boost our sense of accomplishment and motivation. Another possible reason our brains love lists is because of something called the 'Zeigarnik Effect'. This is the name psychologists use for when we remember things we need to do, our unfinished tasks, better than things we have already completed. Researchers from Wake Forest University tested the interference of the Zeigarnik effect on a group of people. The experiment began with a warm-up task, though it was stopped half-way through, and only some people were allowed to make plans to finish it. The researchers found that the group permitted to plan had reduced anxiety and performed better in the second task. The problem was, the others still had the warm-up task stuck in their active memory – an unticked list of tasks. So, once we tick something off our list, our brain forgets about it and we can relax. All in all, it seems lists are a valuable tool for staying on top of life! 词汇表 productivity [ˌprɒdʌkˈtɪvəti] 效率；生产力，生产率 overflowing [əʊvə'fləʊɪŋ] 爆满的，装满的，溢出的 inbox [ˈɪnˌbɒks]（电子邮件）收件箱 social obligation [ˌɒblɪˈɡeɪʃ(ə)n] 社会义务，社会责任 overwhelmed [ˌəʊvə(r)ˈwelmd] 难以承受的，不知所措的 stay on top of 掌握，时刻关注（最新进展） to-do list 待办事项清单 cross off （从清单上）划掉 drown out 盖过，压过，抵消 chaos [ˈkeɪɒs] 混乱，无秩序状态 never-ending 永无止境的，没完没了的 at hand 手头的，手边的 retain [rɪ'teɪn] 记住，保持，保存 structured [ˈstrʌktʃə(r)d] 有条理的，结构清晰的 organised ['ɔ:gənaɪzd] 有条不紊的，安排有序的 proof [pruːf] 证明，证据 Zeigarnik Effect [ˈzaɪɡɑːrnɪk] 蔡格尼克效应（指人们对未完成任务的记忆比已完成任务更为清晰） unfinished [ʌn'fɪnɪʃt] 未完成的 interference [ˌɪntə(r)ˈfɪərəns] 干扰，干预 half-way through 中途 active memory 短期记忆 unticked [ʌnˈtɪkt]（清单上）未勾掉的 tick off 在（清单上）勾掉 📖 翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Elastic thinking: 5 ways to be better at it | BBC Ideas The times are changing far faster than they ever were before and that requires a new kind of thinking - elastic thinking. Fortunately there are ways you can develop your elastic thinking. There's a ton of them. Here are five. 1. Pick an idea you don't believe in I call this 'the idea of the day'. Every day, pick an idea that you don't believe in, try to convince yourself that it's true. I don't mean just go through the motions. I mean sincerely try to imagine how somebody who believes differently than you, but someone who you respect, could accept this idea and try to convince yourself of it. 2. Dwell on your wrongs When we're wrong we often try to forget it. Well, this exercise is dwell on when you were wrong. Remember a time when you were wrong and the wronger you were and the more important it was the better and think about it hard, realise that you're not always right. One of the barriers to elastic thinking is our tendency to always think that we're correct and to keep moving in the same direction. This exercise will help free you of that. 3. Try new food Food - this is a fun one. Go to a restaurant that you pick at random or to a restaurant that you normally wouldn't go to and try something you normally wouldn't order. Don't order the most popular dish, ask for the least popular dish. Research shows that if you stretch yourself in a way as simple as that it helps increase your creativity and imagination. 4. Talk to strangers Your parents taught you "Don't talk to strangers". Well number four is do talk to strangers. In fact, talk to people as different from you as possible, people who believe what's different, just random people and try to understand how they think. And the more you're exposed to the way other people think the broader your own thinking will be. 5. Go see some art Go see some art. I don't mean a Rembrandt, I mean art that's different even if you don't like it. Go see a Damien Hirst exhibit because exposing yourself to art that's different from the kind of art you normally see will help you think differently. Research shows that if you do exercises such as these five things you'll broaden your thinking. You'll have an easier time adapting to change. You might even be the one to create the change yourself. 词汇表 elastic thinking [ɪ'læstɪk] 弹性思维 a ton of [tʌn] 许多，很多，大量的 go through the motions [ˈməʊʃ(ə)n] 走过场，装装样子，敷衍了事 dwell on [dwel] 细想，详述；沉湎于，纠结于 barrier [ˈbæriə(r)] 障碍，阻碍，屏障 at random ['rændəm] 随机地，任意地 stretch oneself [stretʃ] 挑战自己，尽最大的努力 be exposed to [ɪkˈspəʊzd] 接触到，暴露于 Rembrandt ['rembrænt] 伦勃朗（荷兰画家） Damien Hirst [ˈdæmiən hɜːst] 米恩·赫斯特（英国当代艺术家） exhibit [ɪɡ'zɪbɪt] 展览，展览品 broaden your thinking [ˈbrɔːd(ə)n] 拓宽思维 💡 翻译、视频版和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

World's largest coral found in the Pacific The coral was spotted by a videographer diving off a National Geographic research ship in the Solomon Islands. It is 32m long, larger than a blue whale. It may be up to 500 years old. It is made up of billions of tiny creatures forming one organism, making it different to a coral reef. It is mostly brown, with patches of bright yellows, blues and reds. At the UN climate talks, COP29, the Solomon Islands' climate minister said the nation's coral reefs are special and need more protection from global warming. 词汇表 the Pacific [pə'sɪfɪk] 太平洋 spot [spɒt] 发现；看见，认出 videographer [ˌvɪdiˈɒɡrəfər] 摄像师；电视录像制作人 dive off [daɪv] 从……跳水，潜水 National Geographic (Society) [ˌdʒiːəˈɡræfɪk] （美国）国家地理学会 Solomon Islands [ˈsɒləmən] 所罗门群岛（西南太平洋上的群岛国家） blue whale [weɪl] 蓝鲸 organism [ˈɔː(r)ɡəˌnɪz(ə)m] 有机体，生物体 coral reef [ˈkɒrəl][riːf] 珊瑚礁 patch [pætʃ] 斑块，斑纹，斑点 UN climate talks 联合国气候会谈 COP29 第29届联合国气候变化大会 climate minister [ˈmɪnɪstə(r)] 气候大臣，气候部长 ​ 🗒️翻译和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

Let's begin in the French overseas territory of Mayotte. Just a tiny collection of dots in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Mozambique. It's home to around 300,000 people who've just endured one of the worst storms on the archipelago in nearly 100 years. In our earlier podcast, we quoted French media reports from soon after the cyclone made landfall on Saturday stating that four people had been found dead. Now, as we record this podcast, authorities in Mayotte are warning that the death toll from Cyclone Chido will be in the hundreds, if not the thousands. The storm spared no one and nothing. Homes, boats and schools were all destroyed, even the capital's hospital. These people in the main city of Mamudzu were queuing for food and water: We've come to get something to eat. For the kids, for us adults, for everything. We've got nothing left. The wind's taken it all away. We had stocked up, but the wind took it all away. We've had no water for three days now. We're trying to get the bare minimum to live on because we don't know when the water will come back. Chido then moved on to hit northern Mozambique with videos on social media showing flooding and uprooted trees near the port city of Pemba. The UNICEF spokesperson in Mozambique, Guy Taylor, is there: UNICEF is concerned about the immediate impacts of this cyclone, the loss of life, the damage to schools, to people's homes, to healthcare facilities. We're also worried about the longer term impacts. Children potentially being cut off from learning for weeks on end, people unable to get access to healthcare, and the potential spread of waterborne diseases like cholera and malaria. Getting hold of anyone on Mayotte is proving almost impossible. Phone lines and the Internet are down. The BBC's Richard Kagoi, who's in Nairobi, has been piecing together what's happened. What we're hearing right now is that emergency responders are currently trying to reach most places, trying to clear, so then they can be able to access much of the debris which has covered warehouses that majority of the people in the island once lived. What is the latest on the relief operation? So far we have French soldiers who had been deployed just before the cyclone struck. And today the first aircraft are carrying aid, specifically medical supplies, blood for transfusions and medical staff. Touchdown in the airport, which was significantly damaged. We're expecting two more aircrafts to come as well. And when the French interior minister will be traveling to the island, he'll be coming along with other soldiers, plus firefighters who are now going to assist with rescue and clearing operations. And presumably we're going to have big problems going forward with just basic things like food and medicine. Yeah, it is a very poor island. In fact, actually, it's the poorest of all the French territories. What's happened right now is because of the devastation, the destruction that has been caused, you'd have lots of people who have been displaced. About 300,000 people lived in this island, so preliminary estimates put it at about 100,000 of them don't even have a shelter. So first of all, access to clean drinking water, which was a huge challenge even before the cyclone, having access to food, to medicine, this is really going to be a major challenge going forward. 🌟更多文本内容见公众号【琐简英语】

Why do we choose to text instead of talk? Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil. And I'm Georgina. Can I ask you something, Georgina? --Mm-mm-hmm. Georgina? --I said, I want to ask you something...are you listening to me? ! --Mm-hmm, just a second, Neil, I'm texting a friend. Ah, has this ever happened to you? Someone too busy texting to talk. With the huge rise of mobile phones in recent decades, communicating by text has become more and more popular and scenes like this have become increasingly common. --...and send! There, all done! Now, what were you saying, Neil? In this programme, we'll be investigating why people often choose to text, instead of talk to the people in their lives. We'll be asking whether this popular form of communication is changing how we interact with each other. --And, of course, we'll be learning some related vocabulary as well. Now, Neil, what did you want to ask me? My quiz question, Georgina, which is this. Young people are often the biggest users of mobile phones, but in a 2016 study, what percentage of British teenagers said they would prefer to send a text rather than speak to someone, even if they were in the same room? Is it a) 9 percent, b) 49 percent, or, c) 99 percent? --That sounds pretty shocking! I can't believe 99 percent of teenagers said that, so I'll guess b) 49 percent. --OK, Georgina. We'll find out later if that's right. In one way, the popularity of texting, sometimes called 'talking with thumbs', is understandable-people like to be in control of what they say. But this low-risk way of hiding behind a screen may come at a cost, as neuroscientist, Professor Sophie Scott, explained to Sandra Kanthal, for BBC World Service programme, The Why Factor. When we 'talk with our thumbs' by text or email or instant message, we're often prioritising speed over clarity and depth. But when we can't hear the way someone is speaking, it's all too easy to misunderstand their intention. So if I say a phrase like, 'Oh, shut up!' -has a different meaning than, 'Oh, shut up!' There's an emotional thing there but also a strong kind of intonation: one's sort of funny, one's just aggressive. Written down it's just aggressive- 'Shut up!' -and you can't soften that. And we always speak with melody and intonation to our voice and we'll change our meaning depending on that. You take that channel of information out of communication you lose another way that sense is being conveyed. When reading a text instead of listening to someone speak, we miss out on the speaker's intonation-that's the way the voice rises and falls when speaking. Intonation, how a word is said, often changes the meaning of words and phrases-small groups of words people use to say something particular. Reading a phrase like, 'Oh, shut up!' in a text, instead of hearing it spoken aloud, makes it easy to misunderstand the speaker's intention-their aim, or plan of what they want to do. And it's not just the speaker's intention that we miss. A whole range of extra information is conveyed through speech, from the speaker's age and gender to the region they're from. Poet, Gary Turk, believes that we lose something uniquely human when we stop talking. And there are practical problems involved with texting too, as he explains to BBC World Service's, The Why Factor. If you speak to someone in person and they don't respond right away, that would be rude. But you might be speaking to someone in person and someone texts you...and it would be ruder for you then to stop that conversation and speak to the person over text...yet the person on the other side of the text is getting annoyed -you haven't responded right way-it's like we're constantly now creating these situations using our phones that allow us to like tread on mines-no matter what you do, we're going to disappoint people because we're trying to communicate in so many different ways. Do you prioritise the person on the phone? Would you prioritise the person you're speaking to? Who do you disappoint first? You're gonna disappoint somebody. So what should you do if a friend texts you when you're already speaking to someone else in person-physically present, face to face? You can't communicate with both people at the same time, so whatever you do, someone will get annoyed-become angry and upset. Gary thinks that despite its convenience, texting creates situations where we have to tread on mines, another way of saying that something is a minefield, meaning a situation full of hidden problems and dangers, where people need to take care. Yes, it's easy to get annoyed when someone ignores you to text their friend. 📝 字数限制，完整文本、翻译及pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

How You Could Ruin Someone's Day or Life A lot of evil is done in the world by people who can't imagine that they have any power to hurt anyone. It's their sense that nothing is at stake in their behaviour towards others that leads them to ignore the rules of politeness and humanity – and to kick people as if they were plated in armour. They are – in this respect – paying homage to childhood. Think of the situation of a young child, of perhaps six, who has fun mocking a parent's double chin or the wrinkles around their eyes. To this child, the parent is still, in many ways, an invulnerable deity. They live in a remote, impressive world of work, credit cards, driving and the news. How could someone of such stature be hurt by a comment about their less-than-perfect physique by a tiny person who can't spell properly? But the child is missing the point. Their words do hurt. They can make their parents cry (in private). The child simply can't grasp how desperate and anxious their parent might be, how every morning they might stare in dismay into the bathroom mirror at the visible signs of ageing that speak to them relentlessly of a wrongly-lived life. The parent, out of dignified generosity, has shielded their child from their own fragility. And now their child is paying them a beautiful if misguided, compliment: a belief that they are beyond suffering. Something related may happen when employees get together to gossip about the person they work for. In their imagination, the boss is so far above them that it couldn't possibly matter what they say about them. It's only when they themselves move to senior positions that they start to realise how vulnerable the person in charge might feel, how completely normal it is to want to be liked (even if you have a seat on the board) and how imperfect your self-esteem might be. This idea casts a useful light on the activity of particularly dangerous people online. Their venom isn't the expression of a feeling of power. Rather, the troll tends to feel like a medieval vagabond outside a heavily fortified city, hurling insults and threats at what they take to be comfortable inhabitants sleeping behind meters of stone walls lined by vigilant troops. They want to hurt, but they don't in any way actually imagine they can; that is what renders them quite so vicious. True kindness may require us to take on board a very unfamiliar idea: however young we are, however forgotten and ignored we feel we are, we have a power to cause other people serious damage. It isn't because we aren't wealthy or revered in elite circles that we thereby lose a capacity either to comfort or to wound strangers. We become properly moral, and properly adult, when we understand that we may all, whoever we may be, ruin someone's day, and on occasion, through a few incautious and misplaced words, their life. 词汇表 at stake [steɪk] 利害攸关，处于危险或风险之中 be plated in armour [pleɪt][ˈɑː(r)mə(r)] 身披盔甲 in this respect 在这一点上，从这个方面来说 pay homage to [ˈhɒmɪdʒ] 对…表敬意，致敬 mock [mɒk] 嘲笑，嘲弄，模仿 double chin [tʃɪn] 双下巴 wrinkle ['rɪŋkl] 皱纹，褶皱 invulnerable [ɪn'vʌlnərəb(ə)l] 无懈可击的，不会受伤害的，刀枪不入的 deity [ˈdeɪəti] 神，神性 stature [ˈstætʃə(r)] 身高，高度；声望，名望 less-than-perfect 不完美，不尽人意的 physique [fɪˈziːk] 体格，体形 grasp [ɡrɑːsp] 理解，领会，明白；抓住 in dismay [dɪs'meɪ] 沮丧地，惊愕地 relentlessly [rɪˈlentləsli] 无情地，残酷地；不断地 dignified [ˈdɪɡnɪfaɪd] 高贵的，有尊严的 generosity [ˌdʒenəˈrɒsəti] 慷慨，宽宏大量，大方 fragility [frə'dʒɪləti] 脆弱，虚弱，易碎 misguided [mɪsˈɡaɪdɪd] 误导的，搞错的，误入歧途的 gossip [ˈɡɒsɪp] 闲聊，说闲话，传播流言蜚语 senior position [ˈsiːniə(r)] 高级职位 vulnerable ['vʌln(ə)rəb(ə)l] 脆弱的，敏感的，易受伤的 in charge [tʃɑː(r)dʒ] 负责，主管，管理 board [bɔː(r)d] 董事会，理事会，委员会 self-esteem [selfɪˈstiːm] 自尊；自负，自大 cast a light on 阐明，揭示（使更加清晰或易于理解） venom ['venəm] 恶毒，恶意；毒液 troll [trɒl] 网络喷子（故意留下激怒他人言论的人） medieval vagabond [ˌmediˈiːv(ə)l][ˈvæɡəbɒnd] 中世纪流浪者 heavily fortified [ˈfɔː(r)tɪfaɪ] 重兵把守的，戒备森严的 hurl insults and threats [hɜː(r)l][ɪn'sʌlt] 大声辱骂和恐吓 inhabitant [ɪnˈhæbɪtənt] 居民，栖息动物 vigilant troops ['vɪdʒɪlənt] 警惕的部队 render [ˈrendə(r)] 致使，造成，使变得 vicious ['vɪʃəs] 邪恶的，恶毒的 take on board 理解，接受，考虑 revere [rɪˈvɪə(r)] 尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 elite circle [ɪˈliːt] 精英圈 incautious [ɪnˈkɔːʃəs] 不谨慎的，轻率的，鲁莽的 misplaced [ˌmɪsˈpleɪst] 不合时宜的，不恰当的 🏫翻译、视频版和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进入【打卡交流群】