What staying up all night does to your brain Anna Rothschild | TED-Ed • Nov 2024 You're just one Roman Empire history final away from a relaxing spring break. But you still have so much to study! So you decide to follow in the footsteps of many students before you and pull an all-nighter. When you stay up all night, you're fighting against your body's natural circadian rhythms. These are the cyclical changes that virtually all living things experience over the course of a 24-hour period— such as sleeping and waking— and they're heavily influenced by light. But for the moment, you're alert and powering through the rule of Julius Caesar. As the sun sets, your eyes send signals about the dwindling light to a part of your brain called suprachiasmatic nucleus. This is basically your circadian rhythm's clock. It alerts your pineal gland to start producing melatonin. That's the hormone that helps prepare your body for sleep, and levels start to rise about two hours before your normal bedtime. At the same time, neurons in the hypothalamus and brain stem release a compound called GABA. This slows down activity in your brain and can have a calming effect. You're approaching your normal bedtime. Since the brain needs to cool down before sleep, your core body temperature starts to drop. Huh, that map kind of looks like a face. Uh-oh, your attention has started to drift. Throughout the day, your brain has been releasing a waste product called adenosine. The more adenosine latching onto receptors in your brain, the more tired and inattentive you become. Time for a cup of coffee. Caffeine blocks adenosine from binding to receptors, which can give you a boost of energy. However, it might also make you jittery and increase your anxiety. You're acing these flashcards! Right now these dates and names are being stored in an area of the brain called the hippocampus. Normally when you go to sleep, memories like these are consolidated and slotted into long-term storage in your brain's neocortex. So it's a good thing you only need to remember this information through tomorrow. Microsleeps are unpredictable periods of sleep that last for only a few seconds and are triggered by sleep deprivation. You stretch in an attempt to stay awake. But at this point your motor skills have also taken a hit. Studies have found that people who have been awake for 19 hours have similar coordination and reaction times as those who have been drinking. As the sun rises, your pineal gland stops releasing melatonin. You feel a "second wind" come on. And despite everything, you leave for school in a really good mood. Sleep deprivation can briefly induce euphoria. It's caused a temporary boost in dopamine levels, which can unfortunately also lead to poor choices. The final starts off well. It's all multiple choice! But then you get to the essay portion. It's thought that during sleep, our brains process ideas and draw connections between new memories and old ones. So your sleepless brain might be able to regurgitate facts, but you're finding it more difficult to find patterns or problem solve. You stare at the blank page, defeated. You head up to your room, anxious and irritable. Your amygdala, the part of the brain involved with processing emotion, is going haywire. Your prefrontal cortex usually keeps your amygdala in check, but it still isn't firing on all cylinders. Your bed has never felt so sweet. After one sleepless night, your body and brain bounce back pretty quickly. Which is a good thing since we can't always control how much sleep we get. But going for long periods without a good night's sleep or constantly changing your bedtime, can take its toll. Regularly getting less than seven hours of sleep each night is linked to all sorts of health issues, from diabetes to stroke to chronic pain. It also leaves you more vulnerable to developing mental health issues like depression. Your sleep schedule can even affect your grades. Studies have shown that college students who keep regular sleep hours have, on average, a higher GPA than students who don't. So the next time you're thinking of pulling an all-nighter, remember that Rome wasn't built in a day, or for that matter, one night. 🎬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】

Science and Technology 科技 Neuroscience 神经科学 Nothing better than the real thing 没有什么比真的更好了 Why recorded music will never feel as good as being at a concert 为什么听录制音乐的感受永远比不上听现场 In a world of music streaming services, access to almost any song is just a few clicks away. Yet, the live gig lives on. People still fill sweaty basements, muddy fields and gilded concert halls to hear their favourite musicians play. And now neuroscientists might know why: live music engages the brain's emotion centres more than its recorded counterpart. Concerts are immersive social experiences in which people listen to and feel the music together through crescendos, key changes and drops. They are also dynamic--artists can adapt their playing according to the crowd's reaction. It was this last difference that led neuroscientists, based at the Universities of Zurich and Oslo, to study the brain responses of people listening to music. In the“live" experiment, participants lay in an MRI scanner listening to the music through earphones, while a pianist was positioned outside the room. The pianist was shown the participant's real-time brain activity as a form of feedback. In the recorded condition, participants listened to pre-recorded versions of the same tunes. The scientists were interested in how live music affected the areas of the brain that process emotions. In the live condition pianists were instructed to try and modulate their playing in order to drive the activity in one of these regions known as the amygdala, an almond-shaped area deep inside the brain. The results, just published in the journalPNAS, showed that live music had far more emotional impact. Whether the music was happy or sad, listening to the pianist playing in a dynamic way generated more activity in both the amygdala and other parts of the brain's emotion processing network. The researchers also found that participants' brain activity tracked the acoustic features of the music, like tempo and pitch, far more closely when it was played live. The study was far from replicating the real experience of a gig, and the authors noted that the live music ended up sounding quite different from the recorded tracks, which may have driven some of the differences in participant's brain activity. But the results indicate that the ability of artists to change the way they play in response to the audience may be one aspect of what makes live music special. Some musical acts now attempt to recreate the real gig experience with everything but the artist-ABBA Voyage is a social, immersive show performed entirely by pre-recorded hologram avatars. But without Benny's ability to read the mood of the room, it will never quite match the real thing. 词汇表 recorded music 录制音乐 streaming services [ˈstriːmɪŋ] 流媒体业务 live gig [ɡɪɡ] 现场演出 sweaty basements ['sweti]['beɪsmənt] 闷热的地下室 muddy fields ['mʌdɪ] 泥泞的户外 gilded concert halls [ˈɡɪldɪd] 金碧辉煌的音乐厅 neuroscientists [ˌnjʊərəʊˈsaɪəntɪst] 神经科学家 counterpart [ˈkaʊntə(r)ˌpɑː(r)t] 对应的人（或事物） immersive [ɪ'mɜ:sɪv] 沉浸式的，身临其境的 crescendo [krəˈʃendəʊ]（音乐的）渐强，声音渐增 key changes 音调变化 drop （音乐）高潮部分 dynamic [daɪ'næmɪk] 动态的，不断变化的 MRI scanner [ˈskænə(r)] 核磁共振扫描仪(magnetic resonance imaging) position 安置，使处于 real-time 实时的，及时处理的 tune [tjuːn] 曲子，曲调 modulate [ˈmɒdjʊleɪt] 调节，调整（声音等），变调 amygdala [ə'mɪɡdələ] 杏仁核 almond-shaped [ˈɑːmənd] 杏仁状的 PNAS 美国国家科学院院刊(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) acoustic [əˈkuːstɪk] 听觉的，声学的，音响的 tempo [ˈtempəʊ] （音乐的）节奏，拍子 pitch [pɪtʃ] 音准，音高 replicate [ˈreplɪkeɪt] 复制，复现，重复 track（光盘、录音磁带等上的）一首歌，一支乐曲 hologram [ˈhɒləɡræm] 全息图，全息摄影 avatar [ˈævəˌtɑː(r)] 虚拟化身，替身 🔆翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Are middle-aged people more unhealthy than ever? The findings come from nearly 8,000 adults taking part in the 1970 British cohort study that spans more than 50 years of life. Around one-in-three of this group of people aged 46 to 48 had two or more chronic health conditions – that includes issues such as recurrent back problems, mental ill health, and high blood pressure as well as risky drinking. Although obesity was not recorded as a health condition, it was measured as a possible risk factor and did appear to be linked to diabetes and high blood pressure. Experts advise that even in later life, adopting healthy choices, such as eating a good diet, limiting alcohol intake, quitting smoking and getting regular exercise, can make a difference. 词汇表 cohort [ˈkəʊˌhɔː(r)t] 定群的（将特定人群分组追踪观察的） chronic [ˈkrɒnɪk] 慢性的，长期的 recurrent [rɪ'kʌrənt] 反复出现的，周期性的 risky drinking 危险饮酒（指饮酒过量或酗酒的行为） obesity [əʊˈbiːsəti] 肥胖，肥胖症 diabetes [ˌdaɪəˈbiːtiːz] 糖尿病 alcohol intake [ˈælkəˌhɒl][ˈɪnteɪk] 酒精摄入量，饮酒量 quit [kwɪt] 戒掉，停止，摆脱 🗒️翻译和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

Easy ways to get more nutrients A can of soft drink and two large eggs may have a similar number of calories, but the eggs will provide us with protein, vitamins and other nutrients, and satisfy our hunger, while a fizzy drink provides little more than tooth decay and calories. The important concept here is nutrient density. This is the number of nutrients we take in for each calorie consumed. No one would suggest replacing sweet drinks with eggs, but what can we do to increase nutrient density in our diet? "Have you had your five a day?" that's the message on British supermarket shelves, and it's asking about fruit and vegetables. Many countries have launched similar campaigns to encourage people to eat more healthily. Fresh, natural produce is usually very dense in nutrients. Eating a wide range of fruits and vegetables is important, so some advice focuses on including different colours of food in our diets. 'Eating a rainbow' could be one way to get more nutrients. Other advice recommends that we are more adventurous in what we eat. Cooking food that we haven't eaten before can lead us to use ingredients that we don't usually consume. This can give us a wider range of nutrients. It's not just about fruit and vegetables. Even using different seasoning can offer health benefits. Nutrition academic Hazel Flight highlights that flavourings such as garlic, ginger or turmeric can have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, while also leading people to use less salt. Dairy products such as milk and cheese, are high in calcium, while in limited amounts, meat can be a good source of protein. If you're not feeling that adventurous, then swapping individual food items can be beneficial. Choosing wholegrain bread or rice instead of white bread or rice can increase fibre intake. Unsalted nuts provide more nutrients than snacks such as crisps. Possibly surprisingly, popcorn is a wholegrain snack that is high in fibre. So, fresh fruit and vegetables, swapping the worst things, and just a little bit more adventure could be the secret to a more nutritious diet. 词汇表 soft drink 软饮料（不含酒精） calorie [ˈkælərɪ] 卡路里（热量单位） protein [ˈprəʊtiːn] 蛋白质 vitamin [ˈvɪtəmɪn] 维生素 nutrient [ˈnjuːtriənt] 营养素，营养物，养分 fizzy drink ['fɪzi] 汽水，碳酸饮料 tooth decay [dɪ'keɪ] 蛀牙 nutrient density ['densəti] 营养密度 take in 摄入，吸收 consume 吃，食用，摄入 launch campaigns [lɔːntʃ] [kæm'peɪn] 发起运动 produce 农产品 dense in 富含 a wide range of 许多，各种各样的，广泛的 adventurous [ədˈventʃ(ə)rəs] 勇于冒险的，大胆的 ingredient [ɪnˈɡriːdiənt] 食材，配料，原料 seasoning [ˈsiːz(ə)nɪŋ] 调味品，佐料 flavouring ['fleɪvərɪŋ] 调味品，调味料 garlic [ˈɡɑː(r)lɪk] 大蒜，蒜头 ginger [ˈdʒɪndʒə(r)] 姜，生姜 turmeric [ˈtɜː(r)mərɪk] 姜黄 antioxidant [ˌæntiˈɒksɪd(ə)nt] 抗氧化的；抗氧化剂 anti-inflammatory [ˌæntiɪnˈflæmətəri] 抗炎的，消炎的；抗炎药 property [ˈprɒpə(r)ti] 属性，特性，性能 dairy products [ˈdeəri] 乳制品，奶制品 calcium ['kælsiəm] 钙 swap [swɒp] 交换，替换 wholegrain [ˈhəʊlˌɡreɪn] 全麦的，全谷物的 fibre intake [ˈfaɪbə(r)] [ˈɪnteɪk]（膳食）纤维摄入量 unsalted nuts [ʌnˈsɔːltɪd] 无盐坚果 snack [snæk] 零食，小吃，点心 crisp [krɪsp] 炸薯片，松脆食品 popcorn [ˈpɒpˌkɔː(r)n] 爆米花 📖 翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

Why read books, not screens? Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Phil. And I'm Georgie. For me, there's nothing like reading a book – I love turning the pages and the smell of the paper. But nowadays, the fact is that much of the time we read from electronic screens, not paper. --Yes. Like Georgie, I love books. I also find that too much screen time hurts my eyes. But the availability of digital information means that I end up reading from screens most days. So, apart from sore eyes, is this a problem? Is reading from screens harmless, or could it be damaging us in some way, such as reducing our attention span - the length of time that someone can keep concentrated on what they are doing? That's what we'll be discussing in this programme, and of course, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary too. Great, but first it's time for my question. Whether you prefer paper or screens, as humans we're now reading more words than ever before. So how many words does the average person read a day? Is it: a) 50,000 words? b) 100,000 words? or, c) 200,000 words? --I'll guess it's 50,000 words a day. --OK, Georgie, we'll find out the correct answer later in the programme. Of course, there's little doubt that any kind of reading is good for you. Here's Cressida Cowell, author of the How to Train Your Dragon children's books, speaking with BBC Ideas: Reading brings three magical powers - creativity, intelligence, and empathy. Reading for the joy of it is one of the two key factors in a kid's later economic success. You're more likely to not be in prison, to vote, to own your own home. All of these advantages and benefits happen as a result of literacy. Cressida talks about the importance of reading for the joy of it. When you do an activity for the joy of it, you do it simply for the pleasure of doing it, rather than as a way to gain something else. Cressida lists the many benefits of reading for children, including economic success in later life. But many of these benefits depend on a state known as 'deep reading' – analysing a text to understand its deeper meaning. And in test after test, researchers have shown that 'deep reading' skills develop better when kids read from books. Professor Maryanne Wolf is a teacher, and advocate for children's literacy around the world. Here, she explains more about 'deep reading' to BBC Ideas: When we read at a surface level, we're just getting the information. When we read deeply, we use much more of our cerebral cortex. Deep reading means that we make analogies, we make inferences, which allows us to be truly critical, analytic, empathic, human beings. The reality is, it's not what, or how much we read but how we read, that's really important. The very volume is having negative effects because to absorb that much, there's a propensity towards skimming. Professor Wolf's research shows that reading from screens encourages reading at the surface level – quickly and superficially looking at what can be easily understood. Reading books, on the other hand, activates different areas of the brain, allowing a reader to develop positive traits like empathy, and to understand the deeper level of a book, including analogies and inferences. An analogy is a comparison between things that have similar features. For example, you might talk about the human heart using the analogy of a pump. An inference is a guess, opinion, or conclusion that you make based on the information you already have. For example, seeing smoke in the distance you would make an inference that there's fire. It's these types of deeper, more subtle understanding that we get from reading books. So, why is it that reading from screens doesn't develop these skills in the same way? Well, the answer has to do with the volume, the sheer number of words, pings and notifications that screens bombard us with every day. Instead of deep reading, this encourages skimming - reading rapidly in order to get a general overview of something. I think it's time to reveal the answer to my question, Georgie. I asked you how many words does the average modern person read a day. --And I guessed it was 50,000 words. --Well, you were half right. In fact, the correct answer was double that – 100,000 words. 📝 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】

Lie to Ourselves: A Mask to Avoid Pain A major obstacle to self-knowledge, and in turn to a flourishing life is the tendency of one part of our minds to lie to the other. We lie for what might initially seem like a very understandable reason, because we want to avoid pain. But in so doing, we hugely damage our chances of happiness. Given how risky the truth about us can feel, we had to learn to be masters of deception. Our techniques are wide-ranging, devilish, and often hugely imaginative. Here are some of the leading maneuvers we employ to pull the wool over our own eyes. 1. Distraction/Addiction 分心/上瘾 We identify something that can powerfully keep our thoughts away from troubling inner confrontations. Online pornography's a favorite. The news another. Alcohol, a third. Work, a fourth. We don't so much like these elements in and of themselves. We like them for their ability to keep us away from what we fear. 2. Manic Cheeriness 狂躁的快乐 A sadness we haven't been able to admit to, is often covered up with exaggerated doses of manic cheeriness. We aren't happy, so much as incapable of allowing ourselves to feel even the slightest sadness, in case we were to be overwhelmed by our buried grief. We develop a brittle insistent tendency to say that, "All is very well", "This is lovely, isn't it?" We might press leaving no room for any ideas to the contrary. 3. Irritability 易怒 Denied anger with a particular personal situation often seeps out into a generalized irritability. So successful is the lie, we don't really know what's up. We just keep losing our tempers. Someone moved the TV remote. There are two eggs in the fridge. The electricity bill is slightly higher than we expected. Anything can set us off. Our brains are so filled with how frustrating, annoying things are. We have cleverly left no space at all for focusing on the true and very sad issue. 4. Denigration 贬低 We tell ourselves that we simply don't care about something. Love or politics, career success or intellectual life. That beautiful student or the house we can't afford. And we are very emphatic about our lack of interest and complete disdain. We go to great lengths to make it very clear to others and ourselves how absolutely unconcerned we are. 5. Censoriousness 挑剔 We grow censorious and deeply disapproving of certain kinds of behavior and people. What we don't admit is that was so full of condemnation, only because we need to ward off awareness that a part of us in fact really likes the condemned element. We attack certain sexual tastes as utterly deviant and beyond the pale, precisely because we half know that we share them, somewhere inside ourselves. So we're delighted when particular people are arrested or shamed in the press. What they did was utterly awful, we insist, our outrage shielding us from any risk of spotting the connection between them and us. 6. Defensiveness 防御 When there's unwelcomed news, we may resort to a highly successful diversionary tactic, taking offense. A colleague tries to give us a bit of feedback. Instantly, we accuse them of rudeness, arrogance in a sense of entitlement. A partner points something out. We get furious that they're piling pressure on us at a difficult point. Feeling offended takes up all our attention. It muddies the waters. We no longer have to pay attention to information that is at heart correct but challenging. 7. Cynicism, Despair 愤世嫉俗，绝望 We're sad about particular things. But confronting them would be so arduous, we generalize and universalize the sadness. We don't say that X or Y has made us sad. We say that everything is rather terrible and everyone is rather awful. We spread the pain, in order that its particular specific causes can no longer be the focus of attention. Our sadness gets, to put it metaphorically, lost in the crowd. Why is lying to ourselves a problem? We need to tell ourselves the truth when we can, for the simple reason that we often pay a very high price for the short-term calm of our lies. We miss key opportunities for growth and learning. We're not very nice to be around. We develop harmful systems. And not least, the truth will be out. When we don't let it emerge, it has a tendency to reveal itself through involuntary often physical symptoms. We become insomniac or impotent. An eyelid starts twitching. We acquire a stutter, and scream in our sleep and lose energy. We fall into depression. We owe it to ourselves to dare to start to confront our real nature. 🏫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】

The world's largest iceberg weighs nearly a trillion tonnes Imagine a field of ice more than twice the area of Greater London, but as thick as its skyscrapers are tall. This is A23a, current title holder of the world's biggest iceberg. Scientists have used radar pulses from a European Space Agency satellite to essentially take a tape measure to the colossus. The researchers from the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling say the berg has lost quite a bit of mass since breaking away from the Antarctic coast in 1986, but it still tips the scales at 950 billion tonnes. As A23a moves north and warms in the coming weeks, its melt rate will accelerate, and it'll be dumping more fresh water into the ocean daily than is consumed by the entire UK population. 词汇表 Greater London 大伦敦（地区） skyscraper [ˈskaɪˌskreɪpə(r)] 摩天大楼 title holder 冠军头衔保持者 iceberg [ˈaɪsˌbɜː(r)ɡ] 冰山（浮在海上的巨大冰块） radar pulses [ˈreɪdɑː(r)][ˈpʌlsɪz] 雷达脉冲 European Space Agency 欧洲航天局 tape measure [teɪp] 测量尺，卷尺 colossus [kəˈlɒsəs] 庞然大物，巨物 Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling 极地观测和建模中心 mass [mæs]（物理）质量；块，团 break away 脱离，突然离去，断裂 Antarctic coast [æn'tɑ:ktɪk] 南极海岸 tip the scales at 达到…重量 dump [dʌmp] 排放，倾入 🗒️翻译和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】

Is life meaningless? And other absurd questions Nina Medvinskaya | TED-Ed • Sept 2020 Albert Camus grew up surrounded by violence. His homeland of was mired in conflict between native Algerians and colonizing French Europeans. He lost his father in the First World War, and was deemed unfit to fight in the second. Battling tuberculosis in France and confronting the war's devastation as a resistance journalist, Camus grew despondent. He couldn't fathom any meaning behind all this endless bloodshed and suffering. He asked: if the world was meaningless, could our individual lives still hold value? Many of Camus' contemporaries were exploring similar questions under the banner of a new philosophy called existentialism. Existentialists believed people were born as blank slates, each responsible for creating their life's meaning amidst a chaotic world. But Camus rejected their school of thought. He argued all people were born with a shared human nature that bonded them toward common goals. One such goal was to seek out meaning despite the world's arbitrary cruelty. Camus viewed humanity's desire for meaning and the universe's silent indifference as two incompatible puzzle pieces, and considered trying to fit them together to be fundamentally absurd. This tension became the heart of Camus' Philosophy of the Absurd, which argued that life is inherently futile. Exploring how to live without meaning became the guiding question behind Camus' early work, which he called his "cycle of the absurd." The star of this cycle, and Camus' first published novel, offers a rather bleak response. "The Stranger" follows Meursault, an emotionally detached young man who doesn't attribute much meaning to anything. He doesn't cry at his mother's funeral, he supports his neighbor's scheme to humiliate a woman, he even commits a violent crime — but Meaursault feels no remorse. For him the world is pointless and moral judgment has no place in it. This attitude creates hostility between Meursault and the orderly society he inhabits, slowly increasing his alienation until the novel's explosive climax. Unlike his spurned protagonist, Camus was celebrated for his honest philosophy. "The Stranger" catapulted him to fame, and Camus continued producing works that explored the value of life amidst absurdity many of which circled back to the same philosophical question: if life is truly meaningless, is committing suicide the only rational response? Camus' answer was an emphatic "no." There may not be any explanation for our unjust world, but choosing to live regardless is the deepest expression of our genuine freedom. Camus explains this in one of his most famous essays which centers on the Greek myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a king who cheated the gods, and was condemned to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill. The cruelty of his punishment lies in its singular futility, but Camus argues all of humanity is in the same position. And only when we accept the meaninglessness of our lives can we face the absurd with our heads held high. As Camus says, when the king chooses to begin his relentless task once more, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Camus' contemporaries weren't so accepting of futility. Many existentialists advocated for violent revolution to upend systems they believed were depriving people of agency and purpose. Camus responded with his second set of work: the cycle of revolt. In "The Rebel," he explored rebellion as a creative act, rather than a destructive one. Camus believed that inverting power dynamics only led to an endless cycle of violence. Instead, the way to avoid needless bloodshed is to establish a public understanding of our shared human nature. Ironically, it was this cycle of relatively peaceful ideas that triggered his fallout with many fellow writers and philosophers. Despite the controversy, Camus began work on his most lengthy and personal novel yet: an autobiographical work entitled "The First Man." The novel was intended to be the first piece in a hopeful new direction: the cycle of love. But in 1960, Camus suddenly died in a car accident that can only be described as meaningless and absurd. While the world never saw his cycle of love, his cycles of revolt and absurdity continue to resonate with readers today. His concept of absurdity has become a part of world literature, 20th century philosophy, and even pop culture. Today, Camus remains a trusted guide for moments of uncertainty; his ideas defiantly imbuing a senseless world with inspiration rather than defeat. 🎬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】

Can we improve our memory? We've all been there – staring at a pile of books, desperately hoping that what we study will stick in our mind. Many of us have probably asked if there's any way that we can get better at remembering things. So, why don't we look at what memory experts say about this? Every student who has made flashcards knows that it can be helpful to go back over what they've studied before. According to The Learning Scientists – a group of cognitive scientists – we can learn things better if we wait for some time before trying to study them again. They say that trying to retrieve something from your memory after you have had some time to forget it will make it easier to remember in future. Similarly, David Robson, writing for BBC Future, highlights studies that show taking some time to just do nothing after studying might mean that you can remember things better afterwards. We don't know exactly why this happens, but it has been suggested that it's to do with the relationship between long-term and short-term memory. Another study tip from The Learning Scientists is to change between different topics as you study. They say this can help you build links between different ideas. Now, linking ideas and relating them to each other or to images are often suggested as good ways to memorise something. Former world memory champion Jonathan Hancock highlights how picturing pieces of information in different physical locations or linking them to memorable images makes them easier to remember. Linking new information to things that are easier to remember is a technique that many people use – it could be making letter patterns into words called mnemonics, or by sorting things into categories. There are also more general things that we can do to improve our memory. Hancock says that being generally organised makes things easier for your brain, while many other experts also recommend avoiding stress, alcohol and smoking, and that we should get a lot of rest and exercise. So, the good news to take from this is that while it may be hard, improving our memory is something we can control. 词汇表 stare at [steə(r)] 凝视，盯着 desperately ['desp(ə)rət(ə)li] 迫切地，拼命地，极度地 stick in sb's mind 铭刻在某人的脑海里，牢记于心 flashcard [ˈflæʃˌkɑː(r)d] （教学用的）抽认卡 go back over 复习，回顾 cognitive [ˈkɒɡnətɪv] 认知的，感知到 retrieve [rɪˈtriːv] 找回，回忆，追忆 long-term and short-term memory 长期记忆和短期记忆 relate [rɪ'leɪt] 把…联系起来；理解 picture 想象，设想 physical location 物理位置，实际位置 memorable ['mem(ə)rəb(ə)l] 难忘的，值得纪念的 mnemonic [nɪˈmɒnɪk] 记忆术，助记符，助记口诀 organised ['ɔ:gənaɪzd] 有组织的，有条理的 📖 翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

How big is the role of luck in career success? Business Bartleby 商业版块 巴托比专栏 Fortune tells 命运会告诉你 The role of luck in careers, companies and compensation 运气在职业、公司和薪酬中的作用 Luck plays a big and often unacknowledged part in career success, starting in the womb. Warren Buffett has talked of winning the "ovarian lottery" by being born in America when he was, and being wired in a way that pays off in a market economy. Good looks are associated with higher pay and a greater chance of being called to interview in hiring processes. Your experience of discrimination will reflect your circumstances of birth. The early way-stations in a career are often marked by chance: a particularly encouraging boss, say, or an assignment that leads you off in an unexpected but defining direction. Luck can affect the pathways of the most rational-minded professions. A paper published in 2022 by Qi Ge of Vassar College and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College found that economists with harder-to-pronounce names, including within ethnic groups, were less likely to be placed into academic jobs or get tenure-track positions. Names can work against economists in other ways. Another study, by Liran Einav of Stanford University and Leeat Yariv, now of Princeton University, found that faculty with earlier surname initials were more likely to receive tenure at top departments, an effect they put down to the fact that authors of economics papers tend to be listed alphabetically. Performing well can be due to luck, not talent. In financial markets, asset managers who shine in one period often lose their lustre in the next. The rise of passive investing reflects the fact that few stockpickers are able persistently to outperform the overall market. The history of the oil industry is shot through with stories of unexpected discoveries. A recent paper by Alexei Milkov and William Navidi of the Colorado School of Mines found that 90% of industry practitioners believe that luck affects the outcome of exploration projects. The authors’ analysis of 50 years of drilling on the Norwegian Continental Shelf concluded that the differences in success rates between individual firms were random. There is a long-running debate about whether luck affects executives'pay. A recent paper by Martina Andreani and Lakshmanan Shivakumar of London Business School and Atif Ellahie of the University of Utah suggests that it does. The academics looked at the impact of a big corporate-tax cut in America in 2017, an event which resulted in large one-off tax gains and losses for firms that were based on past transactions and that could not be attributed to managers' skills. They found that larger windfall gains led to higher pay for CEOs of less scrutinised firms; tax losses did not seem to affect their earnings. Lucky things. Just as some people blindly believe that merit determines success, so it is possible to get too hung up on the role of chance. CEOs may well be rewarded for luck but slogging to the top of companies involves talent and hard work. Although some have argued that entrepreneurs are simply people fortunate enough to have a large appetite for risk, skill does matter. A paper from 2006 by Paul Gompers of Harvard University and his co-authors showed that founders of one successful company have a higher chance of succeeding in their next venture than entrepreneurs who previously failed. Better technology and greater expertise reduce the role of chance; the average success rates in oil exploration, for example, have gone up over time. But if luck does play a more important role in outcomes than is often acknowledged, what does that mean? For individuals, it suggests you should increase the chances that chance will work in your favour. Partners at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, encourage founders to apply to their programmes by talking about increasing the "surface area of luck": putting yourself in situations where you may be rejected is a way of giving luck more opportunity to strike. An awareness of the role that luck plays ought to affect the behaviour of managers, too. Portfolio thinking reduces the role of luck: Messrs Milkov and Navidi make the point that the probability of striking it lucky in oil exploration goes up if firms complete numerous independent wells. If luck can mean a bad decision has a good result, or vice versa, managers should learn to assess the success of an initiative on the basis of process as well as outcome. And if the difference between skill and luck becomes discernible over time, then reward people on consistency of performance, not one-off highs. Mr Buffett might have had a slice of luck at the outset, but a lifetime of investing success suggests he has maximised it. 🖨️文本翻译、pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复"1"可进【打卡交流群】

The power of quiet leadership Look at the leaders around you. What do you see? Calm, reasoned individuals, who listen, and make considered judgements? Or something very different? Great leaders are often seen as classic confident, extroverts who can speak without thinking, react rapidly and change tack pretty frequently. It's what best-selling author Susan Cain calls "The Extrovert Ideal". But is this really what we need right now? I'd argue that the crises of our time need a more considered approach. A quieter one. Let's look at the status quo. Extroverts are over-represented in senior leadership positions. One study found an incredible 98% of top executives scoring "very high" or "above average" on the extrovert scale. But people aren't on the whole satisfied with their leaders. Could there be a connection between the two? There are lots of examples through history of successful leaders who have taken that quieter approach. For example, Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi, or Bill Gates. Research shows that introverts often bring a great deal to the table. They're more likely to listen and process the ideas of their team, and consider those ideas deeply before acting on them. They may be humble and more likely to credit their team for ideas and performance. And because their motivation generally comes from within, they're less likely to compromise themselves chasing rewards like money or power. I think we need to re-examine the way our society views effective leadership, and whether we really are allowing the space for all team members to thrive. Research suggests that between 40 and 60% of employees tend to the quieter, more introverted, side of things. They can often feel invisible in meetings, because their thoughtful approach means they have difficulty responding to those common on-the-spot questions. Many leadership courses can tend to focus on extroverted team activities, such as networking and presentations, leaving quieter people perhaps mistakenly believing they just don't have the qualities of a "good" leader. An approach that fails to bring out the best in around half of us is not just bad for quieter people, it's a disservice to us all. Leadership is complex, but in a world of soundbites, sledgehammer tactics and black-and-white thinking, perhaps standing back and listening can be empowering to leaders and their followers. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu puts it, the best leaders are those that "talk little" and when their work is done and their aims fulfilled, their followers will say, "We did it ourselves." 词汇表 reasoned [ˈriːz(ə)nd] 合逻辑的，理智的 considered [kənˈsɪdəd] 深思熟虑的，经慎重考虑的 extrovert [ˈekstrəvɜːt] 外向的人；外向的 tack [tæk] 行动方针，策略 best-selling 畅销的，抢手的 status quo [ˌsteɪtəs 'kwəʊ] 现状 over-represented 过度代表的，代表人数（或比例）过大的 extrovert scale 外向性量表 senior leadership [ˈsiːniə(r)][ˈliːdə(r)ʃɪp] 高层领导 introvert [ˈɪntrəvɜːt] 性格内向的，内向的人 bring sth to the table （为团队）带来好处，提供有价值的贡献 credit [ˈkredɪt] 归功于；信任；赞扬 compromise [ˈkɒmprəmaɪz] 妥协，折中，让步 invisible [ɪnˈvɪzɪb(ə)l] 被忽视的，不为人注意的 on-the-spot 现场的，当场的 networking [ˈnetˌwɜː(r)kɪŋ] 社交，发展人际关系 bring out the best 激发潜能，发挥最佳水平 disservice [dɪsˈsɜːvɪs] 损害，伤害，危害 soundbite ['saʊndbaɪt] （新闻节目等引述的）讲话片段，妙语，金句 sledgehammer [ˈsledʒˌhæmə(r)] 强力的, 手下不留情的 tactics [ˈtæktɪks] 策略，手段，战术 black-and-white 非黑即白的，是非分明的 stand back 退后，置身事外（考虑） 💡 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】

Wildlife in catastrophic decline due to human destruction The report looked at thousands of different wildlife species living in forests, grasslands, rivers, and oceans, across the world. Conservation scientists recorded an average 68% fall in mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish since 1970. They described the decline as catastrophic and clear evidence of the impact humans are having on the planet through burning forests, overfishing the seas and destroying wild spaces. But Dr Mike Barrett of WWF-UK says new modelling evidence suggests the tide can be turned if action is taken urgently. The report says efforts to protect wildlife must be combined with tackling habitat loss and deforestation. This will mean changes to the way food is produced and consumed, including reducing food waste and moving to healthier diets. 词汇表 grassland [ˈɡrɑːslænd] 草原，草场 conservation [ˌkɒnsə(r)ˈveɪʃ(ə)n] （对自然环境的）保护 mammal [ˈmæm(ə)l] 哺乳动物 amphibian [æmˈfɪbɪən] 两栖动物 reptile [ˈreptaɪl] 爬行动物 catastrophic [ˌkætəˈstrɒfɪk] 灾难性的，悲惨的，极糟的 overfishing [ˌəʊvə(r)ˈfɪʃɪŋ] 过度捕捞 WWF-UK 世界自然基金英国分会（World Wide Fund for Nature） turn the tide [taɪd] 改变形势，扭转局面 tackle ['tæk(ə)l] 解决，应对，处理 habitat loss [ˈhæbɪtæt] 栖息地丧失 deforestation [diːˌfɒrɪˈsteɪʃ(ə)n] 毁林，滥伐森林 📸翻译和pdf见公众号【琐简英语】，回复1可加入【打卡交流群】