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Adverts are designed to persuade us, but which techniques have been shown to be effective in enticing us to buy things? One way is simply to portray something as normal. Former advertising professional Dan Parker explains that 'normalisation', showing people happily eating unhealthily, can lead to higher sales of junk food as people start to see these habits as normal. This is like product placeme...

Twenty-six words were included in what is known as Section 230 of the 1996 law setting telecommunication policies in the United States. Those words have enabled companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to grow into the giant technology companies they are today. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing challenges to the law on whether those companies are responsible for what users posted on...

Over three thousand years ago, several important  civilizations  in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean collapsed or decreased in power. This event is called the Bronze Age collapse. 三千多年前，中东和地中海东部的几个重要文明崩溃或衰落。 这个事件被称为青铜时代的崩溃。 One of the strongest to disappear was the Hittite  empire  in what is now Turkey and parts of Syria and I...

The man who made the first call from a wireless phone is now 94 years old. The year was 1973. Martin Cooper operated a large, heavy new communication device on a street in New York City. The device was not physically connected to phone lines. But, Cooper was able to make use of it --- he called a technology business competitor. Fifty years later, the inventor says he hopes wireless phones can make...

Gardeners in the Northern Hemisphere are starting to plan their summer gardens. Most are thinking about how their plants and flowers will look in the bright sunshine in the coming summer. But when the summer sun goes down in the evening, and you are sitting outside at home, you may not be able to see many flowers in the yard without artificial lighting. With some planning, you can plant a “moon ga...

A team of Russian scientists recently examined something extremely unusual: the frozen body of a brown bear that lived thousands of years ago. The cold preserved the body almost perfectly in the frozen lands of eastern Siberia for almost 3,500 years. Maxim Cheprasov is the laboratory chief at the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory at the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, eastern Siberia....

At least three times a week, Mexico City bus driver Nicolás Cuatencos purchases a kind of tamale known as “guajolota,” or “turkey.” The food is made of corn dough and filled with meat, bean and cheese. Tamales are then wrapped in corn husks, the green leaves outside an ear of corn, or banana leaves for cooking. Cuatencos has loved the dish since childhood. “The flavor, the dough, all of that is re...

Astronomers have discovered what appear to be huge galaxies dating back to within 600 million years of the Big Bang. The findings suggest the early universe may have quickly produced these extremely large galaxies. The new James Webb Space Telescope has seen even older galaxies, dating to within 300 million years of the beginning of the universe. But it is the size and maturity of these six galaxi...

A sea creature known as the sunflower sea star was once plentiful in the Pacific Ocean along the coast of North America. They used to be found in the waters along the coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula all the way to Alaska. But in the last 10 years, about 90 percent of them have died. Scientists at the University of Washington are trying to understand why the sea stars died. To do so, the...

You know the feeling – your ears start to warm up, your tongue goes numb, you start sweating and taking deep breaths. You've just eaten something spicy knowing it would be painful, and, yet, you chose to do it anyway. Are humans just masochistic, or is there something else going on? The answer lies in both science and history. 你知道那种感觉——你的耳朵开始变暖，你的舌头变得麻木，你开始出汗并深呼吸...

An 11-year-old girl has died in Cambodia of bird flu. Health officials say it was the country’s first known human infection of bird flu since 2014. The virus, officially known as H5N1, usually spreads among different kinds of poultry. Most human cases of bird flu have involved direct contact with infected poultry. The girl who died lived in a rural part of southeastern Cambodia. She became sick on...

Space scientists say they have identified what might be the "perfect explosion," but much work remains to fully explain the observation. The explosion, called a kilonova, was observed in 2017 and has been studied carefully since then. Astronomers say a kilonova happens when two neutron stars crash into each other. The rapidly growing explosion that they described went beyond the researchers’ expec...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s family recently announced that he is receiving special care and is preparing for the end of his life. Carter is under hospice care. Hospice care means the former president is being looked after so he can live his remaining days comfortably. But he will not seek medical treatment to extend his life. In some cases, people under hospice care receive drugs so they...

In two recent studies, researchers say warm water is melting weak areas on Antarctica’s huge Thwaites Glacier. Two research papers describing melting recently appeared in the publication Nature. The research results came after an investigative effort involving a team of 13 American and British scientists. Teams spent about six weeks on the glacier in late 2019 and early 2020. 在最近的两项研究中，...

The size of the ship and the shoes seized Robert Ballard’s attention when he saw the wreckage of the Titanic from a submarine deep below the sea. “The first thing I saw coming out of the gloom…was this wall, this giant wall of…steel that rose over 100 and some feet above us,” Ballard told the Associated Press. “I never looked down at the Titanic. I looked up at the Titanic. Nothing was small.” In...

Avian flu has reached new areas of the world and has become a year-round problem, animal and disease experts warn. More than 20 experts and farmers on four continents spoke to the Reuters news agency about the problem. They suggested that record outbreaks will not stop soon on poultry farms. They also warned that farmers must view the disease as a serious risk all year, instead of doing prevention...

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Carnival is back. The Carnival is a week-long celebration marking the beginning of the Easter season in the Catholic church. Brazil’s federal government expects 46 million people to join the festivities that officially begin Friday and run through Feb. 22. It features many parades filled with music and samba dancing. Among them is a group from Turma da Paz de Madurei...

Our planet is heating up due to something called the greenhouse effect. This is one of the reasons why Earth is seeing more extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, forest fires and floods each year. But what exactly is the greenhouse effect, and what can we do to reduce it? 由于称为温室效应的现象，我们的星球正在升温。这就是为什么地球每年都会发生更多极端天气事件，例如热浪、森林火灾和洪水的原因之...

Most of us would agree that being healthy is important. We are inundated with articles in health magazines talking about the latest fad diets, or adverts that offer potential miracle cures for obesity that are often too good to be true. One of the latest crazes is fasting, often referred to as intermittent fasting. But what is it? And how can it help us to lose weight? 我们大多数人都会同意健康很重...

For many of us, our closest encounter with wild animals is at a zoo. These places allow us to observe the behaviours and characteristics of amazing creatures from big cats to tiny amphibians. It's an enjoyable and educational experience for us, but is it the best environment for the animals? 对于我们中的许多人来说，与野生动物最亲密的接触是在动物园。这些地方让我们能够观察到从大型猫科动物到小型两栖...

A recent study says there are enough rare earth metals on Earth for new “low-carbon electricity generation” technologies. Rare earth metals come from minerals found in countries around the world. The researchers said more mining is needed to make more of the valuable metals available to industry. Rare earth metals are in demand for products such as magnets, wind turbines, solar panels and computer...

A new museum in Mexico aims to educate the public about the critically endangered axolotl salamander. The museum recently opened at Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City. The axolotl is native only to Mexico. The animal is extremely endangered in the wild because its natural environment is increasingly threatened. The salamander has captured wide attention for its ability to heal itself when its body get...

Indoor plants are a beautiful way to brighten up your home, especially in the gray months of winter. But there can be a dark side to houseplants if you have children or if children visit your home. It is important that you know which plants are toxic to young, curious humans.↳ Gardening expert Jessica Damiano recently wrote about the issue for The Associated Press. She said she often poi...

February 12 is not a holiday in the United States, but it may seem like one to many Americans because of one big game. Tens of millions of Americans will gather for parties at restaurants and homes around the nation. They will enjoy food and drink together. Then, these families and friends, in groups of all sizes, will settle around televisions. It is Super Bowl Sunday in America. 2 月 12 日...

A recently released study says the average yearly temperature on Greenland has increased by 1.5 degree Celsius above the average for the 20th century for a 15-year period ending in 2011. Scientists used examples of Greenland’s ice to get information about temperatures from hundreds of years in the past. Until recently, Greenland’s ice cores had not shown a clear sign of warming on the remotest nor...