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What do you read when you are travelling by train or bus?  What are other passengers reading? Perhaps a woman sitting near you is reading a  trashy   romantic novel . A man is reading a  serious   biography  about a politician. And there's a student reading an English  textbook . What do their  choices   say about them ? Do you  judge &nb...

The first year of school can be  stressful  – not for the kids, but for the parents! They want their little ones to do well at school and some  pushy parents  will already be thinking about how they can get their child to  the   top of the class. But some parents are  concerned  about the  rules  for when children should start school. The School&nb...

Have you ever taken a  sickie ? If so, what did you say to your boss? It seems many people in the UK like to blame their pets for their  absence .  One person said they couldn't come to work because their rabbit was missing. Perhaps that was a  white lie ; this next one though sounds more like a  porky . A worker said that he couldn't come to work because he had to take hi...

You’ve heard of Charles Darwin, right? The  celebrated  scientist who proposed a  theory of evolution . You might have just about heard of Alfred Russel Wallace, who co-authored, with Darwin, the revolutionary work On the Origin of  Species , published in 1859. But what about Patrick Matthew? ‘Patrick who?’ you might ask. Well, Darwin and Wallace got the fame but Matthew ...

Are bars places just to meet friends and chat casually about  mundane  things? Not any more. Scientists have been organising  periodic  lectures and experiments in bars in several cities in nine countries. In May, hundreds of them took part in a festival called  Pint  of Science. British  neuroscience  researcher Michael Motskin started the festival with a c...

Fashion and music are constantly looking back to the past. But would you be interested in  retro  video games? If so, you are part of a  growing trend . Vintage  video games are making their way back into living rooms. There is already a large market for 1970s and 80s  games consoles . Despite their limited  graphics  and sounds, original machines by Atari, Ninte...

Around the world, girls do better than boys at school. These are the findings of a recent study that looked at the test results of 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 74 regions across the globe. The level of  gender equality  in those regions made no difference to the results. Other  factors , such as the  income level  of the region also had little impact on the findings. In onl...

This time of year many of us  resolve  to get back into shape. But if you are having trouble fitting into your tight jeans, it may not be your fault. Scientists now believe that  willpower  alone is not enough lose weight. They say success depends on your  genes ,  hormones  and  psychology . A study of 75 people by BBC Science and Oxford and Cambridge Unive...

Social media is changing everything in trade. Even  reserved  Britons are losing their traditional aversion to  making a scene,  and using social media to complain about bad service provided by businesses. That's what a survey by the Institute of Customer Service suggests. They analysed data from 200 organisations, including banks,  utility companies  and  retail...

Everybody has looked in the mirror at some point in their lives and thought they  could do with  a smaller nose or fewer  wrinkles . Almost 10 million operations were performed in 2014, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Eyelid surgery topped the list of the five most popular  procedures , which included  breast augmentation  and...

Tired of your quiet routine? How about leaving your computer games behind and taking up an  extreme sport ? You can ride a bicycle, right? In that case you're halfway to becoming a  mountain biker . All you have to do is take your bike off the road and try some rough  terrain . Mountain biking was developed in California in the 1970s and became an Olympic sport in 1996. In the Londo...

Are you one of those people who find the world of Western classical music a bit  snobbish  and  inaccessible ? The Proms – or the BBC Promenade Concerts to give the world’s largest music festival its full name - might help you  change your mind . For eight weeks every summer, the Royal Albert Hall in London opens its doors to  all-comers  and puts on a music show that...

What did you eat for lunch today? Did you choose this dish because it was healthy, cheap or because it was just very tasty? Are you a  fussy eater  or an adventurous  gourmet ? I love exploring trends in food. 'Fusion cuisine' is not for everybody. My Italian grandmother would turn her nose up in disgust at the thought of tandoori pizza with mango topping but this marriage of tastes...

Have you ever been in a lift with the  big cheese  in your company? It happened to me a couple of times. And did I take advantage of the situation to deliver my  elevator pitch ? Not a chance. He was surrounded by people  buttering him up  all the way to the top floor! Lifts have an interesting history. Today, the more important you are, the higher you live or work. ...

Sci-fi  movies tend to  capture children's imaginations  and have long been part of students' excited chats in the schoolyard. But now a scientific journal has urged at least one sci-fi movie to be shown in class by science teachers. Scientific papers  published in the American Journal of  Physics  (AJP) and in Classical and Quantum Gravity have seen merit in the...

How much  empathy  do you feel towards other people? If you saw someone fall off their bike in traffic, would you stop and help - or just walk away? Many people would  give in  to  apathy ,  go about their business  and just do nothing. So it was a big surprise when about 100  bystanders  got together recently to move a bus in east London to help a cycl...

When looking at Western Europe, we don't usually think about poverty - but in fact, some people in modern-day Britain are so  hard up  that they can't  afford  to buy food. Back in 2008, the  financial crisis  caused a lot of  redundancies . Then there were the cuts to the  welfare system  in 2013 which added to the problem - and many British people&nbs...

Children are  hooked on  computers. Some spend up to six hours a day on their  gadgets . They can be playing games live with others elsewhere in the world,  updating their status  on social media,  texting  friends or looking for the latest  app  to download  to their  tablets  or  smartphones . This worried Martin Strott. He's the&n...

Should animals be  entitled  to the same rights as people? The question is not so  outlandish . A  judge  in the US once suggested that chimpanzees had the right to  habeas corpus . Judge Barbara Jaffe was  ruling  on the case of Leo and Hercules. These two primates have their own lawyers  arguing  that they should be moved from a university lab to...

Many believe high heels make women look good. It's no surprise that the Cannes Film Festival's organisers seem to favour having stars walking up the red carpet in them. But all this  glam  comes at a cost: wearing heels over 10cm high can damage your  ankles . A study by the Hanseo University in South Korea suggests that continuous wearing exposes women to the risk of  strains&...

Where do you keep ice? In the freezer, of course. That's what scientists might have thought when they were looking for a safe place to store ice from mountain glaciers from around the world. They've decided to store ice in Antarctica because global warming is causing some of the glaciers in places like the Alps to melt. Jerome Chappellaz of the French National Centre for S...

Czech   President   Milos   Zeman   has   been   hospitalized   for   a   week   with   no   word   to   his   constituents   about   what's   wrong   with   him . 捷克总统米洛什·泽曼已住院一周，但没有向选民们透露他的病情。 Zeman   was   taken   into   intensive   care &nbsp...

A   notorious   Haitian   gang   known   for   brazen   kidnappings   and   killings   has   been   accused   by   police   of   abducting  17  missionaries   from   a   U . S .- based   organization . 一个臭名昭著的海地团伙以公然绑架和杀戮而闻名，警方指控他们绑架了来自美国组织的17名传教士...

Stonghenge 巨石阵 For   years ,  the   closest   theories   that   anyone   had   as   to   how   the   stones   of   Stonehenge   were   transported   ranged   from   Merlin   using   magic   to   aliens .  Uses   for   Stonehenge   ranged   from   ritua...

And events marking the 70th anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions are underway, the International Committee of the Red Cross says these four landmark treaties delineating the law of war are as relevant today as they were when they came into force August 12, 1949. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA, from ICRC headquarters in GENEVA. 《1949年日内瓦公约》70周年纪念活动正在进行当中。国际红十字会表示，...