A good modern newspaper is an extraordinary piece of reading. It's great first for what it contains：the range of news from local crime to international politics, from sports to business，from fashion to science, and the range of comment and special feature(特写) as well，from editorial page to feature articles and interviews to criticism of books, art theatre and music.

A newspaper is even greater for the way one reads it：never completely, never straight through，but always by jumping from here to there, in and out, glancing at one piece，reading another article all the way through, reading just a few paragraphs of the text.

A good modern newspaper offers a variety(多样性) to attract many different readers, but far more than the reader is interested in. What brings this variety together in one place is its topicality(时事性), its immediate relation to what is happening in your world and your locality now. But immediacy and the speed of production that goes with it also mean that much of what appears in a newspaper has no more than transient(短暂的) value.

For all these reasons, no two people really read the same paper：what each person does is to put together, out of the pages of that day's paper, his own selection and order, his own newspaper. For all these reasons, reading newspapers efficiently, which means getting what you want from them without missing things you need and without wasting time，demands skill and self-awareness as you change and apply the techniques of reading.

We grow up with a mixed message: making mistakes is a necessary learning tool, but we should avoid them. And that’s a real shame. Because when we tell kids that learning is all about the results, we teach them that mistakes are something to be feared and avoided. We stifle (压制) their interest in experimenting because experimenting means you’re going to make a mess and fail. And that’s too big a risk.

Here’s a fascinating experiment that shows how children absorb what we say about effort vs. results. One of professor Carol Dweck’s experiments asked 400 5th graders in New York City schools to take an easy short test, on which almost all performed well. Half the children were praised for “being really smart”. The other half were complimented for “having worked really hard”. Then the students were asked to take a second test and given the option of either choosing one that was pretty simple and that they would do well on, or one that was more challenging, but on which they might make mistakes. Of those students praised for effort, 90 percent chose the harder test. Of those praised for being smart, the majority chose the easy test. Professor Dweck told me: “One thing I’ve learned is that kids are exquisitely (敏锐地) familiar to the real message, and the real message is ‘Be smart’. It’s not ‘We love it when you struggle or when you learn and make mistakes.’”

One way we can fix this is by understanding the concepts of “fixed mindsets” and “growth mindsets”. Those with fixed mindsets believe either we’re good at something — whether it’s math or music or baseball — or we’re not. When we have this fixed mindset, mistakes serve no purpose but to highlight failure. Those with growth mindsets are much more likely to be able to accept mistakes because they know that they’re part of learning. And it’s been shown that when students are taught about growth mindsets, their motivation to learn improves.

People who have kids live longer than those who remain childless, an academic study has suggested. Researchers believe it is because adults’ immune systems are “refreshed” when kids go to nursery and start picking up infections.

During the course of someone’s life, their immune system can become weaker. But when kids start bringing infections home, their parents’ immune systems get a workout. Non-parents — unless they are teachers or nurses perhaps — do not get the same exposure to infection.

Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, Miguel Portela said parents had less risk of dying from infection than non-parents and if they did, it was about five years later. He said that “a parent’s immune system is refreshed by a child’s infections at a time when their own protection starts wearing thin.” He added, “With this improved immune system, the parent has a better chance to defend whatever infections that might strike when old and weak and parenthood is rewarded in individual terms through an improved immunization against infections.” Naturally there are other reasons why some people live longer than others, but they may not be comparable with becoming a parent. The academics say that high income and house ownership are always associated with higher survival but less so than having children.

Mr. Portela admits the research is far from complete, saying that while the results “record a relationship between the presence of children and death rate, the specific transmission mechanisms remain unclear. He acknowledges the presence of other, perhaps behavioral factors in parents which result in changed death rate compared to individuals without children.” He adds, “While the relationships of lifestyle choices such as smoking, obesity, drinking and other behavioral factors with life expectancy and causes of death are well studied and understood, the same cannot be said for the individual decision to become a parent”.