Can a fish be depressed? This question has been floating around my head ever since I saw a sad-looking Siamese fighting fish in a hotel. His name was Bruce Lee, according to a sign beneath his little bowl.

On the bottom of the little bowl was Bruce Lee, totally still, his lower fin( 鳍 ) somewhat   injured. When   he did   finally move, just slightly,   I   got the sense that he would prefer to be dead.

The pleasant woman at the front desk convinced me that he was well taken care of. Was I simply incorrectly supposing his lethargy was a sign of mental suffering?

Later on, I sought answers from scientists. It turns out that not only can our gilled( 有 鳃 的 ) friends become depressed, but some scientists consider fish to be a promising animal model for developing anti-depressants. New research has been completely changing the way scientists think about fish, building a case that pet and owner are not nearly as different as many suppose.

Dr. Pittman likes working with fish, in part, because they are so obvious about their depression. He can reliably test the effectiveness of anti-depressants with something called the “novel tank test.” A zebra fish gets dropped in a new tank. If after five minutes it is hanging out in the lower half, it’s depressed. If it’s swimming up top — its usual behaviour when exploring a new environment — then it’s not. The seriousness of the depression, he says, can be measured by quantity of time at the top vs. the bottom, all of which seemed to confirm my guess about Bruce Lee.

“One of the things we’re finding that fish are naturally curious and seek novel things out,” said Dr. Braithwaite.

In other words, your goldfish is probably bored. To help prevent them from depression, she suggests introducing new objects to the tank( 缸 ) or changing the location of items.

Dr. Brown agrees, pointing to an experiment he conducted, which showed that if you leave a fish in an enriched, physically complex environment — meaning a lot of plants to bite at and cages to swim through — it decreases stress and increases brain growth.

The last time a guest posted Bruce Lee to Instagram he was looking good and lively. Perhaps that new green leaf in his bowl had provided the enrichment he desired.

Most people have no idea what to do with their old drugs. Unused or expired (到期的) medicines lying around at home can get into the wrong hands, leading to accidental poisoning or drug overdose. When drugs are flushed or sent to landfill, the medicines can pollute our groundwater, rivers, and streams, threatening human and sea life.

In an effort to find a solution for drugs kept in medicine boxes or waterways, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration launched its first National Take-Back Day in September 2010. In the drug take-back program, the returned drugs are sent to medical waste incinerators (焚烧炉). However, the process of transporting and burning such waste can give off greenhouse gas emissions that could be potentially greater than those generated if the drugs were poured into landfills.

“But take-back programs are preferred as they reduce the risk of drug misuse and the incineration effectively prevents the entrance of these medicines into our nation’s waters,” says Tim Carroll, a spokesperson for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Perhaps surprisingly, not all unused medicines need to be thrown away. Every year five billion dollars’ worth of unexpired medicines end up being deserted in the U.S. “We’re wasting a lot of medicines which are already paid for,” says Anandi Law, a patient engagement specialist. “Millions of U.S. adults skip or delay getting their prescriptions (处方) filled due to high costs. We could give them to somebody else who needs it.” That may be why at least 40 states have passed law establishing drug donation programs that allow drug manufacturers, medical and long-term care facilities, and sometimes individuals to donate their unused drugs. For example, since its start in 2007, Iowa’s program, SafeNetRx, has served more than 117,000 patients and redistributed nearly 54-million-dollar worth of medicines and supplies.

“All of these efforts are still relatively new,” Carroll says. “We still have a long way to go until households change their habits.”

A new study suggests drinking coffee as soon as someone wakes up from a poor night’s sleep greatly affects metabolism(新陈代谢)and blood sugar control.

In the study, published in British Journal of Nutrition, UK researchers let 29 healthy men and women take part in three different overnight experiments. In the first two scenarios, participants were given a sugary drink upon waking—first from a normal night’s sleep, and then again after a poor night’s sleep during which they were woken up for five minutes every hour. In the third, their sleep was similarly interrupted, but they were given a strong black coffee 30 minutes before consuming the sugary drink.

Blood samples from participants were taken following the sugary drink, which mirrored the calories of a typical breakfast, in each experiment. Results showed that compared to a normal night of sleep, one night of disrupted sleep did not worsen the participants’ blood sugar responses at breakfast. However, strong black coffee consumed before breakfast increased the blood sugar response by around 50 percent.

By drinking such a kind of drink after breakfast, the researchers found that our bodies’ ability to break down our food healthily is completely improved. Examining the effects of broken sleep and morning coffee, scientists at the University of Bath found that while one night of poor sleep had a limited effect on metabolism, drinking coffee before breakfast could have a negative effect on blood sugar control.

“We know that nearly half of us will wake in the morning and, before doing anything else, drink coffee—the more exhausted we feel, the stronger the coffee is. This study is of importance and has far-reaching health influences, and it indeed tugs on some coffee drinkers’ heartstrings. As up to now we have had limited knowledge about what this is doing to our bodies, in particular for our metabolism and blood sugar control, we have a long way to go,” said Professor James Betts, co-director of the Centre for Nutrition, Exercise and Metabolism at the University of Bath.