People Think Meals Taste Better If They Are Expensive

It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but even if you manage to bag a bargain meal, it will not taste as good as a more expensive meal, according to scientists.

A new study has found that restaurant 【小题1】 who pay more for their meals think the food is tastier than if it is offered for a smaller price. The experts think that people tend to associate cost with quality and this changes their 【小题2】 of how food tastes.

Scientists at Cornell University in New York studied the eating habits of 139 people enjoying an Italian buffet (自助餐) in a restaurant. The price of the food was set by the 【小题3】 at either $4 or $8 for the all-you-can-eat meal. Customers were asked to 【小题4】 how good the food tasted, the quality of the restaurant and to leave their names.

The experiment 【小题5】 that the people who paid $8 for the food enjoyed their meal 11 percent more than those who ate the “cheaper” buffet. Interestingly those that paid for the $4 buffet said they felt guiltier about loading up their plates and felt that they 【小题6】. However, the scientists said that both groups ate around the same quantity of food in total, according to the study 【小题7】 at the Experimental Biology meeting this week.

Brian Wansink, a professor of 【小题8】 behaviour at the university, said: “We were fascinated to find that pricing has little impact on how much one eats, but a huge impact on how you 【小题9】 the experience.” He thinks that people enjoyed their food more as they associated cost with quality and that small changes to a restaurant can change how tasty people find their meals.

In a(n) 【小题10】 study, scientists from the university showed that people who eat in dim lighting consume 175 less calories (卡路里) than people who eat in brightly lit areas.

When Will Life Return to Normal?

If 2020 felt hellish, be warned that we aren’t out of the fire yet, even if we are moving in   the right direction. Welcome to 2021, aka purgatory.

There is little doubt that vaccines hold the key to ending the pandemic. A recent modeling study predicted that vaccinating just 40 per cent of US adults over the course of 2021 would reduce the coronavirus 【小题1】 rate by around 75 per cent and cut hospitalizations and deaths from covid-19 by more than 80 per cent.

But all this is still some way off. In the meantime, we will have to【小题2】 to a middle ground where some people are protected but not others. As Adam Kleczkowski, a mathematical biologist at the University of Strathclyde UK, 【小题3】 out, supplies of the various vaccines are limited, distributing them is【小题4】, immunity takes a few weeks to develop and the protection they offer isn’t 100 percent.

In the northern hemisphere, he says, the most likely scenario is a third wave of covid-19 in the new year, requiring further lockdowns and【小题5】 for up to five months. “ Realistically we’re in for a longer ride than we hope for.” he says.

Tim Spector at King’s College London, who leads the Covid-9 Symptom Study in the UK,   also predicts a third wave. But if lots of healthcare workers and【小题6】 people have been vaccinated, the mortality rate will be lower and the pressure on the healthcare system【小题7】 , he said at a recent Royal Society of Medicine seminar.

The upsides of ever-widening vaccination will kick in around April. He said, “I’m【小题8】 that if we can just get our mental state together until Easter, we can hang on in there.”

There are still many things we don’t understand about this virus, however, and we may well be in for some surprises in the coming year that throw that trajectory（轨）off course. As this magazine went to press, for example, there was widespread speculation about the 【小题9】 of a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus circulating in the UK that may be more highly 【小题10】.

In Australia, the goal will be to keep the virus from resurging as the summer fades into autumn, says epidemiologist Catherine Bennett at Deakin University in Melbourne. A recent outbreak in Sydney has led to new restrictions.

If you had to pick one, who do you think is greater in terms of their 【小题1】 to the Western world: British physicist Isaac Newton or Greek philosopher Aristotle? Chances are that you’d find it hard to make a decision, at least right away.

But somehow, when choosing a major in college, the line between the two areas of study couldn’t be clearer. Science majors -- the likes of technology, engineering, math -- are considered to be more practical choices because of the 【小题2】 of opportunities, while those who choose a liberal arts major -- language, music, philosophy -- may have more difficulty finding a job.

But perhaps we should look at liberal arts studies in another way to understand its value. In the BBC’s 【小题3】 Civilizations, for example, presenters take us to 31 countries on six continents to 【小题4】 human creativity in its tangible form, such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and the Suleymaniye mosque in Turkey.

To Simon Schama, one of the presenters, human 【小题5】 isn’t just about technological inventions or meeting basic needs, but about creating things for the purpose of leaving a person’s “【小题6】 of their existence for future humans to witness and admire”.

By comparing science and liberal arts, we’re drawing “an 【小题7】 line” between the two, wrote Loretta Jackson-Hayes, an associate professor of chemistry at Rhodes College in Memphis, US, on the Washington Post website. And to some of the greatest 【小题8】 in history, this line never existed in the first place.

Leonardo da Vinci, for example, was just as successful a scientist as he was a painter. He was so interested in biology and anatomy that he drew the famous Vitruvian Man, part of his study of the 【小题9】 of the human body. Then there’s Steve Jobs, who, despite being an engineer, was also an artist. He 【小题10】 his view on the relationship between science and the arts in 2011: “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough -- it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”