Exercise has an undeniable link to the development of better bodies. A recent study conducted by University of Delaware researchers found that speech-language therapy (疗法) improves children’s vocabulary growth. The study, which was published in the journal Journal of Speech-Language and Hearing Research, highlights one of the first studies on the impact of exercise on vocabulary learning in children.

Children ages 6 to 12 were taught new words before doing one of three things: swimming, CrossFit exercises, or coloring a sheet. In follow-up tests of vocabulary words, the children who swam were 13% more accurate.

It makes sense to the lead researcher, Maddy Pruitt, a former college swimmer who now attends CrossFit classes on a regular basis. "Motor movement aids in the encoding (编码) of new words, "she explained, adding that exercise has been shown to increase levels of brain derived neurotrophic factor (脑源性神经营养素), a protein Pruitt refers to as the “Miracle-Gro for the brain”.

So, why did swimming make a difference but CrossFit didn’t? Pruitt attributes it to the amount of energy required by the brain during each exercise. Swimming is an activity that children can do without much thought or instruction. While the CrossFit exercises were new to them, it was more automatic. The children had to learn the moves, which took mental energy.

“We were very excited about this study because it is applicable to clinicians, caregivers, and educators who can put it into practice,” Pruitt said. “It’s not anything out of the ordinary. However, it has the potential to significantly improve the outcomes.”

Data show that almost all children see a decline in their happiness when they make the step up to Key Stage Three, with self-reported happiness taking a significant hit. Information from more than 11,000 people showed the impact was universal and that children from all backgrounds, ethnicities and locations feel worse aged 14 than they do aged 11, with the change in school thought to be the driving reason.

Scientists asked children to rank on a scale of one to seven how satisfied they were with their schoolwork, appearance, school, family, friends and life as a whole. One was “completely happy” and seven was “completely unhappy”.

Statisticians crunched (压缩) the numbers down to a scale between -2 and 1, with the average happiness being a score of zero when a child was 11. However, by the time the child was 14, four in five teenagers had a score of below zero, indicating a widespread downturn in adolescent happiness. That decline is probably linked to the change to secondary school at age 11, according to the study’s authors.

Ioannis Katsantonis, a doctoral researcher at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education who led the study, said, “Even though this was a large, diverse group of adolescents, we saw a consistent fall in happiness.”

“One of the most striking aspects was the clear association with changes at school. It suggests we urgently need to do more to support students’ happiness at secondary schools across Britain.”

The study identified that a child’s friendships and school life were key in their level of happiness, with the move to a bigger school and the potential problems with making new friends having a damaging impact on how they felt.

However, the scientists report that children with higher self-esteem(自尊心) aged 11 lived through the storm of moving to secondary school better than those who had lower self-esteem.

This indicates that structured efforts to strengthen adolescents’ self-esteem, particularly during the first years of secondary school, could reduce the likely downturn in happiness and life satisfaction, the authors say.

Three scientists who studied how cells sense and adapt to oxygen levels have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. William G. Kaelin, Jr. of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe of Oxford University and the Francis Crick Institute, and Gregg L. Semenza of Johns Hopkins University were jointly awarded the prize.

“The meaningful discoveries by this year’s Nobel winners showed life’s most adaptive processes,” Randall Johnson, a member of the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said. “The three physicians found the molecular switch(分子开关)that regulates how our cells adapt when oxygen levels drop.”

“Cells and tissues are constantly experiencing changes in oxygen availability,” Johnson said. “As an embryo(胚胎) grows and develops, and as muscles work, the oxygen available changes as the tissues themselves change. Cells need a way to adjust to the amount of oxygen they have, while still doing their important jobs.”

The committee said that the discoveries are vital for physiology and could exploit new strategies to fight anemia, cancer and many other diseases.

Kaelin was born in New York and received an M. D. from Duke University. He did his specialist training in internal medicine and oncology at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, and at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.

Ratcliffe was born in Lancashire, the United Kingdom, and studied medicine at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge University and did his specialist training in nephrology at Oxford. He is the director of clinical research at the Francis Crick Institute in London and a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.

Semenza was born in New York. He obtained a B. A. in biology from Harvard and his M. D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He did his specialist training in pediatrics at Duke University. He is the director of the Vascular Research Program at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering.