At the end of the day, most of us find ourselves on the couch, eyes glued to the television or to our smartphones, doing everything we can to conserve energy. 【小题1】 But are we hardwired (本能的) for it?

According to Michael Inzlicht, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto, we’re lazy and also, we’re not.

All humans, given equal options, will take the easy way out. Does it mean we’re lazy? Maybe. 【小题2】 We always minimize our effort and, at the same time, maximize the amount of reward we get for that effort. A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia found that our brains may be hardwired for laziness. Even though we know the benefits of exercise, we stay glued to the couch.

【小题3】 We can’t know for sure whether there is an evolutionary (进化的) purpose to it. But that would make sense. After all, before we were able to go to the grocery store, calories were much more directly linked to effort. Every calorie we burned meant more hunting, fishing, or gathering.

But there are the times when humans are the opposite of lazy and do very difficult things for no apparent reason. Some rewards only come from extensive effort. 【小题4】 Running this far might even cause more harm than good in terms of running injuries like stress fractures, back pain and so on. But we do it anyway because putting in the effort makes us feel good, says Inzlicht. 【小题5】

So, in that sense, effort is worth the effort. While humans are economically aware of effort most of the time, “in some cases, the effort itself is rewarding,” says Inzlicht.

Human beings are extremely adaptable creatures, and able to find something good in almost everything. A recent study asked the American population to find out what they consider to be the positive aspect of COVID-19.

A team from Harvard and Stanford conducted interviews of 3,113 participants over the seven-month period from March to September 2020.

The scientists found many things in the responses. Using statistical analysis, the researchers grouped words and themes together to find the most common silver linings in the storm of COVID-19 waves.

Number one, reported by 46% of participants, was quality time with loved ones, including “The kids are helping around the house more”, “I’m in touch with my family who live far away” and “My husband and I take more walks, resulting in more time together.

The second most-recognized silver lining was “life slowed down, and I could do things calmly without FOMO (fear of missing out).” They also noted that because life was slower, they could pursue low-cost hobbies merely for fun, and find time for thinking.

Number three was community coming together, not just in terms of the local community in which the participant was a member, but seeing communities come together all over the world.

The other six themes, reported by between 8% — 12% of participants, included the benefits of having a more flexible working schedule, or completely working from home, getting more health knowledge, and feelings of gratitude.

“Reflecting on benefits may help people better recognize the outside protective factors in their lives — such as having strong relationships with family or friends — or their own inside protective factors — such as being grateful,” the researchers note. “The process of identifying benefits may help people notice the protective factors in their lives, which are ‘skill, strengths, or resources that can help them deal more effectively with stressful events’. It serves as psychological buffers that protect individuals from the potential harms of tough situations.”

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT,麻省理工学院) have turned spider webs into music-creating a strange soundtrack that could help them better understand how the spiders output their complex creations and even how they communicate.

The MIT team worked with Berlin-based artist Tomas Saraceno to take 2D (two-dimensional) laser scans of a spider web, which were linked together and made into a mathematical model that could recreate the web in 3D in VR (virtual reality).They also worked with MIT’s music department to create the virtual instrument.

“Even though the web looks really random, there actually are a lot of inside structures and you can visualize them and you can look at them, but it’s really hard to grasp for the human imagination or human brain to understand all these structural details,” said MIT engineering professor Markus Buehler, who presented the work on Monday at a virtual meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Listening to the music while moving through the VR spider web lets you see and hear these structural changes and gives a better idea of how spiders see the world, Buehler told CNN. “Spiders use vibrations (振动) as a way to locate themselves, to communicate with other spiders and so the idea of thinking really like a spider would experience the world was something that was very important to us as spider material scientists,” he said.

Spiders are able to build their webs without shelves or supports, so having a better idea of how they work could lead to the development of advanced new 3D printing techniques. “The reason why I did that is that I wanted to be able to get information really from the spider world, which is very weird and mysterious,” Buehler explained. In addition to the scientific value, Buehler said the webs are musically interesting and that you can hear the sounds the spider creates during construction. “It’s unusual and eerie and scary, but finally beautiful,” he described.