The ingredients of love

In modern times, finding love seems more central to people’s lives. Then, researchers wonder, can love, a highly valued emotional state, be created?

To help determine the ingredients of attraction, one research paired 164 college classmates and had them talk for 3, 6 or 10 minutes to get a sense of each other’s individuality. Then students were asked to predict what kind of relationship they might build with their partners. After nine weeks, they reported what happened. Reports showed their initial judgments often held true. All these students seemed to distinguish at an early stage who would best fit into their lives.

Scientists have also turned to nonhumans to increase understanding of attraction. Many animals give off pheromones — natural chemicals that can be detected by, and then can produce a response in, other animals of the same species. Pheromones can signal that an animal is either ready to fight or is feeling open to partnerships. In contrast, humans do not seem to be as gifted as other animals at detecting such chemicals. Smell, however, does seem to play a part in human attraction. Although we may not be aware of chemicals like pheromones consciously, we give and receive loads of information through smell in every interaction with other people.

Being fond of someone seems to have a number of factors, including seeing something we find attractive. Researchers had people judge faces for attractiveness. The participants had 0.013 seconds to view each face, yet somehow they generally considered the images the same as people who had more time to study the same faces. The way we assess attractiveness seems to be somewhat automatic. When shown an attractive face and then words with good or bad associations, people responded to positive words faster after viewing an attractive face. Seeing something attractive seems to cause happy thinking.

Was your school noisy or peaceful？It might not seem important，but a growing body of research suggests that sounds can have an impact on learning，performance and creativity.There is certainly some well-established research to suggest that some noises can have a harmful effect on learning.Numerous studies over the past 15 years have found that children attending schools under the flight paths of large airports lag behind in their exam results.

But general noise seems to have an effect too. Bridget Shield，a professor of acoustics at London South Bank University，and Julie Dockrell，now at the Institute of Education，have been conducting studies on the effects of all sorts of noises，such as traffic and sirens，as well as noise generated by the children themselves.When they recreated those particular sounds in an experimental setting while children completed various cognitive tasks，they found a significant negative effect on exam scores.“Everything points to a harmful impact of the noise on children's performance，in numeracy（计算能力），in literacy，and in spelling，”says Shield.The noise seemed to have an especially harmful effect on children with special needs.

Shield says the sound of"babble"---the chatter of other children，is particularly distracting in the classroom.“People are very distracted by speech---particularly if it's understandable，but you're not involved in it."This phenomenon is also known as the irrelevant speech effect，she says，adding that“it's a very common finding in open-plan offices as well."

Whether background sounds are beneficial or not seems to depend on what kind of noise it is and the volume. In a series of studies published last year，Ravi Mehta from the College of Business at Illinois and colleagues tested people's creativity while exposed to a soundtrack made up of background noises---such as coffee-shop chatter and construction-site drilling---at different volumes.They found that people were more creative when the background noises were played at a medium level than when volume was low. Loud background noise，however，damaged their creativity.

Fatigue

Fatigue is a feeling of being extremely tired. Basically, there are three types of fatigue, physical, pathological (由疾病引起的), and psychological. As you might suspect, each differs significantly from the others.

When you exercise your body, you produce waste products. Muscles, for example, release lactic acid (乳酸) into the blood; cells dump in carbon dioxide. When these wastes reach a certain level in the blood, the brain is informed and your activity level drops. Excess wastes in the muscles may produce soreness. The solution to this type of fatigue is simple — rest. That should refresh you; if it doesn’t, another cause should be sought.

Have you ever become involved in so many activities that you had to be in two places at once? This is what happens when your body has a disease. The cells are overused and cannot keep up with both fighting the disease and keeping you active. The result is fatigue. Some communicable diseases like the flu and colds are “well” known for draining your energy. Other non-communicable diseases, like anemia (贫血), drain you because you are lacking an important body ingredient. Being overweight can cause pathological fatigue. It should be obvious that this type of fatigue is not going to go away without treatment. In a way, pathological fatigue is a lifesaver. It lets you know something is wrong and that you need rest.

Here is the most common type of fatigue. Almost everybody experiences it now and then. Often, the cause is an emotional war you are having with yourself or those around you. Some of these familiar factors can bring on psychological fatigue: worries, stress, lack of exercise, boredom, depression. If you know someone with psychological fatigue, would you advise him to rest? No way! That might be fine for our other types of fatigue, but for this one, it’s deadly. If you are ever going to be able to cope with stress, depression, or worry, you need oxygen in your cells and a more optimistic attitude. Get out of the chair and do something! Believe it or not, many people throw themselves into physical labor like cleaning to “de-fatigue” themselves. If you find yourself in a particularly stressful situation that you can’t physically escape, escape mentally. When fatigue continues, maybe you need to get to the root of the problem.