It’s hard to say why, but it’s just true: music is good for you. It can calm your spirit and help you vent (发泄) your anger. 【小题1】 But there’s one surprising yet well-documented effect that has really surprised us. Music lessons are very good for language comprehension -- and they might even be better than reading lessons.

【小题2】 But in this new study from MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology), researchers were able to see music lessons improve word comprehension right before their eyes. Led by Robert Desimone, the director of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, the team tested 74 children between the ages of four and five to see how their growing language skills were affected by piano lessons.

The 74 participants were divided into three groups. 【小题3】 The other two had their weekly academic lessons supplemented with three 45-minute lessons per week -- the first got piano lessons and the second took part in reading lessons.

The results? The ones who received a little extra learning every week outperformed those who just continued on with their normal studies. 【小题4】 Perhaps even more surprisingly, the children who took the music lessons even outperformed the ones who took the reading lessons when it came to telling the difference between two words that were very similar.

“That’s a big thing for kids in learning language: being able to hear the differences between words,” Desimone said in a statement. “They really benefited from that.” To the researchers, the results point to one clear conclusion: 【小题5】

Educational programs often use fear-based messaging and films of crash scenes to reduce risky driving behavior among young people. But does this “scary” approach work? A new study suggests that fear-based messaging fails to reduce risky driving behavior, while fear-based Virtual Reality (VR) films showing a violent collision may actually lead young drivers to take more chances behind the wheel.

A team of psychologists in Belgium conducted a study of 146 students who had been legally driving for less than five years. The researchers examined the impact of both content (fear vs. positive) and delivery mode (2D vs. VR) of driver safety intervention programs.

By showing a serious consequence such as death, fear-based driver education films attempt to arouse a sense of fear and persuade young people to drive more carefully. Positively framed films take the opposite approach, using humor and modeling safe driving behaviors that result in positive consequences.

Three tests were used to analyze the risk-taking behavior of the young drivers before and after participating in the intervention program. One was a questionnaire. Another was a test on traffic, which asks participants to watch video clips of driving situations and choose whether they view a situation as too risky, for example, choosing whether to pass another car in icy conditions. A third test was used to measure the level of emotional arousal (such as feeling afraid) after watching a film.

The results showed that participants who viewed the fear-based VR film reported riskier driving behaviors afterward, while those who viewed a positively framed VR film exhibited the greatest reduction in risky driving behavior. This finding supports other research that has shown that exposing participants to an extreme collision tends to activate defensive mechanisms, such as paying attention for a shorter time, disengaging, rejecting a message, and an increase in risky behaviors.

“Fear appeals have been used in many health and environmental campaigns, such as smoking and anti-drug,” says Dr. Cutello of the research team. “Further experimental research is needed to determine whether the use of fear is effective.”

The moon may hold water in more places and in larger amounts than scientists have suggested in the past. The finding is based on two studies published in Nature Astronomy — that examined new data from the U.S. space agency NASA.

Until about 10 years ago. scientists believed the moon was mostly dry. Then, a series of findings provided evidence that water ice was widespread in small amounts on parts of the moon. The ice was thought to be in areas permanently blocked from sunlight.

But in one of the new studies. NASA said it was able to validate the presence of water molecules (分子) on sunlit parts of the lunar surface. The space agency says the identification came from data collected by its SOFIA airborne observatory equipped with a powerful telescope. The research was led by Casey Honniball of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Scientists have suggested the source of the water may have been comets (彗星), asteroids (小行星), solar wind or interplanetary dust. The new research provides evidence that the water may be surviving on sunlit lunar surfaces because it is attached to minerals.

The second study centered on so-called "cold traps" on the moon. These are areas of the lunar surface that exist in a state of permanent darkness where temperatures are below about minus 160 degrees Celsius. Scientists say temperatures this cold can hold frozen water for billions of years.

Planetary scientist Paul Hayne of the University of Colorado Boulder led the research on cold traps. He said likely "tens of billions" of traps. Hayne's team says the new research suggests more than 40,000 square kilometres of the moon's surface may have the ability to trap water in the form office. That figure is 20 percent bigger than predicted in the past, Hayne said.

Jacob Bleacher is the chief exploration scientist for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. He told reporters the agency believes it is very important to find out more about where the water comes from and how accessible it is.