Reading habits look different around the world. In India, the average(平均的) person spends 10 hours and 42 minutes reading per week—which is five hours more than the average person spends in the U.S.

What people choose to read also is different because of their different places. Let’s take a look. American readers like the classics better than other popular kinds. Book lovers in New Zealand and Ireland are also looking for older books that may be taught in classes.

In Latin America, horrible and romantic ones are their most popular reading choices. Scary books are loved in Mexico and Argentina, and love stories win over readers in Brazil. The two kinds stand in the No.1 spot in Venezuela.

Fantasy is another popular kind read round the world, coming out on top in Italy, Germany, and Poland.

India, home to the world’s most voracious（渴求的） readers, poetry is much popular than the other types on the map. No matter what your kind of choice is, reading is a great way to feel well-traveled without leaving home.

People all over the world use colorful little squares of paper to help them remember something. Some people even use them to create works of art: These little squares are called Post-it Notes. One of their creators, Spencer Silver, recently passed away at 80.

Silver first started working on the notes in 1968, when he was working for technology company 3M. He discovered a kind of weak glue (胶) that didn’t leave behind any residue (残留物) when it was taken off. ★ But he and his partner Art Fry came up with the idea of putting the glue on small pieces of paper to create notes that could be easily moved from one place to another. They borrowed some yellow paper and went to work on their creation. The Post-it Note was finally born in 1974.

However, it wasn’t brought to market until 1977 and didn’t really take off until 1980. Today, it is one of 3M’s best-selling things. The company makes more than 50 million Post-it Notes every year. Silver, a creative chemist, had 37 inventions during his time at 3M. He was included into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his achievements.

These days, Post-it Notes are made in many different colors. sizes and shapes, including fruit and animals. They are useful for many things. You can use them to take notes, mark your place in a book, give someone a reminder, or even ask someone to a dance. You can even see them in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

We are often told to pay attention to what our mothers tell us. Most of us enjoy listening to our mothers speak. Scientists have found that compared to other people’s voices, our brains greatly prefer the voices of our own mothers.

Scientists at Stanford University, USA, recently studied this. They scanned (扫描) children’s brains while they were listening to different sounds, including their mother’s voices. They found that 97 percent of the time, children could recognize (识别) their mother’s voices at once.

Hearing their mothers’ voices makes children’s brains more active. We usually just use one part of our brain to deal with sounds when we hear something. But when we hear our mothers’ voices, many parts of the brain, including those in charge of reward and emotion, start to work as well.

Why do we respond (作出反应) so strongly to our mothers’ voices? It starts even before we’re born. When children are still in the womb (子宫) or have just been born, they hear their mothers talking. This makes babies feel comfortable and teaches them language and social skills, even though they are still very young. The babies learn to recognize their mothers’ voices as a rewarding sound. Later, when this sound is heard again, more attention is paid to it.

Some sounds are necessary for our survival (生存) or bring us pleasure. These sounds are recognized by our brains as rewarding sounds. Most human voices are not recognized in this way, since we hear them so often. But mothers’ voices are different. They bring us a lot of comfort.