Why do some people live to be older than others? You know the standard explanations: keeping a moderate diet, engaging in regular exercise, etc. But what effect does your personality have on your longevity(长寿)? Do some kinds of personalities lead to longer lives? A new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society looked at this question by examining the personality characteristics of 246 children of people who had lived to be at least 100.

   The study shows that those living the longest are more outgoing, more active and less neurotic(神经质的)than other people. Long-living women are also more likely to be sympathetic and cooperative than women with a normal life span. These findings are in agreement with what you would expect from the evolutionary theory: those who like to make friends and help others can gather enough resources to make it through tough times.

   Unfortunately, another recent study shows that your mother's personality may also help determine your longevity. That study looked at nearly 28,000 Norwegian mothers and found that those moms who were more anxious, depressed and angry were likely to feed their kids unhealthy diets. Patterns of childhood eating can be hard to break when we're adults, which may mean that kids of depressed moms end up dying younger.

   Whether you can successfully change your personality as an adult is a longstanding debate of psychology. But the new paper suggests that if you want long life, you should strive to be as outgoing as possible.

   Personality isn't destiny(命运), and everyone knows that individuals can learn to change. But both studies show that long life isn't just a matter of your physical health but of your mental health.

Is your family interested in buying a dog? A dog can be a happy addition to your family, but if you choose the wrong kind of dog, the consequences can cause you a lot of trouble.

Families should sit down and thoroughly discuss the problems involved before buying a dog. Even if the children in your family are the ones who want the dog, the parents are the ones who are really responsible for seeing that the animal is properly cared for. If you don't know much about dogs, it's a good idea to go to the library for or the ASPCA for books about various kinds of dogs, as well as books about how to train a puppy. In reading about the different breeds, you should know that a dog described as very alert may be too jumpy and bouncy. When a book describes a dog as an ideal hunting dog, it probably means that the dog won’t be happy living in a small apartment. Dogs breeds vary in popularity as the years go by.One of the most popular dogs these days is the German shepherd (牧羊犬).This is because it provides protection as well as companionship. The family should be warned that these dogs grow up to the very big, and may be too powerful for children to handle. If space is limited, a toy dog may be a good choice. These dogs are very small and easy to train. They don't need to be walked daily, since they can exercise in the space available in the home.

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As the weather warms, Liu Xing is welcoming more and more customers to her stall(货摊) at a night market in Harbin. “During the past two months, I have been able to earn about 300yuan a day,” said the 28-yeat-old mother. But the money that flows in is only a fraction of what she needs for the treatment of her 4-year-old triplets(三胞胎).

Liu’s daughters, who were born in 2012 were diagnosed with cerebral palsy(脑瘫) when they were 17 months old. “The doctors told us that at the time they would not be able to walk because of the disorder, which affects a person’s ability to move and maintain a balance. But after treatment, it would be highly possible that the girls would be able to recover the ability to walk normally. But the treatment would cost at least 600,000 yuan, which was an astronomical number for us,” the young mother said.

Liu said more people began to know the family’s story after it was reported in local media, and since then, many people have tried to help. What touches the couple the most is the kindness of strangers who drop by their stall and give them money or who send cash without leaving their names. Liu said, “ So far, we have received nearly 300,000 yuan in donations.”

Last year, the couple took the triplets to Shenyang, where they received two rounds of treatment at a local hospital. “ Every round of treatment costs about 180,000 yuan, and the daily rehabilitation(康复) services cost about 9,000 yuan a month,” Liu said. But she says the treatment has led to a great improvement and the triplets can now walk slowly without the assistance of others.

Even though the couple has a heavy burden to shoulder, smiles never disappear from their faces. “We don’t know how many difficulties we will have to face in the future, but we will never give up,” Liu said.

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Sit-down habit is killing us

How many hours do you spend sitting in a chair every day? Eight hours in the office plus three hours in front of the TV after work is the norm for many people. You probably don't need an expert to tell you that sitting too much is not good for your health---from an increased risk of heart disease and obesity(肥胖) in the long term, to reduced cholesterol（胆固醇）maintenance in the short term, not to mention the strain（拉紧）on your neck and spine.

To make matters worse, a growing body of research finds that negative effects of sitting too much cannot be replaced with a good diet and regular exercise, according to an article in The New York Times.

The article reported that a 2010 study of nearly 9,000 Australians found that for each additional hour of television a person watched per day, the risk of dying rose by 11 percent.

Another study tracked the health of 123,000 Americans between 1992 and 2006. The death rate for men who spent six hours or more per day sitting was about 20 percent higher than for men who sat for three hours or less.  The death rate for women who sat for more than six hours a day was about 40 percent higher. In other words, sitting is killing us.

Stand up for health

So what can we do about it? Health experts suggest we break up those many hours spent sitting with more hours spent standing.

The BBC and the University of Chester in the UK conducted a simple experiment with a small group of 10 volunteers who usually spent most of the day sitting. They were asked to stand for at least three hours a day. The researchers took measurements on days when the volunteers stood, and when they sat around. When they looked at the data there were some striking differences, the BBC reported on Oct. 16.

Blood glucose leveled off (呈平稳状态)after a meal much quicker on the days when the study subjects stood compared with the days they spent in a chair. Standing also burned more calories — about 50 calories an hour. Over the course of a year that would add up to about 30,000 extra calories, or around 3.63 kilograms of fat. "If you want to put that into activity levels, then that would be equal to running about 10 marathons a year," said John Buckley, a member of the research team. "Just by standing up three or four hours during your day at work."

    Buckley said that although doing exercise offers many proven benefits ,our bodies also need the constant, almost imperceptible(感觉不到的) increase in muscle activity that standing provides. Simple movement helps us to control our all-important blood sugar.

The researchers believe that even small adjustments, like standing while talking on the phone, going over to talk to a colleague rather than sending an e-mail, or simply taking the stairs instead of the elevator, will be of great help to us.