Like many of the Indigenous (土著的) communities across the Australian continent, he remote communities in north-west New South W ales are struggling. Many of the 300 or 50 residents rely on welfare. Higher electricity bills—up to $3,000 a quarter for some households—further worsen the poverty. They' re always at the end of the power line, so the service that is there is quite extraordinary in terms of cost. It' s a real problem that needs to be fixed. 

To that end, Anderson and other Indigenous leaders have formed the First Nations Renewable Energy Alliance (FREA) to push for renewable energy in Indigenous communities. They partner with private enterprise to support Indigenous communities looking to switch to renewable energy. 

" We can build a power station where the community exists," Anderson says, " so people are able to successfully live in the environment the way they want to live and have access to power which enables them to better determine their economic future. " 

Only a handful of Indigenous communities have set up renewable energy projects in Australia. The Indigenous -owned and -operated company AllGrid Energy, for instance, has installed solar panels and battery storage systems to replace diesel (柴 油) generators n the communities of Ngurrara and Kurnturlpara in the Northern Territory' s Barkly Tableland. Within two months of the system being installed in May 2016, people were moving back to their homelands, the communities growing from just two permanent residents to about 40. 

But FREA will go one step further, working with community leaders and acting as a conduit (纽带) between the communities and the businesses they are dealing with. This is essential, says Anderson, to avoid predatory (吞并) practices they have seen in the past, with companies " playing on the psychology of poverty" to gain advantage. The FREA has drafted terms of agreements that will guide how companies engage with Indigenous communities for renewable energy projects. 

One of the next steps for FREA will be to identify a community that can act as a test case for a renewables project. " Our experience is that if we can make it work for one community, it will work in every other community," Anderson says. 

We often think about relationships on a scale from positive to negative. We are drawn to loving family members, caring classmates and supportive mentors. We do our best to avoid the cruel uncle, the playground bully and the jerk boss.

But the most toxic relationships aren't the purely negative ones. They're the ones that are a mix of positive and negative. We often call them frenemies, supposed friends who sometimes help you and sometimes hurt you. But ifs not just friends. It's the in-laws who volunteer to watch your kids but belittle your parenting. The manager who praises your work but denies you a promotion.

Everyone knows how relationships like that can tie your stomach into a knot. But groundbreaking research led by the psychologists Bert Uchino and Julianne Holt-Lunstad shows that ambivalent (矛盾情绪的) relationships can be damaging to your health — even more than purely negative relationships.

I had assumed that with a neighbor or a colleague, having some positive interactions was better than all negative interactions. But being cheered on by the same person who cuts you down doesn't reduce the bad feelings; it increases them. And it's not just in your head: It leaves a trace in your heart and your blood.

Even a single ambivalent interaction can cause harm. In one experiment, people gave impromptu speeches on controversial topics in front of a friend who offered feedback. The researchers had randomly assigned the friend to give ambivalent or negative comments. Receiving mixed feedback caused higher blood pressure than pure criticism. "I would have gone about the topic differently, but you're doing fine" proved to be more distressing than "I totally disagree with everything you've said."

The evidence that ambivalent relationships can be bad for us is strong, but the reasons can be harder to read — just like the relationships themselves.

The most intuitive reason is that ambivalent relationships are unpredictable. With a clear enemy, you put up a shield when you cross paths. With a frenemy, you never know whether Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde is going to show up. Feeling unsure can disrupt the body's calming system and activate a fight-or-flight response. It's unsettling to hope for a hug while also preparing for a likely quarrel.

Another factor is that unpleasant interactions are more painful in an ambivalent relationship. It's more upsetting to be let down by people you like sometimes than by people you dislike all the time. When someone stabs you in the back, it stings more if he's been friendly to your face.

Children may learn new words better when they learn them in the context of other words they are just learning - according to a new research from the University of East Anglia.

Researchers investigated how 18-24-month-olds learn new words - in the context of words they already know well and those they don't. The findings help explain how children learn new words and suggest a new way that parents and carers could help boost language development.

Previous research suggests that when children hear a word they do not know and see an object they have never seen in the context of some objects that they can already name, such as a toy or a ball, they guess that the new word refers to the new thing.

Dr. Larissa Samuelson from the university wanted to know if the strength of a child's knowledge of familiar things - how well they know what "cars" or "balls" are, for example - mattered for learning new words and remembering them. They asked 82 children to take part in the study and carry out two experiments among them. And then they got some really surprising findings.

"We had expected that a stronger knowledge of familiar words would be better for learning new words, but we found the opposite was true. " Dr Samuelson said. "This new study suggests another way we might be able to help boost children's ability to remember new word-object links - by teaching them in the context of other things that they are just learning. "

It seems counterintuitive, but it is perhaps because the less well-known items don't compete with the new words as much. If they learn new words in the context of playing with well-known items such as a ball or book, they don't process the new word as much.