Consider a tale of two Army veterans (退伍军人), Jeff served two terms in Afghanistan, moved home to the Midwest, graduated from college and landed a secure job in a firm. Matt fought alongside Jeff, left the Amy at the same time and headed home to North Carolina. By the time he was in his 30, though, Matt was unemployed and dependent on government checks.

Why did Jeff develop so well while Matt lost his civilian footing? The answer, according to Daniel M. Gade, a retired office, and Daniel Huang, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—in particular, its strong disability system.

In their convincing description, the authors show in detail how a well-intended system can unintentionally lead fragile veterans, step by step, away from the worlds of work and community. The path typically starts just before separation from the service. Soldiers meet with VA representatives who emphasize opportunities to collect disability compensation (补偿). Jeff, for example, wanted to "get out and get on" with his life, while Matt took the VA agent's advice "and applied for every condition he could think of."

Mat's career plan had been to attain an ideal job in law enforcement (执行), but the field was highly competitive. So he took a job with his dad's construction company. But the physical damage of the job was too much for his knees and back. Deeply depressed, now out of work and living in his parents' home, Matt tried college but felt unbearable. Meanwhile, anxious about his future, he kept applying for higher disability ratings—receiving, eventually, a monthly tax-free check over $3, 000.

For many partially or fully disabled veterans, PTSD (创伤应急障碍) istheir primary diagnosis (诊断). The condition, can be very weak, but it is also treatable. A psychologist told the authors that, when it comes to PTSD, the agency "has been doing harm to millions of veterans by telling them that they're disabled. "

In Matt's case, remarkably, even after the VA determined him to be "housebound, "it didn't mandate (强制执行) treatment. "The natural athlete who had conquered his fear of heights to excel as an airborne (空降的) soldier, " the authors write, "had become a disabled man one year later. The VA's record on treatment in general looks poor: More veterans today, relative to their overall numbers, are compensated for disabilities than ever before in the VA's history. Under 0. 1% of the veterans who receive disability benefits for mental disorders have their benefits reduced over time because their condition has improved.

    Humans have been keeping animals as pets for tens of thousands of years, but Dr. Jean-Loup Rault, an animal scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, believes new companions are coming: robot pets.

    “Technology is moving very fast,” Rault told ABC News, “The Tamagotchi in the early 1990s was really the first robotic pet, and now Sony and other big companies have improved them a lot.”

    This may not sit well with pet lovers. After all, who would choose a plastic toy over a lovely puppy? But Rault argues that the robotic kind has a lot going for it: “You don't have to feed it, you don't have to walk it, it won't make a mess in your house, and you can go on a holiday without feeling guilty.” The technology also benefits those who are allergic to pets, short on space, or fearful of real animals.

    It's not clear whether robot pets can replace real ones. But studies do suggest that we can bond with these smart machines. People give their cars names and kids give their toy animals life stories. It's the same with robots. When Sony stopped its repair service for its robot dog Aibo in March 2014, owners in Japan held funerals.

    As an animal welfare researcher, Rault is concerned about how robotic pets could affect our attitudes towards live animals. “If we become used to a robotic companion that doesn't need food, water or exercises, perhaps it will change how humans care about other living beings,” he said.

    So are dogs and cats a thing of the past, as Rault predicts? For those who grew up with living and breathing pets, the mechanical kind might not do. But for our next generation who are in constant touch with smart technology, a future in which lovely pets needn't have a heartbeat might not be a far-fetched dream.

    Can you be too beautiful? It is hardly a problem that most of us have to bother — as much as we might like to dream that it were the case.

    Yet the blessings and curses of beauty have been a long-standing interest in psychology. Do those blessed with shiny faces and an attractive body live in a cloud of appreciation — or does it sometimes pay to be ordinary?

    At the most basic level, beauty might be thought to carry a kind of halo (光环) around it; we see that someone has one good quality, and by association, our deep mind may assume that they have other good ones too.

    Even in the courts, a pleasing appearance can work its magic. Attractive criminals are likely to get less strict sentences, or to escape punishment entirely; attractive plaintiffs (原告), meanwhile, are more likely to win their case and get bigger financial settlements. “It's an effect seen everywhere,” says Walker.

    But if beauty pays in most circumstances, there are still situations where it can have opposite results. While attractive men may be considered better leaders, for instance, hidden sexist prejudices (偏见) can work against attractive women, making them less likely to be hired for high-level jobs that require power. And as you might expect, good-looking people of both sexes run into envy — one study found that if you are interviewed by someone of the same sex, they may be less likely to employ you if they judge that you are more attractive than they are.

    More worryingly, being beautiful or handsome could harm your medical care. We tend to link good looks to health, meaning that illnesses are often taken less seriously when they affect the good-looking. When treating people for pain, for instance, doctors tend to take less care over the more attractive people.

    Ultimately, scientists point out that focusing too much on your appearance can itself be harmful if it creates stress and anxiety — even for those already blessed with good looks. “If you are crazy about attractiveness, it may affect your experience and interactions,” she says. It's an outdated saying, but no amount of beauty can make up for a bad personality. As the writer Dorothy Parker put it so elegantly: “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”