A new study says that the faces on Lego minifigures have become less happy and more often mad or sad. The study was designed to find out if the Lego characters have become grumpier over the years.

Christoph Bartneck works at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He loves Lego and even worked for the company in the 1990s. He worked with another researcher on the project. They looked at all of the 6,000 figures made between 1975 and 2010. They made a note of each figure’s facial expression: happy, grumpy, afraid, surprised or satL They discovered that while in 1980, all of the figures were described as “smiley”, and that by 1990, only about 80 per cent of them had been “smiley” . And by 2010, just 50 per cent of the figures had had a smile on their little plastic faces.

The researchers are wondering how the increasingly sad, angry and unhappy faces on the Lego figures will affect the children who play with them. “Children’s toys can have an important influence on children,” said Bartneck on the university’s website. While Lego hasn’t issued an official response to the study, Bartneck said he thought the reason why Lego was producing angrier-faced characters was that children wanted them. He said it was likely that people wanted Lego characters to have different expressions, rather than just being sunny all the time. He said most of the unhappy faces were on characters based on a specific theme such as Harry Potter or pirates (海盗).

Bartneck will present his findings at the International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction in Sapporo.

   When we are in a bad mood or ill at ease, as long as we listen to a beautiful song, we will feel better and relaxed. A musical _____ always makes us comfortable. By listening to music, we also can understand the philosophies which _____ the music.

Music not only can change our moods, but also can _____ some kinds of diseases, such as insomnia (失眠). Music treatment has been _____ in many countries recently. It has been _____ that music can make people relaxed, more _____ and have a better sleep. Some music even can promote us to _____ a certain number of natural chemicals from our bodies. Besides, music also has a good effect on strengthening people’s memory. In a university, 60 girl students accepted a (n) _____ , It showed that the girls who received musical training in their childhoods could _____ 17% more reading materials than those who didn’t. Some experts also ______ that musicians’ left brains are bigger in size than ordinary people’s. As we know, our memory is ______ by the left brain. That might be the reason why those who receive musical training have a better memory. ______ , the patients whose speaking is damaged may recover ______ by listening to or appreciating some music.

In addition to these ______, music can also promote children’s intelligence growth and ______ people's life. In some countries, people conducted a (n) ______ experiment. They played music beside vegetables and cows. As a result, the vegetables grew faster and the cows produced more milk. Why does music have so many magical functions? ______ , music influences people in psychological and physical ways.

From a psychological angle, music can impact directly on people's moods and behavior. Music has various rhythms, and so do human beings. When the two kinds of rhythms are in ______, the former can adopt the latter’s psychological rhythms. Usually, people will ______ music’s rhythms to change their movements.

From a physical angle, music is a sound wave which has a range of frequency. The wave can have ______ on people’s every neuron, which can secrete (分泌) some chemicals that are good for our health

   As the pace of life continues to increase, we are fast losing the art of relaxation. _______ you are in the habit of rushing through life, being on the go（忙碌）from morning till night, it is hard to _______. But relaxation is _______ for a healthy mind and body.

Stress is a（n）_______ part of everyday life and there is no way to _______ it. In fact, it is not the bad thing that it is often supposed to be. A _______ amount of stress is important to provide motivation and give _______ to life. It is only when stress gets out of control that it can lead to poor performance and _______ health.

The amount of stress a person can bear _______ very much on the individual. Some people are not afraid of stress, and such a ________ is obviously chief material for managerial responsibilities. Others lose heart at the ________ of unusual difficulties. When exposed to stress, in whatever form, we ________ both chemically and physically. In fact we make a choice between ________ and fight. And in more ancient days the choices made the ________ between life and death. The crises we meet today are ________ to be so extreme, but however little the stress, it requires the same response. It is when such a reaction ________ long, through continued exposure to stress, that health becomes ________. Such serious conditions as high blood pressure and heart disease have ________ links with stress. Since we cannot ________ stress from our lives we need to find ways to ________ it.

So what do you think of stress? What is your way to deal with it?