While Google, Bing and Yahoo dominate adult search engine choices, they are not always the best choice for students. The sites on this list are good search engines that students can rely on.

Fact Monster

Homework help is always on hand with Fact Monster (www.factmonster.com). It is mainly fit for students aged from 7 to 12. There are also all kinds of games, spelling tests and more for kids to improve their study and have some fun.

Ask Kids

Ask Kids (www.askkids.com) is a great site for students to safely find the information they need from the web. Besides being a useful and safe search engine, Ask Kids also has a useful picture and video search function that allows students to find pictures or videos that may be useful to their information search.

SortFix

SortFix (www.sortfix.com) is one of the useful search engines for students because it provides relevant, organized search results. It does this by analyzing the keywords in the search results, and giving the searcher the ability to focus on, or remove certain keywords. It is a useful search engine if you are not sure what information you want to find, or if you are tired of finding irrelevant results in your searches.

Wolfram Alpha

Created by Stephen Wolfram, Wolfram Alpha (www.wolframalpha.com) can calculate things that it would take a hundred or more individual websites to do. It uses a set of ways to answer questions directly that you type into the search box, which is different from other websites. You can find everything from the nutritional value of an apple to the real-time position of the International Space Station. An Apple app is offered so that you can add it to any iPod Touch devices. It is best suited for older students.

Simone Biles was born in 1997. Soon, her parents found that she couldn’t sit still. When she was 6 years old, her day-care group went on a field trip to a gym. Simone loved watching the gymnasts train and enjoyed their performances. She couldn’t just watch them, though — she had to try their moves. She was so good that one of the instructors sent a letter home with her, inviting Simone to take gymnastics classes.

Simone loved the classes, and she was excellent at climbing, swinging, jumping, and tumbling(翻筋斗). Though she had a lot to learn, the coaches could hardly keep up with Simone. When one girl performed a standing back tuck(翻折), Simone was sure she could do one too. Her coach didn’t believe her, so Simone tried the trick and made it on the spot.

At 9, Simone learned why she couldn’t sit still: She had ADHD (多动症). Her brain moved fast and her body did too—which made it hard for her to concentrate in school but which also made her an amazing gymnast. “The challenges we face help define who we are.” Simone wrote. “My challenge is also my superpower.” Simone’s superpower would help make her one of the most dynamic gymnasts ever seen.

Simone is one of the greatest athletes in history. At age 16, she won two gold medals at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships (AGWC), including the all-around (the total score from competing in all events). She has now won 25 world medals, 19 of them gold. That’s the most in world gymnastics history.

Simone competed in her first Olympics in 2016. She was the first female U.S. gymnast to win four gold medals in an Olympic Games. Since then, Simone has debuted (首次呈现) some moves never successfully done in world competitions, including a double-double dismount (下马) from the balance beam. The move became known as the Biles. Several signature moves have been named after Simone.

You watch a sad film and get caught up in your emotions. You cry your eyes out at the dramatic plot — you feel sad for the characters if they suffer, or happy for them when they are successful. It is only when the movie is over that you realize that what you were watching is not real.

But why couldn’t you accept that when you were so absorbed in the movie? It was reported in Science Daily this week that scientists at Case Western Reserve University, US, discovered that people simply cannot think emotionally and logically at the same time.

It has long been known that something different goes on in our brain when we use logic, rather than responding to something emotionally. Thinking logically is a step-by-step process, in which people make decisions through reasoning and find answers rationally. When we think emotionally or empathize (有同感), we look at things from someone else’s point of view and try to feel their pain.

Now scientists have found that thinking logically and emotionally are like the two ends of a seesaw (跷跷板). When we’re busy empathizing, the part of the brain used for cold, hard analysis is suppressed. And it’s also true the other way round.

To come to this conclusion, scientists gathered 45 people — men and women — to take brain scans as they solved different kinds of puzzles. Some of the puzzles were tough and involved math and physics and others were social problems that required participants to put themselves in other people’s shoes.

Scientists found that when participants were doing a math problem, the region in their brain that is associated with logical thinking lit up, and when asked to make emotional decisions, the region for emotional thinking lit up. But the most interesting part is that when asked to solve problems that required both logical and emotional responses, the participants always used one of the regions at a time while the other one went dark.

“Empathetic and analytic thinking are mutually exclusive (排斥的) in the brain,” said Anthony Jack, leader of the study. “You don’t have to favor one, but cycle efficiently between them, and employ the right network at the right time.”

However, people sometimes ended up using the wrong one. This explains why some people are good at solving complex math problems but have poor social skills. And why even the smartest people get taken in by fake but touching stories.

Launched in Singapore last November, Hong Kong-based company Omnifoods has introduced a range of six plant-based sea foods to stand in for tuna, crab and whitefish. Similar to their pork substitutes, the new products are said to offer a safe and alternative source of protein while tackling environmental concerns like overfishing and worsening of the seas.

Omnifoods’ expansion comes at a time when the market for plant-based products is growing. According to Enterprise Singapore, local interest in sensible consumption doubled in 2021, and flexitarians — people who primarily eat a plant-based diet but occasionally consume meat or seafood — represent the fastest growth. The ocean is another reason cited as the need for plant-based seafood. The average person here consumed 22kg of seafood last year, surpassing the global average of 20kg. The World Wide Fund for Nature(WWF) also observed that three quarters of the seafood served in Singapore is unsustainable. Besides, fish farming involves the use of chemicals to prevent disease and parasites (寄生虫) and these chemicals then accumulate in fish tissues, which becomes a serious threat to people’s health.

Omnifoods says their products address all these concerns. Made primarily from non-genetically modified soybeans, the plant-based alternatives are free of harmful substances, absolutely safe. The company pointed out that the products share a similar look, feel and taste of the real thing. “We’ve done pilot taste tests with friends, family, and one sushi restaurant. Many admire the appearance and mouthfeel that our tuna product has as well as its nutritional benefits. Now we are struggling to improve our product until it’s an exact match or tastes better than animal-based tuna,” added David Yeung.

Besides Omnifoods, Singapore companies are also exploring the alternative seafood market. Growthwell Group recently raised US $22 million to fund its attempt into shrimp, squid and crab made using chickpea protein. “Global demand for plant-based meats is also shooting up, with the value set to reach US $ 23.2 billion by 2024,” said market research company Euromonitor.