One afternoon while preparing dinner in her kitchen, Anne Peters, a 32-year-old American housewife, suddenly had severe pains in her chest accompanied by shortness of breath. Frightened by the thought that she was having a heart attack, Anne screamed for help. Her husband immediately rushed Anne to a nearby hospital where her pains were diagnosed (诊断) as having been caused by panic, and not a heart attack.

More and more Americans nowadays are having panic attacks like the one experienced by Anne Peters. Studies discover that approximately 1.2 million adult individuals are currently suffering from severe and recurrent (重复发作) panic attacks.

There have been a lot of explanations as to the causes of panic attacks. Many claim that psychological stress could be a logical cause, but as yet, no evidence has been found to support this theory. Recent reports have shown there are at least three signs that indicate a person is suffering from a panic attack rather than a heart attack. The first is age. People between the ages of 20 and 30 are more often victims of panic attacks. The second is sex. More women suffer from recurrent panic attacks than men. The third is the variety of symptoms. A heart attack victim often experiences only pain and shortness of breath while a panic attack victim usually suffers more symptoms than the two mentioned.

It is generally agreed that a panic attack does not directly endanger a person’s life. All the same, it can negatively affect a person’s life by making him or her so afraid of having a panic attack in at a public place that he or she may refuse to leave home. Dr. Crocker’s advice to anyone who thinks he is suffering from a panic attack is to consult a doctor for a medical examination to rule out the possibilities of physical illness first. Once it has been confirmed that he or she is, in fact, suffering from a panic attack, the victim should turn to psychologists and doctors.

In any given week, about four dozen kids visit Dr. David Abramson’s preschool-like clinic at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. And while most of them are barely old enough to speak, because of Dr. Abramson and the groundbreaking medical procedure he has created for a rare and potentially deadly eye cancer called retinoblastoma, they can see.

In the past, if the cancer didn’t respond well to then-available treatments, survival required removing the cancerous eye. The parents, however, will often choose to let their children die with their eyes intact rather than live without them.

“This was a transformational change in our field,” says Dr. Abramson, who began using the technique in 2006. “Overnight, we went from taking out children’s eyes to not taking out children’s eyes.”

But there’s an aspect of the technique that Dr. Abramson doesn’t talk about much, even though it is as inspirational as the technique itself. He refused to patent it. Pursuing a patent, he feared, would have meant the technique would be kept secret for a long period of time while the paperwork was approved by the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office. In the meantime, untold numbers of children would have suffered and perhaps died.

Patent experts wouldn’t make a guess on exactly how much money Dr. Abramson left on the Table by not patenting his procedure. But the purpose of a medical procedure patent is that it allows a doctor to profit by teaching others to perform the procedure.

“I want people to know that when I do something, it’s from my scientific heart, not because I have any financial benefit,” he says. “And ultimately, our goal is to help children. Our driving force in this is not to make money. ”

Before the end of the year, employees at Ubiquitous Energy, a company in Redwood City, Calif, will gather in a window-lined conference room to stare toward the future. That’s because their new glass windows will offer more than an amazing view of the North California landscape. They will also be able to power the company’s lights, computers and air conditioners.

Several years in the making, Ubiquitous’ energy-producing glass is a remarkable technological achievement. Its power lies in the layers of organic polymers (聚合物) between sheets of glass. As light enters the window,the flow of electrons between the polymer layers creates an electric current, which is then collected by tiny wires in the glass.

“It’s sort of like a transparent computer display run in reverse (反过来),” says Veeral Hardev, director of business development at Ubiquitous Energy. “Instead of electricity being shuttled to different points in a display to light them up, light is producing electricity to be shuttled out of different points in the window.”

Right now the windows produce about a third as much electricity from a given amount of sunlight as the typical solar cells used in roof panels (板).These windows, about half as transparent as ordinary glass, don’t work as well as transparent ones. Hardev says the company is likely to improve the transparency significantly. As for the lower output of electricity, he notes that windows can cover a much greater surface area than a roof, so numerous windows will produce a surprisingly larger amount of electricity than the production from a rooftop full of higher-efficiency solar panels. “You could do both.” says Hardev. “But you’ll get more from the windows. The biggest challenge, he adds, is increasing the windows from less than two square feet currently to about 50 square feet.”

Many healthcare workers know that washing hands is important to prevent the spread of infectious disease.     11     During a study conducted by Nicas and Best at Berkley University, they counted the number of times people touched their face with their hands.     12    Whether we are aware of our actions or not, most of us can agree that we touch our face with our hands frequently enough.

Imagine that you are able to record a full day of your actions. Better yet, reflect on what you did when you woke up yesterday morning. Let me give you an idea of my previous morning. I was woken by the alarm clock at 6 am.     13    Then I checked my phone for messages, turned on the TV for my morning news, started making my coffee and finally hit the shower. It wasn’t even 5 minutes from the time I awoke and I already touched different objects. The point of this is to be aware that even in our homes we are exposed to germs in places we don’t realize.

Luckily, the human body has amazing defense against harmful germs.     14    Our white blood cells are like soldiers coming to the rescue. Unfortunately, there are a lot of areas on our face that do not have the protection of skin such as the eyes and mouth. There’s a reason to every wise proverb and our parents annoying us to wash our hands before dinner is not for nothing.

    15    If you have children, it is even more important to set the example because children are known to learn from adults. Let’s start a good habit of washing hands. As for your friends, don’t be shy about checking to make sure their hands are clean. Asking someone if they have washed their hands is caring. Checking to see if someone has washed their hands will benefit not only that person, but you and your family.