Universe started in the third grade when she and her father watched a blood moon — a total lunar eclipse (月食) — outside their Skokie house. “It is just really cool how the universe can change and how something like that happens,” Dobek said.

Now a seventh grader at East Prairie Elementary School, Dobek recently won the national Discovery Education Lockheed-Martin Beyond Challenge by designing a space station for traveling to Mars.

Dobek competed by handing in a two-minute video where she presents her design.

“My design will not only ensure the safety of the astronauts (宇航员) but also make sure their comfort is out of this world,” she says in her video.

Dobek’s design calls for building the Mars Storage Station to store plentiful supplies. In the video, Dobek explains how her spacecraft (宇宙飞船) — the Adventurer — will land in a space station. Dobek’s design includes physical activity for the astronauts. They can choose their exercise machines and virtual (虚拟的) reality environment. So they will be able to watch downloaded shows and even see places on Earth such as their homes.

Dobek said she began her project by performing her research and then she constructed the design over three weeks to a month, working on it whenever she could, including on weekends.

When Andrea Smeeton, her teacher, saw the video and her design before they were sent, she said she had a feeling that she could win. “I don’t know why but maybe it was the excitement and the detail in the project,” Smeeton said. “I have taught for a long time and many of my students are gifted but this project is just very creative and it gives hope to a space program.”

Dobek and her parents traveled to Washington D.C. in April where they learned Dobek had won. When she texted her teacher the happy results, Smeeton admitted that she cried.

“I want to tell other kids to follow their dreams,” Dobek said. “Whatever they want to do, they should kind of just push for it. They should always try their best.”

“The Mexican is familiar with death, jokes with it, sleeps with it and celebrates it,” wrote Mexican author Octavio Paz.

To celebrate death, people throughout Mexico celebrate the Day of the Dead on or around Nov. 1 each year. People wear makeup to celebrate the festival on that day.

Widely considered to be Mexico’s most important festival, the Day of the Dead is deeply rooted in the culture of the local Mexica.

The Mexica were the dominant local people in Mexico before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.

The celebration is based on a Mexican legend ( 传 说 ) that says after death, souls can only communicate with their still-living families in the first days of November. One can see how these days would be quite important for the Mexican people.

Now the tradition has become a modern festival .

“It’s a celebration with many years of history, to which local people have incorporated(融合) new religious elements, such as the gathering of offerings,” said Octavio Murillo, director at the National Institute of Local People in Mexico.

On this special day, people around Mexico decorate their homes, streets and relatives’ graves with flowers, candles and colorful skulls. At the same time, they set up altars ( 祭坛) on which they place the personal belongings of the dead to welcome them home.

In recent years, this festival has become a global symbol of Mexican culture , especially after the movie Coco《寻梦环游记》 hit big screens in 2017.

“We are all afraid of death, and in Mexico, it is part of a celebration, a ritual of color. It’s amazing. ” said Alejandra Diaz, a 30-year-old traveller. She took a week-long trip from Colombia to Mexico City just to take part in the festivities.

If you want to live longer, live around green space.

That’s the simple conclusion of the largest analysis ever performed on the relationship between the environment and human health—ever. Eight million people. Seven countries. One simple finding:

“When you are exposed to greenery or greenness around your home, your probability to die   is less compared to those with less greenness around their home,” says David Rojas, researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. And he was the main author of the study, which was published in The Lancet Planet Health teaming up with the World Health Organization.

Specifically, the research team found that for every 10% increase in plants cover that’s within 1,600 feet of your home, your probability of death drops by 4%.

Those hard numbers are the result of a large metastudy(元研究) analyzing nine separate studies about longevity and green space that looked at how and how long people lived over long periods of time. Subjects were from countries around the globe, too: Australia, Canada, China, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and the U. S.

As Rojas explained, in every country, the finding was the same. People who lived near more green space lived longer than people who lived near less. This green space can be grass, trees, or gardens. It can be public or private space.

He also explained, The study didn’t discriminate(歧视), nor did it have the accurate data to show that some plants were better for our health than others.

Do you feel your life is losing its passion (热情)— as though everything you do, like work and study, is boring and empty? A life passion isn’t something that drops on you from the heaven or appears from thin air.     11     If you want to begin today to display your true self and regain your own passion in life, here are some measures you can take to get started.

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Get a small pocket notebook and keep it with you. Keep the memory of times when you feel happy and fulfilled. What are you doing when you feel good? Write it down in your notebook. Pay attention to what feels good to you.

Let go of should

    13     I should stay in this job because I can't find a better one. I should became a teacher because my parents want me to. I should not try something new because I'll look foolish. Throw away this word from your vocabulary while on your passion search.

Appreciate your skills.

Maybe you aren't an artist at something, but you have many skills.     14     Ask your friends and parents what you are good at---no matter how small. Make a list of your skills, and make note of the skills you really enjoy.

Keep trying

The process of finding your passion may take a couple of years. You may have to try a few and give up a few things before you discover what you feel great. It may gradually surround you rather than knock you in the head.     15