【推荐1】Today, roller skating is easy and fun. But a long time ago, it wasn't easy at all. Before 1750, the idea of skating didn't exist. That changed because of a man named Joseph Merlin. Merlin's work was making musical instruments. In his spare time he liked to play the violin. Joseph Merlin was a man of ideas and dreams. People called him a dreamer.

One day Merlin received an invitation to attend a fancy dress ball. He was very pleased and a little excited. As the day of the party came near, Merlin began to think how to make a grand entrance at the party. He had an idea. He thought he would get a lot of attention if he could skate into the room.

Merlin tried different ways to make himself roll. Finally, he decided to put two wheels under each shoe. These were the first roller skates. Merlin was very proud of his invention and dreamed of arriving at the party on wheels while playing the violin.

On the night of the party Merlin rolled into the room playing his violin. Everyone was astonished to see him. There was just one problem. Merlin had no way to stop his roller skates. He rolled on and on. Suddenly, he ran into a huge mirror that was hanging on the wall. Down fell the mirror, breaking to pieces. Nobody forgot Merlin's grand entrance for a long time!

【推荐2】A Swiss airplane powered only by energy from the sun left from Abu Dhabi early on March 9. Its creators hope the plane will make the first around-the-world journey without any fuel. The plane is called Solar Impulse 2. It has one seat and is made from carbon fiber. The plane weighs only as much as a car but its wings are wider than a Boeing 747. The plane’s wings stretch 72 meters across. Those wings include 17,000 solar units, or cells, which capture the sun’s energy. The energy allows the plane to fly day and night.

Two Swiss scientists built the plane. Bertrand Piccard is also an explorer who made the first non-stop flight around the world in a balloon. Andre Borschberg is an engineer and trained fighter pilot. The scientists say they are not trying to alter the airplane industry. Instead, they want to show that new energy sources and technologies can achieve what some say is impossible. “We want to show we can fly day and night in an aircraft without a drop of fuel.” Mr. Piccard said.

Some parts of the trip will require the pilots to be in the tiny plane for five to six days and nights in a row. So it is good that the pilot’s seat is also a toilet.

The plane’s route begins in the United Arab Emirates. The pilots also plan stops in Oman, India, and China. They will cross the Pacific Ocean, stop in the United States, and continue over southern Europe or North Africa. They plan to arrive back in the United Arab Emirates in late July or early August.

Internet viewers can go to the Solar Impulse website to see the plane’s location and listen to broadcasts from the pilots.

【推荐3】A group of university professors recently created a scanner they believe can predict the perfect job for anyone — simply by looking at their fingerprints. The group says that in the future, fingerprints could help tell a person's key personalities.

To use the scanner, people place their fingers upon the fingerprint reader and computer technology connected to sensors reads back what sort of work would suit the individual (个人).

The machine bases its results on a collection of a large amount of information in the computer about how fingerprint shapes connect to job selection.

Local companies help researchers from the city's Kuban University of Physical Education and Sport to test the technology.

Twenty-one-year-old Oscar Galkin, a mathematics graduate, said, ''I got the result from the scanner that I would be suited to a job in IT, which is exactly what I want to do. I don't know if it is luck or if it can really read a person's talents, but it worked for me. ''

And Zara Tokareva, aged 20, who feels uncomfortable at the sight of blood, said, ''I want to be a house designer but the machine said. I should be a nurse. So, no, I don't think it is as clever as is being made out. ''

Though fingerprint identification has been widely used in crime discovering, it is still a science that has a lot of possibility of being used, say experts, from discovering drug misuse to personality analysis — exactly as hand readers have been saying to do for centuries.

''The basic idea is that although everybody's fingerprints are completely different, there are obvious features that are common on the fingers of certain professionals working in certain jobs.'' Said researcher Ravil Yudin.

''It's not really a new idea because hand readers have been saying for hundreds of years that you can tell a person's future by reading their hands. We want to match that by looking at fingerprints and trying to tell what career path people would choose.''

【推荐1】Dr. John Wilkins was a natural philosopher who lived from 1614 until 1672. He was crazy about getting to the moon and meeting the people who surely lived there. Wilkins believed that anything as Earth-like as the moon must have been created by God for living beings, and he was determined to meet them — despite the fact that he was three centuries ahead of his time.

In the 1600s, the scientific understanding of gravity and outer space was limited. Wilkins believed, like many 17th-century scientists, that there was no difference between the atmosphere of Earth and the conditions in space, and that Earth’s pull was due to magnetism (磁力). It was only reasonable, then, that Wilkins believed a two-wheeled horse-drawn battle car with wings with enough speed could lift high enough off the ground to break free of Earth’s magnetic pull and reach the moon.

Then Wilkins moved on to more pressing issues with his remarkable ability to think of new ideas: How would travelers feed themselves during the journey? He theorized that the main cause of hunger was simply the act of working against gravity, so getting to the moon without being burdened by it would be able to be realized. There was some knowledge at that time about the fact that air gets thinner and colder the higher up you go, but he had a fix for that too, “moistened sponges (湿润的海绵) might help us against its thinness”.

By studying the way in which birds fly, which also happened to be part of the studies that led to planes and rockets centuries later, Wilkins put his theory to the test with the help of a colleague, Robert Hooke. Neither of the two ever recorded their attempts, but it’s somewhat safe to say that it didn’t work out. Hooke himself may have been the reason he gave up hope, in fact, since he was part of the team that discovered space was a place without oxygen.

【推荐2】It is not only praise or punishment that determines a child’s level of confidence. There are some other important ways we shape our kids—particularly by giving instructions and commands in a negative or positive choice of words. For example, we can say to a child “Don’t run into traffic!” or “Stay on the footpath close to me.” In using the latter, you will be helping your kids to think and act positively, and to feel competent in a wide range of situation, because they know what to do, and aren’t scaring themselves about what not to do.

Actually, it is all in the way the human mind works. What we think, we automatically rehearse. For example, if someone offered you a million dollars not to think of a blue monkey for two minutes, you wouldn’t be able to do it. When a child is told “Don’t fall off the tree,” he will think of two things: “don’t” and “fall off the tree”. That is, he will automatically create the picture of falling off the tree in his mind. A child who is vividly imagining falling off the tree is much more likely to fall off. So it is far better to use “Hold on to the tree carefully.”

Clearly, positive instructions help kids to understand the right way to do things. Kids do not always know how to be safe, or how to react to the warning of the danger in negative words. So parents should make their commands positive. “Sam, hold on firm to the side of the boat” is much more useful than “Don’t you dare to fall out of the boat?” or worse still “How do you think I’ll feel if you drown?” The changes are small but difference is obvious.

Children learn how to guide and organize themselves from the way we guide them with our words, so it pays to be positive.

【推荐1】It was hot and yet, such a beautiful day. My parents and I picked up my grandmother from the nursing home. We used to go there regularly but the last time I visited my grandmother, she seemed to forget where she was and how to breathe on the massage (按摩) table—it scared me so I thought perhaps it was better to transfer her to a clinic that day.

She had been getting weaker and having aches from sitting in a wheel chair all day, so I called Wang Tao who runs a Chinese massage clinic with his wife and daughter out of their home and told him my concerns wasn't even sure whether my grandmother would be strong enough to get up the stairs or get onto the table.

''We can help her make it'', Wang Tao said. And, we did. Sure there were struggles and funny moments. For example, my grandmother wondered who was the man working on her back, Wang Tao had massaged her over the years at least 20 times. They used to laugh and talk together in Chinese but my grandmother didn't remember. Wang Tao was shocked that my grandmother seemed to have forgotten he is a Chinese man, but he still patiently tried to refresh her memory.

My grandmother was born in California, but her parents who were born in China only spoke Chinese, so Chinese was her first language but English is spoken all around her. Still, our family all felt grateful and happy to hear my grandmother start talking to Wang Tao in Chinese again. It was like the dust just needed clearing. We all laughed a happy laugh. When the session was over, my grandmother took Wang Tao's hand and thanked him for helping her. We ended our day with a Chinese dinner of course-one that ended with my grandmother saying to the massager: please come here and I have to shake your hand. ''Thank you for what you have done. '' she said joyfully as she held this stranger's hand. And then she turned to me, ''Thank you, my grandson. ''

【推荐2】Last year 1 ruined my summer vacation by bringing along a modern convenience that was too convenient for my own good: the iPad. Instead of looking at nature, I checked my e-mail. Instead of paddling a small boat, I followed my Twitter feed.Instead of reading great novels, I stuck to reading four newspapers each morning. I was behaving as if I were still in the office. My body was on vacation, but my head wasn't.

So this year I made up my mind to try something different: withdrawal (撤走、收回) from the Internet. I knew it wouldn't be easy, since I'm bad at self-control. But I was determined. I started by giving the iPad to my wife.

The cellphone signal at our house was worse than in the past, making my attempts at cheating an experience in frustration. I was trapped, forced to go through with my plan. Largely cut off from e-mail, Twitter and my favorite newspaper websites, I had few ways to connect to the world except for the radio and how much radio can one listen to, really? I had to do what I had planned to do all along: read books. This experience has had a happy ending. With determination and the strong support of my wife, I won in my vacation struggle against the Internet, realizing finally that it was I, not the iPad, that was the problem. I knew I had won when we passed a Starbucks and my wife asked if I wanted to stop to use the Wi-Fi. “I don't need it,” I said.

However, as we return to post-vacation life, a harder test begins: Can I continue when I'm back at work?

There are times when the need to know what's being said right now is great. I have no intention of giving up my convenience completely. But I hope to resist the temptation (抵挡住诱惑)to check my e-mail every five minutes, which leads to checking my Twitter feed and a website or two.

I think a vacation is supposed to help you reset your brain to become more productive. Here I hope this one works.

【推荐1】Scientists from around the world examined whether supplements marketed are good for brain health, particularly in those aged over 50. Despite the claims of some supplements that they could improve cognitive （认知的）skills, no clear evidence was found to back this up.

The report said, "For the handful that have been researched, several well-designed studies of supplements for brain health found no benefit in people with normal nutrient levels. It's unclear whether people who lack nutrition can benefit their brains by taking a supplement. The pills failed to protect against dementia （痴呆）and did not slow the process or improve the symptoms of the disease and the report said that a healthy diet rich in fruit and vegetables, being physically active and getting sufficient sleep were linked to better brain function. ”

The value of the food supplement market in Britain is expected to reach more than £1 billion by 2012 and supplements sold on the high street for brain performance cost up to £26 for 60 pills. And Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK said that people were better off spending money to improve diets.

The report did find evidence suggesting that supplements could benefit people diagnosed with lacking vitamin. It added that these should only be taken if advised by a doctor because some supplements could interact with medicines or contain high levels of nutrients, which could be deadly. Supplements were not strictly controlled in the way that medicines were and may not contain high-quality ingredients or what was on the label, the report said.

The Health Food Manufacturers' Association, which represents the British supplement industry, said that the report was based on the American market. In Britain products could only make claims approved by the European Food Safety Authority, such as the zinc （锌）contributed to normal cognitive functions, a spokesman said.

【推荐2】Minimalism (极简主义) is hot, culturally, and for years, science has assured us that it was also the path to the greatest happiness. The popular wisdom is that people who want the most happiness for their money should buy experiences, not things. The idea is that joy of an experience begins before it even starts, and continues when you look back on the fancy dinner or vacation. Experiences provide, in other words, both more anticipatory (预期) happiness and afterglow (回味) happiness.

But a recent study suggests that sweaters and iPhones might make you just as happy, in a way, as concerts do. There is a third type of happiness — momentary happiness — and it tends to last longer with material goods because people use them for more time than they typically experience their experiences for.

For the study, researchers Aaron Weidman and Elizabeth Dunn from the University of British Columbia gave 67 participants $20 to spend on either an experiential or material purchase of their choice, and then to report one experiential or material gift they had recently received. Then they quizzed them about their happiness levels.

They found that the study subjects gained more frequent momentary happiness from material goods, but stronger momentary happiness from the experiences. In other words, they enjoyed their material goods on a greater number of occasions than they did their experiences even though the happiness felt from the experiences was slightly stronger.

So should you spend much money on the latest iThing or on Hamilton tickets? It depends on whether you are “seeking a strong but fleeting form of happiness,” Weidman and Dunn write, “or a more subtle (微弱的), frequent form of happiness that will last for weeks or months.”