【推荐2】William Lindesay, well-known Great Wall expert and conservationist, and his wife Wu Qi have traveled across the globe by the back paths, providing their sons Jimmy and Tommy a unique environment for personal growth.

Sunhats, backpacks, sneakers and trekking poles—these are the day-to-day must-haves of the family. This East-meets-West couple started traveling while their younger son was still a baby in 2003. Most of their trips are far from the hot spots recommended by travel guidebooks—heritage study in the Mongolian deserts, a 53-kilometer hiking tour of New Zealand, a one-day climb of three English summits and a six-day train ride from Beijing to Moscow.

“Real travel may be hard, uncertain, uncomfortable, but there’s a feel-good factor when you pass a test of some kind,” Lindesay wrote in the family’s newly published travel memoir Pages of Discovery.

Lindesay attaches great importance to learning out of the classroom, saying that children might score well on school tests, but that experience of the world outside, in distant lands, with different languages, scripts, political structures, and religious beliefs, is the real testing ground.

Children in this international family did not have the same pressure to perform on school tests, but they had “homework” on the road. Wu asked her sons to write travel diaries, collect tickets, draw maps and summarize travel tips. She says such habits, though they might not directly improve test scores, will pay dividends in later life.

These experiences certainly shaped their sons’ characters and influenced their chosen study at university. One read world history, the other international relations. The two brothers also share an interest in historical monuments, and the Great Wall in particular. They are now planning to follow in their father’s footsteps with a new 4,500-km hike on the Great Wall.

“My parents view the world as a big classroom, and my brother and I are the biggest beneficiaries,” Jimmy says.

【推荐1】It’s such a happy-looking library,painted yellow,painted yellow,decorated with palm-tree stickers and sheltered from the Florida sun by its own roof.About the size of a microwave oven,it’s pedestrian-friendly,too,waiting for book lovers next to a sidewalk in Palm Beach Country Estates,along the northern boundary of Palm Beach Gardens.

It's a library built with love.

A year ago,shortly after Janey Henriksen saw a Brian Williams report about the Little Free Library organization,a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that aims to promote literacy and build a sense of community in a neighborhood by making books freely available,she announced to her family of four,“That’s what we’re going to do for our spring break!”

Son Austin,now a 10th-grader,didn’t see the point of building a library that resembles（与...相似）a mailbox.But Janey insisted and husband Peter unwillingly got to work.The 5-year-old owner of a ship supply company modified a small wooden house that he’d built years earlier for daughter Abbie’s toy horses,and made a door of glass.After adding the library’s final touches（装点）,the family hung a signboard on the front,instructing users to“take a book,return a book”,and making the Henriksen library,now one several hundred like it nationwide and among more than 2500 in the world,the only Little Free Library in Palm Beach County.

They stocked it with 20 or so books they’d already read,a mix of science fiction,reference.titles,novels and kids’ favorites.“I told them,keep in mind that you might not see it again,”said Janey,a stay-at-home mom.Since then,the collection keeps replenishing（补充）itself,thanks to ongoing donations from borrowers.The library now gets an average of five visits a day.

The project's best payoff,says Peter,are the thank-you notes left behind.“We had no idea in the beginning that it would be so popular.”

【推荐2】A few minutes of looking into a deep red light could have a dramatic effect on preventing eyesight decline as we age, according to a newstudy published this week in the Journals of Gerontology.

“You don’t need to use it for very long to start getting a strong result.” said lead author Glen Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience at University College London’s Institute of Ophthalmology. The study was small, an experimental study to test the concept. Researchers recruited 12 men and 12 women, whose ages ranged from 28 to 72. Each participant was given a small handheld flashlight that emitted a red light with a wavelength of 670 nanometers. They spent three minutes each day looking into the light over a period of two weeks.

The lights work on both cones (视锥细胞) and rods (视杆细胞) in the eye. Cones are photo receptor cells that detect color and work best in well-lit situations. Rods, which are much more plentiful, are retina cells that specialize in helping us see in dim light, according to the American of Ophthalmology. Researchers measured the cone function in subjects’ eyes by having them identify colored letters with low contrast. And they measured their eyes’ rod sensitivity by asking them to detect light signals in the dark.

There was a 14% improvement in the ability to see colors, or cone color contrast sensitivity, for the entire two dozen participants. Improvement, however, was most significant in study participants over age 40. For those ages, cone color contrast sensitivity rose by 20% over the course of the study.

That age group also saw significant increases in rod threshold, that is the ability to see in low light. Study participants under 40 also experienced some improvement, but didn’t see the same jump as older subjects. Younger eyes haven’t declined as much as older eyes.

“The retina ages faster than any other organ in your body.” Jeffery said. “From an evolutionary viewpoint, they fundamentally have never lived past 40. Now, of course, we regularly live well beyond that age, and need ways to care for the organs that have been the most likely to wear out earliest in life. But more studies are needed to prove it helps.”

【推荐3】When the weather gets cold, we can put on more clothes, stay next to a fireplace, turn on the air conditioner or simply travel to a warmer city to spend the winter – people have many different ways of coping with the cold.

But things are not as easy for plants. Unlike humans, plants can’t move to escape the cold or generate heat to keep themselves warm. So how do they manage to survive the freezing winter?

It turns out that plants have their own strategies too, said a study published on Dec 22 in the journal Nature.

According to researcher Amy Zanne of George Washington University, US, the cold is a big challenge for plants. Their living tissues can be damaged when they freeze. “It’s like a plant’s equivalent to frostbite (冻疮),” Zanne told Science Daily. Also, the process of freezing and thawing (解冻) can cause air bubbles to form in the plant’s water transport system. “If enough of these air bubbles come together as water thaws they can block the flow of water from the roots to the leaves and kill the plant,” she explained.

To live through cold weather, plants have developed three traits, according to the study. Some plants, such as oak trees, avoid freezing damage by dropping their leaves before the winter chill sets in – effectively shutting off the flow of water between roots and leaves – and growing new leaves and water transport cells when the warm spring returns.

Other plants, pine trees for example, protect themselves by narrowing their water transport cells, which makes it easier for cells to travel among air bubbles.

The third strategy is also the most extreme – some plants die on the ground in winter and start growing as new plants from seeds when conditions get warmer.

However, the study also found that these smart strategies were developed very slowly – over millions of years of evolution. This leads scientists to worry that plants may not be able to deal with human-caused climate change, which has only started occurring over the past few decades.

Scientists are hoping that this study can help people find possible ways to save plants from the threat of climate change.

【推荐1】The Houston Museum of Natural Science

Founded in 1909, the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) has always been one of the most heavily attended museums in the United States. It houses a variety of permanent exhibit areas that examine astronomy, space science, Native American culture, energy, chemistry, gems and minerals, seashells, Texas wildlife and much more. In addition, the museum frequently presents traveling exhibitions on a variety of topics. The Museum is a major science learning center with over a half million school children visiting it annually, including every fourth grade and seventh grade class in the Houston Independent School District.

The Museum can be quite crowded on weekends and weekday mornings, due to the hundreds of thousands of students that visit HMNS each year. Please call 713-639-4629 to inquire about the crowds that are anticipated during your intended visit.

Monday-Sunday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (last entry at 4:30 p.m.)

It’s closed on New Year’s Day and Christmas Day.

PLEASE NOTE: Average museum visit takes 2 hours or more.

Adult Ticket: $25 (ages 12 and up)

Child Ticket: $16 (ages 3-11)

Children aged 2 and under: FREE

College Students with ID: $16

Seniors (62+): $16

Groups (10+): $10

Flash photography is ONLY allowed in the Grand Hall and the rainforest of the Coekrell Butterfly Center. Selfie sticks (自拍杆), tripods and camera stands are not allowed anywhere in HMNS. Photography is not allowed in certain exhibitions. Please check for signs by the exhibit entrance for more information or ask a museum employee.

【推荐2】Are you looking for a summer camp? The following are some of the camps available this coming season.

History Camp

June 25 through July 25 at Upper City Park and 1876 School House

Johnson County Historical Society day camps will feature Little House and Little School by focusing on what life was like in the 1800s. Little House will be held in Upper City Park and Little School will be held at 1876 School House, 310 Fifth Street.

For grades 1-4, run from 1 pm to 5 pm.

Cost: $100 each session(期), or daily fee of $25.

Soccer Camp

June 15-19 at Julius Kahn Park

This soccer camp is open to children aged between 6 and 16 and will focus on teamwork and technique. Campers will be encouraged to improve basic skills, improve understanding of methods and deal with difficulties.

Half-day camp from 9 am to noon for ages 6-9 or 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. for ages 10-16. Full-day choice of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. for ages 10-16.

Cost: $89 half day before May 15, $99 after May 15, $169 full day before May 15, $179 after May 15.

Art Camp

Week-long camps June 9 through August 15 in MYGK Building

Summer Art Workshops for children ages 4 to 12. Workshops include themes(主题) of junk, recycled art, and paper-making. At least five students are needed for each session or the session will be canceled. Hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. or 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Cost: $72 a week.

【推荐3】It is not rare in China that many seniors take advantage of their retirement years to please their grandchildren.

Some are good at sugar figure blowing art-the maker uses sugar as its basic material to boil and blow into various figures. Some can weave, using even the most unexpected materials such as leaves, and some excel in carpentry, using wood to carve lifelike dolls and toys.

Recently, in a small village in Fujian province, one — and — a — half — year — old Dandan became the most enviable child. His grandfather made a wooden " mantis cart （螳螂车）"for him. The wooden components on both sides of the cart would rise and fall with the metal wheels, resembling a mantis. This one-of-a-kind toy was filmed by the child's parents and posted online, immediately arousing curiosity.

The grandfather, Li Shishui, 70, who has been a carpenter for more than 50 years, retired in 2018. In his spare time, he picks up his old craftsmanship and uses the scrap （小块）wood from his old house to make the "mantis cart" with long legs. He also makes pure wooden toys such as robots , birds and even an   "Iron Man".

When Dandan goes out in the “ mantis cart"，   it never fails to turn heads and children of the neighbors next door shout and cry to their parents for one too.

Full of childlike fun, fatherly love and delicate design, the wooden toy, not merely catches the heart of children in his neighbourhood, some netizens also express their envy after watching online videos. "I want a grandpa like him too. " ^"Does grandpa want a granddaughter?" Some also recollect that although their grandfather is not a carpenter, these videos have brought back their fond memories when they were young — their grandfather also made some gadgets （小物件）for them.

Therefore, many believe, parents should stress the importance of the education of their children's interpersonal communication skills at an early age. Children who grow up in the love of their elders can expect to be more brave, positive, optimistic and confident than other children.