【推荐1】For rescued dogs to get adopted, they need to stand out from the pack. One teenage boy, Darius Brown, has made it his mission to make sure they do——and he does it by providing these dogs with many adorable bow ties that he sews himself.

Darius Brown’s sister, Dazhai, taught him to sew when he was 8. The youngster’s first project, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-themed bow tie, proved popular with his peers.

According to his mom, Joy, her son’s new passion was something of a godsend. Diagnosed at an early age with speech and fine-motor skill disorders (精细运动技能障得), she noticed Darius’s abilities steadily improve as he painstakingly pursued his new skill. “He was so determined. He sat and watched Dazhai for months and took it all in,” Joy told The Washington Post. “He started out cutting cloth and pretty soon, he was running the sewing machine by himself.”

When Darius learned about all the family pets left homeless by Hurricane Irma in 2017, he was inspired to use his emerging talent in helping them get adopted. He soon delivered his first batch of 25 rescue bow ties to New York City’s ASPCA animal shelter, which had become a refuge (避难所) for large numbers of dogs and cats displaced by Irma.

“I saw how happy the people at the shelter were to get the bow ties and how much the dogs liked them, and I decided to make more,” he said. “I came up with a goal to give bow ties to an animal shelter in every state.”

With a little help from his mom, Darius brought his Beaux and Paws brand to life on Facebook and Instagram. The Browns also set up a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for Darius’s sewing supplies. As demand for his “collar-ful” wares grew, Darius also broadened his operations by starting up his own website, Sir Darius Brown.

【推荐2】Two roller skaters were crouched(蹲伏) low, knees bent and bodies pressed together, fighting to stay glued to prevent a third skater slip through and break their wall. This was a roller derby(轮滑阻拦赛) practice for the Tiny Terrors, a team of skaters aged 8-11 in the Gotham Girls Junior League of New York City. “They want to fight and get really fast, and they find so much confidence,” said Kristen Campbell, director of the junior derby program.

Roller derby is played with two teams of five skaters on a track. One player on each team serves as the jammer whose job is to race around the track and score points without getting blocked by the other team. The match is made up of two 30-minute periods that each consists of shorter plays or jams. Each jam lasts two minutes or until the lead jammer calls it off, usually a move made to stop the other jammer from catching up and scoring points.

You have probably heard of adults playing roller derby, but a growing number of young people are attracted by the fast-paced sport. Campbell owes the increase in interest partly to a popular novel called “Roller Girl.”

Campbell described the junior league as a shelter for girls who aren’t sure where they fit in at school. “I’ve had so many parents tell me their child was having trouble with anxiety or bullying(欺负) or that they didn’t fit into any sport or art club or whatever it is,” she said. “And then they find roller derby and everything is solved.”

Many of the girls said they got much more out of the sport than just exercise. As Campbell tells it, those extra lessons are really the point. Strength, confidence and body positivity have long been values of roller derby, even if it’s subliminal rather than open and direct.

Of course, like any contact sport, injuries are unavoidable.

“They don’t go for big hits,” Campbell said. “Now we focus more on hip blocking and using lateral(横向的) movement to block—leaning each other out with light contact.” Besides, the girls don’t mind the occasional bump. “It’s sort of like a medal,” Campbell said, smiling.

【推荐2】Sir William Osler has been called the “father of modern medicine.” His influence on the high standards of medical education was significant. Before Osler, it was common for medical students to graduate from medical school without ever examining a patient.    1    He devoted (奉献)himself to a system that taught students at the bedside in the hospital.

    2    His style of teaching was inspiring, always including cheerful greetings for patients and always adding insightful criticisms(有见地的批评) for students—but never in a mean-spirited fashion.

    3    In fact. Osler once said, “To study the phenomenon of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea(在未知的海洋航行),while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.”

In addition to his role in making bedside teaching standard practice for medical education, Osler continually emphasized (强调) that medical school was not the end of education but just the beginning.    4    Osler fully realized that continuing medical education required hard work, but he emphasized that the benefits were well worth the effort.

True to the high value he placed on continuing education, Osler always addressed medical students as “fellow students.” He also believed that physicians needed to be well rounded.    5    

Osler’s love of education was lifelong. His ideas clearly are as valuable today as they were more than 100 years ago; in fact, they are probably even more important today, given the rate of change in the medical knowledge base.