【推荐1】There is a popular saying in the English language: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well, that is not true. Unkind words, name-calling or even the so-called “the silent treatment” can hurt children as much as being physically hit, sometimes even more so. A recent study of middle school children showed that verbal (言语的) abuse by other children can harm, the development in the brain. The study was a project of researchers at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. Researcher Martin Teicher and his team studied young adults, aged 18 to 25. These young men and women had not ever been treated in a cruel or violent way by their parents. The researchers asked the young people to rate their childhood exposure to verbal abuse from both parents and other children. Then the researchers performed imaging tests on the brains of the subjects.

The images showed that the people who reported suffering verbal abuse from peers in middle school had underdeveloped connections between the left and right side of the brain. The two sides of the brain are connected by a large bundle of connecting fibers called the corpus callosum. This was the area that was underdeveloped.

The middle school years are a time when these brain connections are developing. So, unkind, hurtful comments from children or adults during this period have the greatest effect. The researchers tested the mental and emotional condition of all the young people in the study. The tests showed that this same group of people had higher levels of fear, depression, anger and drug abuse than others in the study.

The researchers published their findings online on the American Journal of Psychiatry's website.

Parents cannot control what other people say to their children, but they can prepare their children.

【推荐2】BEIJING — A bullying incident at a primary school in Beijing should not be bushed off as “a joke that went too far”; rather, faces should be dug out and action should be taken to prevent similar events from happening on campus again, according to experts.

Huang Zifang, a psychologist specializing in children's growth issues, said schools should be careful about taking bullying incidents as mere pranks.

“Instead, they should work to find out the root cause of the incident in a timely manner, guide the children involved to face and handle the incident in a correct way and teach them to behave properly to avoid-similar situations,” Huang said.

She made the comments after a mother in Beijing posted a description online on Thursday of how her 10-year-old son was bullied at Zhongguancun No 2 Primary School, a top school in Haidian district.

The mother wrote that her fourth-grade son was the target of bullies who threw a toilet wastepaper basket at him, striking him in the head. The boy was also mocked by his classmates, she said, bringing on acute stress disorder — a mental illness triggered by severe anxiety.

The mother also wrote that the school described the incident as “a joke that went too far” and that the parents of the boy who threw the basket believed their son was “just being naughty”.

The article went viral, with many internet users recalling being bullied at school.

Shen Xua, a volunteer from Beijing who has traveled the country for several years to work with schools to reduce bullying, said schools should take responsibility for such incidents and try to make the bullies understand that their behavior is “vicious and harmful” and “not allowed”.

“In the long run, a reporting system should be established to root out bullying on campus. Students should be given specific channels to report what they experience to teachers before further measures are taken to deal with incidents,” Shen said.

Huang, the psychologist, said that schools and parents must pay more attention to the ethical development and mental health of children, rather than just looking at their academic performance.

On Saturday, Zhongguancun No 2 Primary School released a statement on its social media account saying that it had talked to the parents on both sides and would make further efforts to achieve an outcome satisfactory to all parties.

【推荐3】The Internet can provide a wealth of educational resources for small children, if you know where to look.

Enchanted Learning

Enchanted learning is a great website for children, and I know several teachers who rely on it for materials for their classrooms. Most of the information is free, but for $ 20.00 per year, you can purchase a membership that allows you to have access to the site without the advertising. The pages here are great. There are colored pages and worksheets for toddlers(学步儿童) and school-age children.

Starfall

Starfall is another good educational website for small children. Teachers often use this website in classrooms. It emphasizes reading skills for early learners. The website is aimed at first-grade-leve1 learners, but it has tools that can help all children from pre-K to second grade. The website has reading activities, worksheets to download, and a store where you can purchase educational materials for your children.

Sesame Street Workshop

Kids love Sesame Street, and it is always educational. This is one of the funniest websites online for children because it is very well animated and has great sound effects. The website has games and stories for small kids, and they can create letters at the post office and mail them to their favorite characters.

【推荐1】NOT all memories are sweet. Some people spend all their lives trying to forget bad experiences. Violence and traffic accidents can leave people with terrible physical and emotional scars. Often they relive these experiences in nightmares.

Now American researchers think they are close to developing a pill, which will help people forget bad memories. The pill is designed to be taken immediately after a frightening experience. They hope it might reduce, or possibly erase, the effect of painful memories.

In November, experts tested a drug on people in the US and France. The drug stops the body releasing chemicals that fix memories in the brain. So far the research has suggested that only the emotional effects of memories may be reduced, not that the memories are erased.

The research has caused a great deal of argument. Some think it is a bad idea, while others support it.

Supporters say it could lead to pills that prevent or treat soldiers’ troubling memories after war. They say that there are many people who suffer from terrible memories.

“Some memories can ruin people’s lives. They come back to you when you don’t want to have them in a daydream or nightmare. They usually come with very painful emotions,” said Roger Pitman, a professor at Harvard Medical School. “This could reduce lot of that suffering.”

But those who are against the research say that changing memories is very dangerous because memories give us our identity. They also help us all avoid the mistakes of the past.

“All of us can think of bad events in our lives that were horrible at the time but make us who we are. I’m not sure we want to wipe those memories out,” said Rebecca Dresser, a medical expert.

【推荐3】Self-driving cars have been backed by the hope that they will save lives by getting involved in fewer crashes with fewer injuries and deaths than human-driven cars. But so far, most comparisons between human drivers and automated vehicles have been unfair.

Crash statistics for human-driven cars are gathered from all sorts of driving situations, and on all types of roads. However, most of the data on self-driving cars' safety have been recorded often in good weather and on highways, where the most important tasks are staying in the car's own lane and not getting too close to the vehicle-ahead. Automated cars are good at those tasks, but so are humans.

It is true that self-driving cars don't get tired, angry, frustrated or drunk .But neither can they yet react to uncertain situations with the same skill or anticipation of an attentive human driver, nor do they possess the foresight to avoid potential perils. They largely drive from moment to moment, rather than think ahead to possible events literally down the road.

To a self-driving car, a bus full of people might appear quite similar to an uninhabited corn field. Indeed, deciding what action to take in an emergency is difficult for humans, but drivers have sacrificed themselves for the greater good of others. An automated system's limited understanding of the world means it will almost never evaluate ( 评估) a situation the same way a human would. And machines can't be programmed in advance to handle every imaginable set of events.

Some people may argue that the promise of simply reducing the number of injuries and deaths is enough to support driverless cars. But experience from aviation (航空) shows that as new automated systems are introduced, there is often an increase in the rate of disasters.

Therefore, comparisons between humans and automated vehicles have to be performed carefully. To fairly evaluate driverless cars on how well they fulfill their promise of improved safety, it's important to ensure the data being presented actually provide a true comparison. After all, choosing to replace humans with automation has more effects than simply a one-for-one exchange.