【推荐1】Please Take my Children to Work Day（PTCW Day） first began as a holiday for hard-working and tired stay-at-home mothers to take a day off. Now, this day is fit for any parent. It was created in 2003 and is celebrated each year on June 25, but it isn't a public holiday. It encourages friends and family to take care of the children so that the stay-at-home parent can have some time to relax.

Kamehameha Day is held on June 11 each year. Kamehameha the Great was the monarch（君主） of Hawaii. He is famous and respected for establishing（建立） the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1810. Kamehameha Day is a public holiday in Hawaii, and this is a day off for people. School and most businesses are closed.

D-Day is celebrated in the U.S. to memorize the Normandy landings in France on June 6, 1944. On the day, American army and other Allied forces（盟军） fought hard and the World War Ⅱ（WWⅡ） in Europe was over soon. It is not a public holiday. Businesses have normal opening hours.

Flag Day is celebrated on June 14 each year to honor the United States flag. On the same day, the United States Army celebrates its birthday. Although Flag Day is a great celebration across the country, it is not a public holiday.

【推荐2】Chinese Dragon Head-raising Festival is a traditional Chinese festival held on the second day of the second month of the Chinese calendar. It marks the start of spring and farming. Ancient people believed that after this day, rainfall increases because the rain-bringing Dragon King has woken up from his winter sleep. In ancient times, farming highly depended on the weather. Proper rainfall and plenty of sunlight were necessary for a good harvest at the end of the year. The Chinese dragon, besides a symbol of good luck and great power, is also the god managing weather and water. So Dragon Head-raising Day is about honoring the Chinese dragon and praying for good weather in spring.

The festival celebrates ancient agrarian(农耕的) Chinese culture, and while some of traditional ways to celebrate it are no longer practiced, others persist.

The most famous tradition is getting a haircut. A saying warns that cutting your hair in the first month will cause your uncle to die. Although today few pay attention to it, it was once a tradition for people to line up outside barber shops this day after they avoided haircuts for the preceding(前面的)month.

Today Chinese Dragon Head-raising Day is celebrated in many different ways, most of which are still similar to those practiced in the ancient times, including eating spring pancakes and noodles. People eat tofu balls in East China’s Fujian Province during the festival while fried beans are the traditional festival food for people in parts of Shandong Province. Food eaten on this day also gets a lucky name. For example, noodles are “dragon’s beard” and dumplings are “dragon’s ears”.

【推荐3】Celebrated each September 19, International Talk Like A Pirate Day (ITLAPD) may sound a bit like a joke. And, well, that’s because it partly is. Started by a group of people just wanting to have a laugh, it’s a holiday that exists for the purpose of having fun by going around yelling “drink up me hearties” and “curse ye, ye landlubber.” But what’s the real deal behind talking like a pirate?

Like any great holiday, ITLAPD has a strange story. This one doesn’t go back to the Golden Age of Piracy in the 17th century, but instead to the year of 1995. Friends John and Mark were playing racquetball on a summer day and decided to start yelling things at each other using “pirate slang.” This was your usual “avast” and “ahoy” and, of course, “arrrr!”. John and Mark had so much fun and they decided to make it an informal holiday among themselves and the people they knew. Mark chose September 19 because it was his ex-wife’s birthday (yeah, it’s strange).

In any case, for the first few years, nothing much came of it. Then, in 2002, John and Mark decided to expand the holiday by reaching out to humorist Dave Barry, whose column was issued around the country. Barry wrote about the holiday and became the spokesperson, and it launched the entirely unknown celebration into a larger world. The timing of the holiday’s announcement may have contributed to its popularity. Just one year later, the first Pirates of the Caribbean film was released, which launched pirates back into the cultural conversation. Pirates also became a massive symbol of early internet culture. If you’re “pirating” something today, it more often refers to downloading something illegally than attacking someone else’s ship.

【推荐1】As the days are getting colder, you might wish you could magically turn into a bear and spend the winter sleeping. But don’t be too jealous of the bear, as scientists are looking for ways to let humans hibernate, too!

Hibernation is a state where an animal’s heart rate, breathing and metabolism slow down.Then they can save energy during winter months to survive a shortage of food.

Japanese researchers have found the secret behind hibernation-the “Q neurons”. These neurons in animals’ brains can put them into a hibernation state. The researchers also did surgeries on mice after turning on the mice’s “Q neurons”. It turned out that during hibernation, the surgeries did less damage to the mice’s organs.

According to the team, humans’ “Q neurons” cannot be turned on and off as easily as the mice’s. But they are confident in copying the mice’s hibernation in humans. That means we could let people “hibernate” when having surgery, causing less damage to their bodies.

In recent years, more scientists are waking up to the benefits of hibernation. For example, US scientist Katherine Grabek found that when the thirteen-lined ground squirrel hibernates, it cleans out harmful brain plaques that are related to Alzheimer’s in humans. The animal’s blood pressure also goes up and down greatly before and after hibernating. But it doesn’t suffer from any illness related to blood pressure.

Grabek and her team found molecules from the squirrel that can protect against high blood pressure and heart disease. They hope to find more that may affect human health, and then design drugs.

Some studies in bats showed that, during hibernation, their bodies age more slowly. This also provides new ideas for making humans live longer in the future, according to New Scientist magazine.

【推荐3】The Colorado National Monument, a national park, is an area of great extremes. The ground rises very sharply from the surrounding flat desert area. At first, it seems to be nothing more than huge and very colorful rocks shaped by nature. But if you spend a few hours walking slowly on its many paths, you soon learn that it is very much alive.

Scientists have found seashells high in these mountains and the fossils (化石) of ancient ocean creatures. Near the Colorado National Park researchers have found the huge fossils of ancient reptiles (爬行动物) called dinosaurs (恐龙). One fossil found early last century was the largest fossil dinosaur ever found at that time.

It was huge and it surprised scientists around the world. Scientists are still busy looking for remains of these creatures that died millions of years ago. However, not all of the animals found in or near the park are fossils. Because the area is desert, it is easy to believe that nothing is living here. But if you are very quiet and stay very still, you can see much life in the park. Mountain lions live here. It is very difficult to see them. However, visitors sometimes see the foot marks these big cats left in the soft sand.

If you look closely, you can see small rabbits searching for food or water early in the morning. On hot days you might see deer resting in the shade of trees. The deer are protected from hunters. Often they show little fear of people. Visitors must be careful not to surprise a small reptile called the rattlesnake. The bite of this snake can be very painful and make the injured sick.

【推荐1】It was only a matter of time before someone shrunk(压缩) the huge computer system use in a fighter jet(战斗机) into a device which is the size of an iPhone.

The device, which is called the Aviation Warrior, appears to be using technology of phones and computer devices to help a pilot trapped behind enemy lines. If it proves successful, it could mean the difference between life and death for a pilot in danger.

The Aviation Warrior uses a processor(处理器) the size of a smart phone which is said to be as powerful as a laptop. This powers a display on the pilot’s helmet and a small screen on their wrist.

Using these, a pilot can view full-color maps and virtual images of the landscape around them on displays that adjust as they move their heads. Their helmets also receive and pass surround-sound alerts, giving directional warnings of incoming bombs.

The Warrior technology will enable pilots to find ways through dark conditions when dust or bad weather block land and dangerous buildings. It will also locate enemy and friendly positions.

“With this new system they have all the information they would typically have in a cockpit on their person, so when they leave the aircraft, they still have it with them,” said John D. Harris,   president of Raytheon Technical Services. “Instead of the hide and seek, where a pilot would wait for rescue, they now know how to get to safety,” said Harris.

Harris refuses to discuss Warrior's battery life—an issue that disturbs many users of smart phones—saying only that it meets standard requirements. He also declines to talk about its price.

【推荐2】As the extreme heat waves now affecting parts of Europe, Asia and the US make clear, homes in any area of the would badly need to be changed to help deal with a hotter climate.

The quickest, simplest solution is to equip (安装) air conditioning. But this would lead to a huge increase in electricity demand, researchers warn, driving further climate change. “If our homes are overheated and the first solution that we run to is air conditioners, that is going to dry up our energy systems,” said Miranda, a researcher from Oxford University.

A greener solution would be to develop “passive cooling” technologies, which don’t require large energy inputs. Bertie Ozarisoy from Middle East Technical University found a special home built in 2015, Userhuus, had a “severe overheating risk” during the summer. Using computer models of the house, he found that adding a wind catcher was the most effective for reducing indoor temperatures. Wind catchers get the cooler wind from high above the ground and direct it into the building, pushing out the warmer air inside the house. However, although wind catchers could be easy to fit to new homes, equipping them is likely to be expensive.

Further research showed that opening windows at night and pulling down shades during the day can lower indoor air temperatures by 14C during a heatwave. “Most heat in a home comes from two sources; first, people and equipment they use, and second, solar heat gain through windows.” Says Bertie. “Hot outside air is actually a very small source.”

“The important thing is to open up the entire house at night, to open the windows as soon as outdoor air is cooler than indoor air, and to leave them open all night until the next morning. Close them only when the outdoor air temperature rises.” he added. Blocking sunlight from entering the home is therefore an effective way to keep temperatures under control.