【推荐2】The Torch Festival (火把节) is a traditional festival which is celebrated among some ethnic groups in southwestern China, such as the Yi, Bai, Hani, Lisu, and Lahu, etc. It usually falls on the 24th or 25th of June, with three days of celebrations. The festival came from worship (崇拜) of fire by ancestors ( 祖 先 ). For some ethnic groups, it’s a tradition in the festival for elders to share farming experience with young people and educate them about taking care of crops.

During the festival, big torches are made to stand in all villages, with small torches placed in front of the door of each house. When night falls, the torches are lit and the villages are bright. At the same time, people walk around the fields and houses, holding small torches and placing the torches in the field corners. Inside the villages, young people are singing and dancing around the big torches that keep burning throughout the night. Other activities like horse races are also held during the festival.

In a horse race of the Yi people in Yunnan, torches are used to form hurdles for riders to get through. The Hani people in Yunnan traditionally tie fruits to torches with strings. When the strings are broken after the torches are lit, people struggle for the fruits for good luck.

For the Lisu people in Sichuan, the festival is an occasion for holding torch parades. Big torches are carried by teams of people, which is like a fire dragon. If different teams meet, it’s a tradition to exchange the big torches with one another.

【推荐3】Yuletide (圣诞节) Brunch With Dickens

Thursday, December 8, 10:00 am ~ 1:00pm

Join us for a special brunch featuring delicious foods free from much salt and fat, soft beverages, and a special appearance of Gerald Charles Dickens! Reservations and advance payment are required. $30 per person. More information can be found by calling 800-448-3883.

Yuletide Brunch With Santa

December 17 & 18, 9:00 am ~ 2:00 pm

Santa will appear in the morning. $35 per person. Children, ages 2 to 12, half off; children under 2 are free. Members receive 10% discount on parties of up to four. For reservations, call 302-888-4826.

About Glass Matters Wine Seminar and Tasting

Hosted by Riedel, the wine glass company

Wednesday, December 14, 6:30 pm ~ 7:30 pm, Brown Horticulture Learning Center

Join us for a unique and fascinating wine seminar featuring Riedel crystal and delicious wine. Our speaker will demonstrate how the shape of the glass influences our enjoyment of the wine. Price includes comparative tasting of four different wines and four crystal glasses from Riedel’s Veritas Collection to take home (a retail value of $138). The option to purchase more wine glasses sets at special pricing: $80 per member; $90 per nonmember. Purchase tickets online or by calling 800-484-3283. Tickets to this event include admission to Yuletide Jazz & Wine in the Galleries Reception Atrium on that evening.

【推荐1】In 2018 measles ( 麻疹) infected almost 10 million people around the world and killed 420. Countries that achieved high vaccination（苗接种） rates or had formerly eradicated the disease also failed to have narrow escape .

Fortunately, apart from troublesome measles, many inspirational global health stories happened in the last decade, new viruses, vaccines, and treatments were discovered, once again showing the significance of science.

Huge progress was made in virus research. For instance, a kind of virus named Medusavirus, which can turn an amoeba, a kind of single-celled living creature, into a "stone", was identified by Japanese scientists. The virus has one of the largest and most complicated viral genomes(基因组) that have ever been found. Besides, a new virus, Alongshan virus, was discovered in a group of patients in Inner Mongolia. Researchers also found for the first time that an insect RNA virus, the Providence virus, was able to infect plants and mammalian cells, which indicated that plants could serve as hosts of human viruses.

We also saw improvement in treatments and vaccines. Ebola virus is good case in point. According to the Royal Free Hospital in Britain, the drug MIL77, which had been developed by Academy of Military Medical Sciences, an institution in China, jointly with some other companies, was adopted to treat a Briton infected with the disease and helped her recover from the deadly virus. This has indicated China's capability of offering an economical and practical drug fighting Ebola virus worldwide. Furthermore, the Chinese and British medical research teams have worked on genome sequencing of the virus, making it possible to develop drugs and vaccines that are more effective. Therefore, Ebola is no longer a death sentence.

Thanks to investment in global supervision transnational partnership, and scientific research, many new viruses, vaccines, and treatments were successfully discovered in the last decade. But the journey will continue and much more needs to be done. For example, we need to have a deeper understanding of bow climate change influences the spread of infectious diseases

【推荐2】English spelling has been changing for over a thousand years and the spelling difficulties we have today is the result of many different things that have taken place over this time.

It was a tricky beginning for English spelling. Quite simply, the 23-letter Roman alphabet has never been enough — even Old English (spoken 450-1150) had about 35 sounds, and the number is now even bigger. But the English spelling was and still is based on the Roman alphabet.

More spelling problems came in when the French introduced new spelling rules — their own of course? and not always helpful. Using “c” instead of “s” for words like city was confusing because “c” also sounds “k” in words like cat.

And then printing arrived in the 15th century — and with it more mess (混乱). William Caxton (who set up the printing machines in the first place) liked Dutch spellings and so he introduced the “gh” in ghost and ghastly. Some printers were Europeans and they introduced favourite spellings too from their own languages. Such spelling rules were not helpful either!

One of the biggest problems for English spelling has always been changes in pronunciation. Printing helped to stablise (使……稳定……) the spelling of words, but then some sounds changed their shape? and others even disappeared altogether. Think of those silent letters in words such as walk, through, write, right, know — these were once pronounced.

Many silent letters appeared just because some famous busybodies wanted to make the language look more beautiful. This caused serious mess. Let’s take rhyme as an example. It came from the French word rime. But it was changed to rhyme to give it a nicer look. It was an interesting idea, but hardly helpful for someone trying to spell the word! The 16th and 17th centuries saw many extra letters introduced in this way.

All these events lead to the messy spelling system we have today. But you know, there are in fact over 80% of words spelled according to regular rules.

【推荐3】Yellowstone National Park became America's first national park in 1872. The National Park Service was formed 44 years later in 1916.Yellowstone, which is mostly in the state of Wyoming, is considered an example of the success of the National Park System.Humans have been present in Yellowstone for more than 11,000 years.

Yellowstone contains beautiful mountains, deep canyons(峡谷), lakes and rivers.The name Yellowstone comes from the river running through the area. At first known as Rock Yellow River, it became known as the Yellowstone River.

Yellowstone is host to many different species of plants. However, the park is most distinctive because of what lies underneath it. It sits on top of an ancient super volcano, known as The Yellowstone Caldera. The caldera is 48 by 72 kilometers. And it remains an active volcano.

It is believed that the last time the volcano erupted was one half million years ago. The area has had three major eruptions in the last three million years.Experts say it may erupt again in another 1,000 to 10,000 years. But each year, there are thousands of earthquakes at Yellowstone. Most are too small to be felt by people visiting the park.

Yellowstone is filled with the beauty of many hot water springs. hot water and gasses are trapped under the earth. they rush to the surface in the form of hot water and steam. Old Faithful is The most famous one . It erupts about every hour or hour and a half. The eruption can last from one and a half minutes up to 5 minutes. The amount of hot water it expels（排出） in that time can be as much as 31,000 liters or more.

In addition to its beauty and wonder, Yellowstone is an animal sanctuary（保护区）. It is home to the largest group of wild animals in the United States. As you travel through the park, you can sometimes see them in their natural habitat and hear their calls .