【推荐2】On Monday, August 21, millions of Americans across the country wore their protective eyeglasses to watch the highly expected total solar eclipse (日全食). Though eclipses, which occur about every 18 months, are not rare, this one was historic. It was not only the first total solar eclipse visible from the mainland US in more than38 years, but also the first to be seen coast to coast in almost a century.

The crowds were thrilled as the moon briefly blocked the sun, covering cities all the way from Oregon to South Carolina with darkness. Many people felt cold as the temperature dropped dramatically, by up to 12degrees Fahrenheit, during totality. Those fortunate enough to have clear skies not only saw the corona (日冕), the sun’s outer atmosphere, which is usually not visible in the sun’s glare, but also the bright stars and planets.

Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperative everywhere. The crowds who gathered in Charleston, South Carolina, the last big city in the path of totality, had to struggle against a thick cloud cover when the partial eclipse began at 1:17 pm. It did thin out a little as totality took place at 2:46 pm, allowing for a good view of the eclipse, but not the sun’s corona! However, some spectacular flashes of lightning that occurred just as the moon covered the sun helped ease the disappointment somewhat.

The rare event, believed to be the most observed and most photographed eclipse in history, was a huge success. As Bill Nye or “the Science Guy” briefly put it, “Experiencing an eclipse changes the way we feel about space and how we are connected. This moment will remind us all that we share a common origin among the stars and that we are all citizens of the same planet.”

【推荐3】Scientists have found evidence of a giant planet far out in our solar system. In a statement, the California Institute of Technology—Caltech—said this planet travels in a strange orbit in the distant solar system.

The discovery was made by two researchers at Caltech: Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown. They used mathematical modelling and computer simulations to find the planet. So far, there have not been any direct observations of the planet.

“My jaw hit the floor,” said astronomer Mike Brown when he realized there might be a ninth planet.

The scientists said it would take the planet 10,000 to 20,000 years just to make one full orbit around the sun. The new planet which is called “Planet Nine” has a mass about 10 times the size of the earth. If they are right, the newly found planet will be the ninth planet in our solar system.

It is believed that the planet orbits, or travels, around the sun from a great distance. The planet Neptune’s average distance to the sun is about 4.5 billion kilometres. But “Planet Nine” could be 20 times farther away from the sun than that.

While they did not get a picture of “Planet Nine” yet, the scientists say they are using the biggest and the best telescopes on earth to try to find “Planet Nine”. They want to find out more about its orbit and its impact on the outer part of our solar system.

Brown and Batygin reported their findings in the Astronomical Journal. They say that this new planet is so large that there should be no doubt that it is a true planet.

Robert Massey is with the Royal Astronomical Society in London. He said that planet had been predicted before, and then was not found. But he said the work of these researchers was definitely worth following up.

Once upon a time, the family dining table would be set with a simple cloth each night. Plates, forks, and spoons would be laid out. As dinner time approached, an increasing number of hungry mouths would begin to appear with the question, “What’s for dinner?”

Now the situation is different. Where did your family eat dinner last night? In the car on the way to sports? At McDonald’s? Or at the dinner table? A survey taken a few years ago found that 28% families ate dinner together at home seven nights a week. Another quarter said they ate together three or fewer nights a week.

What accounts for this decline in families eating together today though? The data seems to point to two main issues: overworked parents and over- scheduled children. When mum or dad does get home in the evening, they are soon in the car again to send the children to soccer, music, tutoring, and a host of other events.

This nightly ceremony around the dinner table is what keeps a family together. Sure, the conversation is not always significant, and children argue. And sometimes the deepest and most meaningful times in a family are not at the table at all. However, there is still something unique about the time a family spends around the dinner table. The dinner table is the place where a family builds an identity. Stories are passed down, jokes are exchanged, and the wider world is examined through the lens (镜头) of a family’s values. Children pick up vocabulary and a sense of how a conversation is structured. Dinner time is “family time”. Coming back daily to the same place helps gain familiarity.

The significance of dinner time is more than the above. Studies show that the more families eat together, the less likely the children are to smoke, drink, and develop eating disorders, and the more likely they are to do well in school and learn how to socialize. One professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey stated, “A meal is about civilizing children. It’s a time to teach them to be a member of their culture.”

So start by planning some stay-at-home family dinners together. Just family talk.

【推荐2】A study led by child psychologist Dr Richard Woolfson suggests that children aged between 7 and 14 experienced twice the cognitive processing speed(认知处理速度) and performed better in testing after watching 20 minutes of a 3D film.

This is despite suggestions that attention spans in children have shortened in the last decade due to unlimited to access to entertainment, including on-demand TV, gaming and social media.

A 2015 study claimed that watching 3D content had a similar effect to brain-training exercises. Consumer psychologist Mr Fagan said that the increased stimulation found in watching something in 3D "exercised" the brain and improved performance in the short term. "3D films can play the role of 'brain-training' games and help to make children 'smarter' in the short term," he said. "The shortening of response times after watching 3D was almost three times as big as that gained from watching 2D; in other words, 3D helps children process aspects of their environment more quickly. This is likely to be because 3D is a mentally stimulating experience which 'gets the brain's juices flowing'."

The experiment saw children given a range of cognitive tests before watching 20 minutes of a movie in either 2D or 3D and being tested again. The results showed those who saw the 3D content reacted faster and performed better in the second round of testing. Mental engagement also rose by 13% among 3D watchers.

Child psychologist Dr Woolfson added that "supportive parenting" and regularly listening to classical music can also aid a child's memory. "Children now expect to flit( 转换) from activity to activity in a matter of seconds, leaving them struggling when they need to concentrate for longer, for instance, during a classroom learning experience." he said.

【推荐2】When you really love a book, or have just scored a new one that you’re dying to read, it can be exciting to pick up a smooth, shiny hardcover copy that creaks a little bit when you open it. But those hardcover books can be heavy, and new ones aren’t cheap, either. Sometimes, you’d just rather have a portable paperback—but if it’s a new book you’re after, you might have to wait a full year or so to get it in paperback form. Why are books released as hardcovers first?

Not so long ago, hardcover books were the only type of books. Before the appearance of mass production, print runs were limited, and books were hard-bound and expensive. Around the 1930s, that changed with the production of mass-produced paperback books, which consisted with a huge surge in reading as a leisure activity around World War II. Paperback books were more affordable and cheaper to produce, which still holds true today.

Despite the seeming advantages of paperbacks, there are several reasons why the hardcover has persisted. Because of its history, it conveys a bit more legitimacy (正统性) in the book world than the paperback does. “The hardback is a mark of quality…it shows booksellers and reviewers that this is a book worth paying attention to,” Philip Jones, editor at The Bookseller, explains to The Guardian.

But the major reason why books come out as hardcovers is that people buy them, despite their higher cost. The Economist compares it to movies being released in theaters several months before they arrive on DVD. “Just as film fans like to see films on the big screen, collectors enjoy the hardback’s superior quality,” according to The Economist. And because they’re profitable, publishers can gain more from hardcovers, which “will often sell at twice the price of their paperback equivalent but do not cost twice as much to produce,” Jones explains.

【推荐3】Migrating terns(燕鸥)may change their flight plans based on a keen sense of coming typhoons, escaping the impact of the storms but still benefiting from feeding opportunities in their wakes.

Researchers examined data recorded by tracking devices on six terns from Okinawa, Japan, to learn more about the birds’ migrations over multiple years. The terns flew across part of the Philippine Sea’s “typhoon highway” to get to the islands of Borneo and Sulawesi and varied their leaving times—often apparently waiting to depart until a large typhoon was about to cross their projected path.

“They seem to be able to predict it,” says Jean-Baptiste Thiebot, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan and lead author of the new study, which was published in June in Marine Biology. The study offers few clues about how terns might do this, but other research suggests some migrating birds detect infrasonic(次声的)weather signals or observe changing clouds.

The terns Thiebot studied typically avoided the typhoons themselves. But these storms can churn（剧烈搅动）food to the ocean surface, so the immediate results may help the hungry travelers. They might actually use the typhoon to know when to leave for their migrations each year, Thiebot says. In the unusually quiet 2017 season, with no sign of a strong typhoon, the birds started their journeys later and flew without pit stops. Thiebot would like to see this pattern confirmed in a larger study. He also worries that increasing typhoon frequency could affect birds’ prediction accuracy, possibly getting them caught in dangerous weather.

Robert Gill, a retired research wildlife biologist, says that although the study’s sample size is small, it   adds to scientists’ overall understanding of migration. “They are able to predict better than the best weather forecasters we have,” Gill says, “but they’ve also had tens of thousands, if not millions, of years to hone that skill.”