【推荐1】Many students love competing in contests. If you’re one of such students, here are some contests that might catch your attention.

Team America Rocketry Challenge

This is the world’s largest student rocket contest. The contest was created in the fall of 2002 as a one­time celebration of the Centennial of Flight, but by popular demand became a yearly program. It is meant to build a stronger US workforce (劳动力) in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Creative Communication Poetry Contest

Many students love writing poems, which can benefit them in various ways. Now this contest is a good choice for them. In addition to the winning poems, other poems of high quality are accepted to be published and will be read by more people. There is no entry fee and no required purchase (购买) in order to become published. But entries must be students in 9th grade or lower living in the United States.

Math Contests—Homeschool Division

The goal of the competition is to encourage students’ interest in math and to inspire students to do well in math. The contest is for students in grades 2, 3, 4 and 5. Any teacher from a public school or a private school is welcome to ask their students to compete. Open to homeschool students in grades 2­8.

National Constitution Bee

The National Constitution Bee will be held at the Phoenix Park Hotel in Washington, DC. To reach the standard of joining in the contest, students must finish in the top 3 in their State Constitution Bee. The first­place winner will receive a $25,000 college scholarship (奖学金). The second­place winner will receive one fifth of what the first­place winner will receive. And the third­place winner will receive half that much of the second­place winner.

【推荐2】The 2024 Science Fiction Short Story Contest

The 2023 Science Fiction Short Story Contest just came to an end. Welcome to our 2024 Science Fiction Short Story Contest sponsored by Science Fiction Association in our city. The contest is to encourage amateur and semi-professional writers to reach the next level of proficiency. We will look for engaging openings, good character development, well-structured plotting, powerful imagery, humorous language, unique word or phrasing choices, and convincing endings. Come to show the world your fantasy imagination and storytelling talents!

A qualifying story must have strong science fiction or fantasy elements and must be shorter than 7,500 words. Your entries must be original works of fiction. If you have received prizes for your fiction writing from any source or your story has been published in any paying publication, you are no longer qualified.

Past winners of our contest are no longer qualified.

No reprints, fan fiction or poetry, please.

Judges will provide feedbacks for all qualifying contest entries. First-round judges will consist of Science Fiction Association members and volunteers. The professional writers’ decision is final.

The champions, runners-up and honorable mentions will receive prizes including cash prize, a certificate of achievement, Science Fiction Association Press books, and a free membership to Science Fiction Association, All winners can select their books and either take them immediately or ask for them to be shipped later.

The contest will be limited to the first 60 qualifying entries. While the submission deadline is September 30th, 2024, we may close off the entry for the year sooner if the response is larger than expected. The winners will be published on December 31th.

Please place your contact information for possible awards.

There is no entry fee. Please submit only one entry per author.

【推荐1】Seeing the long-term benefit of saving energy, many cities and towns have recently replaced their old street lights with new LED ones. But, in doing so, they may be affecting people's sleep and putting the health of humans and other animals at risk, says a new report from the American Medical Association(AMA).

The AMA says certain high intensity LEDs can produce a disability glare and a prison atmosphere. People of Davis, California, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and elsewhere have complained about 4000K lights and campaigned to get the lighting replaced with 3000K types, or failing that, so they don't spread light so widely.

More seriously, the 4000K LED units produce 29 % of their luminance as blue light that humans sense as a harsh type of white light, the AMA says. Research suggests this light could harm health, compared with traditional street lighting.

“Brighter nighttime lighting is connected with reduced sleep time, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, nighttime awakenings, damaged daytime functioning, and obesity,” the report says. “White LED street lighting could also cause chronic disease in the populations of cities in which they have been fixed.”

Blue light, whether from street lights, tablets or shoes, is thought to affect our body. At dusk it normally reduces our body temperature, limits appetite and makes us sleepy. Some researchers think blue light is connected with certain cancers.

Cities and towns need to balance the financial savings from fixing some LED lights with the public health effects. The AMA suggests that 3000K or lower lighting for outdoor areas such as roadways should be used.

【推荐2】The El Maestrazgo mountain region of Aragon is one of Spain’s most under-populated areas. There, in the tiny village of Aguaviva, Marcelo Martinez and Gilda Mazzeo, 35-year-old transplants from Buenos Aires, have been learning to embrace their adopted home. “It’s not as isolated as it looks,” says Martinez, pointing out that the nearest town is “only” 30 minutes away. Mazzeo less convinced, but even she is filled with emotion as she recalls how kindly her children were treated when the family first arrived. “They gave us food, clothes, bicycles, everything.”

For the past two years, Aguaviva has been the center of a little-known plan to repopulate Spain’s remote villages with families from Latin America. Settlers are attracted with prepaid flights, jobs, and housing — a ticket out of the poverty that has spread much of their continent. Luis Bricio, Aguaviva’s mayor and founder of the Association of Spanish Towns Against Depopulation, describes his venture as an effort to save places that would otherwise “disappear.” Since the 1950s, reducing birthrates and migration to cities have left Spain with more than 2,000 ghost towns. Many more villages are populated only by handfuls of people in their 80s.

Enter Argentina, a country struggling with an unemployment rate of 12%. In opinion polls, one-third of its citizens have said they would leave if they could. Already, experts estimate, as many as 15,000 Argentines have moved to Spain in the past year, nearly doubling the number already there. Just last week, Spain changed its laws to allow mothers — not just fathers — to pass on nationality, doubling the number eligible (有资格的) to become Spanish citizens to more than 720,000. In Teruel province, where Aguaviva lies, the population is now around 40% of what it was in 1900. “There were only two ways to change the situation,” says Bricio. “Either force people to have more babies or bring in young people from outside. We thought Latin Americans would integrate rapidly. They had the language, the common history.” Bricio placed a classified advertisement in an Argentine paper and made an announcement on a Buenos Aires radio station, targeting couples under 40 with at least two children. By the time he arrived to give his presentation, there were already 6,000 people waiting to talk to him. “Argentina, there was very little chance of work.” says Silvia Hernandez, 33, who recently moved to Teruel with her family. “The life our children have here, they could never have had in Argentina.”

Bricio’s association has now placed 106 adults and 142 children in Spanish villages — 112 of them in Aguaviva. Two years ago, the province was so desperate that it staged a protest in Madrid under the slogan “Does Exist”. More recently, a national paper ran a happier headline: “First baby born in Teruel village in 30 years.”

【推荐2】Declining in the past several decades, the multigenerational household seems to find its way back in recent years. Different generations of the same family live together in one household for a whole range of reasons. The most popular belief is that multigenerational households today come about because young adults won't fly the nest. While there is some truth in this, “adult children yet to leave home” was only the third-most-common driver.

Grandparents are now moving across town to be closer or to live with their grandchildren so they can provide childcare during the day. Likewise, some people are inviting their elderly parents to live with them so they could take care of them. “Care arrangement support” was the second-most-common driver for multigenerational living.

Finance pressure in getting higher education, workforce employment and the cost of housing encourage the younger generation to delay leaving the parental home. Changes in government policies on child, aged and disability care can also have impacts on people's decisions. This is actually the last straw which breaks them.

There are admittedly problems with multigenerational living. One of the bigger complaints about it is that not everyone helps. While adult children do help out with chores, they simply do housework for themselves, instead of being responsible for the whole family. Complaints about chores, however, pale in comparison to those about lack of privacy in the family home. This is the result of a combination of family members not respecting personal boundaries but also of many housing designs that are not suitable for multigenerational needs.

Despite the attention given by the public to this household form, little is known about it, particularly the experiences of those who choose to live in them. Whatever it is, there are pros and cons to multigenerational living, just like living alone.