1 . Summer is here, and with it comes a chance you'll get too much sun. While there's no cure for sunburn, a small but fascinating new study suggests taking large amounts of vitamin D after exposure may prevent the associated redness and inflammation (发炎).

In the paper, researchers exposed 20 volunteers to a light resembling solar radiation to induce a sunburn on a small piece of skin. They then gave the ''burn victims'' large amounts of vitamin D, and followed up with participants one, two and three days (and a week) later to measure skin redness and thickness. The researchers found that vitamin D decreased inflammation and redness, compared with taking a placebo (安慰剂). And this effect increased in proportion to how much was consumed. Vitamin D also appears to increase the activity of a gene called arginase-1, which is involved in tissue repair and healing. Taking 50, 000 international units (IU) of vitamin D--125 times the recommended daily allowance-led to a significant reduction in redness and inflammation, compared with the placebo. Those who took 100,000 IU had even less redness and pain; and those who took 200, 000 IU had the greatest reduction in inflammation.

This is the first study to show vitamin D can reduce inflammation, and suggests that it   ''could potentially help prevent sunburn, '' says senior author Kurt Lu, a physician scientist and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University.

It used to be thought vitamin D was primarily involved in building healthy bones and muscles, but recent research has found it has many more roles, including influencing inflammation, such as the kind associated with sunburns.

So, if you get burned, should you take a lot of vitamin D? The study authors don't recommend it. ''I think that's probably not a good idea and not well established by this study, '' says Barbara Gilchrest, a physician scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Such large amounts, if taken repeatedly, have the potential to cause vitamin D toxicity (毒性).

2 . I was thrilled to go on an adventure with my master Rev.Young, a tall man with kind eyes.Mr. Muir was going too. But he said, “Such a helpless creature will only be in the way.” I was disappointed when I heard what he said, and yet I still wanted to follow him.

One stormy morning, Mr. Muir set out alone to study nature. He ordered me to stay behind. But I could not let him go alone, so I followed him into the wild weather. We crossed Taylor Glacier and endless sheet of ice, which was cut by cracks. I was unafraid and sailed over these bottomless holes. Mr. Muir was delighted that he was not crossing them alone.

As dusk fell, we reached an enormous crack that was impossible to jump across. In between the two sides was a U-shaped bridge of ice, so thin that one wrong step would mean dropping to your death. Daylight was disappearing, and gusty winds blew snow into my eyes. I turned to return to camp the way we came. However, Mr. Muir decided to cross the crack. He sat down and rode the narrow U-strip as if it were a horse. Once safe on the other side, he called out to me. But I had never been so terrified before. “I am not good at climbing steep slopes.” I was scared and thought.

Then I looked at Mr. Muir, already across on the safe side. Slowly, I began to cross it. I could feel his eyes on me the entire way. Before I knew it, I made the happiest landing of my life. I ran round and round and jumped up and hugged him. From that day on, we spent every moment together.

3 . I was so blessed for all the special moments I had with my mother. When she was eighty-two, she thought she was ________ me by asking me to take her to the many doctor visits she had, but it was a ________ for me to spend quality time with her.

I tried to make a(n) ________ of our days together, ________ her doctor’s visits with doing something thrilling. One day, while we were driving and deciding where to eat lunch, I ________ to a stoplight and saw a large sign outside a restaurant. I looked at the ________ sign and asked my mother. “Have you ever played Skee-Ball?”

“No.” she replied.

So we chose to eat in this restaurant. I ________ the special lunch buffet, and it came with fifty tokens (代币) for the arcade (电玩) games. I ________, “Aha! We are rich!”

After we ate, it was time to use those golden tokens. Mom loved playing Skee-Ball and collecting ________. She moved from game to game like a child. She had fun ________ as one machine spewed (喷出) out seven tickets again and again! I ________ her token after token for the next game to be played...until we ________ tokens.

When we went to ________ in our handfuls of tickets at the automatic counting machine, Mom chose a toy whistle. The man gave her a(n) ________ one for me, so we had fun blowing whistles together.

I keep that whistle on my desk, a ________ of a wonderful experience with my mom as we embraced (欣然接受) her willingness to make the most of every day.

4 . After the movers had taken the furniture and boxes, once the house was empty of everything but dust and echoes, I took from my pocket a(n) _______I had found in the garden several days before. A friend had _______saying goodbye to the house with a special ritual (仪式) of the Memory Stone.

The idea is to take a stone that you like and walk through the house and gardens, projecting your _______onto it. I wasn't sure it would work, but I decided to _______ it. One of the things that _______me about leaving the house was the idea of leaving behind all the memories. Perhaps this offered a way to take _______with me somehow.

I stared downstairs. It was a beautiful day and the light was shining through the windows. At first, the memories didn't come _______. I sat there, staring at the stone, but _______ happened. Just some memories of memories--- _______I had seen in photographs, words I had read in letters and diaries.

But after just a few minutes, that ________. Suddenly, the room was crowded with people I hadn't seen for years, as well as some people I had seen just the day before. It's winter, and we're all in the kitchen, making a(n) ________ for Christmas. It's summer, and we are trying to find ________ from the heat. I'm 11, trying on my new school uniform in front of the ________. My mother is coming upstairs to say good night and give me a hug. I have come in________ for my curfew (宵禁) ；I am tiptoeing up the stairs, hoping I won't ________anybody. My father is dancing with my friend Gideon. Now my father is old and I am sitting close to him on his bed, saying goodbye to him for what would ________ to be the last time.

One moment I found myself ________; and in another, I surprised myself by bursting into laughter. But mostly, the experience was strangely ________.

It's been several months since I walked out of the house for the last time. I don't know ________this stone I have, this piece of the place, can really hold so much. ________, right now, as pick it up and gaze at it, I seem to be back home.

5 . It’s 2035. You have a job, a family and you're about 40 years old! Welcome to your future life.

Getting ready for work, you pause in front of the mirror.

“Turn red,” you say. Your shirt changes from sky blue to deep red. Tiny preprogrammed electronics( 智能电子元件)are rear-ranged in your shirt to change its color. Looking into the mirror you find it hard to believe you’re 40. You look much younger.

With amazing advances in medicine, people in your generation may live to be 150 years old. You’re not even middle-aged! As you go into the kitchen and prepare to pour your breakfast cereal into a bowl, you hear, “To lose weight, you shouldn’t eat that.” from your shoes. They read the tiny electronic code( 电子源码)on the cereal box to find out the nutrition details. You decide to listen to your shoes. “Kitchen, what can I have for breakfast?” A list of possible foods appears on the counter as the kitchen checks its food supplies.

“Ready for your trip to space?” you ask your son and daughter. In 2005 only specially trained astronauts went into space and very few of them. Today anyone can go to space for day trips or longer vacations. Your best friend even works in space. Handing your children three strawberries each, you add, “The doctor said you need these for space travel. “ Thanks to medical advances, vaccination shots(防疫针)are a thing of the past. Ordinary foods contain specific vaccines. With the berries in their mouths, the kids head for the front door.

It’s time for you to go to work. Your car checks your fingerprints and unlocks the doors. “My office. Autopilot! “ you command. Your car drives itself down the road and moves smoothly into traffic on the highway. You sit back and unroll your e-newspaper. The latest news downloads and fills the viewer. Looking through the pages, you watch the news as video films rather than read it.

8 . If Confucius(孔子) were still alive today and could celebrate his September 28 birthday with a big cake, there would be a lot of candles. He’d need a strong wind to help him put them out.

While many people in China will remember Confucius on this special day, few people in the United States will give him a passing thought. It’s nothing personal. Most Americans don’t even remember the birthdays of their own national heroes.

But this doesn’t mean that Americans don’t care about Confucius. In many ways he has become a bridge that foreigners must cross if they want to reach a deeper understanding of China.

In the past two decades, the Chinese studies programs have gained huge popularity in Western universities. More recently, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes in more than 80 countries. These schools teach both Chinese language and culture. The main courses of Chinese culture usually included Chinese art, history and philosophy(哲学). Some social scientists suggest that Westerners should take advantages of the ancient Chinese wisdom to make up for the drawbacks(缺点) of Westerners philosophy. Students in the United States, at the same time, are racing to learn Chinese. So they will be ready for life in a world where China is an equal power with the United States. Businessmen who hope to make money in China are reading books about Confucius to understand their Chinese customers.

So the old thinker’s ideas are still alive and well.

Today China attracts the West more than ever, and it will need more teachers to introduce Confucius and Chinese culture to the West.

As for the old thinker, he will not soon be forgotten by people in the West, even if his birthday is.

9 . Moksh Jawa, 16, a student at Washington High School in the US, has already become a legend(传奇) among students. “Why not?” might be his favorite question to ask.

As a seventh-grader, he taught himself coding(编程) by studying on the Internet.

As a high school freshman, he passed the AP Computer Science A exam with a 5, the highest score possible.

As a sophomore (高中二年级学生), he developed his own online course and helped his classmates get through it because his high school didn't teach coding.

Everything he did came from his own interest. His father sent him a link to Codeacademy, an online coding training program, in middle school. He learned a programming(编程) language all by himself after signing up to the website.

“I just fell in love with computer science,” Jawa said. Along the way, he lit a fire of curiosity and passion among classmates to learn coding too.

“All of my friends, especially the girls, were really, really afraid of computer science,” he said. But the subject and exam weren't things to be feared, he said, “Computer science is all about logic(逻辑), not about how smart you are. ”

To make his knowledge available online, Jawa set about creating his own online course, with easy-to-follow lessons. He included quizzes and tests too.

The course has so far attracted 3, 200 students across the US and in 120 countries and regions, including China, Ukraine and Algeria.   It shows, Jawa said, the huge need for coding lessons.

When video lecturing, “I deliver it like I'm talking from one high school student to another .” Jawa said.“ It's always great to make it as clear and fun as possible, and to try to keep my voice as energetic as possible. ”

He also does that, when teaching members of the computer science club he founded at his high school.

“His tutorials(辅导) were great, ”said Taj Shaik, the club's co-president, who took the whole course last year. “I'm definitely one of the early adopters(使用者) of Moksh. ”

“He's pretty amazing, ”said Bob Moran, principal of Washington High School, who saw him lead the club. “He was just a fantastic teacher—clear, organized and entertaining. When a student got the right answer, he would throw him a candy. ”