1 . A few years ago, my sister-in-law started to feel concerned about her teenage daughter. What was she doing after school? Where was she spending her time? My niece was an excellent student, and took part in all kinds of after-class activities. Even so, her mom decided to put a tracking app (跟踪应用程序) on her kid’s phone.

At first, this made my sister-in-law “feel better”. Then the good situation suddenly ended. She recalled, “I found out that she was at a place where she said she wasn’t. I went out in the middle of the night and found her walking without shoes in the middle of the street with some friends.” Things went quickly downhill (每况愈下) for the mother and the daughter after that.

With 83% of teens having their own smart phones, according to a 2020 Pew study, more and more of their parents are facing the question: To watch or not?

Ana Homayoun, founder of Green Ivy Educational Consulting, has advised many parents and their kids about this. “I’ve found the tracking app is more acceptable (可接受的) for teens when it is included as part of a family agreement to improve safety than when it is placed as a secret tool to watch them,” she said.

Mark Bell, a father of a teenage girl, said, “We don’t have tracking apps, but we have set some ground rules that my daughter must follow in exchange for us providing a smart phone,” he said. For example, his daughter must “friend (加为好友)” him on social media so that he can read posts, and must share all passwords.

When you’re trying to build trust, you need to create an environment that encourages it. So, to win their trust, you always need to be straight with (对……坦诚的) your children. “Parents must let children know how and when they’ll be watching them,” said Doctor Pauleh Weigle. If they’re not open about it, he warns, it can “greatly damage the parent and child relationship”.

2 . I know what courage looks like. I saw it on a flight I took six years ago, and only now can I speak of it without tears filling my eyes at the memory.

Our flight left the Orlando Airport one Friday morning. But immediately upon the take-off, it was clear that something was wrong. The aircraft was bumping (颠簸) up and down. All the experienced travellers, including me, looked around with knowing (会意的) smiles. If you fly much, you see these things and learn to act calmly about them. However, we did not remain calm for long.

Minutes after we were in the air, our plane began falling quickly. The pilot soon made a serious announcement. “We are having some difficulties,” he said. “Our indicators show that the control system has failed. We will be returning to the Orlando Airport. The flight attendants will prepare you for a bumpy landing. Also, if you look out of the windows, you will see that we are dumping (倾倒) fuel from the airplane. We want to have as little on board as possible in the event of a rough touchdown.” In other words, we were about to crash. Many travellers looked visibly frightened now. No one faces death without fear, I thought.

Then a couple of rows to my left, I heard a still calm voice, a woman’s voice, speaking in an absolutely normal conversational tone. I had to find the source of this voice. All around, people cried. Many screamed. Finally, I saw her. In this state of complete confusion and lack of order, a mother was talking to her child. The woman, in her mid-30s, was staring full into the face of her daughter, who looked to be four years old. The child listened closely, sensing the importance of her mother’s words. The mother’s eye held the child so fixed that she seemed untouched by the sounds of grief and fear around her.

Finally, I leaned over and could hear this soft sure voice with the tone of comfort. Over and over again, the mother said, “I love you so much. Remember, no matter what happens, I love you always.” Fortunately, our landing gear (起落架) held at last and our touchdown was not a tragedy.

However, the voice I heard that day never faded. That mom showed me what a real hero looks like.

4 . The recent few weeks have been the perfect time for a good book and here are some good ones that allow readers to get completely lost in another world.

Watch Me Disappear

If you like mysteries with the family drama, Janelle Brown’s best­selling thriller is for you. The story follows a wealthy wife and mom who goes on a hike and never returns. Her lonely husband and teenage daughter, Olive(who’s dealing with her own   problems), are confused with sorrow while trying to find out what   happens.

The Boy from the Woods

If you pick up one of Harlan Coben’s books, you won’t be able to put it down. His mystery stories keep readers fascinated. The Boy from the Woods is sure to satisfy fans by its twisty, heart­racing plots filled with interesting and exciting atmosphere. This is the book to read if you love masterful surprises.

How to Walk Away

Katherine Center’s best­selling novel follows a young woman, Margaret, with her perfect fiancé， a pilot who takes her on an upsetting flight that changes her life forever. Readers adore Margaret’s wisdom and humor as she faces a changed world and figures out what love really looks like.

The Last One Left

This novel, first published in 1967, still attracts readers decades later. Novelist Dean Koontz wrote the introduction to the recent edition, where he describes reading each of John D. MacDonald’s novels “at least three times, some of them twice”, This is your next read if you want to be swept away by a masterpiece of the mystery and excitement.

8 . Earth is lighted up by bioluminescence(生物发光)but，for many of us，seeing the natural phenomenon is a rare treat：Catching the glow(光)of a firefly or witnessing a dolphin swimming through electric blue waters is a thrill.

Researchers are currently engineering glowing flowers and decorative plants that can cast a green light onto our living rooms. Observing plant’s health via its glow can be a way to instantly measure its health,and the side effect is anybody who wants a healthy glowing plant in their living room can have one.

A study published on Monday in Nature Biotechnology shows that this goal is well on its way to being a reality. The study authors announce they’ve created a method that causes plants to glow much brighter,and for a longer period of time,than previous efforts.Plants adapted by this method should be available for purchase within a few years.

The research was conducted through a teamwork between three scientific institutions and Plant,a biotech startup in Moscow.When this team examined a poisonous mushroom,they discovered that caffeic acid is responsible for its bioluminescence. In this new study, the team employed that information and inserted(嵌入)enzymes(酶) —which are specific to the mushroom —into the DNA of tobacco plants.In turn,the enzymes were able to interact with the caffeic acid in the tobacco plants,and cause them to glow both in the dark and in the daylight.

This method,the scientists claimed,made the plants 10 times brighter than previous efforts and the continuous light production didn’t harm the health of the plants. Interestingly, the light decreased as the leaves aged—but it also increased when the leaves were damaged. In turn, the team suggested this method could also help other researchers monitor plant responses to various pressures and changes in the environment. If a plant is short of water or a hungry sheep is harming a plant,bioluminescence could warn of this damage before it’s too late.

10 . The idea of turning recycled plastic bottles into clothing is not new. During the past five years, a large number of clothing companies, businesses and environmental organizations have started turning plastics into clothing to deal with plastic pollution. But there’s a problem with this method. Research now shows that microfibers(微纤维)could be the biggest source of plastic in the sea.

Dr. Mark Browne in Santa Barbara, California, has been studying plastic pollution and microfibers for 10 years. He explains that every time synthetic(合成)clothes go into a washing machine, a large number of plastic fibers fall off. Most washing machines can’t collect these microfibers. So every time the water gets out of a washing machine, microfibers enter the sewer and finally end up in the sea.

In 2011, Browne wrote a paper stating that a single piece of synthetic clothing can produce more than 1,900 fibers per wash. Browne collected samples(样本)from seawater and freshwater sites around the world, and used a special way to examine each sample. He discovered that every single water sample contained microfibers.

This is bad news for a number of reasons. Plastic can cause harm to sea life when eaten. Studies have also shown that plastic can take in other pollutants.

Based on this evidence, it may seem surprising that companies and organizations have chosen to turn plastic waste into clothing as an environmental “solution”. Ever though the science has been around for a while, Browne explains that he’s had a difficult time getting companies to listen. When he asked well-known clothing companies to support “Benign by Design”, his research project, which is trying to get clothes that have a bad effect on humans and the environment out of the market, Browne didn’t get a satisfying answer. Only one woman’s clothing company, Eileen Fisher, offered Browne funding.