The boat was on the inside of the huge whirlpool and we were going round in circles at great speed. I saw clearly that there were other objects in the whirlpool — trees and barrels. After a while, I became curious about the whirlpool itself. I then made three important observations. The first, the larger the bodies were, the more rapidly they fell; the second, between two objects of equal extent, spheres — round objects — fell down less rapidly; and the third, between two objects of the same size, cylinders — objects shaped like a tube-fell down more slowly. Although I didn’t know why it was so, I tied myself to a barrel to help me float. I tried to make my brother understand, but he was too frightened and stayed in the heavy boat. Without waiting, I jumped into the sea to try and escape.

Since my escape, I have had several conversations with an old physics teacher; and it was from him that I learned the use of the words “cylinder” and “sphere”. He explained to me the reasons for what I observed, although I have forgotten the explanation. He even showed me how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex (漩涡), was drawn in with greater difficulty than an equally big body, of any form whatever.

5 . Do Animals Have Friends?

When you see little animals playing together around a tree, or a cat and dog sleeping together in the living room, do you ever think — are they friends? One expert, Mike, believes that many animals do have friends. If they’re in the same group, they greet one another, travel together, play together and even share food with each other.     1    

Playing together helps animals keep them close to the group. Wild dogs who don’t play much are more likely to leave the group on their own.     2     If an animal has a special friend, both friends benefit by having someone to watch out for them. In the case of a young rhino (犀牛) going on its first journey, it may look for an older travel friend.     3    

Sharing is another important part of friendship. For all animals, finding food is a matter of life and death. For some bats in Central and South America, if they don’t get a blood meal every three days, they die of hunger.     4     If a bat doesn’t find food, a full bat will throw up some blood from its stomach into the mouth of the hungry friend.

But sometimes members of a group also compete for food and mates, which can lead to fights. So making up after fights is a key skill. Sometimes after two male monkeys have a fight, they will sit apart, avoiding each other.     5     An older female monkey may need to step in to play peace-maker. She will walk up to one of them, kiss or touch him, then slowly walk toward the other. Then she sits close to the second male. Both start grooming (梳毛) her. When she leaves, they continue to groom each other, as if to say, “We’re cool now.”

6 . On September 17, 2022, a father and son set out to begin the first of three legs of the Ironman competition in Oxford. David, 59, and his son, John, 28, weren’t the typical competitors. Despite difficulty in walking, John has his dream of being an athlete. His father would act as his arms and legs, carrying the weight of his son throughout the race.

To qualify as having finished, competitors must complete a hard 140 miles of swimming, bicycling and running in under 17 hours. David and John had participated together in five Ironman competitions, but they had yet to finish in the required time.

The race began with a 2.4-mile swim in the Choptank River. With one end of a rope tied to a belt around his back and the other end to a boat with his son inside, the father eased himself into the water. Swimming while carrying another person is tough enough — David also had to fight with jellyfish (水母).

The pair completed the swim in 90 minutes, and went through with the 112-mile bicycle ride in about nine hours, then set their sights on the final leg of the 26.2-mile marathon with David pushing John in the racing chair.

With minutes left and 200 feet to the finish line, his mom, on the sidelines, handed him the rolling walker. Not that long ago, John could hardly walk 23 steps. But after years of painful training, he increased his step count and was determined to finish the race on his own. He knew time was almost running out and worried they wouldn’t make the cutoff. “Not because I wouldn’t get my moment,” he says, “but because dad had worked so hard.”

After 16 hours, 55 minutes and 35 seconds — with just four minutes and 25 seconds to spare — father and son crossed the finish line together.

As the crowd flooded and cheered on John, the weary father kept a low profile. “He didn’t want his finish line moment,” says John. “He wanted it to be mine.”

7 . Young babies make many short and word-like sounds such as “ba” or “aga”. Those early sounds are later replaced with words and, eventually, sentences. While some of them are born to be more talkative than others, a new study confirms that male babies make more sounds than female babies in the first year.

While the research confirms earlier findings from a much smaller study by the same team, they still come as a surprise. That’s because there’s a common and long-held belief that females have an advantage over males in language.

In the study, Dr Kim and his team included more than 450,000 hours of all-day recordings of 5,899 babies, using a device about the size of an iPod. Those recordings were processed to count the number of words spoken by babies and adults across the first two years of life.

Generally, the data showed that male babies made 10% more sounds in the first year compared to females. In the second year, the difference turned directions, with female babies making about 7% more sounds than males. Those differences were observed even though the number of words spoken by adults caring for those babies was higher for female babies in both years compared to males.

Why, then, would male babies be more talkative than females in the first year and not later? “We think it may be because boys are more likely to die in the first year than girls. Given that so many male deaths happen in the first year, boys may have been under especially high selection pressure to produce fitness signals to express their wellness and improve their chances of surviving,” says Kim. By the second year of life, as death rates drop sharply across the board, he added, “the pressure on special fitness signaling is lower for both boys and girls.”

8 . Every morning in graduate school, Christy would wave to the woman selling hot dogs outside her building. “If she wasn’t there on a given day, things didn’t feel right. I missed her,” says Christy, now a psychology (心理学) expert at a university in the U.K. “It was this huge source of comfort and safety, and it was with someone I never talked to.”

That connection satisfied a deep, bodily need for Christy, just like water relieves thirst. Humans are intensely social animals, and research increasingly suggests that losing our connections to others can negatively impact our health. A 2023 report called widespread loneliness in the U.S. a deadly health risk comparable to smoking up to15 cigarettes (香烟) a day. On the other hand, a Harvard study found that having strong relationships is key to living a long and happy life. The study also showed that people between 80 and 89 years old in happy marriages reported that their happiness remained stable even on days when they were in greater physical pain.

But close relationships aren’t the only social ties that matter. Chatting with a stranger, giving a smile of recognition to the waiter in your local coffee shop, or waving to the people you see every day at the park creates a much-needed sense of community. “We can’t achieve happiness by ourselves. We simply cannot survive or live well without feeling like we are accepted,” says Christy.

These “weak tie” relationships aren’t a replacement for the deeper, more meaningful connections we also need. But Christy says we should recognize and celebrate their importance, and push ourselves to engage in them because they’re so beneficial to our sense of well-being. “I am not outgoing,” she says. “And, at the same time, I love talking to strangers. I believe that anyone can do it.”

Facial surgery (手术) is a serious business, especially on children     1     are not yet fully grown but Melbourne researchers are developing a technique that could change the face of children’s surgery.

This new     2     (develop) will allow doctors to work out a child’s normal face shape at different ages to predict (预测) future growth.

Researchers at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) could soon replace the ruler currently     3     (use) to track changes in a child’s head and face with 3D images. By     4     (improve) the ability to predict normal growth and future changes in a child’s face, doctors will be able to    5     (well) complete their surgery than before.

MCRI’s Mr Harold Matthews said current     6     (method), including using patients’ photographs and X-rays were slow. Together     7     researchers in Belgium, Mr Matthews is pioneering a new tool that provides averages (平均值) for normal growth of the face throughout childhood.

The project intends     8     (take) some of the guesswork out of surgery. For example, in children with Pierre Robin Sequence, a serious condition which means they are born with an underdeveloped jaw(下颚), some doctors choose to fix it early while others wait to see if the child’s face will     9     (natural) correct itself as it grows. Without this new technology,     10     is difficult to know which method is better for each child.

10 . Mei Lum is the fifth-generation owner of Wing on Wo & Co. in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

For Lum, the oldest-running business in Manhattan’s Chinatown sees the neighbourhood growing larger and larger and is an informal living room where she came of age. In the store on Mott Street, she shared meals with her family, took Chinese lessons with her grandparents and helped clean the store as a young girl.

Wing on Wo was started in the 1890s. In the early days, Wing on Wo was a general store that mainly sold dried fish and canned (罐装的) goods. It was also an informal post office. When Lum’s grandmother, Nancy, took over in 1965, she decided to focus on porcelain (瓷器) specifically. Its heyday (全盛时期) was the late 70s to the late 80s. A lot of the goods came from Hong Kong, where Lum’s grandfather grew up.

In 2016, her grandmother planned to sell the porcelain specialty shop and its building. Lum, who was preparing to study international relations at Columbia University, decided to take over the store — not only to preserve (保护) its cultural value, but to create a community centre.

“I see the store as a place for conversation for Asian Americans. They want to learn about family history and tradition, and are curious about their cultural identity. I want them to learn about their identity through our porcelain,” Lum said.

Wing on Wo has remained a family business from its founding. Lum’s father, Gary, has been manning the counter (柜台) for the past 30 years. Her mother, Lorraine, processes orders and manages the website. Even her grandmother helps out with some work in the store.

The pandemic pushed Lum to start learning how to run an online store. She’s also added a lot of new activities, including youth programs, an artist residency and a ceramicist fair, to ensure that in addition to preserving tradition, the business is shaping the future of Chinatown.