1 . Various Apps to Learn

Apps are typical digital learning tools, which can give you diverse and personalized content to meet your needs. Want to find an app that can help you learn? Here are some great ideas for you.

4 . Kim Stemple, a special-education teacher, faced terrible diseases during her stay in a Boston hospital. While ________ with depression in her hospital room, Stemple received an unexpected present from a friend: a medal.

Before Stemple got too sick to ________, she had been a marathon runner and the medal brought back her racing memories. It served as a much-needed pick-me-up, ______ her of the strength and perseverance she once possessed. ________, it worked like a charm ________ her spirits and renewing her determination.

Inspired by this life-changing ________, Stemple began to think about how such a simple act could bring hope to others going through ______ times. And from this_______of inspiration, her charity, We Finish Together, was born. This initiative _______ medals from strangers — runners, dancers, swimmers, singers, and even spelling bee winners — and donated them to individuals in need.

Part of the process _______ the donor writing a personalized note on the ribbon , giving the recipient a unique ________ to someone who cares. Indeed, for those who were ________ in hospitals and battling health challenges, being presented with a medal and reading the warm ________ really made a big difference. It ________a reminder that they were not alone in their struggles and that support was always ________to them.

7 . My passion for the field of dietetics (营养学) started at a very young age. Ever since I can remember, I have been dreaming of becoming a pastry chef.

I grew up being part of various sports teams. As I grew older, I noticed how food influenced my performance as an athlete. I started reading more about nutrition and signed up for an introductory nutrition course during my first year of college.

However, I noticed when I entered my dietetics classes, that I looked quite different from most students. I was the only ethnically diverse student in my classes.

My mom was born in Austria and my father in Iran. They met in Austria and moved to the U. S. before my brother and I were born. They exposed us to their own traditional cultural foods, and I grew up eating a combination of Iranian and Austrian dishes.

I remember never having a taste for school cafeteria food, so I always requested my mom pack me lunch. She would pack me leftovers from dinner, such as a kuku sabzi, a Persian egg and herb frittata, or schnitzel with dartoffelsalat, a typical Austrian dish of fried breaded chicken. At times, I felt embarrassed about my meals, and would hide these from my peers to avoid the horrible question of, “Ew, what is that?” However, over time, and once I became a qualified RD (注册营养师), I realized my unique background allowed me to connect more deeply with others from different cultures.

I encouraged my clients to share what they grew up eating and what foods were customary to their unique upbringing. I developed nutrition recommendations for my clients that included traditional food from their heritage culture. These experiences and my dual heritage background empowered me to encourage my clients and other RDs to proudly share their unique cultural foods, to stop feeling embarrassed, but instead embrace our differences and increase cultural awareness in the field of dietetics.

8 . “Why does grandpa have ear hair?“ Just a few years ago my child was so curious to know “why” and “how” that we had to cut off her questions five minutes before bedtime. Now a soon-to-be fourth grader, she says that she dislikes school because “it’s not fun to learn.” I am shocked. As a scientist and parent, I have done everything I can to promote a love of learning in my children. Where did I go wrong?

My child’s experience is not unique. Developmental psychologist Susan Engel notes that curiosity defined as “spontaneous (自发的)” investigation and eagerness for new information drops dramatically in children by the fourth grade.

In Wonder: Childhood and the Lifelong Love of Science, Yale psychologist Frank C. Keil details the development of wonder―a spontaneous passion to explore, discover, and understand. He takes us on a journey from its early development, when wonder drives common sense and scientific reasoning, through the drop-off in wonder that often occurs, to the trap of life in a society that devalues wonder.

As Keil notes, children are particularly rich in wonder while they are rapidly developing causal mechanisms (因果机制) in the preschool and early elementary school years. They are sensitive to the others’ knowledge and goals, and they expertly use their desire for questioning. Children’s questions, particularly those about “why” and “how” support the development of causal mechanisms which can be used to help their day-to-day reasoning.

Unfortunately, as Keil notes, ”adults greatly underestimate young children’s causal mechanisms.” In the book, Wonder, Keil shows that we can support children’s ongoing wonder by playing games with them as partners, encouraging question-asking, and focusing on their abilities to reason and conclude.

A decline in wonder is not unavoidable. Keil reminds us that we can accept wonder as a desirable positive quality that exists in everyone. I value wonder deeply, and Wonder has given me hope by proposing a future for my children that will remain wonder-full.

10 . Polar bears are icons of the Arctic. Detailed monitoring of their populations is crucial for their conservation — but because polar bears are so difficult to find, we are missing critical data about population size. Scientists have now developed a new tool to help: DNA analysis using skin cells left in the bears’ footprints in the snow.

The scientists were inspired by the techniques that can be applied to tiny, degraded DNA samples. With these techniques, it isn’t necessary to physically capture bears, which can be stressful and dangerous for both bears and humans. Instead, the researchers can turn to the snow tracks of polar bears and look at sources of DNA left in passing-environmental DNA. “The tracks usually contain fresh cells, and the DNA is intact because of the cold ‘storage’ temperature,” said Dr. Melanie Lancaster of the World Wide Fund, lead author.

The scientists collected snow from individual tracks made by Alaskan polar bears in the wild. Additional materials like hair and saliva (唾液) were sampled, confirming that the tracks provided accurate genotype (基因型). 24 wild polar bear tracks were sampled. The researchers melted and filtered the snow to collect environmental DNA, then carried out micro-satellite analysis. Although the concentrations of DNA taken from tracks sampled in the wild were very low,13 of the wild polar bear samples could be genotype, identifying 12 different individuals.

This technique has huge potential to inform conservation of these animals, to better understand their populations and behavior. Although the sampling has a lower success rate, ease of collection means that it can significantly expand sample sizes.

“We hope this method will be taken up by the polar bear research community, with the involvement of hunters, volunteers, and local communities, as a new way to collect information on polar bears,” said Lancaster. “We also hope the method will be expanded to other animals living in snowy environments.”