1 . Play Helps Develop Bigger, Better Brains!

If play is not simply a way to have fun, for what other reasons has it developed?     1     Earlier this year, Sergio Pellis of Lethbridge University, Canada, reported that there is a strong positive link between brain size and playfulness among mammals in general.     2    The opposite was also found to be true.

According to John Byers of Idaho University, the timing of the playful stage in young animals provides an important clue to what’s going on. If you plot the amount of time a child devotes to play each day over the course of his development, you discover a pattern typically associated with a “sensitive period”—a brief development window during which the brain can actually be adjusted in ways that are not possible earlier or later in life.     3    

“People have not paid enough attention to the amount of the brain activated by play,” says Marc Bekoff from Colorado University. Bekoff studied coyote pups at play and found that the kind of behavior involved was obviously more variable and unpredictable than that of adults. He also reasons that such behavior activates many different parts of the brain.

    4     “There’s enormous cognitive involvement in play,” says Bekoff. He points out that play often involves complex assessments of playmates and the use of specialized signals and rules. He believes that play creates a brain that has greater behavioral flexibility and improved potential for learning later in life.     5    

2 . Three months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Rebecca Sell, then 24, a photojournalist for Fredericksburg photographed a New Orleans couple worriedly examining water-spotted photo albums. As she took the photo, something within her clicked. “I told them I could take the ruined pictures, copy them and give them digitally restored photos,” she recalls. Although a bit sceptical, the couple agreed. Rebecca took their photos home, restored them and took them to the couple at their temporary home. “It felt so good to be able to do that for them,” says Rebecca.

When her editor, Dave Ellis, saw the photo of the couple, he suggested they go back and restore damaged photos for even more people. So in January 2006, with paid time off from the newspaper, the two set up a shop in Pass Christian. After posting a notice in the community newsletter, Rebecca and Dave received 500 photos in four days. For each, the pair took a new digital picture, then used high-tech software to erase water spots and restore colors. It just so happened that a popular website linked to Dave’s blog about the experience, and soon Operation Photo Rescue, as it came to be known, had emails from hundreds of volunteers, including photographers and restoration experts, eager to help.

Though the digital restoration is a painstaking process, mending irreplaceable family pictures means the world to victims like Emily Lancaster, 71, who took out piles of ruined photo albums after Katrina, never thinking the mess could be saved. But she just couldn’t bear to part with a few treasured pictures, including a portrait of her father, who had passed away, and a photo of her husband as a boy. Then she heard about Operation Photo Rescue. “I didn’t have a whole lot of hope they could fix them, but they did,” Emily says. “Almost every day I think about all the pictures I’ve lost. I’m so happy to have these two.”

In the five years since Katrina, Operation Photo Rescue has collected thousands of pictures ruined by floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. Volunteers make “copy runs” to disaster areas across the country to gather damaged photos from survivors; operating costs are covered by donations. “It’s great to be able to give people some of their history back,” says Rebecca. “One person told me that thanks to us, her grandmother got to see her photos again before she passed away. Moments like that remind me why I do this.”

3 . Maria’s Plans

Maria stared thoughtfully at the tree fort. It was the first thing her grandpa had built for her. She had been little — it was before her younger brothers had been born.

Of all her brothers, Maria felt that she was most like her grandpa. Grandpa had been a carpenter. Maria had always loved visiting him in his workshop. Only she had been allowed because she was the oldest. He could do anything with his own two hands, she thought________.

Recently, Maria had decided that she was going to build a tree swing. Now she was standing________the tree, with her rope, seat, and tools, thinking about the best way to________the swing. She could throw the ropes________the branch. But then how would she tie the knot? She would probably need to________a ladder.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” called a voice from a little distance away. Maria turned and saw her little brother Ricardo ran up to her. “None of your business,” she replied. Then, thinking better of it, she said, “________ a swing.”

“Really? Can I help?” Ricardo asked. Maria thought it over — it would be nice to have some help. But she was the builder in the family now, so she would have to solve her own problems. “No,” Maria said. “I don’t need any help.”

Suddenly, her other brother, Emil, came running towards them. “Hey, what’re you guys doing?”

“We’re building a swing,” Ricardo said.

“No, we’re not,” Maria said. “I am!”

“Can I help?” Emil asked. “No!” Maria was turning red. “This is my project. Not yours. You________even knew Grandpa.” She ran into the house, leaving Ricardo, Emil, and her materials beneath the tree.

“What’s wrong, Maria?” Grandma asked.

“Ricardo and Emil are bothering me,” Maria explained the situation.

“They’re just trying to help. And how are you going to do it all by yourself?”

“Grandpa didn’t need anyone’s help,” Maria said.

“Who do you think helped him cut the boards for your tree fort?”

Grandma asked. Maria was________. “But I don’t remember...”

“Maria, Grandpa was a great carpenter, but even great carpenters need help sometimes.________ he needed a second pair of hands, he’d ask me to help.” Grandma glanced out the window. “And it looked like you need help, too.”

Maria hurried outside. Ricardo and Emil were carrying the ladder in the yard, waving at Maria. Smiling, she began to wonder if she might not be the only one to________Grandpa.

4 . This Tiny Box Will Help You Relax In Terrible Summer Heat!

Traditional Air Conditioners (AC) are outdated. They cost a lot to install and even more to run. They are huge, noisy, and dangerous to clean. You can’t move them around the house with you or take them outside! Thousands of people are now using a much cheaper alternative to cool themselves in the heat and clean their personal air. With over million units sold worldwide, this device is becoming one of the most successful gadgets of 2019. EVERYONE wants this awesome looking box for summer!

What Are We Talking About?

Meet the new AirFreez, an innovative alternative to AC that cools you just the same! It’s a perfect solution for those very hot days and nights! The AirFreez was designed by two Swiss engineers who were fed up suffering the hot summers. They realized that AC units are super inefficient and cost a lot of money to use. The engineers also discovered that none of the traditional AC units were made to travel with.

So, they designed this light-weight, portable Air Cooling box. It uses a very small amount of electricity and all without sacrificing any of the main benefits of a top AC model! It’s tiny, easy to use and it can cool you in seconds!

What Is So Special About This Little Box?

The main benefits of AirFreez are its portability and price.

It is no larger than a lunchbox. Besides, it can be powered by a pocket solar panel or battery pack and you probably have the world’s most portable AC unit.

And There Is One More Thing. The price is just amazing. Most AC units cost at least $300 AND you have to pay for installation PLUS cover the expensive electricity bills each month.

AirFreez costs less than $100 (Actually $53 for each if you buy more than one here). No messy installation, no expensive electricity bills. For a Cooling unit of this quality, this must be the single best price-quality AC unit there is!

How Can You Get An AirFreez?

Now that you are aware of this amazing new invention, here is how to get one-order it from the Official Website for BEST PRICE.

9 . A Fluent Advantage

When schools go through budget cuts, foreign language classes are often placed on the cutting block. School administrators often do not understand how important foreign language study is for their students’ success in the real world. Far from cutting language classes, schools should be demanding them for all students. Studying a foreign language should be required in middle schools.

Language study strengthens students’ minds. Many studies have indicated that multilingual people—people who speak more than one language—are better at certain tasks. Specifically, multilingual people have better executive function than people who speak only one language. Executive function is the way the brain manages all the information it’s given, such as performing different tasks and deciding what to focus on. In brain scans, multilingual people show increased activity in the areas of the brain that control executive function. Researchers have guessed that this advantage exists because multilingual people must constantly decide which words from which language to use. As a result, multilingual people get lots of practice with executive function. Their brains can then apply those skills to other tasks, like paying attention or multitasking. This effect is especially strong for people who grow up speaking more than one language. The earlier students start language classes, the more benefits they may get from language study.

Moreover, language study helps prepare students for their future careers. Today, language skills are in high demand on the job market and more and more businesses work in many countries across the world. As businesses become global, they need people who can communicate easily across national borders. To prepare for their careers, more students should be learning foreign languages. From 2010 to 2015, the demand in the United States for workers who speak a second language doubled. This trend included workers of all skill levels and backgrounds.

Of course, in order to make better use of the advantages of foreign language study, middle school foreign language classes should not just make students memorize new words and sounds.

They must also teach students about new cultures. Foreign language classes should be required to include lessons about history, literature, customs, and government along with the languages themselves. These subjects will help students become better global citizens and support their studies in other subjects.

Requiring middle schoolers to study a foreign language offers them opportunities to sharpen their brains. It also gives them tools that will help them become productive members of today’s global society.

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10 . If you look across the entire lifespan, what you see is an average increase in desirable personality traits（特点）.Psychologists call this the “maturity principle” and it’s comforting to know that, assuming your personality follows a typical course, then the older you get, the maturer you will become. However, it’s not such good news for young adolescents, because at this point, something known as the “disruption hypothesis” kicks in.

Consider a study of Dutch teenagers who completed personality tests each year for six or seven years from 2005. The boys showed a temporary dip in   conscientiousness—orderliness and self-discilpline in early adolescence, and the girls showed a temporary increase in neuroticism—emotional instability. This seems to back up some of the stereotypes we have of messy teen bedrooms and mood swings. Thankfully, this decline in personality is short-lived, with the Dutch data showing that the teenagers’ previous positive traits rebound（反弹）in later adolescence.

Both parents and their teenage children agree that changes occur, but surprisingly, the perceived change can depend on who is measuring, according to a 2017 study of over 2,700 German teenagers. They rated their own personalities twice, at age 11 and age 14, and their parents also rated their personalities at these times. Some differences emerged: for instance, while the teenagers rated themselves as declining in agreeability, their parents saw this decline as much shaper. Also, the teens saw themselves as increasingly extroverted（外向的）, but their parents saw them as increasingly introverted.

This mismatch can perhaps be explained by the big changes underway in the parent-child relationship brought on by teenagers’ growing desire for autonomy and privacy. The researchers point out that parents and teens might also be using different reference points—parents are measuring their teenagers’ traits against a typical adult, while the teenagers are comparing their own traits against those displayed by their peers.

This is in line with several further studies, which also reveal a pattern of a temporary reduction in advantageous traits in early adolescence. The general picture of the teenage years as a temporary personality “disruption” therefore seems accurate. In fact, we’re only just beginning to understand the complex mix of genetic and environmental factors that contribute to individual patterns of personality change.

Studies also offer some clues for how we might create more nurturing environments for teenagers to aid their personality development. This is an approach worth pushing further given that teenage personality traits are predictive of experiences in later life. For instance, one British study of over 4,000 teenagers showed that those who scores lower in conscientiousness were twice as likely to be unemployed later in life, in comparison with those who scored higher.

People focus so much on teaching teenagers facts and getting them to pass exams, but perhaps they ought to pay at least as much attention to helping nurture their personalities.