1 . Tina Leverton was 62 when she bought her first pair of ballet shoes. She said putting her feet into the soft leather was very emotional. She said:“I’ve waited a long time for it.”

A few days later, Leverton took her first ballet class after seeing an advertisement in a newspaper. It showed older women dancing in a class near Leverton’s house. “As I came in the door, I found a big smile on my face. From the minute I started, I felt like coming home.”

Leverton had longed to dance as a child. Sadly, her parents couldn’t afford ballet classes, for they were first-generation Indian immigrants, struggling to make a living in the UK. Her father was a train driver on the underground in London and her mother held two cleaning jobs. However, she harboured her dream of being a ballerina (芭蕾舞女演员).

At her present age, a grand plie—lowering to the floor with bent knees seemed to be out of the question. It took her three months to master the move: leaping and landing on one foot. “I love the struggle and the challenge of learning something new. People in their 60s have a lot of self-limiting beliefs: ‘I can’t do it,’ ‘I’m not good enough.’ And maybe they’re not good enough. But it doesn’t matter,” she said.

Ballet has been transformative. At a medical appointment a few months after Leverton’s first class, a nurse measured her at 163cm, half an inch taller than she had thought . She attributes (归因) the difference to improved posture. Her muscle tone has improved and her lower back pain has stopped. Dancing has also brought new friends. She met a group of older, more independent women and worked together towards a team award with the Royal Academy of Dance. And then, of course, there is the joyful feeling. “Ballet is all the therapy (治疗) I’ll ever need,” said Leverton.

2 . Young children across the globe enjoy playing games of hide and seek. For them, there’s something highly exciting about ________ someone else’s glance and making oneself unable to be seen.

However, we all witness that preschool children are remarkably bad at hiding. They often cover only their eyes with their hands, leaving the rest of their bodies ________.

For a long time, this ineffective hiding method was ________ as evidence that children are hopelessly “egocentric” (自我中心的) creatures. But our ________ research results in child developmental psychology ________ that idea.

We brought young children aged 2-4 into our Minds in Development Lab at USC. Each child sat down with an adult who covered her own eyes or ________. We then asked the child if she could see or hear the adult. Surprisingly, children replied that they couldn’t. The same thing happened when the adult covered her own mouth: ________ children said that they couldn’t speak to her.

A number of ________ ruled out that the children misunderstood what they were being asked. The results were clear: Our young subjects ________ the questions and knew ________ what was asked of them. Their ________ to the questions reflected their true ________ that “I can see you only if you can see me, too. ” They simply ________ mutual (相互的) recognition and regard. Our ________ suggest when a child “hides” by putting a blanket over her head, it is not a result of egocentrism. In fact, children consider this method ________ when others use it.

Yesterday, I accompanied my little brother to swimming pool. There, he soon got along with a boy possess a water gun and they played with the toy together. When my brother ran excitedly with the water gun, he scratch the boy’s neck by accident. Shallowly as the scratch was, it was clear. I hurried to comfort the boy, but called the boy’s father. I feared he’d blame for my brother and me. Which was quite unexpected was that I just said it was no big deal. Seeing my brother hang his head in shames, the father comforted my brother, which made me quite touching.

7 . If you stand in front of a group of kids, and start stating facts and ideas about a particular topic, like common trees found in a forest, eyes will probably glaze over. There might be a few people with a particular interest in trees who remain attentive, but it’s likely that most will lose interest fairly quickly. But if you stand up in front of that same group of people and tell them a story, something different will happen.

Researchers have now quantified the emotional benefits of a well-told tale. “We know that stories can transport us to another world,” says Guilherme Brockington, the lead author of the new paper. Earlier research suggests that stories help children process and regulate their emotions—but it was mostly conducted in a laboratory, with subjects answering questions while lying inside MRI machines. There are few studies on psychological effects of storytelling in more commonplace scenes, such as hospitals.

So investigators working in several hospitals split a total of 81 patients aged between four and eleven into two groups, matching them with storytellers who had a decade of hospital experience. In one group, the storyteller led each child in playing a riddle game. In the other, youngsters chose books and listened as the storyteller read them aloud. Before and after these sessions, the researchers let each child spit into a tube, then asked them to report their pain levels and conducted a free-association word quiz.

Based on the analysis of each tube of saliva(唾液), the researchers found children in both groups showed lower levels of the stress-related hormone(荷尔蒙) called cortisol and higher levels of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone. However, the cortisol levels of kids in the storytelling group were a quarter of those in the riddle group, and their oxytocin levels were nearly twice as high. Those who heard stories also reported pain levels dropping almost twice as much as those in the riddle group, and they used more positive words.

Next, the investigators plan to study how long these effects last. For now Brockington says the results indicate storytelling is a low-cost and extremely efficient way to help improve health outcomes.

8 . Inventions born out of love

John W. Hammes, an architect from Wisconsin, created the InSinkErator in 1935. Hammes got the idea after watching his wife spend time wrapping food in newspaper and throwing it out. The InSinkErator is a device, installed under a kitchen sink between the sink’s drain and the trap. The disposal unit tears food waste into pieces small enough - generally less than 2 mm in diameter - to pass through the plumbing.

William Stewart Halsted, M.D. (1852-1922) was a well-known US surgeon who is often called the “Father of Modern Surgery”. Known for his strict adherence to sterile (无菌的) working conditions, Halsted invented rubber gloves that allowed his colleagues to lessen the transfer of germs during their work. Yet the initial reason why he created them is more romantic than you would think. Knowing Caroline, a nurse, suffered from a skin disease during her work, Halsted invented the gloves especially for her and gave them to her as a gift after their marriage.

When Josephine Knight Dickson from New Jersey kept cutting herself while cooking for her family in the 1920s, her husband, Earle Dickson, stepped in. Dickson, a cotton buyer for Johnson & Johnson, according to the company’s website, decided to invent a temporary adhesive bandage for his wife. His creation became the Band-Aid we all know and use today.

Maura Horton’s husband, Don, was a football coach who had Parkinson’s disease. One day, after Don struggled to button his shirt before a game, Horton decided there needed to be a better clothing option for people suffering from a disability. So, Horton designed a shirt with magnetic buttons in 2012. These buttons will finally allow everyone to dress and undress themselves efficiently.