Best musicals and shows in London’s West End

See Thriller-Live, a musical in memory of Michael Jackson and the J acksons. The show joined London’s West End after three UK tours and popularity across Europe. Celebrate the career of the King of Pop during non-stop hits at this top London theatre show.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famous musical, The Phantom of the Opera, tells the tale of a shadowy character who attempts to make Christina the leading lady of the Paris Opera. With a fantastic plot and breathtaking scene, this long- running show is one of the must-see musicals in London.

This comedy musical follows the plight of a pair of teenage Mormon missionaries sent to convert a village in a dangerous part of Uganda. The brainchild of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, The Book of Mormon has won nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Be wowed by the Royal Shakespeare Company’s multi-award-winning production of Matilda The Musical. Roald Dahl’s celebrated story bursts into life in this West End musical by Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin. Children and adults alike will be delighted by the little girl with an extraordinary imagination.

Kanda really doesn't like to walk alone. The scientist from a research institute of intelligent robots finds the experience so boring that he'd rather drive—even though he lives close to his lab and knows that walking us healthy. "I enjoy walking with someone, like with my wife, with my daughter," Kanda said. "But they are not always available."

So Kanda, who specializes in human-like bots, developed a robotic walking partner that could make small talk based on its surroundings, which, he hopes, might motivate people to get out and exercise more. The bot rests on a person's shoulder like a boxy parrot. It weighs about a pound and a half and sits roughly 8.5 inches high, 3.5inches wide, and 10 inches long. A microphone, speaker, and internal camera allow it to communicate. It's even equipped with a smile.

Kanda and his team collected video form five different locations, including a garden and a shopping mall, and created a dataset of small talk topics related to each location. Then they programmed the robot to associate visual cues with specific topics. A special speech software provided the robot with a voice. Near a group of parked cars, for example, it might say, "In a big parking lot, sometimes I forget where I parked."

They tested the robot on 15 volunteers, 10 males and 5 females, who were paid and averaged about 26 years old. "Have you ever blown a puff of dandelion（蒲公英）seeds into the air?" The robot asked a participant, who smiled and responded, "Yes, I often did that when I was a child." Although several participants noted the robot's weight, Kanda was surprised that no one considered the experience as strange or funny. "I guess people enjoy new technologies," he said.

Just like a human partner, Kanda's bot isn't perfect. It's not able to go for walks in heavy rain and, while the robot can make expressions, it can't really hold a conversation, about which Kanda is most worried. Despite its limits, Kanda was comforted by the bot's presence. "I felt a kind of sense of being with someone, "he said, "particularly when it spoke."

Do you have a younger brother? Does he always get in trouble? Well, there might be some science behind that.

According to a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, second-borns are more likely than first-borns to behave badly, which could be why you from time to time consider your younger brother or sister sprites.

Researchers, who explored data from tens of thousands of sibling(兄弟姐妹) pairs from Denmark and Florida, found second-borns are 20% to 40% more likely to have behavioral problems. If you’re the second-born child you may want to have a little chat with your parents. The reason why second-born siblings may be worse behaved than first-born is that parents tend to pay less attention to them.

“Second-born children tend to have less attention from the mother than their older siblings because first-born children experience their mother’s maternity leave (产假). First-borns enjoy the rewards of not only their own time with Mum following their birth, but the time Mum takes off with younger siblings, too.” the authors explain.

It’s not just about the parents, however. Speaking to NRP, co-author Joseph Doyle said, “The first-born has role models, who are adults. And the second, later-born children have role models who are slightly unreasonable 2-year-olds, you know, their older siblings. The difference of parental investments and the sibling influences probably contribute to these differences we see in the labor market and what we find in behaviors against regulations, even against laws. It’s just very difficult to separate those two things because they happen at the same time”

The results, the authors argue, have an important effect on social policy.

National Treasure has Chinese audiences fired up. But don't confuse it with the Hollywood action film of the same name, in which the hidden history of the United States going back around 250 years is discovered. In the Chinese show producers are lucky –China has a much longer   history, and their plan to introduce relics is welcomed by the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, and eight key province-level museums.

Yu Lei, director of the show, explained how items are chosen, "Our standard is not to choose the most precious items. We want the ones with most attractive stories. These cultural relics are like aged people. They have so much to tell us. If people are bored, there is something wrong with our methods," she said.

In each 100-minute period, three key exhibits from a museum are introduced by entertainment stars, called the "guardians of the national treasure", through short stage dramas, telling the history of the legends behind the items. Some lesser-known stories on how the items were unearthed are featured in the show. In the periods, people are also invited on stage to share their stories linked to such relics. Knowledge, entertainment, taste and an accessible approach have been put together in one show. When people see cultural relics in this lively way, they feel history.

The aim of the show is not to create a hit program but to attract more people to museums. More seasons of National Treasure are planned, and some treasures from the show are to be featured in a touring exhibition soon after the first season ends. A show like this fuels people's pride in their country.