What is “Dads Make a Difference”?

    A service-learning opportunity for teens that deals with fatherhood, parenting, and so on.

    Older teens, grades 10—12, teach younger teens, grades 6—9, about the importance of fathers in children's lives, the legal and financial responsibilities of parenting.

Teen teacher training goals & objectives

    The goal of the teen teacher training is to better understand the complex problems surrounding legal fatherhood in our society. By discussing what makes healthy families, explaining the meaning of paternity（父亲的身份）, and examining the risks people take in their lives, teens will develop the skills needed to make informed decisions in their own relationships and, finally, teach this information to others.

What's in it for me?

An opportunity to:

Learn life skills like communication, decision making, and problem solving.

    Get the chance to use knowledge in meaningful and effective ways.

    Develop leadership, planning, teamwork, time management, and organizational skills to help you in every aspect of your life.

    Forming lasting relationships with adult mentors（导师）.

Comments from teen teachers

    “ 'Dads Make a Difference' made me realize how permanent and expensive parenthood is.”

    “Speaking in form of groups and directing people in activities, I feel, is a valuable skill to have that I will use throughout my life.”

    “I wish I would have gone through this program when I was in Junior High. I know it would have helped me to really think about the future and to make good decisions.”

    “ 'Dads Make a Difference' has helped me to know the effects of my actions before I take them and I know what risks not to take to protect my future.”

    You're rushing to work and a man ahead of you collapses on the sidewalk. Do you stop to help? In a study of by-standers, it was found that some people avert their gaze and keep on walking rather than stop and get involved.

    "There is a tendency to decide that no action is needed." says a psychologist. "The first thoughts that pop into your mind often keep you from offering help. In order to take action, you have to work against them. " Here are some common thoughts that might prevent you from helping.

    Why should I be the one? I'm probably not the most competent (有能力的) person in this crowd. You might think someone older or with more medical knowledge should offer assistance.

    What if he doesn't really need my help? The fear of embarrassment is powerful; no one wants to risk looking foolish in front of others.

    No one else looks concerned—this must not be a problem. We can follow the people around us, but most people tend to hold back their emotions in public.

    "If you spot trouble and find yourself explaining inaction, force yourself to stop and assess the situation instead of walking on," says the psychologist. "Then retry to involve other people; you don't have to take on the entire responsibility of being helpful. Sometimes it's just a matter of turning to the person next to you and saying, 'It looks like we should do something.' Or asking someone if an ambulance has been called and, if not, to call for one. Once you take action, most people will follow you."

    Babies made from three people approved in UK

Babies made from two women and one man have been approved by the UK's fertility regulator. The historic and controversial move is to prevent children being born with deadly genetic diseases.

    Doctors in Newcastle - who developed the advanced form of In Vitro Fertilization or IVF (人工授精) - are expected to be the first to offer the procedure and have already appealed for donor eggs. The first such child could be born, at the earliest, by the end of 2017.

    Some families have lost multiple children to incurable mitochondrial (线粒体的) diseases, which can leave people with insufficient energy to keep their heart beating.

The diseases are passed down from only the mother so a technique using a donor egg as well as the mother's egg and father's sperm has been developed.

    The resulting child has a tiny amount of their DNA from the donor, but the procedure is legal and reviews say it is ethical (伦理的) and scientifically ready.

    "It is a decision of historic importance," said Sally Cheshire, chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA)."I'm sure patients will be really pleased by what we've decided today."

    But some scientists have questioned the ethics of the technique, saying it could open the door to genetically-modified(转基因) 'designer' babies.

    The HFEA must approve every clinic and every patient before the procedure can take place. Three-person babies have been allowed only in cases where the risk of a child developing mitochondrial disease is very high.

    Prof Mary Herbert, from the Newcastle Fertility Centre, said: "It is enormously pleasing that our many years of research in this area can finally be applied to help families affected by these devastating diseases.

    "Now that that we are moving forward towards clinical treatments, we will also need donors to donate eggs for use in treatment to prevent affected women transmitting disease to their children."

    Prof Sir Doug Turnbull, the director of the Wellcome Centre for Mitochondrial Research at Newcastle University, said: "We are delighted by today's decision. We will also provide long-term follow up of any children born."

    NHS England has agreed to fund the treatment costs of the first trial of three-person IVF for those women who meet the HFEA criteria, as long as they agree to long-term follow up of their children after they are born.

    Closeness and independence are both important in our life. Though all humans need both of them women tend to focus on the first and men on the second. It is as if their lifeblood ran in different directions.

    These differences can give women and men differing views of the same situation, as they did in the case of couple I will call Tracy and Brian. When Brian's old high school friend called him at work and announced he'd be in town on business the following month, Brian invited him to stay for the weekend. That evening he informed Tracy that they were going to have a houseguest, and that he and his friend would go out together the first night to chat like old times. Tracy was upset. She was going to be away on business the week before, and the Friday night when Brian would be out with his friend would be her first night home. But what upset her the most was that Brian had made these plans on his own and informed her of them, rather than discussing them with her before extending the invitation.

    Tracy would never make plans, for a weekend or an evening, without first checking with Brian. She can't understand why he doesn't show her the same courtesy and consideration that she shows him. But when she protests, Brian says, "I can't say to my friend, 'I have to ask my wife for permission'!"

    To Brian, checking with his wife means seeking permission, which implies that he is not independent, not free to act on his own. To Tracy, checking with her husband makes her feel good to know and show that she is involved with someone, that her life is bound up with someone else's.

    Tracy and Brian both felt upset by this incident because it cut to the core of their primary concerns. Tracy was hurt because she sensed a failure of closeness in their relationship: He didn't care about her as much as she cared about him. And he was hurt because he felt she was trying to control him and limit his freedom.

    A dog spent the last four years of his life waiting a crossroad in the Thai city of Khon Kaen as if waiting for someone. People originally thought the dog had been abandoned, but then realized that he looked healthy, so people asked around about him. It turned out that the dog had indeed been spending most of his time around that crossroad, but a woman had been coming round regularly to bring him food and water.

    One day, while photographing the dog everyone called Leo, a reporter met the woman who had been taking care of him. She had come to drop off some food. After learning the story about the dog and the woman, the reporter decided to share the story on social media. The post soon went viral and the photos of Leo got shared hundreds of times. And the photos reached the eyes of Leo's former old owner.

    Nang Noi Sittisarn, a 64-year-old woman from Thailand's Roi Et Province, almost had a heart attack when her daughter showed her a photo of the beloved dog named BonBon she had lost during a car trip. When she learned that he had been waiting for her in the same spot for the last four years，her heart melted(融化).

    Auntie Noi told her daughter to drive her to where the dog was waiting. When she got there and called his name. BonBon, the poor dog started wiggling(扭动)his tail and came to her, but when she tried to take him home with her, he was unwilling to follow. She didn't want to force the dog to come with her, so she agreed to leave him with his new master. However, she and her daughter will come to visit him regularly.

Livestreaming (直播) through platforms such as Amazon Live and TikTok is an increasingly popular way to sell goods online. It usually lasts between 5 and 10 minutes, and someone promotes a product. Viewers can then readily buy it by just clicking on a link.

We analyzed (分析) 99, 451 sales cases on a livestream selling platform and matched them with actual sales cases. In terms of time, that is equal to over 2 million 30-second television advertisements.

To determine the emotional (情绪的) expression of the salesperson (销售员), we used two deep learning models: a face model and an emotion model. The face model discovers the presence or absence of a face in a frame of a video stream. The emotion model then determines the probability that a face is exhibiting any of the six basic human emotions: happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, fear or disgust. For example, smiling signals a high probability of happiness, while an off-putting expression usually points toward anger.

We wanted to see the effect of emotions expressed at different times in the sales cases so we counted probabilities for each emotion for all 62 million frames in our database. We then combined these probabilities with other possible aspects (方面) that might drive sales — such as price and product characteristics — to judge the effect of emotion.

We found that, perhaps unsurprisingly, when salespeople show more negative emotions — such as anger and disgust — the volume of sales went down. But we also found that a similar thing happened when the salespeople show high levels of positive emotions, such as happiness or surprise.

A likely explanation, based on our research, is that smiling can be disgusting because it lacks true feelings and can reduce trust in the seller. A seller's happiness may be taken as a sign that the seller is gaining interests at the customer's expense.