It could happen just about any time you step out in public. You get onto an almost-empty bus, but the next passenger in decides to ignore dozens of empty seats to sit right next to you. While you're waiting in line at a supermarket, the next customer insists on standing only two inches behind you and shouting into his cell-phone. You go into a public restroom, and the next person to enter decides to use the next stall. Transgressions(冒犯) like these don't just make us feel uncomfortable; we often feel anxious, alarmed; and violated(被侵犯的). It is the attack of the personal-space invaders.

    In any society, shared definitions of personal space govern how we interact with other people. People living in densely(密集地) populated cities like Mumbai, Beijing, or Mexico City tend to require less personal space than people living in sparsely(稀少地) populated places within the country. In America, New Yorkers often have smaller requirements than residents of western states, like Montana, Shenandoah and Wyoming. Because everyone has different standards, gestures that are innocent in one place can be interpreted as opposite in another, especially in Britain.

    As the British etiquette(礼仪) website Debrett puts it, as a British person, somebody standing too close may make you "focus less on what somebody is saying than on how close they are to you". Simple acts like putting an arm around someone you don't know may seem friendly in China, but they can make us very uncomfortable. People from many European countries such as France and Spain kiss each other on the cheek when they meet, yet to British person, this seems too friendly and "touch-freely". The website explains! "The British are not backslappers(拍人后背的人) and generally do not show affection in public".

    Are British people unfriendly? Far from it. The website adds that they are not as "stand-offish and aloof' as they may seem, but very friendly and helpful to foreigners. However, remember not to be too close. If you are going to come closer than an arm's length, please let them know.

    It's the holiday season, the time when we connect with family and friends. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are full of festive pictures, featuring parents' catching and sharing those special family moments, their child's wish list, and maybe even a cute video of their child dancing to “Jingle Bell Rock” while wearing a diaper (尿片) and Santa hat. Swelling with pride, parents can't wait to get approval with a “thumbs up” or better yet a personalized message on their treasured post.

    Adults should be able to post what they want online. However, when exposing family moments online, are they sharing too much information? Do parents have the right to share those cute now, but embarrassing later moments about kids? Have children willingly given their agreement to sharing their cute but funny video online?

    A recent study found that 75% of parents turn to social media for parenting-related information and social support. There is even a term used to describe the overuse of sharing too much information about kids on social media: “sharenting”. Research also finds that “sharenting” isn't going anywhere anytime soon. What's troublesome is that a typical parent has about 150 Facebook friends and only a third of them are actual friends. So that brings up good questions – Who are we really sharing our information with and why? Who knows when and where that photo could resurface in the future?

    While there's no reliable information on how young children feel about things posted online, we do have information about how teens feel. According to a report by the Family Online Safety Institute, 76% of teens are concerned about their privacy. Many teens constantly search for new apps that allow anonymity. When names are required, they use screen names that don't reveal real information. If our teens are doing a better job of protecting themselves online, shouldn't parents take the lead and do the same? Plus, with more and more college admission representatives and potential employers surfing the internet for potential candidates, we'd hate for one of our posts to change an important decision. Think about it … online reputations are now becoming inseparable with real life ones.

    Of course, we can secure our privacy settings, only allowing our friends to view pictures, posts and videos, but that doesn't stop others from uploading our pictures. Adults need to be cautious of sharing information online, especially information about children.

    So, this holiday season, enjoy family time and share those special memories with family and friends. Before clicking the app to upload photos or videos, stop and think twice.

    Summer Science Class registration begins on March 8 ! If you are interested in science，the environment，or conservation and you are in grades 7 －12 ，sign up soon for Black Rock Forest Consortium's Summer Science Class program. You can download the Summer Science Classes 2013 brochure here. It is easy to register；just call 845-534-4517 or click here.

    Twelve-week-long courses in the natural sciences and the arts are offered at Black Rock Forest in Cornwall from July 15 through August 9.Two more classes are offered with site partners，including “The Art of Scientific Observation，” hosted jointly by Black Rock Forest Consortium and Storm King Art Center ，one of the world's leading sculpture parks ，and “A Nautical   Expedition” hosted jointly by the Consortium and the Constitution Marsh Audubon Center.

    We are delighted to announce two special “away” classes that are part of the Summer Science Class program this year: an“Adirondack Eco-Adventure” beginning August 11，and “Conservation Biology in Florida，” beginning June 23 and featuring field work on the Gulf Coast in cooperation with the University of Florida's Seahorse Key Marine Biological Laboratory. For more information on the Summer Science Class program，please read our press release. Black Rock Forest Consortium is a nonprofit organization founded in 1989 to advance scientific understanding of the natural world through research，education and conservation programs.

    A new study suggests climate conditions in the Sahara Desert, one of hottest, driest and most deserted areas in the world, have changed from wet to dry a about every 20,000 years.

    But previous evidence has suggested the Sahara did not always experience such extreme heat and dry conditions. At times, the Sahara Ranged to a very wet climate. This permitted plants and animals to develop and grow and led to the creation of human settlements. Now, they have discovered more evidence, which, the lead researcher David Mc Gee says, supports the idea that the Sahara's climate kept changing between wet and dry about every 20,000, years.

    McGee reported these climate changes were mainly driven by changes in the Earth's(地轴)as the planet travels round the sun .This process affects the amount of sunlight between seasons. Every 20,000 years the Earth receives more strong summer sunlight. When the Earth's axis changes again, the amount of sunlight is reduced. This season change happened continuously every 20,000 years. The other part of the season produced rainy conditions, resulting in a wetter, greener, plant-rich environment. When the rainy activity weakens, the climate becomes hot and dry, like the Sahara remains today.

    The scientists based their research on dust collected from ocean sediment(沉积物)in the Atlantic Ocean bottom off the coast of West Africa. The dust contained layers (层)of ancient sediment built up over millions of years. Each layer could contain traces of Saharan dust as well as the remains of life forms. This information was used to assess over what time period the dust had built up. This led to the overall finding that the Saharan changes from wet to dry climates happened every 20,000 years.

David McGee said that today we only see the Sahara Desert as an extremely deserted and "inhospitable" place. The new study suggests that the area's climate has changes between grasslands and a much wetter environment, and back to dry climates, even over the last quarter million years. McGee says he thinks the latest research can be valuable in studying the Sahara's history as it relates to human settlement.

    Our mother earth is going through a very tough situation and we, the entire human race, are destroying our environment or unconsciously without even realizing its consequences. Now we have to act very smartly and plan something to sustain what we still have, getting all necessary support from nature to lead healthy lives.

    Gardening is always an excellent and environmentally friendly idea. If you can go for sustainable gardening, then it will be even more useful for all. Gardening is a favorite hobby for many. It is time to channelize your hobby towards a more meaningful motivation.

    When we do gardening we need to use different ingredients (材料) to grow plants. Some of them are natural resources like water, soil, sunshine, and many things like this. Using these resources smartly is a part of sustainable gardening. Some simple techniques include: use less water and organic things to grow plants; try to store rainwater so that you can use them for gardening; try using less energy to drive devices; avoid using plastics in any form while gardening; reuse the leaves from your garden to fertilize them. These are the basic sustainable measures. To do so we need to have proper knowledge about gardening and its requirements so that we can use proper resources without wasting any of them.

    In today's busy life we don't get much time to spend on our environment. Gardening gives us a chance to do so. We can also have some pesticide-free (无农药的) and fresh food if we grow them in our garden. This is the right time to do some good to protect our own environment and gardening is one of the easiest ways. Do you want to start gardening, but you're not sure how? Click here: http://www.gardenhowto.com.

You've probably heard it a dozen times by now. But here it goes again: Sleep is important. Your mental health and immune (免疫时)system are connected to your sleeping habits. So are your grades, a new study finds. Sleep accounts for nearly one-fourth of the difference among students' grades in a class. So even if you spend hours studying for a test but get too little sleep, you might still do poorly.

Typically, people's sleep schedules are messy and can not be known in advance. Professor Jeffrey Grossman of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge wanted to see if sleep links to people's learning performance even when a study was done with people who kept such true-to-life schedules at home. So he turned to Fitbits, which can check how long people sleep and how frequently they wake up. And the researchers looked for 100 students. They focused on these students' sleep patterns in the days and weeks before exams and then compared them to these students' test scores.

"How much time a person sleeps the night. before an exam doesn't affect that person's grade," Grossman says. "A student who sleeps 7 hours every night will do better than a student who sleeps 7.5 hours one night and 6.5 hours another night."

"It's important for people to know that if their Fitbits tell them that they have terrible sleep, that may not actually be so," Michael Scullin, a sleep scientist at Baylor University says. Grossman also raises this point. Fitbit, Inc. makes this advanced tool. But it doesn't share how its tool works. This leaves a question about whether the tool is really correct when checking a student's sleep. Even so, Scullin emphasizes that there are enough data supporting ties between sleep and how well someone performs.

"Students need more sleep and less late evening use of phones and other screens. Even with after-school activities and schoolwork, they need to get enough sleep," Grossman says.