Joseph Francis Charles Rock (1884–1962) was an Austrian-American explorer, botanist, and anthropologist(人类学家). For more than 25 years, he travelled extensively through Tibet and Yunnan, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces in China before finally leaving in 1949.

    In 1924, Harvard sent Joseph Francis Rock on a treasure hunt through China's southwestern provinces—the Wild West of their day. But gold and silver weren't his task: Rock, a distinguished botanist, sought only to fill his bags with all the seeds, saplings, and shrubs he could find. During his three-year expedition, he collected 20,000 specimens for the Arnold Arboretum(阿诺德植物园).

    Botany, though, was just one of Rock's strengths. As an ethnologist(民族学者), he took hundreds of photographs of the Naxi, a tribe in Yunnan province, recording their now-lost way of life for both Harvard and National Geographic, and took notes for an eventual 500-page dictionary of their language. His hand-drawn map of his travels through China's “Cho-Ni” territory, in the Harvard Map Collection, includes more than a thousand rivers, towns, and mountains indicated in both English and Chinese, and was so well made that the U.S. government used it to plan aerial missions in World War II.

    Scientist, linguist, cartographer, photographer, writer—Rock was not a wallflower in any sense. Arrogant and self-possessed, he would walk into a village or warlord's place “as if he owned the place,” said Lisa Pearson, the Arboretum's head librarian.

    In declaring his successful return under the headline “Seeking Strange Flowers, in the Far Reaches of the World,” the Boston Evening Transcript ran a large photo of the daring explorer wearing in a woolly coat and fox-skin hat. “In discussing his heroism including hair-raising escapes from death either from mountain slides, snow slides and robber armies, he waves the idea away as if it is of no importance.”

    The Arboretum and Rock parted ways after 1927, mainly because his trip cost Harvard a fortune—about $900,000 in today's dollars. Fortunately, many of his specimens, many of his amazing photos, and his great stories remain.

    How Did the Ancient Chinese Keep Food Warm in Winter?

    Facilities like electric rice cookers, microwaves, and electric kettles, make it easy for people to keep food warm and enjoy a comfortable winter. So how did Chinese people in ancient times keep food warm in winter without these? In fact, ancient Chinese people used their own methods of heat preservation as early as the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.

    ☆ “Wen Ding”, ancient rice cooker

    One of the major functions of an electric rice cooker is to keep food warm. The “Wen Ding”, an ancient cooking container, served the same purpose, but instead of using electric energy, the ancient cooking container preserved heat by burning fuels like charcoal.

    The “Wen Ding” unearthed in Nanjing in 1989 is thought to be the oldest of its kind discovered in China, dating back to the Stone Age. The craftsmanship of making the “Wen Ding” was developed in the Bronze Age. The bronze Ding from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties took on different shapes and structures.

    ☆ “Ran Lu”, ancient small hot pot

    The “Ran Lu” is a small size cooking vessel (器皿) made of bronze, which can be divided into three parts. A charcoal stove forms the main structure, with a bottom tray to hold charcoal ashes, and a movable cup at the top. Some experts have concluded that the vessel's structure suggests it may have been used as a small hot pot and that these vessels became popular in the Warring States Period (475—221 B.C.).

    ☆ Bronze You, ancient kettle

    The Bronze You was one of the most common wine containers during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The Bronze You can also be used to warm wine. For example, the Bronze You with beast mask design, unearthed in Jiangxi Province, has an opening where charcoal could be placed. Just as people today can't do without an electric kettle, the Bronze You allowed people to enjoy a hot drink.

    ☆ Bronze Yan, ancient steamer

    Although the “Wen Ding” was effective at keeping food warm, the ancient Chinese people later found that its burning process produced pollution. As a result, the Bronze Yan made with a two-tier structure and used to steam rice and other grains. After the Eastern Han Dynasty (25A.D.-220A.D.), further improvements to the Bronze Yan led to the modern-day steamer.

    One silly question I simply can't stand is "How do you feel? Usually the question is asked of a man in action — a man on the go, walking along the street, or busily working at his desk. So what do you expect him to say? He'll probably say, "Fine, I'm all right," but "you've put a bug in his ear" — maybe now he's not sure. If you're a good friend, you may have seen something in his face, or his walk, that he overlooked that morning. It starts him worrying a little. First thing you know, he looks in a mirror to see if everything is all right, while you go merrily on your way asking someone else, "How do you feel?" Every question has its time and place. It's perfectly acceptable, for instance, to ask "How do you feel?" if you're visiting a close friend in the hospital. But if the fellow is walking on both legs, hurrying to catch a train, or sitting at his desk working, it's no time to ask him that silly question. When George Bernard Shaw, the famous writer of plays, was in his eighties, someone asked him, "How do you feel?" Shaw put him in his place. "When you reach my age," Shaw said, "either you feel all right or you're dead."

    In this Pennsylvania city, Pittsburgh is shrinking but getting wealthier. Since 2000, its population has declined by 95,000 while its income per capita (人均) has shot up 24 percent. The trend is taking hold in many other cities, like Buffalo in New York, Providence in Rhode Island and New Orleans.

    Some of these areas have created more high-paying jobs in energy, health care or education. Others have managed to reshape their producing industry for a new economy. Higher-paying jobs have a greater effect because they create demand for additional services. "The story in Pittsburgh is very positive, and other areas are looking at it as an example of the transformation that might be possible,” said Guhan Venkatu, who wrote an economic history of the area called “Rust and Renewal” for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

    Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have helped bring tech jobs and innovation(革新) to the area by sponsoring tech centers that help graduates start companies without moving to Silicon Valley or San Francisco. This has helped keep Pittsburgh's educated young population growing even as the entire population in the city has dropped.

    Pittsburgh has more STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) jobs than other shrinking cities, about 80, 000 or 7% of all jobs. STEM jobs add productivity and income growth to the area. Manufacturers of high-tech medical equipment in the Pittsburgh area also have doubled employment in the last 10 years.

    However, some experts question whether growing income per capita can really make up for a declining population. According to Patrick Adler, a researcher at the University of Toronto, population loss does matter if it means lower-skilled workers have fled because of a lack of opportunity. What's more, high-paying jobs in education and health care can disappear if the population declines too greatly. So it'd be wise to find ways to increase the population.

    The values of artistic works, according to cultural relativism (相对主义), are simply reflections of local and economic conditions. Such a view, however, fails to explain the ability of some works of art to excite the human mind across cultures and through centuries.

    History has witnessed the endless production of Shakespearean plays in every major language of the world. It is never rare to find that Mozart packs Japanese concert hall, as Japanese painter Hiroshige does Paris galleries. Unique works of this kind are different from today's popular art, even if they began as works of popular art. They have set themselves apart in their timeless appeal and will probably be enjoyed for centuries into the future.

    In a 1757 essay, the philosopher David Hume argued that because “the general principles of tastes are uniform (不变的) in human nature,” the value of some works of art might be essentially permanent. He observed that Homer was still admired after 2000 years. Works of this type, he believed, spoke to deep and unvarying features of human nature and could continue to exist over centuries.

    Now researchers are applying scientific methods to the study of the universality of art. For example, evolutionary psychology is being used by literary scholars to explain the long-lasting themes and plot devices in fiction. The structures of musical pieces are now open to experimental analysis as never before. Research findings seem to indicate that the creation by a great artist is as permanent an achievement as the discovery by a great scientist.

    In October 2013, Davion Only made an appeal on the Internet. He had learned that his biological mother had died not long before. "My name is Davion and I've been in foster care (寄养照管) since I was born," he said, "but I'm not giving up hope. "

    The heartbreaking appeal spread quickly, and Only's foster agency received calls from more than 10,000 people. Only ended up travelling to Ohio to live with a family. But after Only got into a physical fight with one of his elder would-be brothers, the family changed their minds.

     Back in Florida, Only passed through four different temporary homes over the following year, until he called Connie Going, his adoption case worker, to make a special request. Only had known Going for nearly ten years, and had asked every year if she would adopt him, but she always hesitated. "I always believed there was a better family than us out there," Going said in an interview. But last July, when Only called and asked again if she might adopt him, Going said something felt different. "When he asked me, my heart felt this ache and I just knew he was my son," she said.

     So Going, 52, invited Only to start spending time with the rest of her family-her two daughters, Sydney, 21, and Carly 17, and a son Taylor, 14, who she also adopted out of foster care. Eventually, after seeing how well the arrangement was working, Going, who had rented a bigger home, started adopting Only. Only moved in with her family last December. He officially joined Going's family on April 22, 2015 when the adoption papers went through.

    "Today, I feel blessed and honored to have been chosen to be the parent of all my children," Going said.