Five or six years ago, I attended a lecture on the science of attention. A professor who conducts research over in the medical school was talking about attention blindness, the basic feature of the human brain that, when we concentrate on one task, causes us to miss just about everything else. Because we can't see what we can't see, our lecturer was determined to catch us in the act. He had us watch a video of six people tossing (投掷) basketballs back and forth, three in white shirts and three in black, and our task was to keep track only of the tosses among the people in white. The tape rolled, and everyone began counting.

    Everyone except me. I'm dyslexic (患阅读困难症的), and the moment I saw that tape with the confusing basketball tossers, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep track of their movements, so I let my mind wander. I became curious, though, when about 30 seconds into the tape, a gorilla (大猩猩) walked in among the players. She (we later learned a female student was in the gorilla suit) stared at the camera, beat her chest with her fist, and then went away while they continued passing the balls.

    When the tape stopped, the professor asked how many people had counted at least a dozen basketball tosses. Hands went up all over. He then asked who had counted 13, 14, and congratulated those who'd scored the perfect 15. Then he asked, “And who saw the gorilla?”

    I raised my hand and was surprised to discover I was the only person at my table and one of only three or four in the large room to do so. He'd set us up, trapping us in our own attention blindness. Yes, there had been a trick, but he wasn't the one who had played it on us. By concentrating so hard on counting, we had managed to miss the gorilla in the midst.

    Attention blindness is the fundamental organizing principle of the brain, and I believe that it presents us with a great opportunity. My take is different from that of many neuroscientists: Where they see the shortcomings of the individual, I sense an opportunity for cooperation. Fortunately, given the interactive (互动的) nature of most of our lives in the digital age, we have the tools to control our different forms of attention and take advantage of them.

    It's not easy to admit that everything we've learned about how to pay attention means that we've been missing everything else. It's not easy for us logical, intelligent, confident types to admit that the very key to our success — our ability to discover a problem and solve it, an achievement obtained in all those years in school and beyond — may be exactly what limits us. No one ever told us that our way of seeing left out everything else.

    According to a new US study, couples who expect their children to help care for them in old age should hope they have daughters because they are likely to be twice as attentive overall.

    The research by Angelina Grigoryeva, a sociologist at Princeton University, found that, while women provide as much care for their elderly parents as they can manage, men do as little as they can get away with and often leave it to female family members.

    Using data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, a study which has been tracking a cross-section of over-50s for the last decade, she calculated that women provide an average of 12.3 hours a month of care for elderly parents while men offer only 5.6 hours.

    “Whereas the amount of elderly parent care daughters provide is associated with limitations they face, such as employment or childcare, sons' caregiving is associated only with the presence or absence of other helpers, such as sisters or a parent's spouse(配偶),” she explained.

    “Sons reduce their relative caregiving efforts when they have a sister, while daughters increase theirs when they have a brother.”

    “This suggests that sons pass on parent caregiving responsibilities to their sisters.”

    In the UK, the 2011 census(人口普查) showed that there are now around 6.5 million people with caring responsibilities – a figure which has risen by a tenth in a decade.

    But many are doing so at the risk of their own health. The census showed that those who provide 50 hours or more of care a week while trying to hold down a full- time job are three times more likely to be struggling with ill health than their working counterparts(相对应的人) who are not careers.

    Visit the Newseum During "Museum Day"！

    Museum Day is an annual celebration of boundless curiosity hosted by Smithsonian magazine. Participating museums and cultural institutions across the country provide free entry to anyone presenting a Museum Day ticket. The Museum Day ticket provides free admission for two people.

    Here is some information about a popular museum — the Newseum.

    EVENT DETAILS

    Registration: free tickets will be available for the public to download on December 15 via the link: https://www.smithsonianmag. com/museumday/museum-day-2018/.

    Advanced registration is requested so that the museum sites know how many people to expect. If you don't register beforehand you may still be admitted the day of the event, but no guarantee for admission. All are welcome to attend including children and groups.

    Meeting Point #1: From 7:45 – 8:00 some volunteers will be in the Starbucks at 325 7th St NW before walking 2 blocks to the Newseum.

    Meeting Point #2: Outside the Newseum's Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. The Newseum opens at 9:00 am. However, as this is an extremely popular event we highly recommend arriving as early as possible, by 8:15 if you can, to bypass the masses that will show up later in the day.

    Meeting Point #3: Once the museum opens we recommend immediately heading to the 6th floor to avoid the masses since most people start on the 1st floor. On the 6th floor, the Hank Greenspun Terrace, which overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue and the U. S. Capitol, has one of the best views in Washington, DC. After that you can proceed through the museum's exhibits starting on the 6th floor and working our way down. The Newseum is open until 5:00 pm and guests are free to arrive and depart whenever they like.

    It is quite reasonable to blame traffic jams, the cost of gas and the great speed of modern life, but manners on the road are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men would become fierce tigers behind the wheel. It is all right to have a tiger in a cage, but to have one in the driver's seat is another matter altogether.

    Road politeness is not only good manners, but good sense too. It takes the most cool-headed drivers great patience to give up the desire to beat back when forced to face rude driving. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of quarrelling and fighting. A friendly nod or a wave of thanks in answer to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of good will and calm so necessary in modern traffic condition. But such behaviors of politeness are by no means enough. Many drivers nowadays don't even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.

    However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. Typical examples are the driver who waves a child crossing the street at a wrong place into the path of oncoming cars that may be not able to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they want to. It always amazes me that the highways are not covered with the dead bodies of these grannies (奶奶).

    An experienced driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if drivers learnt to correctly join in traffic stream without causing total blockages that give rise to unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately, modern drivers can't even learn to drive. Years ago, experts warned us that the fast increase of the car ownership would demand more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.

It's always exciting to receive a letter in the mail. Even today, when the world is digitally connected, receiving an actual letter in your mailbox from a distant land is a great way for children to make new friends. 

The Peaceful Pen Pals Project is a beautiful initiative that combines global connection and self-expression. The project is part of the nonprofit Kids for Peace, founded by Jill McManigal and Danielle Gram in California, in 2006. Letter writing is most certainly hands-on and helps strengthen relationships throughout the world. 

The Peaceful Pen Pals Project is open to all children, ages 2 through 17. To date, there are 1500 children from 17 countries participating in the program. Each child is assigned a pen pal of a similar age. This establishes a point of connection right off the bat for the children and promotes a stronger bond. If the letter writers are in the same grade, they can chat about their schools, teachers, and what they are studying. They can also compare and contrast what different states or countries learn about and how the dynamics of the classroom are, whether socially or academically. 

Children may be more inclined to write about their issues if they feel like they are speaking to a peer in a similar situation. They also write about the local weather, who the letter writer lives with, and their favorite things to do at home. This will give the pen pal a good sense of the writer's home life, and they may relate to certain aspects, such as their parents, the number of siblings, or if they share a room. Although pen pals may live in different countries, they may find common ground according to this information. 

"Hearing first-hand stories from an international pen pal can encourage teens to take someone else's perspective and to think outside of themselves," writes Rebecca Fraser-Thill on Very Well Family. "It can also encourage interest in geography, politics, and history, and promote many key skills, including reciprocation, empathy and mutual concern. "

Socially, few things are more annoying than someone repeatedly checking their phone in the middle of your conversation with them. Soon enough, you're having unhappy thoughts, thinking of their way like, I'm boring you; you're more concerned with whoever's on that phone than me; you don't care about me. None of that is necessarily true, but this is: "If someone is engaged in a great conversation, they wouldn't care about their phones," says Leslie, a psychologist and researcher at NYU.

Do you sometimes wonder: What should I have said to a rude person like this? What if we have to talk to such maddening persons? Experts have advice about how to deal with this.

Whether you say something or not, remember that the cell-addict's annoying habits aren't about you. "It's rude, for sure, but sometimes we mistake the behavior for more than what it is," says Leslie. "It's possible that they are facing something tough and merely experiencing nervousness or anxiety," he adds. It's also possible that their partner is stuck with a flat tyre (轮胎) or their kid is sick in hospital. The point is that you don't know.

So before you become angry at the cell-addict's open rudeness, focus instead on building a better conversation than whatever's going down on Instagram. You might never be able to achieve this, given the power of today's social media, so if you're close enough to a person, Leslie advises you to directly ask them: "What's on that thing that's so interesting?" Chances are that they will apologise at once and quickly put the phone away. But if the answer is something real, talk about it. Better yet, you can avoid the situation in advance by saying something like, "I'm really interested in catching up properly, so how about we leave our phones in the car?" If they indeed have that flat tyre or sick kid, at least you won't have to assume that it's because your stories are boring.