One hot night last August, I tried everything I could think of — toys, songs etc. to make him fall into sleep, but he just couldn't do it. Since I believed that a long night was waiting for me ahead, I had no choice but to bring a TV into his room to kill off the hours until dawn. I was surprised that the moment I turned on the TV the baby became quiet right away and fixed his little eyes brightly on the screen. Not willing to waste an opportunity for sleep, I then tiptoed(蹑手蹑脚地行进) out of the room, leaving him to watch the boring TV programs. I heard no more of the baby's crying that night and the next morning when I went into his room, I found him still watching TV by himself. I found there was a metaphor(暗喻) in my baby's behavior(行为) for the new generation. When I gave my boy some books to go over, he only spit upon them; when I read to him, he did not feel comfortable. And so it is in the schools with my students. I find that our students don't read and they look down upon reading and make light of those of us who teach it. All they want to do is watch TV. After this experience with the baby, however, I have drawn a conclusion: “Let them watch it!” If television is that much more attractive to children than books, why should we fight against it? Let them watch what they want！

    You're rushing to work and a man ahead of you falls down on the sidewalk. Do you stop to help? In a study of by-standers, it was found that some people keep on walking.

    "There is a tendency to decide that no action is needed," says a psychologist, "In order to take action, you have to work against them." Here are some common thoughts that stop you from helping.

    ●Why should I be the one? I'm probably not the most able 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. 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 evaluate 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."

    Pigeons may only have a brain the size of a thimble (顶针), but it appears that pigeons can categorize and name objects in the same way human children learn new words.

    A new study from the University of Iowa has shown that the birds are capable of learning to categorize 128 different photographs into 16 basic categories.

    Scientists taught three pigeons to sort out different kinds of dogs or types of shoes, for example by using a particular symbol in exchange for a reward. When they were shown black and white pictures of previously unseen dogs or shoes, the birds were able to correctly match these with the corresponding symbols.

    The scientists behind the project say this is a similar approach taken by young children when they are first learning words for objects. However, the researchers said it took their birds around 40 days to perfect the task of learning just 16 categories.

    Professor Edward Wasserman, who led the work, said: "Our birds' rate of learning appears to have been quite slow. Would children learn faster than pigeons? Almost certainly. However, our pigeons came to the experiment with no background knowledge at all. Thus, the more relevant comparison group may be newborn babies, who indeed take 6–9 months to learn their first words."

    Writing in the journal Cognition, the researchers said their experiment was a very simple mirror of the way children are taught words — by their parents pointing to pictures and asking them to name the object.

    Pigeons are known to be smarter than many birds. Professor Bob McMurray, who also took part in the study, said the results showed that human learning is not as unique as was previously believed.

    He said: "Children are facing a huge task of learning thousands of words without a lot of background knowledge to go on. For a long time, people thought that such learning is special to humans. What this research shows is that the ways in which children solve this huge problem may be shared with many species.

    How to eat healthfully can be especially complex for working women who often have neither the desire nor the time to cook for themselves (or for anyone else).Registered dietitian(营养专家) Barbara Morrissey suggests that a few simple rules can help.

"Go for nutrient dense foods that contain a multiple of nutrients," she suggests, "For example, select whole wheat bread as a breakfast food, rather than coffee and cake. Or drink orange juice rather than orange drink, which contains only a small percentage of real juice——the rest is largely colored sugar water. You just can't compare the value of these foods, the nutrient dense ones are so superior," she emphasizes.

    Morrissey believes that variety is not only the spice of life; it's the foundation of a healthful diet. Diets which are based on one or two foods are not only virtually impossible to keep up the strength, they can be very harmful, she says, because nutrients aren't supplied in sufficient amounts or balance.

    According to Morrissey, trying to find a diet that can cure your illnesses, or make you a super woman is a fruitless search. As women, many of us are too concerned with staying thin, she says, and we believe that vitamins are some kind of magic cure to replace food.

"We need carbohydrates(碳水化合物) protein and fat—they are like the wood in the fireplace. The vitamins and minerals are like the match, the spark, for the fuel," she explains, "We need them all, but in a very different proportion. And if the fuel isn't there, the spark is useless.”

    My son Leon's passion for surfing began at the age of 13. After school each day, he put on his wet suit, paddled out beyond the surf line and waited to be challenged by his companions.

    One afternoon, the lifeguard reported over the phone to my husband Wilson that Leon's eye was badly injured by his board. Wilson rushed him to the emergency room. He received 26 stitches (缝针) from the corner of his eye to the bridge of his nose.

    I was on an airplane flying home. Wilson drove directly to the airport after they left the doctor's office. He greeted me at the gate and told me Leon was waiting in the car.

    "Leon?" I questioned. I remember thinking the waves must have been terrible that day.

    "He's been in an accident, but he's going to be fine."

    A traveling working mother's worst nightmare had come true. I ran to the car so fast that the heel of my shoe broke off. I swung open the door, and my son with the patched eye was leaning forward crying, "Oh, Ma, I'm so glad you're home."

    I cried in his arms telling him how awful I felt about not being with him.

    "It's okay, Mom," he comforted me. "You don't know how to surf anyway."

    "What?" I asked, confused by his logic.

    "I'll be fine. The doctor says I can go back in the water in eight days."

    I wanted to tell him he wasn't allowed to go near water again until he was 35, but instead I bit my tongue and prayed he would forget about surfing.

    For the next seven days he kept pressing me to let him surf again. One day after I had repeated "No" to him for the 100th time, he beat me at my own game.

    "Mom, you taught us never to give up what we love."

    I gave in.

    Back then Leon was just a boy with a passion for surfing. Now he ranks among the top 25 professional surfers in the world.