Do you know the whales in the sea? There are many relatives(亲属) in the whale family and they always live together with whales.

    Few people know dolphins(海豚) are part of the whale family. Dolphins are not fish. They are mammals(哺乳动物). They breathe air, and they have babies and feed them with milk. Dolphins are famous for their wonderful shows. They can jump high out of the water and show turns in the air. These jumps give the dolphins time to breathe.

    Porpoises(鼠海豚) are also in the whale family and are quite like dolphins. But they are different in the size and shape of the mouth. The dolphin's mouth is long and thin, but the porpoise's is short and thick. Dolphins are also more talkative than porpoises. Dolphins make sounds to talk with each other under water. But porpoises do not do this. Both of them are smart and friendly to humans.

    Not all the members of the whale family are friendly. Big whales are much easier to be angry than smaller dolphins or porpoises. An angry whale can be dangerous. Perhaps this helped to create the story of Moby Dick that sank (使下沉) a ship and made all the people on it die in the sea.

    We often find that weekends and holidays feel so short while classes and work feel so long. Actually, though, we know that this is not true. But we still wonder where that strange feeling comes from.

    In fact, this is one of the ways that we're tricked by time, according to the website. All that S interesting. The website lists several wrong impressions (印象) we often have about time. Let's have a look.

    First of all, emotions affect (影响) our time-keeping abilities. Negative emotions (消极情绪). especially anxiety and boredom, make time seem longer because they make us concentrate (集中) more on the passage of time. However, when we are enjoying ourselves, we pay more attention to what we are doing and are likely to lose track of (失去对……的意识) time.

    Here is another example. In 2007, a group of scientists carried out a test. In the test, people fell 50 meters into a safety net and were then asked about their experience. Although the experience took shorter than 3 seconds, the people thought it was much longer than it actually was.

    This is because of the way our bodies reply to danger, according to the scientists. Our bodies produce a chemical called adrenaline (肾上腺素) when we are faced with danger. It allows us to concentrate better so that we can stay alive. As a result, we are able to remember far more details (细节) over a short period of time, which makes it seem like time is going more slowly.

    Another situation when we make mistakes about time is when we take afternoon naps (午觉). Have you ever had trouble telling what time it is after a long nap? That's because the best amount of time for a nap is 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, you enter a new stage of sleep called slow-wave sleep. If you wake up mid-way in this stage, it will take a while before you can correctly perceive (感知) time again.

    Yes, time can be mysterious (神秘的) and there is no way to control it. So, perhaps the best thing to do is to make good use of every minute.

In the eyes of many foreigners, Chinese are the best hosts and the worst guests in the world. They're not really bad guests but because the guest-host relationship in China is much different than in some Western countries it appears they are not nice guests. And Western guests sometimes look rude in the eyes of Chinese guests.  

　　In China guests are almost like gods. Whenever I enter a Chinese person's home there is always fruit on the table for me and someone is quick to bring me a cup of tea or water. In the West generally the guest is not a god. Acting according to the host's way of doing things is usual behaviour for a guest. 

　　My wife's mother is a very kind elderly Chinese lady who doesn't smoke. When I see some of her guests smoking in her house, as a non-smoker I feel unhappy. Usually I want to stop them directly but I must realize that she must not do that. In most North America homes if you are a guest and the hosts are not smokers, you should not smoke in their house. At the very least you could ask "Is it OK if I smoke?" But don't be surprised if they say "No, you can't smoke." In our culture if you smoke in their home you are a bad guest, but if they don't allow you to smoke in their house they are not a rude guest.

　　Guests in China also have special habits. Some Western people may not adapt to these habits very soon. Thankfully my wife is Chinese so whenever we visit a Chinese family she tells me to buy them a gift. However giving a gift to a host is not always necessary in my country. So if you invite international guests to your home don't be too surprised if they don't bring you a gift. 

　　In China you probably won't need to change the guest-host relationship very much because you will probably only be the host and Chinese are naturally very good hosts. If Western hosts invite you to their house, try not to be too surprised if their style of treating you is not what you have expected.

What would life be like if you were a rocker, a soccer player, a professor(教授）at Stanford University, and a Nobel Prize winner? Carolyn Bertozzi from the US lives such a cool life!

Bertozzi, 56, wins this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry and becomes this year's only female(女性) winner in science and the eighth female to receive the chemistry prize in history.

Bertozzi won the prize for studying the sugar coats of cells(细胞）. She has found a smart way to connect cells together. This finding helps to develop better tests for serious diseases like cancer.

However, Bertozzi said she only fell in love with chemistry until her second year at Harvard University."Most of my classmates thought the class was very difficult. But I liked it a lot because in my eyes the problems were challenging even though it usually took me long hours to solve them."

Besides doing science studies, Bertozzi has lived a colorful life. She was a keyboarder in a rock band and she also played soccer, winning an athletic scholarship from Harvard.

Moreover, Bertozzi never forgets her job as a female scientist. "In the late 1980s, only 10 percent of the students were females," she told Chemical & Engineering News. "There were maybe only one or two females in a lab, so we tried to support each other by starting a monthly get-together. Now, I'm so glad to see more and more females taking part in science." In 2022, Bertozzi won an award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her work to increase diversity(性别多元）in science.

Chinese dumplings are one of the traditional foods in China. They look like ancient Chinese gold ingots(锭), which mean"rich". Chinese dumplings were first invented(发明) by Zhang Zhongjing in the Han Dynasty. He first used them for medical purposes(目的). Zhang used dumplings with mutton(羊肉) for the patients'ear chilblain. 

As time went by, dumplings became popular in the north of China, and now making dumplings on New Year's Eve has become a Chinese tradition. On New Year's Eve, family members get together to make dumplings. They may put a coin(硬币) in one of the dumplings. If someone eats the coin, he or she will have the best luck in the coming new year. Chinese dumplings are also popular in other Chinese holidays or festivals. 

In the past, people couldn't often eat dumplings because they were very poor. But now Chinese people are richer and richer, so we can eat dumplings at any time. 

Almost everyone in China likes dumplings. There are many kinds of fillings in dumplings, such as dumplings with meat and vegetables, and some with sugar, eggs and seafood. I like dumplings with vegetables and pork better than any other kind, especially eating them with vinegar. 

Making dumplings is a teamwork. People usually make dumplings at home. If you have no time to make dumplings, you can buy them from any supermarket. But on Chinese lunar New Year's Eve, making dumplings with family members means happiness and reunion. And now many foreigners also like Chinese dumplings. They eat dumplings and even learn to make dumplings. 

I hope dumplings will be loved by people all over the world.