Parents often think that time spent with their kids will gradually decrease in adolescence. But a new study suggests that while teens try to avoid spending a lot of time together with their parents, private parent-child meetings may actually increase in their early adolescent years. And that may raise a teenager's self-esteem (自尊) and social confidence, especially if it is the time that spent with Dad, the researchers added. The researchers created a long-term study in which they invited families in 16 school districts in central Pennsylvania to participate. In each family, a teenager, a younger sibling (兄弟姐妹), their mother and their father were interviewed at home and then asked about their activities and self-worth five times over a period of seven years.

    The study authors were surprised to discover that when fathers spent more time alone with their teenagers, the kids reported they felt better about themselves. Something about the father's role in the family seemed to improve self-esteem among the teenagers in the study, said study co-author Susan McHale, a professor of human development at Pennsylvania State University.

    “Time with Dad often involves joking, teasing, and other playful interactions. Fathers, compared to mothers, were more involved in leisure activities and had more peer-like interactions with their children, which is crucial for youth social development,” the study showed. But Marta Flaum, a psychologist in Chappaqua, New York, said, “How these findings reflect the real world is a real question. The sample in the study is so small and so unrepresentative of most families in the country today that I'm not sure how much we can generalize from it. In my community in Westchester County, I don't see parents and teenagers spend much time together at all. Parents are often working so hard and have less time to be together with their kids.”

    However, Flaum encourages parents to make time for their kids no matter how much work they have to do. “Research like this reminds us of how important it is. The time we have with them is so short,” she said.

    Do you often feel lonely? What do you do when you feel that way? Hide yourself away and spend your time reading, watching TV or walking around?

You might think that feeling lonely is just like feeling happy, sad or scared — that it's just one of your various moods. That is true. However, if you let yourself be lonely for too long without dealing with it, you could be making a serious mistake.

    Doctors have known for some time that feeling lonely is bad for the mind. It can lead to mental health problems such as depression, stress and reduce confidence. “Being lonely means not feeling connected or cared for, but it's not about being mentally alone,” Lisa Jaremka, scientist from Ohio State University, US, told Live Science in January. And there's growing evidence that not having friends is connected with physical illness as well.

    In 2006, for example, scientists studied 2,800 women who had cancer. They found that those who had few friends or family were five times more likely to die of their disease than women with many social contacts. Also, even healthy people had a better chance of falling ill if they felt left out by others, according to the BBC.

    The results have scientists thinking that loneliness might hurt the immune system(免疫系统), which protects the body from diseases.

    Hoping to prove this theory, Jaremka and her research team put volunteers(志愿者) through a stress test. During the test, volunteers were asked to make an unprepared speech in front of a group of stony-faced people. The researchers found that volunteers who said they were lonely in their daily lives felt more stress during the test. And their blood samples showed that all the stress had managed to cause harmful changes to their immune system.

     “Loneliness has been thought of in many ways as a chronic stressor(慢性增压器) — a socially painful situation that can last for quite a long time, ” explained Jaremka, who led the study.

    The number of people suffering from loneliness is increasing all over the world. However, solving the problem is easier said than done. It won't work to just “tell anyone to go out and find someone to love you”, said Jaremka. “We need to create support networks.”

    Your school asked parents about the social development in children in the last Parents' Meeting. Here are some opinions. Read following information and answer the questions.

    The Israeli farmers who pioneered the revolutionary technology known as drip irrigation weren't trying to solve one of the world's most urgent problems．They were just trying to survive．They lived in the desert，and they didn't have enough water to grow their crops．

    In its simplest form, it was little more than a pipe with holes in it. But behind each hole was a hi-tech dripper that let out just the right amount of water. Snaked along a row of crops so that the holes were positioned directly above the roots, the pipe could direct each precious drop of water directly to the plants, getting a bigger harvest while using a very small amount of the water．

    Over time, the farmers improved upon the technology, perfecting the drippers that regulated the flow of water, and connecting the pipelines to computers that could determine exactly how much water each plant needed and when．

    If the global population kept growing, the rest of the world would increasingly resemble their little community in the desert. So they began selling their irrigation systems in other parts of the world，eventually expanding to more than 110 countries. Netafirm, the company says it's lifting people out of poverty and conserving water at a time when the importance of doing so has never been clearer．

    The mass adoption of drip irrigation won't save the world by itself. To avoid the coming catastrophe, nearly everybody will, in some way, have to do more with less, perhaps through accepting and using other new technologies. Otherwise, it's going to get ugly．

    Plan your dream vacation to one of these excellent destinations.

    St. Lucia

    Abundant rainforests and splendid mountains are all reasons to visit this Caribbean island. St. Lucia offers the perfect mix of relaxation and adventure. To take in the breathtaking scenery, plan to hike the Piton Mountains or dive in the waters of Anse Chastanet.

    Banff. Alberta

    This Canadian destination will bring out the explorer in anyone who visits. From hiking and whitewater rafting to skiing and snowboarding, Banff offers travelers an abundance of year-round outdoor activities. The Lake Louise Ski Resort is one of the largest in North America and the striking photo opportunities of the Canadian Rockies from Moraine Lake can't be underestimated (低估).

    Machu Picchu

    According to travelers, a visit to this Peruvian UNESCO World Heritage (遗产) site is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Located in the Andes Mountains, it is the most familiar icon (象征物) of Inca civilization. Spend a few days accustoming yourself to the altitude in the neighboring city of Cusco, where you can experience a mix of Incan and Spanish cultures.

    Great Barrier Reef

    It's easy to see why the Great Barrier Reef is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World – it stretches nearly 1,500 miles along the eastern coastline of Australia and features about 3,000 reefs, 900 islands and more than 1,500 species of fish. Travelers can see these amazing natural structures from the air or underwater. However, large amounts of coral bleaching (褪色) caused by rising ocean temperatures put this place's continued existence at risk, so plan your visit soon to see this awesome sight up close.

    Reading may be fundamental, but how the brain gives meaning to letters on a page has been a mystery. Two new studies fill in some details on how the brains of efficient readers handle words. One of the studies, published in the April 30 Neuron, suggests that a visual-processing area of the brain recognizes common words as whole units. Another study, published online April 27 in PLOSONE, makes it known that the brain operates two fast parallel systems for reading, linking visual recognition of words to speech.

    Maximilian Riesenhuber, a neuroscientist at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., wanted to know whether the brain reads words letter by letter or recognizes words as whole objects. He and his colleagues showed sets of real words or nonsense(无意义的词语)words to volunteers undergoing fMRI scans. The words differed in only one letter, such as “farm” and “form” or “soat” and “poat”, or were completely different, such as “farm” and “coat” or “poat” and “hime”. The researchers were particularly interested in what happens in the visual word form area, or VWFA, an area on the left side of the brain just behind the ear that is involved in recognizing words.

    Riesenhuber and his colleagues found that neurons(神经元)in the VWFA respond strongly to changes in real words. Changing “farm” to “form”, for example, produced as great a change in activity as changing “farm” to” coat”, the team reports in Neuron. The area responded slowly to single-letter changes in made-up words.

    The data suggests that readers grasp real words as whole objects, rather than focusing on letters or letter combinations. And as a reader's exposure to a word increases, the brain comes to recognize the shape of the word. Meaning is passed on after recognition in the brain, Riesenhuber says.

    The researchers don't yet know how longer and less familiar words are recognized, or if the brain can be trained to recognize nonsense words as a unit.