Mom wanted only one thing for her birthday. “Can you find me another copy of this song?” she asked, and handed me a worn-out cassette tape (磁带). I knew exactly what was recorded on it: My Redeemer (救世主). I heard the song played at least a thousand times while growing up. After so many years, the cassette tape was too worn out to be used. I promised her I would find a replacement.

    My Redeemer became Mom's favorite song after my younger brother Tim was killed by a drunk driver in 1973. The only thing that helped her calm down was the soulful sound of My Redeemer from the local radio station.

       We recorded it on a cassette tape so she could listen to it any time she wanted but none of us knew who the soloist (独唱者) was. These days, I thought the song would be easy to find out. I went home and searched the Internet. Several songs with that title popped up, but none of them was the one Mom loved. I got frustrated.

    Mom's birthday drew near and then one day, I was driving home, listening to our local radio station. A familiar tune came on. It was My Redeemer! As soon as I could, I phoned the station. I got a line on the soloist, who was called Alan Parks. I typed his name into Google and found his home number in South Carolina. Minutes later, I was telling him how much his recording meant to Mom. He offered to ship two CDs out to me personally. I gave him my address.

    'Red Lion, Pennsylvania?' he said. 'Do you know the Logans?' 'They are our neighbors!' 'I've been friends with them for 25 years,' Alan said. 'They'll be at my concert at York Gospel Chapel on April 17th. Would you and your mom come too” We sure would. Mom was excited to hear Alan sing My Redeemer to her, live in concert —on the evening of her 87th birthday.

    This story starts with my two kids. We were hiking in the Oakland woods when my daughter noticed some plastic litter in a creek. She looked at me and said, "Daddy? That doesn't go there”.

    When she said that, it reminded me of my summer camp. On the morning of that camping day, right before they'd let our anxious parents come through the gates, our camp director would say Quick! Everyone pick up five pieces of litter, "We got one hundred kids each picking up five pieces, and pretty soon, we got a much cleaner camp. So I thought, why not apply that crowdsourced cleanup model to the entire planet? And that was the inspiration for Literati. The goal is to create a litter-free world. Let me show you how it started. I took a picture of a cigarette using Instagram.

    Then I took another photo, and another. And at the end of a few days, I had 50 photos on my hone and I had picked up each piece, and I realized that I was keeping a record of the positive impact I was having on the planet. That's 50 fewer things you might see, or you might step on, or some bird might eat. So I started telling people what I was doing, and they started participating. I realized that Litterati was more than just pretty pictures; we were becoming a community that was collecting data. Each photo tells a story. It tells us who picked up what, a geo-tag tells us where and a time stamp tells us when. Gradually, the community grew.

    Litter —it's blending into the back ground of our lives. But what if we brought it to the fore front? What if we understood exactly what was on our streets, our sidewalks and our school yards?

    How might we use that data to make a difference?

    A study showed that the experiences children have in their first few years are important. These experiences affect the development of the brain. When children receive more attention, they often have higher IQs. Babies receive information when they see, hear and feel things, which makes connections between different parts of the brain. There are a hundred trillion (万亿) connections in the brain of a three-year-old child.

    Researcher Judit Gervain tested how good newborns are at distinguishing different sound patterns. Her researchers produced images of the brains of babies as they heard different sound patterns. For example, one order was mu-ba-ba. This is the pattern "A-B-B". Another order was mu-ba-ge. This is the pattern "A-B-C". The images showed that the part of the brain responsible for speech was more active during the "A-B-B" pattern. This shows that babies can tell the difference between different patterns. They also were sensitive to where it occurred in the order.

    Gervain is excited by these findings because the order of sounds is the building block of words and grammar. "Position is key to language," she says. "If something is at the beginning or at the end, it makes a big difference: 'John caught the bear.' is very different from 'The bear caught John.' "

    Researchers led by scientist Patricia Kuhl have found that language delivered by televisions, audio books, the Internet, or smartphones－no matter how educational－doesn't appear to be enough for children's brain development. They carried out a study of nine-month-old American babies. They expected the first group who'd watched videos in Chinese to show the same kind of learning as the second group who were brought face-to-face with the same sounds. Instead they found a huge difference. The babies in the second group were able to distinguish between similar Chinese sounds as well as native listeners. But the other babies－regardless of whether they had watched the video or listened to the audio－learned nothing.

    Twenty years ago, I drove a taxi for a living. One night I went to pick up a passenger at 2:30 a.m. When I arrived to collect, I found the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window.

    I walked to the door and knocked, "Just a minute," answered a weak, elderly voice. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her eighties stood before me. By her side was a small suitcase.

    I took the suitcase to the car, and then returned to help the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the car.

    She kept thanking me for my kindness. "It's nothing," I told her. "I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated."

    "Oh, you're such a good man." She said. When we got into the taxi, she gave me an address, and then asked, "Could you drive through downtown?"

    "It's not the shortest way," I answered quickly.

    "Oh, I'm in no hurry," she said. "I'm on my way to a hospice(临终医院). I don't have any family left. The doctor says I don't have very long."

    I quietly reached over and shut off the meter(计价器).

    For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked, the neighborhood where she had lived, and the furniture shop that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

    Sometimes she'd ask me to slow down in front of a particular building and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

    At dawn, she suddenly said," I'm tired. Let's go now."

    We drove in silence to the address she had given me.

    "How much do I owe you?" she asked.

    "Nothing." I said.

    "You have to make a living," she answered. "Oh, there are other passengers," I answered.

    Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto e tightly. Our hug ended with her remark, "You gave an old woman a little moment of joy."

    Climate change is perhaps the key issue of our time. Often, however, it is presented to us as being so abstract that it seems impossibly distant. For those of you looking for something a little more concrete, a new report suggests that the effects of climate change may significantly affect coffee.

    The report, put out by The Climate Institute, describes the effects of climate change on various coffee-growing nations and the resultant effects on the plants and those who grow them.

    Coffee Arabica plants, which produce 70% of all commercial coffee, can be adversely affected by even a half-degree change in typical weather conditions. This sensitivity to temperature puts the plant at increased risk of the effects of climate change.

    In Central America the average temperature has risen by a full degree Celsius since 1960. In Ethiopia the average temperature has increased by 1. 3 degrees. This increase is enough to have notable effects on the plants. In Tanzania the productivity per hectare of coffee has fallen by half since the 1960s due to changes in temperature.

    Indeed, studies claim that by 2050 the area of the world suitable for growing coffee will be cut by half. Coffee production is likely to then be pushed to higher elevations (海拔) to take advantage of lower temperatures, but this will not be enough to make up for lost lowland areas.

    Coffee is the second most traded goods by developing nations, and the inability of producer nations to export it could cause dramatic chain reactions in their economies. Millions of people make a living in the production, processing, transport, and sale of coffee; their livelihoods would stand to take a blow as growing areas decrease and prices rise.

    As the temperature keeps rising, your cup of coffee will become much more expensive, and it may also carry an aftertaste bitterer than usual, for all those workers in the coffee belt left without the means to make a living as conditions worsen. Not only that, but the economic effects will cost the West millions in increased foreign aid.

    If you fancy a break over the festive season, then why not join Solos Holidays on one of their special Christmas or New Year breaks. These social events are a great opportunity to mix and associate.

    Stratford Christmas Market

    A wonderful way to start getting into the festive spirit on this 2-night Christmas market break. Wander under the twinkling lights while shopping for homemade gifts and tasting warming wine, roast chestnuts or luxury(奢侈的) chocolates. Explore historical Stratford-upon-Avon and enjoy dinner on both evenings where you can relax, join in the hotel's party night and hit the dance-floor with other single guests.

    Departure: 7th December

    Price: £380, Breakfast Dinner

    New Year in Brighton

    Head to the south coast and the busy town of Brighton for a 3-night break this New Year. Celebrations begin with a Solos welcome drink before joining other single guests for dinner and musical entertainment. The next morning we take the fun ‘Only in Brighton Tour' showcasing all things special about Brighton, before New Year's Eve kicks off with a Gala dinner and party to take us into 2019.

    Departure: 30th December

    Price: £555, Breakfast & Dinner

    To find out more about Solos Holidays Black Tie Balls, Party Nights, Dances & Festive Breaks that take place at venues(场所)across the UK throughout December: call 0844826 8515 or visit solosholidays.co.uk