Check out some fun weekend activities from our friends at Arizona Parenting.

    Walk in the Wild: Walk or run for wildlife at the Phoenix Zoo's Walk in the Wild 2016. Put on your favorite animal dress and take part in the one mile or 5K,enjoying the sights and sounds of the Zoo. Walk in the Wild includes a morning full of unique activities you won't find at any other valley walk, including all-day zoo admission and a lakeside after-party. Register online. 6-10 am. Phoenix Zoo, 455 North Galvin Parkway, Phoenix. 602-286-3800.

    Free Museum Day: It is hosted by Sesame Street and HBO at the Children's Museum of Phoenix. Kids can participate in activities, enjoy a performance by the Sesame Street Muppets and get to join the Everyday Heroes Club. An act of kindness is all it takes to become a member. Performances and activities will take place at 10:30—11:30 am and 1:30—2:30 pm.9 am—4 pm. Children's Museum of Phoenix, 215 N. 7th street, Phoenix. 602-253-0501.

    Sunday A'Fair: Sunday A'Fair features free outdoor concerts in Scottsdale Civic Center Park by top Arizona musicians, along with an arts-and-crafts market, fun activities for children and families, guided tours of the sculptures in the park and free admission to Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA). Guests are invited to bring blankets, lawn chairs or picnic baskets, and enjoy a relaxing afternoon of great entertainment. Delicious foods, snacks, beer, wine and soft drinks are also available for purchase.12-4 pm. Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, 7380 E. 2^nd St., Scottsdale. 480-994-ARTS (2787).

    The famous director of a big and expensive movie planned to film a beautiful sunset over the ocean, so that the audiences could see his hero and heroine in front of it at the end of the film as they said goodbye to each other forever. He sent his camera crew out one evening to film the sunset for him.

    The next morning he said to the men, “Have you provided me with that sunset?”

    “No, sir,” the men answered.

    The director was angry. “Why not?”  he asked.

    “Well, sir,” one of the men answered, “we're on the east coast here, and the sun sets in the west. We can get you a sunrise over the sea, if necessary, but not a sunset.”

    “But I want a sunset!” the director shouted. “Go to the airport, take the next flight to the west coast, and get one.”

    But then a young secretary had an idea. “Why don't you photograph a sunrise,” she suggested, “and then play it backwards? Then it'll look like a sunset.”

    “That's a very good idea!” the director said. Then he turned to the camera crew and said, “Tomorrow morning I want you to get me a beautiful sunrise over the sea.”

    The camera crew went out early the next morning and filmed a bright sunrise over the beach in the middle of a beautiful bay. Then at nine o'clock they took it to the director. “Here it is, sir,” they said, and gave it to him. He was very pleased.

    They all went into the studio. “All right,” the director explained, “now our hero and heroine are going to say goodbye. Run the film backwards so that we can see the ‘sunset' behind them.”

    The “sunset” began, but after a quarter of a minute, the director suddenly put his face in his hands and shouted to the camera crew to stop.

    The birds in the film were flying backwards, and the waves on the sea were going away from the beach.

    According to new research from the University of Cambridge in England, sheep are able to recognize human faces from photographs.

    The farm animals, who are social and have large brains, were previously known to be able to recognize one another, as well as familiar humans. However, their ability to recognize human faces from photos alone is novel.

    The recent study, the results of which were published in the journal Royal Society; Open Science, show the woolly creatures could be trained to recognize still images of human faces, including those of former President Barack Obama and actress Emma Watson.

    Initially, the sheep were trained to approach certain images by being given food rewards. Later, they were able to recognize the images for which they had been rewarded. The sheep could even recognize images of faces shown at an angle, though their ability to do so declined by about 15 percent—the same rate at which a human's ability to perform the same task declines.

    “Anyone who has spent time working with sheep will know that they are intelligent and individual animals who are able to recognize their handlers.” said Professor Jenny Morton, who led the Cambridge study. “We've shown with our study that sheep have advanced face-recognition abilities, close to those of humans and monkeys.”

    Recognizing faces is one of the most important social skills for human beings, and some disorders of the brain, including Huntington's disease, affect this ability.

    “Sheep are long-lived and have brains that are similar in size and complexity to those of some monkeys. That means they can be useful models to help us understand disorders of the brain, such as Huntington's disease that develop over a long time and affect cognitive (认识的) abilities. Our study gives us another way to monitor how these abilities change.” Morton said.

    This is my origin story: when I was a teenager I wrote terrible poetry. Like really bad. Worse than yours, I bet. A lot of it about how every little thing reminds me that we're all going to die one day. I wrote collections and collections of these poems, thinking one day I would have my moment. I named one collection, ironically, The Eternal Optimist.

    In 1996, I found an advert for the International Poetry Competition. I was 16 years old and ready for my poetry to be released on the world. Not only was it a competition with a cash prize, but it was poetry, which I wrote, and international. This was my ticket to becoming world-famous. I submitted a poem called Trail of Thought. If you ever wrote bad poetry as a teenager, you'll have written something like it. In the poem, I went for a walk and noticed small poignant(辛酸的) things in nature, and each one reminded me that we were all going to die one day.

    I filled out the form, printed off the poem and sent it off, fingers crossed. I waited to hear back I carried on writing, I probably finished another collection. Then I got a letter from the International Society of Poets. I opened the envelope carefully, just in case a prize-winning cheque fell out I hadn't won. But, they liked my poem enough to include it in their anthology(诗选), Awaken to a Dream. I closed my eyes, I wanted to scream with happiness. I was going to be a published poet.

    All I had to do in order to be published was accept the terms and pay £ 45（plus £ 5 p & p）for an anthology. If I didn't buy a copy of the anthology, my poem wouldn't be included. I had to convince my mum, who thought my writing a meaningless pastime, to part with £ 50. She even asked the question: “Why do you have to pay to be in this book?” Nevertheless, she wrote a cheque for £ 50 and I returned it with my letter of agreement.

    I was 16 and about to be a published poet. This was what it had all been about. This is what it had all been leading to. The months waiting for the anthology were a torture. I hit some sort of writer's block, I couldn't write anything. It was almost as if, now I was published, it mattered more what I committed to page and I didn't want to write anything down unless it was good enough to go into an anthology like Awaken to a Dream.

    The book arrived through the post. Here it was. The first thing I had ever been published in a book called Awaken to a Dream, featuring a blistering take on the mundanity(世俗) of mortality by yours truly. I opened the package to find a book, containing my work. The first thing that struck me about the book was that it was bigger than A4. And it was thick. And on each page was a poem, next to another poem, next to another. The type was small and the paper thin enough to trace with. With three or four poems per page and more than 700 pages, I had a sinking realization. This was a scam, an illegal trick for making money.

    If each poem had cost the author £ 45, they were sitting on a fortune. I felt ashamed. Everyone who had submitted something to the International Poetry Competition had fallen for the same hustle（忙碌）as me. I couldn't bring myself to show my mum. And she never asked to see it. Perhaps she thought if the price of me learning a lesson was £50 we didn't really have, then so be it.

    But that stayed with me, that moment of realization. Because I determined to keep writing and ensure that my precious words always found a home worthy of them. Or at least that's how, more than 20 years later, I justify falling for a scam. Because your first time being published should be special, and if I don't convince myself that there was a reason for my first poem being in a vanity(无价值) book, then what good was it in the first place? And, strangely, someone is selling this book on Amazon at the moment. I wonder how many other writers who went on to do more stuff are in there.

    If you are in Dubai you may notice a robot police officer sharing the street with you. Your first thought might be, “Have I walked into a movie set？”

    The answer is no. That robot is Dubai's newest police officer. The robot has a touch screen instead of a gun. The robot will be employed mostly at shopping centers and other places popular with visitors.

    The robot's face has eyes but no mouth or nose. It stands 165 centimeters tall and weighs 100 kilograms. If the robot works well, Dubai says 25 percent of its police force could be robots by 2030. The robot cop(巡警) was officially presented at Dubai's Gulf Information and Security Expo and Conference in May.

    The police hope the robot will make life easier for the people of Dubai. Khalid Al Razooqi is Director General of Smart Services at the Dubai Police. He said the robot can help the public every day, and that “it won't ask for any sick leave”.

    The robot cannot make arrests (逮捕). But it can recognize faces and compare them to photographs on a criminal database. It can also sense emotions. People can use the robot's touch screen to do things like reporting a crime, paying fines and reporting lost or found things. They can also ask how to get somewhere. The robot can greet and shake hands with people. So far, the robot can speak Arabic and English. It soon will learn other languages such as Russian, Chinese, French and Spanish. In addition to having a touch screen, the robot has a camera that can live stream video to a police command center.

    Dubai has plans to add other kinds of robots to its police force. Within two years, the city plans to use a three meter tall robot that can run up to 80 kilometers an hour. The Dubai government says the machine would be the world's largest robot. A human police officer will be able to sit inside and control the robot. It will be able to lift heavy objects.

    The city also plans to use an egg shaped robot to control parking areas and give tickets to people who break traffic laws.

    It all started in 2007 when James Bowen, a thirty­something drug addict who survived by playing guitar on the street, found an orange cat sitting in front of the door of his apartment.

    Bowen noticed the cat was wounded. Without hesitation, the young man took him to the Humane Society and spent the little money he had on medicine to heal him.

    Shortly thereafter, the cat, who was healing and feeling much better, began to follow the musician when he left the house. Then one day the cat got on the bus that Bowen took to the place where he worked.

    That's how the cat, who had recently been named Bob, began to accompany his human friend to his musical performances. Bob's mere presence attracted the attention of passers­by. He and Bowen would finish off each song with a high five. Pretty soon, the images of Bob wearing a scarf while sitting on the musician's shoulder, or keeping him company while he played the guitar, began to go viral all over the world.

    Eventually, the news found out about the pair and did a story for the magazine Islington Tribune. It was not long after that when a book agent appeared in their lives and gave them a chance to tell their story.

    By then, Bowen, who had managed to get away from drugs, wrote a novel called A Street Cat Named Bob. He related in great detail how meeting the cat changed him.

    The book soon sold more than six million copies and even spread beyond the borders of the United Kingdom. In fact, it was translated into thirty languages.

    Through all of these changing circumstances, Bob has always been with Bowen—on his shoulder.

    You can't make up a story like this. But life always gives opportunities to those who know how to get hold of them. So if you are ever in a position where a cat has chosen you, don't ignore it. You can't imagine all the good that life may have in store if you decide to accept the proposal.