Love to sink into your chairs and relax when you get to school? Then you will not be happy to hear that schools all over the world are seriously considering exchanging traditional desks for ones with no seats at all — Yes, that means you will be encouraged to stand through those already too long math and science lessons! Why would anyone even think of putting kids to such cruelty? Experts say it improves their health and helps fight obesity. While that may seem a little far-fetched (牵强的), the officials at the few schools around the world seem to agree.

    Among them are educators from the College Station Independent School District in Texas, who recently completed aweek-long experiment involving 480 students across three elementary schools. The 374 kids that agreed to participate in the study were provided with adevice that helped record step count and calorie consumption over the entireperiod.

    All 25 teachers involved in the study reported that students appeared to be more alert and concentrate better, when allowed to stand. The one thing that did surprise the researchers was that younger kids were more willing to stay standing than kids in higher grades. They believe this may have something to do with the fact that after years ofbeing asked to “sit still”, older kids have a harder time adjusting to this unexpected freedom.

    American schools are not the only ones reporting success with stand-up desks. Four Catholic schools in Perth,Australia, which have been testing them since October 2013, have seen similar results. In May 2014, Grove House Primary School in Bradford, West Yorkshire,became Europe's first test one, with a seven-week trial that involved the useof desks made by Ergotron in their fifth-grade classrooms. While official results are not out yet, early reactions from both teachers and students, have been extremely encouraging.

    The findings of these studies and othersdone previously, all seem to mean that allowing kids to move around in classrooms is a win-win for students and teachers — it helps kids get healthier and provides educators with a more engaged audience.

    When you see someone you know, the easiest way to recognize them is by their face—but not everyone can do this. Many people have prosopagnosia, or face blindness, which is a neurological（神经病学的）condition where the part of the brain that recognizes faces fails to develop. It can stop people recognizing partners, family members, friends or even their own reflection. It was once thought to be caused by brain injury (acquired prosopagnosia) but now a genetic link has been proved (development prosopagnosia).

    Acquired prosopagnosia is a very rare but as many as one in 50 people may have developmental prosopagnosia. There's no specific treatment, but training programmes are being developed to help improve facial recognition.

    For many, the situation can be dangerous. I've heard stories of people being robbed by strangers claiming to be family members, or of children wandering off strange men.

    It was only is this century that researchers began to realize exactly how many people in this world were quietly living with the condition.

    Like a blind person who can recognize family members by their footsteps, prosopagnosics are forced to develop unusual ways of discovering who it is they're meeting or talking to. From the obvious markers like hair and voice, to the way one sits, stands or walks, they rely on dozens of means to get through ordinary life.

    Faces are an important part of identity. Not to be recognized feels terrible—it's as if you've been overlooked, like someone's saying you don't matter. But it's nothing to the pain of knowing that you're hurting people's feelings constantly, and yet being completely unaware that you're doing it in the moment. To be alienated（隔离的）from the world of faces is a strange position to be in, but I'm comforted by the thought that articles like this will do a little to help people forgive me and others like me.

    My children are perfect. All four of them. Perfect and beautiful and clever. I bet yours are, too. Except, of course, they are not. In reality, my children and yours are likely to be reasonably average in terms of looks, behavior, intelligence and charm. That's why it is called average. Your belief in your child being special is more probably a biological thing than a fact.

    A loved one, particularly a loved child, is edited as we observe them. Other people's children are spoiled; ours are spirited. Theirs are naughty; ours are confident.

    This is all natural and even touching when not taken too far. However, it is one thing feeding this idea to ourselves but feeding it to our children may be a little less desirable. We have the idea that — unlike my parents' generation — we should build our children's self-respect as high as we can. Therefore, their random scribble (胡写乱画) is up there with Picasso, their C-minus is an unfortunate oversight on the part of the teacher, and the fact that no one wants to be friends with them is because they are particularly clever or sensitive.

    Children see through this kind of thing very quickly and ignore their parents' praises as a matter of course. As they grow up, they sense that the wider world judges them differently. This leads to a – hopefully gentle – cynicism (猜忌) about anything their parents tell them about their achievements. Perhaps that is OK — but I'm not sure if it is good for them to have the parental praise so overlooked.

    If parents were a little harsher sometimes, this could have two positive effects — first, when praise came, it would be more likely to be believed and, second, it would fit in rather more accurately with the picture of reality that the child is forming in their heads.

    A lot of pressure is put on children who are told they are beautiful, special and perfect. Because then, where is there to go? Only downwards. They become too much aware of their status in your eyes, and a danger must be that they fear failing you. To be over-praised by your parents is the counter side of being criticized all the time. Both can have negative consequences.

    It is important to give your children the freedom to be flawed (缺点) — to know that it's OK to be imperfect, and that, in fact, we often love people for their flaws — perfect people (whom we can only imagine, as they do not exist) are easy to respect, but hard to love.

    Now I am nearly 60, my main insight is that I am much less special than I once believed. This knowledge has actually been helpful in leading a more well-balanced life.

    I certainly wouldn't like to go back to attitudes that my parents, particularly my father, held, that to praise the child was to "spoil them" or make them bigheaded. However, the history of families is like the history of everything else — the story of overreactions. We praise our children to the skies, partly because we think it makes them feel good, but also because it makes us feel good. And perhaps it is more the latter than the former.

    Too much love can be as big a burden as a shortage of it. My advice is to limit your praise. Then every piece of praise will count, rather than being just ignored.

    The koala is an unusual creature. Native to Australia and a bit bigger than a rabbit, it spends most of its time in eucalyptus trees（桉树）, feeding on leaves that are poisonous to nearly every other animal on the planet.

    The koala sleeps about 22 hours a day and spends the remainder of its time eating and resting. It might spend 10 minutes a day moving, experts say, usually from one tree to another. It has a soft pad at the end of its spine and extra thick fur on its rear end to make the effort, of sitting more comfortable.

    Threats and protective measures

    The unique lifestyle of the koala has helped it prosper, but today the cute and iconic creature is facing threats from habitat loss, disease and a changing climate. Koala populations are expected to decline by 50 percent in the next 20 years according to the Australian Museum.

    To help protect these animals, which bring in an estimated $1.1 billion to Australia each year through koala-related tourism, an international team of researchers has published the first complete genome（基因组）of the koala. Their hope is that the keys to the marsupial's（有袋动物）long-term survival might be planted in its genetic code.

"The ultimate goal is that we won't have to…rescue them from the edge of extinction," said Rebecca Johnson of the Australian Museum Research Institute in Sydney, who led the work.

    "Now we have a really good understanding of the koala genome, and we are in a fantastic position to use that knowledge to help us manage them."

    Early findings

    An elementary analysis of the koala's genome, published in Nature Genetics, has already yielded some interesting findings.

    For example, the authors found that, compared to other mammals, the koala's DNA includes an expansion in the number of genes that encode for enzymes involved in anti-poison. That allows them to have a diet that depends almost entirely on eucalyplus leaves which are unusually high in poison. However, it also means that koalas metabolize（代谢）medicines like anti-chlamydia antibiotics faster than other animals.

    The koala genome also revealed why koalas are such famously picky eaters. They are known to consume leaves from just 20 of Australia's 60 known eucalyplus species. And even when they are in one of their preferred trees, koalas take leaf selection very seriously.

    Information waiting to be discovered

    Johnson said that the information encoded in the koala's DNA is already being included in management strategies by conservation groups. However, she said the findings described in the new paper represent the early stages of what can be gleamed from the marsupial's genome.

    "The data is public, and I would love for anyone to start mining it and see what other amazing things they can find," she said." Once you have a genome of this quality, the sky's the limit with what you can do with it."

Let Kids with Cancer Be Kids Again!

    We care about the needs of kids with cancer

    Camp quality originated in 1983 in Sydney, Australia. The camp was created to give kids with cancer and their family a place to interact with other children and have an extraordinary summer. Activities are designed with kids in mind such as swimming, fishing, arts and crafts, and even the beloved campfires.

    Companions and volunteers

    The safety of campers and staff(员工)is of top priority to Camp Quality Arkansas. Each staff member is required to attend a training session. Within these sessions, each potential staff member gets to know the program and then a decision is made to decide whether he or she will fit best in the camp.

    "In all of our volunteers we look for adults who can lead with their own actions and have a child-like spirit. This ability to have fun is essential to the success of the camp. While the companions work directly with the campers, we are always on the lookout for volunteers to fill the positions of RNs, certified lifeguards, photographers, and kitchen staff," said Amber Dovel, volunteer coordinators at Camp Quality Arkansas.

    A unique function of the camp is that for each kid a companion is assigned. A companion is a reminder of "hope, courage, and happiness, not only during the week of camp, but all year round," according to the official website.

    Contact us

    For more information visit www.campqualityusa.org or contact Director, Chris Jennings at Chris. Jennings@camoqualityusa.org.

    (The New York Times, Oct.7) The 2019 Nobel Prize in physiology(生理学) or medicine was jointly awarded to three scientists — William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza — for their work on how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. The Nobel Assembly announced the prize at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday.

    Their work established the genetic mechanisms(机制) that allow cells to respond to changes in oxygen levels. The findings have implications(启示) for treating a variety of diseases.

    Why did they win?

    "Oxygen is the lifeblood of living organisms(生物体)," said Dr. George Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School. "Without oxygen, cells can't survive." But too much or too little oxygen can be deadly. The three researchers tried to answer this question: How do cells regulate their responses?

    The investigators uncovered detailed genetic responses to changing oxygen levels that allow cells in the bodies of humans and other animals to sense and respond to fluctuations(波动), increasing and decreasing how much oxygen they receive.

    Why is the work important?

    The discoveries reveal the cellular mechanisms that control such things as adaptation to high altitudes and how cancer cells manage to hijack(攫取) oxygen. Randall Johnson, a member of the Nobel Assembly, described the work as a "textbook discovery" and said it would be something students would start learning at the most basic levels of biology education.

    "This is a basic aspect of how a cell works, and I think from that standpoint alone it's a very exciting thing." Johnson said.

    The research also has implications for treating various diseases in which oxygen is in short supply — including anemia, heart attacks and strokes — as well as for treatment of cancers that are fed by and seek out oxygen.