While dog keepers realize their dogs can read their moods accurately, scientists have always been a little doubtful. Now thanks to some researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria, we finally have some convincing evidence.

    For their study, biologist Corson Miller and his team exposed eleven selected dogs to digital images of women that were either angry or happy. Half the dogs were rewarded for touching the screen when shown a happy face, while the other half got their treat for selecting those that appeared angry.

    Interestingly, the dogs were not provided with the entire face. Some dogs were shown only upper halves while the others observed lower halves. That's because the scientists believe humans show their emotions on their entire face.

    After some training like how to recognize small differences like the wrinkles between the eyes or the changes in their shape that accompany the happy or angry expressions, the dogs were mostly able to identify the correct expression not only on a familiar face but on a strange face. The researchers concluded the dogs were smart enough to read human emotions.

    They also found those being trained to read angry expressions took a longer time to learn. They guess it may be because dogs find angry faces disgusting, causing them to withdraw quickly. However, once the smart dogs realized they were getting rewarded, the trepidation seemed to disappear. In fact, the dogs had such a good time playing the computer "game" that scientists had a hard time keeping them away from the touch screens after the study was completed.

    The researchers also noticed only dogs with a male owner had a harder time understanding the expressions correctly. Since the touchscreen models were all females, this confirmed what has been observed in previous studies—dogs are more efficient at reading facial expressions of people that are the same gender as their owner.

    What is success? I am not going to try to explain success. I think a precise meaning is impossible! Is it winning a Gold Medal at the Olympic Games or winning Wimbledon, or being awarded a Nobel Prize? What else? I believe personal success could be anything at all- it does not have to involve public recognition. Who is more successful? A millionaire who is unhappy, or an unnoticed person, who has led a simple, quiet, sincere and happy life? The simplest definition of success, I think, is “to set out to do something and to succeed in doing it.

    The first step on the road to success starts with belief. Believe you can succeed and you will. Achieving success in whatever endeavor(努力)you choose may be the goal of life; because it gives you freedom from worry. Could that be?

    Success means different things to every one of us. Some people believe it is measured in financial term; others believe it is helping others rather than helping themselves. However, most people are motivated to a great extend by public recognition. How many people are really happy? How many people are really doing what they want to with their lives? Incidentally, to imagine makes us different from animals.

    Most important of all, I believe success is a matter of personal growth. If every day you are developing or growing just a millimeter, I believe one is successful. Just being a slightly better person each day for me is success. I've got a very long way to go them!

    Finally, always remember success is a process and is not simply a matter of arriving at a destination. It's the journey that really matters. Success is what you become in the often very difficult and dangerous journey down the river of life.

Things to Do in Atlanta This Weekend

    Start the year off by experiencing something new this weekend! Here are our favorite events picked for this weekend.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra at Spivey Hall, Saturday

    The music of Glenn Miller has an unusual sound. Combine that with the perfect sound affects at Spivey Hall, and you get a concert that is sure to have your toes tapping. And really, who doesn't love Challanooga Choo Choo?

Garden Lights at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Saturday

    This is the last night for this annual light show at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. It is particularly unusual that the magical sound of frogs in the conservatory(温室) is not from a recording. That magic is coming from the real frogs that live there. If it's no too crowded, stop along the way, close your eyes and just listen.

    Children's Workshop: Egyptian Hieroglyphs(象形文字), Saturday

   Does your child dream of becoming a historian when he grows up? If you answer “yes”, you will want to take him to the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Participants will learn how to read and write ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs from Egyptologist Annie Shanley. Children will have an opportunity to discover the meaning of hieroglyphs on tomb reliefs and statues.

Colin Mochrie at Dad's Garage Theatre, Saturday and Sunday

    Set the tone for a great 2017 with laughter. Colin Mochrie comes to Dad's Garage Theatre and brings his lightning-quick creativity and humor.

    If you want to look at all the events happening this weekend, check out our full events calendar.

    Exposing living tissue to subfreezing temperatures for long can cause permanent damage. Microscopic ice crystals (结晶体) cut cells and seize moisture (潮气), making donor organs unsuitable for transplantation. Thus, organs can be made cold for only a few hours ahead of a procedure. But a set of lasting new antifreeze compounds (化合物)—similar to those found in particularly hardy (耐寒的) animals—could lengthen organs' shelf life.

    Scientists at the University of Warwick in England were inspired by proteins in some species of Arctic fish, wood frogs and other organisms that prevent blood from freezing, allowing them to flourish in extreme cold. Previous research had shown these natural antifreeze molecules (分子) could preserve rat hearts at -1.3 degrees Celsius for up to 24 hours. But these proteins are expensive to extract (提取) and highly poisonous to some species. “For a long time everyone assumed you had to make synthetic (人造的) alternatives that looked exactly like antifreeze proteins to solve this problem, ”says Matthew Gibson, a chemist at Warwick who co-authored the new research. “But we found that you can design new molecules that function like antifreeze proteins but do not necessarily look like them.”

    Most natural antifreeze molecules have a mixture of regions that either attract or repel water. Scientists do not know exactly how this process prevents ice crystal formation, but Gibson thinks it might throw water molecules into push-pull chaos that prevents them from tuning into ice. To copy this mechanism, he and his colleagues synthesized spiral-shaped molecules that were mostly water-repellent—but had iron atoms at their centers that made them hydrophilic, or water-loving. The resulting compounds were surprisingly effective at stopping ice crystals from forming. Some were also harmless to the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, indicating they might be safe for other animals.

    “These compounds are really cool because they are not proteins—they are other types of molecules that nonetheless can do at least part of what natural antifreeze proteins do, ”says Clara do Amaral, a biologist at Mount St. Joseph University, who was not involved in the research. Gibson's antifreeze compounds will still need to be tested in humans, however, and may be only part of a solution. “We don't have the whole picture yet,”do Amaral adds. “It's not just one magical compound that helps freeze-tolerant organisms survive. It's a whole suite of adaptations.

    For a long time being happy was considered something that just happened, and there was nothing special about it. Now we know that getting along with other people is something that we can work at. It is possible to act in such a way that other people will like us better. One way is being unselfish, not wanting everything from our friends. Another way is to look for good points, not bad ones in other people. It is surprising how successful this treasure hunt can be.

    You don't have to be spineless (软弱的) in order to be popular. In fact, you will be liked and respected if you are not afraid to stand up for your rights. But do it politely and pleasantly. Being friendly and polite to your group, to other people and to strangers and especially to those who do not look important or do not interest you is one way to develop a good character.

    You can not expect to be perfect, and so you must learn not to be unhappy when you make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, and no one is to be blamed (责备) unless he refuses to learn from them. Many young people become discouraged when they know in themselves qualities (品格) that they do not like—selfishness, laziness, and other unpleasant qualities. Just remember that we all have some of these faults and have to fight against them.

    At the same time, it is important to remember that, while you are probably no worse than others, the best way to be happy is to think yourself above other people. When something is wrong, it is good sense to try to make it right. Perhaps you don't like a teacher or a classmate. Try to see why, and look at yourself, too. To be sure that you are not doing anything to make that person dislike you. Some day, things may turn out all right, then you will have to learn to get along the best with situation, without thinking too much about it. Worrying never helps in a situation you can't change.

    More than 20 years ago, a skeleton called Little Foot turned up in a South African cave. The nearly complete skeleton was a member of the human family. Now researchers have freed most of the skeleton from its stony shell and analyzed the fossils (化石) and they say 3.67-million-years-old Little Foot belonged to a unique species.

    Researcher Ronald Clarke and his colleagues think Little Foot belonged to A. Prometheus (普罗米修斯南猿). Clarke works at the university of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa. He studies fossilized humans and our relatives. Their foundings, published in four papers, have suggested the species A.Prometheus might have existed. Clarke has believed in that species for more than a decade, he found the first Little Foot's remains in a storage box of fossils in 1994. People began digging out the rest of the skeleton in 1997.

    Many other researchers instead argue that Little Foot likely belonged to a different species, which is known as A.africanus (南方古猿非洲种). Researcher Raymond Dart first identified A.africanus in 1924. He was studying the skull (头颅骨) of an ancient youngster called the Taung Child. Since then, people have turned up hundreds more A. africanus fossils in South African caves. Those include Sterkfontein, where Little Foot was found.

    The braincase is the part of the skull that holds the brain. And researchers found a partial braincase that Dart thought belonged to a different species in Makapansgat, one of those other caves. In 1948, Dart called this other species A. Prometheus, but he changed his mind after 1955. Instead, he said that braincase and another fossil at Makapansgat belonged to A.africanus. There was no A. Prometheus after all, he concluded.

    Clarke and his colleagues want to bring back the rejected species. They say Little Foot's distinctive skeleton, an adult female that is at least 90 percent complete, is solid evidence for it.