People all need friends because nobody wants to be lonely and a friend can help you in good and bad times. You've made friends since childhood, but you still don't know who your true friends are. Here are some signs to tell you if your friend is a true friend:

Always honest

    Honesty is important to keep a relationship alive. A true friend always tells you the truth. It may be hard sometimes but lying can destroy a friendship. It is important that your friend speaks honestly and never makes up stories.

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    There are always periods in your life when you have problems or difficulties. A true friend will always have time to listen to your problems and give advice. It may not be able to offer a solution to your problems but the fact that your friend made time to listen is a sign he/she cares for you. Your friend is not a true friend if he/she can never make time for you when you are in trouble. You also need to be reasonable and accept that your friend also has other things to do so he/she can't always listen immediately to your problems.

Always respectful

    A true friend will always respect your opinion no matter whether he/she agrees or not. Your true friend may disagree but never insists that he/she is correct.

Always understanding

    It is possible that some problems will arise between you and your friend. A true friend will always be forgiving and understanding even if it isn't his /her fault. We are all different people and we all make mistakes. A true friend is always forgiving and understanding because he/she doesn't want to take the risk of losing his/her best friend.

    They had a dozen children, six boys and six girls, in seventeen years. One reason Dad had so many children was that he was confident anything he and Mother teamed upon was sure to be a success.

    Our house at Montclair, New Jersey, was a sort of school for scientific management and the removal of wasted motions — or “motion study,” as Dad and Mother named it.

    Dad took moving pictures of us children washing dishes, so that he could determine how we could reduce our motions and thus hurry through the task. Each child who wanted extra pocket money put forward an offer saying what he would do the job for. The lowest bidder got the contract(合约).

    Dad put process and work charts in the bathrooms. Every child old enough to write — and Dad expected his children to start writing at a young age — was required to sign their names on the charts in the morning after he had brushed his teeth, taken a bath, combed his hair, and made his bed. At night, each child had to weigh himself, mark the figure on a graph, and sign the process charts again after he had done his homework, washed his hands and face, and brushed his teeth. Mother wanted to have a place on the charts for saying prayers, but Dad said as far as he was concerned prayers were voluntary.

    It was strict management, all right. Yes, at home or on the job, Dad was always the efficiency expert. He buttoned his vest from the bottom up, instead of from the top down, because the bottom-to-top process took him only three seconds, while the top-to-bottom took seven. He even used two shaving brushes to make his face smooth enough, because he found that by so doing he could cut seventeen seconds off his shaving time. For a while he tried shaving with two razors, but he finally gave that up.

    “I can save forty-four seconds,” he complained, “but I wasted two minutes this morning putting this bandage on my throat.” It wasn't the injured throat that really bothered him. It was the two minutes.

    CHICAGO -- New research on vegetables and aging gives mothers another reason to say "I told you so." It is found that eating vegetables appears to help keep the brain young and may slow the mental decline（下降） sometimes associated with growing old.

    On measures of mental sharpness, older people who ate more than two servings of vegetables daily appeared about five years younger at the end of the six-year study than those who ate few or no vegetables.

    The research in almost 2,000 Chicago-area men and women doesn't prove that vegetables reduce mental decline, but it adds to mounting evidence pointing in that direction. The findings also echo（回应） previous research in women only.

    Green leafy vegetables including spinach（菠菜）, kale and collards （甘蓝） appeared to be the most beneficial. The researchers said that may be because they contain healthy amounts of vitamin E, an antioxidant（抗氧化剂） that is believed to help fight chemicals produced by the body that can damage cells.

    Vegetables generally contain more vitamin E than fruits, which were not linked with slowed mental decline in the study. Vegetables also are often eaten with healthy fats such as salad oils, which help the body absorb vitamin E and other antioxidants, said lead author Martha Clare Morris, a researcher at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.

    The fats from healthy oils can help keep cholesterol（胆固醇）low and arteries （动脉）clear, which both contribute to brain health. The study was published in this week's issue of the journal Neurology and funded with grants from the National Institute on Aging.

    Many people trying to sell homes find that an increase in home prices has turned the market in their favor. But sellers can still get the short end of the deal if they aren't careful. Here are a few tips for you:

    Don't test your luck. Of course you think anyone who moves into your lovely home should be willing to pay top dollars, especially if you've recently invested in some improvements. But listing a home at a price that's too high above the market price could turn away some buyers.

    Buyers noticing that the home which still hasn't been sold may begin to assume there's something wrong with the house and use that as a reasonable excuse for offering a lower price. And if a home hasn't received any offers after two weeks, it might be time to reset the price.

    A price that's too low can bring about an undesired outcome. Listing your home at or slightly below the market price can have the effect of drawing in a large group of buyers and increase the chances that a home will receive multiple offers. But setting the price too low comes with several risks. One possibility is that buyers will get skeptical of the home that is listed for $15,000 to $20,000 less than similar homes in the area, especially if it's not properly marketed. Once again, people might assume there is something wrong with the home and may not bother to look at it.

    Spy on the competition. Going to other people's open houses can give you a better sense of how your home compares with others on the market. Check out the decoration in their kitchens, the size of their backyards and use the information to figure out where your home should fit in the range of the price. But don't set your pricing just on what you see elsewhere.

    Have you ever been to Taiwan, China's biggest island? Do you want to pay a visit there? We'll show you the best of Taiwan is land.

Most of Bangladesh is at or below sea level. Rising seawater linked to climate change has severely affected the country. High water from storms in coastal areas also adds salt to soil. The land is becoming salty. Crops are less productive and many areas of cropland in the country are becoming unfit for farming. These are big problems for the small country. More than 155 million people live in Bangladesh. Growing crops is the most common way Bangladeshis support themselves.

To find a way out，farmers in the country are learning to grow vegetables in so-called "vertical gardens". The soil in these gardens is better because heavy rains have removed much of the salt.

A vertical garden is easy to make. Villagers fill containers with good soil and natural fertilizers. They put the containers on bricks so they are off the ground. They add pieces of the bricks to the soil to help water flow and drain (排水).

The farmers cut small holes into the sides of the containers. This permits vegetables with short roots a place to grow. Vegetables with long roots grow on top of the container. One bag of soil can produce up to eight kilograms of vegetables in one season.

The farmers also grow vegetables in containers made from large, thin pieces of plastic supported by bamboo. This "vertical tower" measures more than a meter wide. Each of these towers can produce more than 100 kilograms of vegetables. It costs about $12—$13 to build.