Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman doctor in the United States. Her success opened the way for other women who wanted to do more than nursing. She was born in England in 1821 and her family moved to America when she was eleven years old.

    The Blackwell girls received the same education as their brothers. This was most unusual in those days. Their father died young and they had very little money to live on. Elizabeth and her sisters taught at school. Then a woman dying of cancer urged Elizabeth to study medicine, saying that a woman doctor would have saved her from her worst sufferings. Nearly everyone said a girl should not go to medical school, but she managed to enter Geneva College in New York State. She graduated in 1849 at the head of her class and received the first medical degree ever given to a woman.

    Next, Dr. Blackwell went to Paris. Her only chance of training was in a hospital where women came to have their babies. Four months later, while she was working in the French hospital, her left eye became dangerously infected (感染). She lost the eye. She was very disappointed. But she was soon back at work again, this time in London, England. There she met many famous scientists.

    In 1859, Elizabeth Blackwell was officially recognized as a doctor in Great Britain — the first woman to be honored. She was the inspiration of Elizabeth Garrett, who began the women's medical movement in England. Florence Nightingale, founder of the practice of nursing by women, was another of her friends.

    Dr. Blackwell died in 1910 at the age of 89.

    I was working the overnight shift in a remote hospital in the Rocky Mountains. Late in the evening, a young African teenager was brought into the emergency department. He lived at sea level and had never been in the mountains. After skiing all day, he felt really ill. Everyone assumed it was altitude sickness.

    He was sweating and had abdominal (腹部的) pain. His heart rate increased. We sent off his lab work, and his blood sugar came back at almost 600 — normal is less than 100. His platelets (血小板), necessary for stopping bleeding, came in at 10,000; they should have been over 150,000. I did an ultrasound of his abdomen, and it looked like his belly was full of blood. This wasn't altitude sickness. And in the short time I'd been trying to figure out what was wrong, he was getting sicker. The friends he was traveling with were terrified, and rightly so.

    The mystery was finally solved with an old-fashioned microscope. When we looked at his blood, we saw some sickled (镰形的) red blood cells. That's how we were able to diagnose sickle cell trait. If you have sickle cell trait — which means you got the sickle cell gene from just one parent instead of two — you have no symptoms at low altitude, but high altitude can sometimes cause the red blood cells to turn into sickle shapes and take oxygen from vital organs. This teenager didn't know he had it, but the effect of the altitude on his blood cells was so extreme that after just a short time in the mountains, he suffered great pain.

    He needed platelets immediately, but we didn't have enough at the remote hospital. And there was a snowstorm, so the medical helicopters couldn't fly. It was a scary night. Just as we were abandoning all hope, we met an ambulance that drove halfway up from the city with blood products and transferred him to the city hospital for emergency surgery. The story has a happy ending: He recovered fully.

    Teenagers enter their adolescent years with a mixture of optimism, excitement and anxiety. Adolescence is a time when boys and girls begin to show greater independence from their parents. It is also a time when young people begin to develop the sense of individuality that will help shape their future identity as adults. In fact, showing independence and forming a unique identity are two of the most important developmental tasks that adolescents must finish in preparation for satisfying and productive adult lives.

    It is not easy for parents or teenagers to go smoothly through this period. Adolescents want to be independent of their parents and make their own decisions. They often do not recognize their need for adults' guidance and support.

    However, some parents find it easy to keep the lines of communication open with an adolescent child. These parents are often noticed by the child as stable sources of positive influence, and the teen feels supported in his or her growing independence. Communication in such families characterized by mutual(互 相的) respect and the ability to freely exchange feelings and ideas. Parents who understand their teenager's need for a reasonable measure of independence and individuality encourage their child's growth and achievements. This positive interest strengthens parent-child relationships. When adolescents receive parental approval and believe that parents really value their accomplishments, it creates a willingness to share other information about themselves.

    Many parents find it difficult to have open communication with their child during the adolescent years. Some parents have difficulty understanding the changes their teenager is experiencing and pay little attention to his or her need to pull away from the family and make independent decisions. At the same time, some teenagers are so self-focused that they do not appreciate or accept their parents' concern, and they are against all parental authority. In this case, frequent arguments may develop, and family life may become difficult. Parents and teenagers may separate from one another to avoid arguments, but this is usually a short-term solution that does not clear up the main problems.

    A major long-term method is to help them develop more effective communication. This enables the family members to end their conflicts(矛盾) and to establish more harmonious and more satisfying relationships.

    When I was eight, I got my first pair of glasses. Far from being made fun of at school, the only struggle I got was endless requests to try on my new glasses. Hearing about what happened at school, my father once looked at me and asked whether I had pretended to be the blindness just to look like Harry Potter?

    With my strange hair and glasses, I did nothing to avoid it, either. The Harry Potter books were the great pop cultural event of my generation, who began reading again. My school librarian, both confused and annoyed by us Potter fans, dealt with fights over the schools few old copies by setting a new rule: Harry Potter could be borrowed for only three days, instead of the whole week of borrowing period every other title was allowed.

    In the 20 years since the first book arrived on shelves, publishers and parents have been asking what has made J.K. Rowling's books so loved. It is better to look at the influence they have had on their readers. Yes, the books were about a boy taking on a dark and powerful enemy in the magical world, but they were also about love defeating hate, determination and choosing" between what is easy and what is right". Rowling's entire magical characters were all people we want to be.

    I grew up with Harry and together we became children with our own opinions, teens easy to get angry and young adults thinking of everything as normal. When the final book came out in 2007.I read it for 12 hours without a break and cried as I finished it. I felt something sad: the end of Harry's story signaled the end of my childhood. I was suddenly aimless. Meanwhile, my now Potter-mad father walked impatiently nearby, waiting for the proper moment to take the book away from his daughter.

    Harry Potter did shape my generation. As a girl who grew up mostly in peacetime, many of the ideas I found in these books were ones we had never come across before. The magical world's terrible treatment of non-human beings was the first description of slavery I knew. The treatment of Harry's teacher Remus Lupin, who hides his condition at work, is a metaphor(比喻) for the shame surrounding those who suffer from AIDS. And all settings like this may have real-world reflections .A study found that teenage Harry Potter readers showed more tolerance (包容) towards those who were suffering. Is it possible that Jeremy Corbyn's popularity among the young had anything to do with their literary education? Is it possible that Harry Potter, in the 20 years he has been with us, has inspired a generation to be more empathetic （感同身受）， welcoming and socially open－minded than those before it? We will see, if not, at least my glasses are still cool.

Both humans and animals have enemies. It is easy for us to know the difference between our friends and our enemies. But can other animals do the same? Elephants can! They can use their sense of vision and smell to tell the difference between people who mean a threat and those who do not. In Kenya, researchers find that elephants react differently to clothing worn by men of the Maasai and Kamba ethnic groups. Young Maasai men hunt animals and thus mean a threat to elephants; Kamba men are mainly farmers and are not a danger to elephants.

In an experiment conducted by animal scientists, elephants were first presented with clean clothing or clothing that had been worn for five days by either a Maasai or a Kamba man. When the elephants noticed the smell of clothing worn by a Maasai man, they moved away from the smell faster and took longer to relax than when they noticed the smells of either clean clothing or clothing worn by a Kamba man.

Clothing color also plays a role. In the same study, when the elephants saw red clothing not worn before, they reacted angrily, as red is typically worn by Maasai men. Rather than running away as they did with the smell, the elephants acted angrily toward the red clothing.

The researchers believe that the elephants' emotional reactions are due to their different senses of smell and sight. Smelling a possible danger means that a threat is nearby and the best thing to do is run away and hide. Seeing a potential threat without its smell means that risk is low. Therefore, instead of showing fear and running away, the elephants express their anger and become aggressive.

    When returning to south-western Germany, where my parents live, it is compulsory for me to go on a hike to connect with nature and reconnect with myself. So, that is exactly what I did the first sunny Sunday back in the beautiful Black Forest. The Huzenbacher See is a tarn in the middle of the northern Black Forest with abundant nature surrounding it. Approaching it after a good hour walk, I saw fascinating blue dragonflies in quantity that attracted us by the way they flew around. They didn't stand still for a photo, as they landed on leaves for a split second. We were also surprised at the yellow water lilies that can be seen floating on its surface between June and July.

    Sitting down at one of the benches surrounding the lake for a picnic was satisfying in two ways. I was aware of the world's beauty that gave me the energy to continue up the mountain to reach the most amazing view looking over the lake. The other was to really fill myself up in order to continue the adventure adequately, full up on some snacks and refreshing water from the well.

    The hike up wasn't as hard as expected and a good path was provided with dirty rocks and slippery stones all under the shade of the tall trees. This took about an hour and a half until reaching the beautiful view of the lake and land below. Once we had taken in the astonishing views, the walk back down took another hour or so, making the hike a 3-to4-hour round trip, which was well worth it!

    Simply being back in the Black Forest and having such pleasant hikes is definitely good for the soul and I highly recommend getting yourself outside, be it in the Black Forest or anywhere outdoors. Get your intake of vitamin D and, most importantly, take in the moments that nature has to offer.