Parents who help their children with homework may actually be bringing down their school grades. Other forms of prenatal involvement, including volunteering at school and observing a child's class, also fail to help, according to the most recent study on the topic.
The findings challenge a key principle of modern parenting(养育子女) where schools except them to act as partners in their children's education. Previous generations concentrated on getting children to 
school on time, fed, dressed and ready to learn.
       Kaith Robinson, the author of the study, said, "I really don't know if the public is ready for this but there are some ways parents can be 
involved in their kids' education that leads to declines in their academic performance. One of the things that was consistently negative was
 parents' help with homework." Robinson suggested that may be because parents themselves struggle to understand the task." They may 
either not remember the material their kids are studying now, or in some cases never learnt it themselves, but they're still offering advice."
       Robinson assessed parental involvement performance and found one of the most damaging things a parent could do was to punish their children for poor marks. In general, about 20% of parental involvement was positive, about 45% negative and the rest statistically
 insignificant.
      Common sense suggests it was a good thing for parents to get involved because "children with good academic success do have involved
 parents ", admitted Robinson. But he argued that this did not prove parental involvement was the root cause of that success." A big 
surprise was that Asian-American parents whose kids are doing so well in school hardly involved. They took a more reasonable approach, conveying to their children how success at school could improve their lives."

    Our love of music and appreciation of musical harmony (和声) is learnt and not based on natural ability, a new study by University of Melbourne researchers has found. The researchers said previous theories about how we appreciate music were based on the physical functions of sound, the ear itself and a born ability to hear harmony.

    The study shows that musical harmony can be learnt, and it is a matter of training the brain to hear the sounds. So if you thought that the music of some foreign culture (or Jazz) sounded like the crying of cats, it's simply because you haven't learnt to listen by their rules.

    The researchers used 66 volunteers with a range of (一系列的) musical training and tested their ability to hear combinations (组合) of notes (音符) to determine if they found the combinations familiar or pleasing. They found that people needed to be familiar with combinations of notes. If they couldn't recognize the notes, they found the notes dissonant. This finding put an end to centuries of theories claiming (声称) that physical functions of the ear determine what we find attractive.

    The study found that trained musicians were much more sensitive (敏感的) to unpleasant notes than non-musicians. When they couldn't find the note, the musicians reported that the sounds were unpleasant, while non-musicians were much less sensitive. This shows the importance of training or nurturing (培养) the brain to like particular sound of combinations of notes, like those found in jazz or rock.

    Depending on their training, a strange chord (和弦) sound was pleasant to some musicians, but very unpleasant to others. This showed us that even the ability to hear a musical note is learnt.

    To confirm (证实) this finding, they trained 19 non-musicians to find the notes of a random (随机的) selection of western chords. Not only did the participants' ability to hear notes improve rapidly; the chords they had learnt sounded more pleasant—regardless of (不论) how the chords were played.

    The question of why some combinations of musical notes are heard as pleasant or unpleasant has long been debated. “ We have shown in this study that for music, beauty is in the brain of the beholder(观看者),” a researcher said.

    The best festivals in Europe

    Whether they're in the countryside or a post-industrial landscape, Europe's yearly festival calendar means new events, old favourites, crazy people and great charm.

    OFF Festival, Poland

    A small festival in Katowice in south-west Poland, OFF has, over the past 10 years, built an international audience thanks to a challenging and interesting mix of acts. This year's selection focuses on female artists: singer-songwriters Feist and PJ Harvey headline, while Swedish pop singer Anna von Hausswolff and classical composer turned electronic producer Anna Meredith are also on the bill. Meanwhile, the experimental poetry and performance project by Moor Mother will undoubtedly be an unmissable show.

    ·4~6 August, ￡55, off-festival.pl

    Melt, Germany

    What would Melt be without its “sleepless stage”--a non-stop music marathon that runs from Saturday morning to midday on Monday? The German festival for those who love an all-hours party takes place in Ferropolis, Gra fenhainichen. This year, the festival celebrates its 20th anniversary, bringing 20,000 people together. A party train from Cologne also serves as your weekend accommodation! A worthy summer alternative to a party weekend in Berlin.

    ·￡140,14~16 July, melt festival.de

    Primavera Sound, Portugal and Spain

    A festival that has rapidly grown to attract visitors from across Europe with its electronic music, guitar-led acts and plenty of sunshine, Primavera Sound takes place in Barcelona and, since 2012, also in Porto, under the name NOS Primavera Sound. The Barcelona edition takes place across six days with an abundance of DJs on call to keep people dancing, while the smaller, three-day Porto festival has Bicep, Nicholas Jaar and Richie Hawtin, who will be doing a closing on the Friday night.

    ·Barcelona 31 May~4 June, ￡195; Porto 8~10 June, ￡110, primaverasound.com

    Teachers' Day around the world is not celebrated on the same day. In some countries, Teachers' Day is celebrated on working days. However, in other countries, it is celebrated on holidays.

    Here we are giving you a list of countries that celebrate Teachers' Day on holidays.

China

    The Teachers' Day was proposed(提议) at National Central University in 1931. It was adopted(被采纳) by the central government of Republic of China in 1932. In 1939, the day was set on August 27th, Confucius's birthday. People's Republic of China government called it off in 1951. It was reestablished in 1985, and the day was changed to September 10th. Now more and more people are trying to celebrate the Teachers' Day back to Confucius's birthday.

India

    In India, Teachers' Day is celebrated on September 5th, in honor of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second President of India. Because his birthday was September 5th. At schools on this day, students in India celebrate this day to show their respect and love to their teachers.

Russia

    In Russia Teachers' Day is on October 5th. Before 1994, this day was set on the first Sunday of September.

USA

    In the United States, Teachers' Day is a holiday on the Tuesday of the first full week of May.

Thailand

    January 16th was adopted as Teachers' Day in the Thailand by a resolution(决议) of the government on November 21, 1956. The first Teachers' Day was held in 1957.

Iran

    In Iran, Teachers' Day is celebrated on May 2nd every year. It is in honor of the famous Iranian professor Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari who died on May 2, 1980.

    Although different countries celebrate Teachers' Day on different days, the activities people take to celebrate it just stay the same.

    Environmental experts warn that our planet is drowning inplastic.

    The world's cities produce 2 billion tons of trash everyyear. By the year 2050 that number is expected to rise to 3 billion tons. TheWorld Bank estimates that the largest amount of trash today, about 44 percent,is plastic. But we often have to buy packaged goods. And often that packagingis made of plastic.

    Now, that may be changing. A new environmentally-friendlyshopping model was recently launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland. This shopping model, called Loop, aims to replace throwawaycontainers with reusable ones.

    Loop is the idea of Terra Cycle, an American-based recyclingcompany. Its chief, Tom Szaky told the Associated Press (AP) that "removingplastics from the ocean is not enough." He said the point is to get awayfrom single-use packages. Szaky said that Loop is the future of shopping. Butit comes from an idea of the past.

    He compared it to the "milkman model" of the 1950sin the United States. Back then, someone brought milk to your doorstep in glassbottles and then left with empty bottles. These could be cleaned and used again.The result is zero-waste.

    Jennifer Morgan from the environmental non-profitorganization Greenpeace also joined in the discussion about Loop at Davos. Shesaid that "Greenpeace welcomes the aim of the Loop Alliance to move awayfrom throwaway culture and disposability." But Morgan questioned whethercompanies worldwide are ready to change their business models.

    Loop is set to launch later this year in three eastern U.S.states, and also in Paris, France and some of the surrounding area. Then Loopplans to expand to the U.S. West Coast, Toronto, Canada and Britain by the endof this year or 2020.