It was a cold winter day. A woman drove up to the Rainbow Bridge tollbooth(收费站). “I'm paying for myself, and for the six cars behind me,” she said with a smile, handing over seven tickets. One after another, the next six drivers arriving at the tollbooth were informed, “Some lady up ahead already paid your fare.”

    It turned out that woman, Natalie Smith, had read something on a friend's refrigerator: “Practice random (任意的 )kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” The phrase impressed her so much that she copied it down.

    Judy Foreman spotted the same phrase on a warehouse wall far away from home. When it stayed on her mind for days, she gave up and drove all the way back to copy it down. “I thought it was beautiful,” she said, explaining why she'd taken to writing it at the bottom of all her letters, “like a message from the above.” Her husband, Frank, liked the phrase so much that he put it up on the classroom wall for his students, one of whom was the daughter of Alice Johnson, a local news reporter. Alice put it in the newspaper, admitting that though she liked it, she didn't know where it came from or what it really meant.

    Two days later, Alice got a call from Anne Herbert, a woman living in Martin. It was in a restaurant that Anne wrote the phrase down on a piece of paper, after turning it around in her mind for days.

    “Here's the idea,” Anne says. “Anything you think there should be more of, do it randomly.” Her fantasies include painting the classroom of shabby schools, leaving hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor part of town, and giving money secretly to a proud old lady. Anne says, “Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can.”

    The acts of random kindness spread. If you were one of those drivers who found your fare paid, who knows what you might have been inspired to do for someone else later? Like all great events, kindness begins slowly, with every single act. Let it be yours！

    China dropped its decades-long, one-child policy last year to allow each family to have two children. This change has put 270 million married women of childbearing age in the position of choosing between family and work. The employers also face big challenges as more female workers will have two maternity leaves(产假) for a total of seven to eight months.

    In a survey published by classified advertising website Ganji.com, career women who might be considering having a second child were asked what kinds of pressure they might expect. More than 76 percent of the women who were questioned mentioned concerns about the financial burden of raising two children, while more than 71 percent said it would be difficult to balance career and family. In addition, nearly 56 percent said that having a second child would definitely have a negative effect on their career.

    Another survey conducted by Chongqing-based human resources website job.cq.qq.com found that over 70 percent of job seekers believe that having a second child would make females less popular in the job market, although two-thirds of the employers said the policy will make no difference in their employment of staff.

    Feng Lijuan, s senior expert on human resources at 51 job.com, a leading Chinese job finding platform, said she would not say “there is prejudice against career women.” Feng said Chinese women shoulder more family responsibility. “It is not only about maternity leave; a female employee might only fully get back to work after three to five years after having her first child.”

    Wang Yixin, a senior employment adviser, said the positive side is that more companies are trying to attract more talents by providing support to career women. “Different from before, it is not only employers choosing employees. Many talents, including professional career women, also choose employers.” said Wang. “According to our survey, many large companies are very open to their employees' choice of having a second child.”

    We human beings haven't been good friends to animals. For thousands of years, we have been polluting the environment, making it hard for animals to live on the planet. We have been killing animals for their fur, feathers or meat, or simply because they are dangerous. As a result, many kinds of animals have disappeared forever. Hundreds more are on the endangered list today.

    Should we care about animals? Of course we should. If animals of a certain kind all disappear, they will never come back again. Animals are more than just resources of things we need. Every kind of animal has its place in the balance of nature. Destroying any kind of animal can lead to many problems. For example, when farmers killed large numbers of hawks(鹰), the corn and grain that the farmers stored were destroyed by rats and mice. Why？Because hawks eat rats and mice. With less and less hawks to keep down their numbers, rats and mice multiplied quickly. And if people kill too many birds, the fields will be bothered with insects. It is because birds eat insects. When there are less and less birds, more and more insects will eat the crops.

    Luckily, we've realized that we shouldn't kill animals any more. And people are working hard to save those animals that would disappear soon. The government also passed laws to protect the endangered animals. In fact, quite a few countries have passed such laws. These laws forbid the killing of any kind of animal on the endangered list. We should try our best to protect and save the endangered animals.

What a Messy Desk Says About You

    For some time, psychologists have been studying how personality traits affect health and health-related choices. Not surprisingly, they have found that people blessed with innate conscientiousness, meaning that they are organized and predictable, typically eat better and live longer than people who are disorderly. They also tend to have immaculate offices.

    What has been less clear is whether neat environments can produce good habits even in those who aren't necessarily innately conscientious. To find out, researchers at the University of Minnesota conducted a series of experiments. In the first experiment, they randomly assigned a group of college-age students to spend time in two office spaces, one of which was very neat, the other wildly cluttered (乱堆) with papers and other work-related stuff. The students spent their time filling out questionnaires unrelated to the study. After 10 minutes, they were told they could leave with an apple or a chocolate bar. Those students who sat in the orderly office were twice as likely to choose the apple as those who sat among the mess.

    A second experiment, however, found that working in chaos has its advantages, too. In this one, college students were placed in a messy or a neat office and asked to dream up new uses for Ping-Pong balls. Those in messy spaces generated ideas that were significantly more creative, according to two independent judges, than those in offices where stacks of papers and other objects were neatly arranged.

    The results were something of a surprise, says Dr. Vohs, the leader of the study. Few previous studies found much virtue in disorder. The broken window theory, proposed decades ago, holds that even slight disorder and neglect can encourage indifference and poor discipline.

    But in the study by Dr. Vohs, disordered offices encouraged originality and a search for novelty. In the final portion of the study, adults were given the choice of adding a health "boost" to their lunchtime smoothie that was labeled either "new" or "classic." The volunteers in the messy space were far more likely to choose the new one; those in the tidy office generally chose the classic version. "Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition," Dr. Vohs and her co-authors conclude in the study, "which can produce fresh insights."

    The implications of these findings are also practical. "My advice would be, if you need to think outside the box for a future project", Dr. Vohs says, "then let the clutter rise and free your imagination. But if your primary goal is to eat well or to go to the gym, pick up around your office first. By doing this, the naturally messy can acquire some of the discipline of the conscientious."

    We discuss the issue of when to help a patient die, which was not talked about openly and little was written about it.

    The best way to bring the problem into focus is to describe two patients whom I cared for. The first, formerly a nurse, had an automobile accident. And there she was: in coma, on a breathing machine. One day, her husband and son came to see me. They told me their wife and mother was obviously going to die; she was a nurse and had told her family that she never wanted this kind of terrible death, being maintained by machines. I told them that while I respected their view, there was nothing deadly about her situation. The kidney(肾) failure she had was just the kind for which the artificial (人造的) kidney was most effective. While possibly a bit reassured, they were disappointed. Here was the head surgeon seemingly determined to keep everybody alive, no matter what.

    Within a few days the patient awoke from her coma. About six months later, the door of my office opened and in walked a gloriously fit woman. After some cheery words of appreciation, the father and son asked to speak to me alone. As soon as the door closed, both men became quite tearful. All that came out was, "We want you to know how wrong we were."

    The second patient was an 85-year-old lady whose hair caught fire while she was smoking. She arrived with a deep burn; I knew it would surely be deadly. At the time, there was a class discussing medical ethics(道德). The instructor asked me if I had any sort of ethical problem I could bring up for discussion. I described the case and asked the students their opinion. After the discussion, I made a remark that was, when looking back, a serious mistake. I said, "I'll talk with the nurses before we decide." The instructor and the students were shocked: "You mean this is a real patient?" The teacher of ethics was not accustomed to being challenged by actuality.

    A day or two later, when the lady was making no progress and was suffering terribly, we began to back off in treatment. Soon she died quietly and not in pain. As a reasonable physician, you had better move ahead and do what you would want done for you. And don't discuss it with the world first. There is a lesson here for everybody. Assisting people to leave this life requires strong judgment and long experience to avoid its misuse.

In summer holiday, the kids are out of school, so it is a good time to plan for a family travel. However, it's not easy to prepare for a family travel. Here are four travel apps(应用程序) to make your trip more relaxing.

Yuggler

Search nearby for family-friendly activities, from free events to worthwhile attractions. Use Yuggler to plan for what to do each day, based on the weather or the type of entertainment your kids want or need, and look through reviews written by parents who've been there. So instead of paying $20 per person for entrance to the big museum, you can locate just-as-fun spots with zero admission, saving a family of $80.

Sit or Squat

Held by Charmin, this app uses your phone's built-in location finder to find out the closest public restrooms. Perhaps more importantly, Sit or Squat provides the restrooms'cleanliness scores, which are made by the users who have been there. It is quite convenient.

My Disney Experience

The official Walt Disney World app's interactive map(互动地图), which uses your tool's GPS, helps you find restaurants, restrooms, and attractions nearby. You can also access real-time wait times for popular rides and character appearances, meaning you're making the most of your time.

Wi-Fi Finder

Find free Internet near your current location in a minute. Wi-Fi Finder works offline too. Before you head out, download the offline database(数据库) to your phone, so you won't waste data while searching for a hotspot, which is key during an international trip. You'll save as much as $15 off the hotel Wi-Fi cost.