In today's households where both parent go to work and kids have busy schedules with school homework and many afternoon activities, finding time for a gathering at the table seems all but impossible. Yet, studies have shown time and again that eating together has multiple benefits for family members, especially children.

    According to reports issued by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University(CASA), children who eat more with their family are at lower risk of developing poor eating habits, weight problems or alcohol dependencies. They tend to perform better academically than those who frequently eat alone. Family meals came into American life in the mid-20^th century. In the 60's and 70's, social, economic and technological changes quickly dissolved the short-lived way of family meals. Restaurant visits, take-out and TV dinners have since become the norm.

    There are indicators, however, that the old customs are coming back. According to the latest CASA reports, 59% of surveyed families said they ate diner together at least five times a week, a significant increase from 47% in 1998. Whatever drives this trend, it is a development that should be welcomed.

    Eating together as a family is not just about food and nutrition. It is about teaching them how to become members of their society and culture. Food as become so easily and cheaply available that we no longer appreciate its significance. We have to rediscover its importance and its value. Sharing a meal with loved ones should be considered a special event, which can almost take on the form of a ceremony, as it was practiced by our ancestors for whom finding food was a constant struggle.

    Of course, there is no guarantee that the simple act of eating at home surrounded by family may make children more virtuous or socially more responsible. But it can lay the groundwork for a lot of things that point them in the right direction.

    In England, people often talk about the weather because they can experience (经历) four seasons in one day. In the morning the weather is warm just like in spring. An hour later black clouds come and then it rains hard. The weather gets a little cold. In the late afternoon the sky will be sunny, the sun will begin to shine, and it will be summer at this time of a day.

    In England, people can also have summer in winter, or have winter in summer. So in winter they can swim sometimes, and in summer sometimes they should take warm clothes.

    When you go to England, you will see that some English people usually take an umbrella (伞)or a raincoat with them in the sunny morning, but you should not laugh at them.

    If you don't take an umbrella or a raincoat, you will regret (后悔) later in the day.

    Most people would say the sea is blue and green. But the people who live near the coast of Zhejiang may say it is red. It is not people who caused the colour change, but very small living thing in the sea. They are algae(藻类)and protozoa(原生动物). They come in many different colours; red, yellow or brown. Red is the easiest of those to see so when this happens people call it a “red tide.”

    Red tides only happen when conditions in the sea are right. In the past few years, factories and people have been putting more chemicals into the sea. These chemicals help algae and protozoa to grow very quickly. The temperature of the sea is also important. Red tides usually happen at 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. Red tides often happen in dry, warm areas where there is little wind. Living things grow easily in these places. Sometimes fishermen help red tides by mistake. They put small sea animals into the water for food to help fish grow.

    Those living things do more than change the colour of the water-they also put poison and mucus(黏液)into the sea. This is had for fish. The poison is bad for their brains. And too much mucus in the sea fills up fish's gills(鳃) so they can't breathe. Lots of dead fish and other sea animals are now washed up on Chinese beaches.

    Red tides can be bad for people too. We shouldn't eat fish from red-tide waters. The algae gets inside of fish and it smells bad. It can make your eyes water. If people eat fish with too much algae inside they could die.

    Fishermen in Zhejiang are having a hard time right now. Because of the red tide, they are selling 30% less fresh seafood than usual.

    In China red tides usually happen in May and June around places like Fujian Guangdong and Hong Kong.

    Many other countries sometimes also have red tides. But it seems that we have few ways to stop red tides. They can last as long as 16 months.

    There was a man playing the piano in a bar. He was a good piano player and always performed in this bar. People came in just to hear him play. But one night, a customer told him that he didn't want to hear him just play the piano any more. He wanted him to sing a song.

    The man said, "I don't sing."

    But the customer was persistent(执着的). He told the bar manager, "I'm tired of listening to the piano. I want that man to sing！"

    The manager shouted across the room, "If you want to get paid, sing a song. Our customers are asking you to sing！"

    So he did, He sang a song. A piano player who had never sung in public did so for the first time. And everyone was surprised by his song Mona Lisa. He got lots of applause(掌声) that night.

    He had such a talent for singing, but he just had been sitting on his talent for the past years! If without such a chance, he may have lived the rest of his life as a no­name piano player in a no­name bar. However, now he has become one of the best­known singers in America.

    You, too, have skills and abilities. Maybe your "talent" is not as great as the singer above, but it may be better than you think! And with effort, most skills can be improved. So, in your life, you should be brave enough to try doing different things and find out what talents you really have!

    Like infectious diseases, ideas in the academic world are epidemic (传染的). But why some travel far and wide while equally good ones has been a mystery? Now a team of computer scientists has used an epidemiological model to simulate (模仿) how ideas move from one academic institution to another. The model showed that ideas originating at famous institutions caused bigger "epidemics" than equally good ideas from less famous places, explains Allison Morgan, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder.

    "This implies that where an idea is born shapes how far it spreads," says senior author Aaron Clauset.

    Not only is this unfair— "it reveals a big weakness in how we're doing science," says Simon DeDeo, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon university, who was not involved in the study. "There are many highly trained people with good ideas who do not end up at top institutions. They are producing good ideas, and we know those ideas are getting lost," DeDeo says. "Our science, our scholarships, is not as good because of this."

    The Colorado researchers first looked at how five big ideas in computer science spread to new institutions. They found that hiring a new faculty member accounted for this movement a little more than a third of the time--and in 81 percent of those cases, transmissions took place from higher – to lower-prestige (声望) universities. Then the team simulated the spread of ideas using an infectious disease model and found that the size of an idea "epidemic" depended on the prestige of the originating institution.

    The researchers' model suggests that there "may be a number of quite good ideas that originate in the middle of the pack, in terms of universities." Clauset says. There is a lot of good work coming out of less famous places, he says: "You can learn a huge amount from it, and you can learn things that other people don't know because they're not even paying attention."

    In a room at Texas Children Cancer Center in Houston, eight-year-old Simran Jatar lay in bed with a drip(点滴)above her to fight her bone cancer. Over her bald(秃的)head, she wore a pink hat that matched her clothes. But the third grader's cheery dressing didn't mask her pain and weary eyes.

    Then a visitor showed up. "Do you want to write a song?" asked Anita Kruse, 49, rolling a cart equipped with an electronic keyboard, a microphone and speakers. Simran stared. "Have you ever written a poem?" Anita Kruse continued. "Well, yes," Simran said.

    Within minutes, Simran was reading her poem into the microphone. "Some bird soaring through the sky," she said softly. "Imagination in its head…" Anita Kruse added piano music, a few warbling (鸣,唱)birds, and finally the girl's voice. Thirty minutes later, she presented Simran with a CD of her first recorded song.

    That was the beginning of Anita Kruse's project, Purple Songs Can Fly, one that has helped more than 125 young patients write and record songs. As a composer and pianist who had performed at the hospital, Kruse said that the idea of how she could help "came in one flash".

    The effect on the kids has been great. One teenage girl, curling(蜷缩)in pain in her wheelchair, stood unaided to dance to a hip-hop song she had written. A 12-year-old boy with Hodgkin's disease who rarely spoke surprised his doctors with a song he called I Can Make It.

    "My time with the kids is heartbreaking because of the severity of their illnesses," says Anita Kruse. "But they also make you happy, when the children are smiling, excited to share their CD with their families."

    Simran is now an active sixth grader and cancer-free. From time to time, she and her mother listen to her song, Always Remembering, and they always remember the "really sweet and nice and loving" lady who gave them a shining moment in the dark hour.