As we know, DNA testing is very useful for crime fighting. But now crime fighters could have a new tool at hand. Researchers have developed a cutting-edge (前沿的) technique to identify human hair. Their test is quicker than DNA analysis techniques currently used by the police.

    DNA testing is commonly used for identification because DNA is unique to each individual. However, environmental and chemical processes can degrade(降解) DNA, limiting its usefulness over time. Protein (蛋白质) in hair, on the other hand, is more stable than DNA but can also have variations (变异体) that may be unique to the individual.

     “Our analysis process can be used universally,” says Ms. Huang, “One of our samples even included dyed hair and the test was 100 per cent accurate. The test was able to distinguish East Asians, Caucasians and South Asians.”

    Dr. Beauchemin says she has got in touch with law enforcement agencies about using the new technology. She is also planning to collect more hair samples and continue her research with a goal of finding where exactly in the world hair sample is from, to look for more races and determine specific age.

     “We are in a very similar place with protein-based identification to where DNA testing was during the early days of development,” said chemist Brad Hart. “This method will be a game-changer, and while we've made a lot of progress toward improving it, there are steps to go before this new technique is able to reach its full potential.”

    Does Fame Drive You Crazy?

    Although being famous might sound like a dream come true, todays star, feeling like zoo animals, face pressures that few of us can imagine. They are at the center of much of the worlds attention. Paparazzi (狗仔队) camp outside their homes, cameras ready. Tabloids (小报) publish thrilling stories about their personal lives. Just imagine not being able to do anything without being photographed or interrupted for a signature.

    According to psychologist Christina Villareal, celebrities（famous people名人) worry constantly about their public appearance. Eventually, they start to lose track of who they really are, seeing themselves the way their fans imagine them, not as the people they were before everyone knew their names. “Over time,” Villareal says, “they feel separated and alone.”

    The phenomenon of tracking celebrities has been around for ages. In the 4th century B.C., painters followed Alexander the Great into battle, hoping to picture his victories for his admirers. When Charles Dickens visited America in the 19th century, his sold-out readings attracted thousands of fans, leading him to complain about his lack of privacy(隐私). Tabloids(小报) of the 1920s and 1930s ran articles about film-stars in much the same way that modern tabloids and websites do.

    Being a public figure today, however, is a lot more difficult than it used to be. Superstars cannot move about without worrying about photographers with modern cameras. When they say something silly or do something ridiculous, there is always the Internet to spread the news in minutes and keep their “story” alive forever.

    If fame is so troublesome, why arent all celebrities running away from it? The answer is there are still ways to deal with it. Some stars stay calm by surrounding themselves with trusted friends and family or by escaping to remote places away from big cities. They focus not on how famous they are but on what they love to do or whatever made them famous in the first place.

    Sometimes a few celebrities can get a little justice. Still, even stars who enjoy full justice often complain about how hard their lives are. They are tired of being famous already.

    Are some people born clever, and others born stupid? Or is intelligence developed by our environment and our experience? Strangely enough, the answer to these questions is yes. To some degree our intelligence is given to us at birth, and no amount of education can make a genius out of a child born with low intelligence. On the other hand, a child who lives in a boring environment will develop his intelligence less than one who lives in rich and varied surroundings. Thus the limits of person's intelligence are fixed at birth, whether or not he reaches those limits will depend on his environment. This view, now held by most experts, can be supported in a number of ways.

    It is easy to show that intelligence is to some degree something we are born with. The closer the blood relationship between two people, the closer they are likely to be intelligent. Thus if we take two unrelated people at random from population, it is likely that their degree of intelligence will be completely different. If, on the other hand, we take two identical twins, they will very likely be as intelligent as each other. Relations like brothers and sisters, parents and children, usually have similar intelligence, and this clearly suggests that intelligence depends on birth. Imagine now that we take two identical twins and put them in different environments. We might send one, for example, to a university and the other to a factory where the work is boring. We would soon find differences in intelligence developing, and this indicates that environment as well as birth plays a part. This conclusion is also suggested by the fact that people who live in close contact with each other, but who are not related at all are likely to have similar degree of intelligence.

    Developed by researchers and designers specializing in typography(印刷术)and behavioral science, Sans Forgetica is a new font(字体)designed to help readers better remember the information they read by forcing them to spend a bit more time on each word.

    The design of Sans Forgetica is based on a font called Albion, but with substantial  modifications(修改)to reduce familiarity and attain its goal of engaging the brain more and helping the reader retain(保留) more information. It was developed by scientists at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, who believe it could help students studying for exams.

    “We believe this is the first time that specific principles of design theory have been combined with specific principles of psychology theory in order to create a font, ”Behavioral economist Jo Peryman told DW.

    If fonts are too familiar, readers often glance over them without their brain creating may  memories of what was read. At the same time, if a font is too outlandish, the brain has to struggle too much to decipher(破译)it while neglecting the retention of information. According to its developers, “Sans Forgetica lies at a sweet spot where just enough obstacle has been added to create that memory retention.” Its modifications force readers to spend more time, but not too much time, reading each word, allowing the brain to engage in deeper cognitive processing.

    So does Sans Forgetica actually work? Does it help readers better remember the information they read? So far, studies have shown that it can make a difference, although not a significant one.

    One experiment had 96 participants recall word pairs presented in three different fonts. They remembered 69 percent of the word pairs written in Sans Forgetica, compared to 61 percent for the other fonts. In a different experiment, 303 students took a mock(模拟)multiple-choice exam, and whenever the text was presented in Sans Forgetica, they remembered 57 percent of the text, compared to only 50 percent of the surrounding text written in Arial font.

    So Sans Forgetica won't give you the memory of an elephant, but if you're the kind of person who believes every little bit helps, it might be worth a try.

History Fair Competition

    Understanding history is vital to understanding ourselves as a people and as a nation.

    History is much more than the study of dusty old objects and events long past. It is an essential part of who we are today and who we will become. Thornton fiddle School History Fair Competition makes understanding history exciting, engaging, and fun！

    This Year's Theme

    All participants must address how communication or transportation technology has promoted the quality of life for Americans throughout history. To many people, technology means computers, hand-held devices, or vehicles that travel to distant planets. However, technology is also the application of scientific knowledge to solve a problem, touching lives in countless ways.

    Individuals or groups may enter one of the following categories:

    Performance

    Documentary（纪实作品）

    Essay Writing

    Category Requirements

    Performance: A dramatic presentation of the topic no more than 10 minutes long. If special clothes are used, they should truly represent a given period.

    Documentary: A visual presentation（such as a video, slide show, or computer project）no more than 10 minutes long. A desktop computer, screen, projector, and loudspeakers will be available. Students must provide their presentations on CDs before Friday, March 23.

    Essay Writing: An academic paper of 2, 000 to 2, 500 words. No illustrations（图解）are allowed. Please do not include covers. A list of references must be included.

    Important Dates

    January 5      Submit a topic proposal to your history teacher. The teacher may require a second proposal if the first is off-topic or unclear.

    February 5      Submit a first draft of your essay, performance script（剧本）, or documentary highlights.

    February 19    A committee of teachers will evaluate materials and give opinions. Students then have an opportunity to improve their products.

    March 9          Submit a final draft of your essay.

    March 15          Performance and documentary committee preview

    March 24          Thornton Middle School History Fair Competition

    7:00A. M-9:00A. M          Participants signing in at the gym

    10:00A. M. -6:00PM.        Competition and judges' review

    7:00P.M.                   Awards ceremony and picnic

    Rivers are earthly arteries(要道) for the nutrients, deposits and freshwater that sustain healthy, diverse ecosystems. Their influence extends in multiple dimensions—not only along their length but below­ground to aquifers(蓄水层) and periodically into nearby floodplains.

    They also provide vital services for people by fertilizing agricultural land and feeding key fisheries and by acting as transportation corridors. But in efforts to ease ship passage, protect communities from flooding, and draw off water for drinking and irrigation, humans have increasingly constrained and broken these crucial water ways. “We try to control rivers as much as possible,” says Gunther Grill, a hydrologist at McGill University.

    In new research published in May in Nature, Grill and his colleagues analyzed the barriers to 12 million total kilometers of rivers around the world. The team developed an index(指数) that evaluates six aspects of connectivity—from physical fragmentation (by dams, for example) to flow regulation (by dams or levees) to water consumption—along a river's various dimension. Rivers whose indexes meet a certain threshold(临界值) for being largely able to follow their natural patterns were considered free­flowing.

    The researchers found that among rivers longer than 1,000 kilometers (which tend to be some of those most important to human activities), only 37 percent are not blocked along their entire lengths. Most of them are in areas with a minimal human presence, including the Amazon and Congo basins and the Arctic. On the contrary, most rivers shorter than 100 kilometers appeared to flow freely—but the data on them are less comprehensive, and some barriers might have been missed. Only 23 percent of the subset of the longest rivers that connect to the ocean are uninterrupted. For the rest, human infrastructure is starving estuaries(河口) and deltas (such as the Mississippi Delta) of key nutrients. The world's estimated 2.8 million dams are the main cause, controlling water flow and trapping deposits.

    The new research could be used to better understand how proposed dams, levees and other such projects might impact river connectivity, as well as where to remove these fixtures to best restore natural flow. It could also help inform our approach to rivers as the climate changes, says Anne Jefferson, a hydrologist at Kent State University, who was not involved in the work. Existing infrastructure, she says, “has essentially been built to a past climate that we are not in anymore and are increasingly moving away from.”