Children have their own rules in playing games. They seldom need a referee(裁判) and rarely trouble to keep scores. They don't care much about who wins or loses, and it doesn't seem to worry them if the game is not finished. Yet, they like games that depend a lot on luck, so that their personal abilities cannot be directly compared. They also enjoy games that move in stages, in which each stage, the choosing of leaders, the picking-up of sides, or the determining of which side shall start, is almost a game in itself.

    Grown-ups can hardly find children's games exciting, and they often feel puzzled（迷惑的）at why their kids play such simple games again and again. However, it is found that a child plays games for very important reasons. He can be a good player without having to think whether he is a popular person, and he can find himself being a useful partner to someone of whom he is ordinarily afraid. He becomes a leader when it comes to his turn. He can be confident, too, in particular games, that it is his place to give orders, to pretend to be dead, to throw a ball actually at someone, or to kiss someone he has caught.

    It appears to us that when children play a game they imagine a situation under their control. Everyone knows the rules, and more importantly, everyone plays according to the rules. Those rules may be childish, but they make sure that every child has a chance to win.

    On a stormy day last August, Tim heard some shouting. Looking out to the sea carefully, he saw a couple of kids in a rowboat were being pulled out to sea.

Two 12-year-old boys, Christian and Jack, rowed out a boat to search a football. Once they'd rowed beyond the calm waters, a beach umbrella tied to the boat caught the wind and pulled the boat into open water. The pair panicked and tried to row back to shore. But they were no match foritand the boat was out of control.

    Tim knew it would soon be swallowed by the waves.

“Everything went quiet in my head,” Tim recalls（回忆）. “I'm trying to figure out how to swim to the boys in a straight line.”

    Tim took off his clothes and jumped into the water. Every 500 yards or so, he raised his head to judge his progress. “At one point, I considered turning back,” he says. “I wondered if I was putting my life at risk.” After 30 minutes of struggling, he was close enough to yell to the boys, “Take down the umbrella!”

    Christian made much effort to take down the umbrella. Then Tim was able to catch up and climb aboard the boat. He took over rowing, but the waves were almost too strong for him.

“Let's aim for the pier（码头）,” Jack said. Tim turned the boat toward it. Soon afterward, waves crashed over the boat, and it began to sink. “Can you guys swim?” he cried. “A little bit,” the boys said.

Once they were in the water, Tim decided it would be safer and faster for him to pull the boys toward the pier. Christian and Jack were wearing life jackets and floated on their backs. Tim swam toward land as water washed over the boys' faces.

    “Are we almost there?” they asked again and again. “Yes,” Tim told them each time.

    After 30 minutes, they reached the pier.

    Our news is constantly filled with the reality of death and dying. And each of us, if we live long enough, experiences the loss of persons we loved. Children ages eight through ten were asked what they thought about death,and these are some of their answers:

    “When you die,God takes care of you like your mother did. When you were alive,only God doesn't yell at you all the time.''(Beth,9)

    “When you die,they bury you in the ground and your soul goes to heaven,but your body can't go to heaven because it's too crowded there already.” (Jimmy, 8)

    “Only the good people go to heaven. The other people go where it's hot all the time like in Florida. ” (Judy,9)

    “Doctors help you so you won't die until you pay their bills.”(Stephanie,9)

    I've observed that the loss of a loved one can be one of the most difficult things we humans can face. I've known friends of sick and dying people to sit by a bedside or in a hospital room for hours,even days, at a time. I've seen food in homes of people who are dying overflow from kitchen to dining room—food brought by comforting friends from church and con cerned neighbours. And I've observed friends just listen for as long as it takes.

    When U.S. Congressman Sam Rayburn (1882—1961) discovered that he was ill,he announced to the House of Representatives he was going home to Texas for medical tests. Some wondered why he did not stay in Washington where there were excellent medical facilities. His answer was a beautiful tribute (颂词) to friendship:"Bonham is a place where people know it when you're sick,and where they care when you die. ”

    No one wants to go through difficult times alone. So Rayburn traded the best of medical technology for the closeness of loving friends. He knew that good friends are good medicine. Often the best.

    Crown shyness(树冠羞避) is a mysterious natural phenomenon in which the crowns of some tree species do not touch each other, but get separated by a gap clearly visible from ground level. The effect usually occurs between trees of the same species, but has also been observed between trees of different species.

    There are many theories going around, most of which make sense, but no one has been able to prove without the shadow of a doubt why some trees avoid touching each other.

    In his 1955 book Growth Habits of the Eucalypts, Australian forester M.R. Jacobs writes that the growing tips of the trees are sensitive to abrasion(擦伤), which results in crown shyness phenomenon. This theory was also supported by Dr. Miguel Franco. Some experiments have shown that if trees displaying crown shyness are artificially prevented from swinging in the wind and touching each other, they gradually fill up the gaps between them.

    But while the above theory is arguably the most widespread, it's certainly not the only one. Some scientists have suggested that crown shyness is a mechanism to stop the spreading of leaf-eating insects. These pests have been known to work together and create structures that extend up to 10 cm off of tree branches in order to reach other plants, so the gaps are the trees' natural defense method.

    One Malaysian scholar studied many trees, but found no traces of abrasions, despite their clear crown shyness. Instead, he suggests that the growing tips of the trees were sensitive to light levels and stopped growing when they got too close to other trees. Plants are able to sense how close they are to other plants and in order to get more light, they give off some chemical element to stop other trees from growing too close.

    Whatever the reason, one thing is for sure: plants are more intelligent than people used to think.

    Get ready to fill your days full of fun and adventure. West Dorset, an area of outstanding natural beauty, is always a place to go and there is always something going on. The following are some of the star attractions.

    Mapperton House & Gardens

    Impressive valley gardens surrounded by wooded landscape.

    Gardens open: Daily 11 am -5 pm except Fridays, March to October included.

    Booking through Tel: (0103)959203 or www.mapperton.com

    Bridport Museum

    Local history museum attracts every history lovers. We also have a year-round Local History Centre nearby where you can complete local and family history research.

    Open: Monday-Saturday, April to October included.

    Booking through Tel: (0103) 959711 or www.bridportmuseum.com

    Furlelgh Estate Wine Tours

    Vineyard and winery, producers of the UK's most outstanding wine. Come and see how the 2019 Winemaker of the Year makes wine.

    Open for sales: 11 am-4 pm Fridays and Saturdays, tours at 2 pm.

    Booking through Tel: (0103) 906323 or wwwjurleiehestate.uk

    Old Crown Court and Cells

    Experience two hundred years of shocking crime and punishment. Tours of court room and cells on selected afternoons mid July to end August.

    Open: Tuesday-Sunday, March to September included.

    Booking through www.visitdorset.com

    For all the latest information about attractions including opening times, reasonable prices and special offers，please go to www.visitdorset.com

Are we alone in the universe? A team of scientists announced on January 6, 2015 that they had identified eight planets beyond our solar system, three or four of which orbit in their stars' "Goldilocks Zone" — the region where temperatures are not too hot or too cold for water, which is a necessary ingredient for life as we know it, to exist liquid form. This may be good news for people hoping that Earth is not the only inhabited world in the universe.

    The scientists, led by Dr. Guilermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, made the discoveries using data collected by the planet-seeking Kepler telescope.

    NASA launched Kepler in 2009. Since then, the telescope has identified more than 1,000 planets outside of our solar system. Torres and his team analyzed the data about the eight newly discovered world to determine which ones are most likely to be similar to our Earth.

    Among the new discoveries, the scientists say the planets called Kepler438b and 442b are the closest to Earth. Kepler 438b is just about 10% larger than our planet, and gets 40% more of its energy from its star than Earth receives from the Sun. Temperatures there would be about 140 degrees. Kepler 442b is about 33% larger than Earth, but receives 30% less energy from its star. That would make it a potentially chillier world than our own. Torres says it is possible for life to exist and survive in either of those temperatures, but for that to happen, these planets would need to have another key ingredient for life: a heat-trapping atmosphere like Earth's.

    While these findings add to the possibility that life exists beyond Earth, Torres cautions against drawing conclusions, “We are not claiming they are inhabited,” he says. In fact, these planets are so far away that the scientists cannot observe them directly, which can be explanation for why for now it remains unknown whether these planets contain life. But the discovery of planets in their stars' habitable zones suggests that somewhere out there, some form of alien life may have taken hold.