My father was always a good gardener. One of my earliest memories is standing without shoes in the freshly tilled soil, my hands blackened from digging in the ground.

    As a child, I loved following Dad around in the garden. I remember Dad pushing the tiller(耕作机) ahead in perfectly straight lines. Dad loved growing all sorts of things: yellow and green onions, watermelons almost as big as me, rows of yellow corn, and our favorite — red tomatoes.

    As I grew into a teenager, I didn't get so excited about gardening with Dad. Instead of magical land of possibility, it had turned into some kind of prison. As Dad grew older, his love for gardening never disappeared. After all the kids were grown and had started families of their own, Dad turned to gardening like never before. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer, he still took care of his garden.

    But then, the cancer, bit by bit, invaded his body. I had to do the things he used to do. What really convinced me that Dad was dying was the state of his garden that year. The rows and rows of multicolored vegetables were gone. Too tired to weed them, he simply let them be. He only planted tomatoes.

    For the first few years after he died, I couldn't even bear to look at anyone's garden without having strong memories pour over me like cold water from a bucket. Three years ago, I decided to plant my own garden and started out with just a few tomatoes. That morning, after breaking up a fair amount of soil, something caught the corner of my eye and I had to smile. It was my eight-year-old son Nathan, happily playing in the freshly tilled soil.

The most anticipated films of 2018

    Thanks to movies like Wolf Warrior 2, Never Say Die, Youth, The Fate of the Furious an Dangal, the 2017 box office gross (票房收入) has reached new heights. Meanwhile, audience have been fed up with Hollywood's long dependence on sequel (续集) films. A lack of origin stories has been criticized for a while.

    As we embrace the new year, let's look to the future, and the most anticipated films in t following year.

Guardians of The Tomb

Country: China and Australia

Release Date: Jan 19, 2018

Director: Kimble Rendall

Stars: Li Bingbing, Kellan Lutz, Wu Zun, Kelsey Grammer

    An innocent discovery of a well-preserved mummified Emperor from 200 BC China unearths a 2000-year-old nightmare — a secret that should have remained buried.

Monster Hunt 2

Country: China

Release Date: Feb 16, 2018

Director: Raman Hui

Stars: Bai Baihe, Jing Boran, Tony Leung Chiu-wai

    Monster Hunt was a huge commercial success, breaking numerous box office records. The film took place in the distant past, when the human race existed alongside the Monster race. Monster Hunt 2 is the sequel of it.

Avengers: Infinity War

Country: United States Release

Date: May 4, 2018

Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Josh Brolin, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Evans

    The upcoming American superhero film, based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers, is the sequel to 2012's Marvel's the Avengers and 2015's Avengers.

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

Country: United States

Release Date: July 13, 2018

Director: Genndy Tartakovsky

Stars: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, David Spade

    This 3D animated cartoon movie, the sequel of Hotel Transylvania 2, is a fantasy-comedy for your whole family to enjoy.

Live in Cave

    Kokopelli's Cave Bed &Breakfast, Farmington, New Mexico.

    The idea may seem very stone age, but this lone unit, which was carved into a 65-million-year-old sandstone rock, is filled with modern amenities(便利设施). The Travel Channel says these “cave comforts” include a comfortable bedroom, large fire circle, and rainfall shower. Plus, the views of the La Plata River and nearby mountains are breathtaking.

    $260/ night; bbonline.com

    Sleep below the Surface

    Jules' Undersea Lodge, Key Largo, Florida.

    This hotel, which is named after20,000 Leagues Under the Sea author Jules Verne, is the world's only underwater hotel. Lonely Planet says that this former research station has been turned into a pleasant hotel. Guests must make the 21-foot dive to its two rooms, fully stocked kitchen, and showers. Don't want to cook? The staff will dive and bring your food to you.

    $400/night; jul.com

    Sail into History

    The Queen Mary, Long Beach, California

    Wish you could experience the greatness of a ship like the Titanic? According to CNN Travel, here's your chance. Book a room to get a taste of a bygone time on this ship-turned hotel. You may not be able to sail into the sunset like Kate and Leo, but you can enjoy onboard attractions like original 1930s artwork and tours of strange and mysterious hot spots.

    $129/night;queenmary.com

    Despite an advertisement campaign suggesting wall-to-wall special effects, “Bridge of Terabithia” is grounded in reality far more than in fantasy. Adapting Katherine Paterson's award-winning novel, the screenwriters David Paterson and Jeff Stockwell have produced a thoughtful and extremely affecting story of a transformative friendship between two unusually gifted children. The result is a movie whose emotional depth could appeal more to adults than to their children.

    Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson) is a sixth grader with four sisters, financially tensed parents and a talent for drawing. An introverted(内向的) kid who is regularly picked on by the school buses, Jess forms a bond with a new student named Leslie (Anna Sophia Robb), a free spirit whose parents, both writers, are fondly neglectful. An attraction between outsiders, their friendship feeds on her words and his pictures; together they create an imaginary kingdom in the woods behind their homes, a world they can control and where their minds can wander free.

    Beautifully capturing a time when a bully in school can occur as large as a monster in a nightmare and the encouragement of a teacher can alter the course of a life, “Bridge to Terabithia” keeps the fantasy in the background to find magic in the everyday. Gabor Csupo directs this, his first feature, like someone close to the pain of being different, fascinated in tiny, perfect details.

    With strong performances from all the leads, “Bridge to Terabithia” is able to handle adult topics with sensitivity. As the emotional landscape darkens, those who haven't read the book may be surprised at the sorrow the filmmakers cause without ever resorting to horror or terror. In other words, your children may cry, but they won't be traumatized so badly.

    Consistently smart and delicate as a spider web, “Bridge to Terabithia” is the kind of children's movie rarely seen nowadays. At a time when many public schools are being forced to cut music and art from the curriculum, the story's insistence on the healing power of a cultivated imagination is both welcome and essential.

    Smart Kids is a collection of one hundred events scheduled in October. This year, it is experimenting with Pay What You Decide (PWYD). That is, you can decide to pay what you want to or can afford, after you have attended an event. You can pre-book events without paying for a ticket in advance. Here are some of the director's picks.

    Walk on the Wild Side

    Not ticketed, Free

Join storyteller Sarah Law to hear science stories about animals. Along the way you'll meet all sorts of beautiful creatures and discover life cycles and food chains. Best suited to children aged 5-9. Children under 8 must be accompanied by an adult.

    Introduction to Waves

    Pre-book, PWYD

    Subjects range from sound waves to gravity waves, and from waves of light to crashing waves on the ocean. Mike Goldsmith explores the fundamental features shared by all waves in the natural world.

Science in the Field

    Not ticketed, Free

This storytelling night features a scientist sharing his favourite memories of gathering first-hand data on various field trips. Come along for inspiring and informative stories straight from the scientist's mouth. Join Mark Samuels to find out more in this fun-filled workshop.

    Festival Dinner

Pre-book, £25 per person

Whether you want to explore more about food, or just fancy a talk over a meal, join us to mark the first science festival in London. Which foods should you eat to trick your brain into thinking that you are full? Find out more from Tom Crawford.

    Does the amount of cash in a lost wallet influence how likely a person is to return it? Classical economic theories suggest that the greater the appeal, the less likely we are to be honest—but a new study turns the idea on its head, finding altruism(利他主义), and a powerful hate for viewing oneself as a "thief" outweigh the financial attraction.

    A team of researchers conducted a huge experiment concerning 355 cities in 40 countries. More than 17,000 identical wallets were dropped off at public places, each containing a grocery list, a key, and three business cards in the local language using made-up names and an email address. Some had no money while others contained the equivalent (等值) of $13.45.

    According to the research, people on average returned 40% of wallets with no money in them but 51%with money. It also shows extreme differences between countries. But although rates of people's honesty varied greatly from country to country, one thing remained remarkably constant: wallets with money, as opposed to no money, raised reporting rates.

    In the US, the UK and Poland, they repeated the experiment with even more money: $94.15, which increased reporting rates by an average of 11% compared to the smaller amount. They also found that having a key expanded reporting rates by 9.2%.

    The findings, which run counter to a fundamental principle of classical economics, suggest honesty, altruism and self-image can sometimes be more influential than economic self-interest.

    A purely economic approach to behavior suggests people would keep the wallets with the larger amounts of money due to the increased financial reward, but economics often doesn't account for a person's sense of honesty or self-image, according to behavioral scientists. Altruism also influenced the findings, the researchers say. Since the key is valuable to the owner but not the finder, this pointed toward an altruism concern in addition to the cost of negatively updating one's self image.