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    If you want to help children develop language and speech skills, UCLA researchers say, listening to what they have to say is just as important as talking to them.

    The effect of a conversation between a child and an adult is about six times as great as the effect of adult speech input(输入)alone, the researchers found. “Adults speaking to children helps language develop, but what matters much more is the interaction, ”said the study's lead author, Frederick Zimmerman, an associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. The researchers also found that TV viewing didn't have much of an effect—positively or negatively—as long as it wasn't displacing conversations between an adult and a child.

    The UCLA study included 275 families with children between 2 months and 48 months old. They represented a variety of incomes and education. The researchers found that, in an average day, children heard about 13, 000 spoken words from adults and participated in about 400 adult-child conversations a day.

    Assessed separately, factors positively associated with language development included each additional 100 conversations a day and each 1, 000 words increase in the number of words spoken by adults and heard by children.  When looked at alone, TV was negatively associated with language development. But, when these three factors were analyzed together, the only one that stood out was conversation between adults and children.

    “The more a child speaks and interacts with an adult, the better idea a parent has about where the child is”, Zimmerman said. “Although it's mostly done unconsciously, parents will provide feedback and correct mistakes.  They'll also tailor their speech to the child.  Parents can give the children words by talking to them about what they're doing, such as, ‘I'm putting on your pajamas now'. But give your child the opportunity to talk, hopefully without the rest of the noise in the environment, ”she added. “If parents can carve out some conversation time—maybe at bath time or at dinner time—that's a wonderful thing. ”

    Hans Christian Andersen is a Danish writer famous for his fairy tales, many of which depict (描述) characters who gain happiness in life after suffering and conflict.

    Andersen's father was a poor shoemaker and his mother worked as a washerwoman. As a child he was highly emotional, suffering all kinds of fears and shame because of his unmanly interests. Encouraged by his parents, he composed his own fairy tales and arranged puppet (木偶) theater shows. At the age of 14, Andersen moved to Copenhagen to start a career as a singer—he had a beautiful voice. He succeeded in becoming associated with Royal Theater, but he had to leave it when his voice began to change. When casually referred to as a poet, he changed his plans and began to write plays, all of which were refused.

    In 1822, Jonas Collin, the director of the Royal Theater, gave Andersen a grant to enter the grammar school at Slagelse. In 1827, Andersen gained admission to Copenhagen University, where he completed his education. In 1828 he wrote a shot story on travel, a fantastic tale in the style of the German Romantic writer, E. T. A. Hofmann. He traveled widely in Europe and remained a passionate traveler all his life.

    As a novelist, Andersen made his breakthrough with The Improvisatore. The story described a poor boy's integration (融合) into society, an Ugly Duckling theme of self-discovery. The book gained international success and remains the most widely read of all his works.

    In his early collections, Andersen returned to the stories that he had heard as a child, but gradually he started to create his own tales. Most of Andersen's works were original. Only 12 of his 156 known fairy stories drew on folktales.

    The ugliness of the hero or heroine in his stories often conceals (隐藏) great beauty，which is revealed (揭示) after misfortune. Some of Andersen's tales reveal a positive belief in the victory of the good, among them, The Snow Queen and The Ugly Duckling, and some end unhappily, like the Little Match Girl. In The Little Mermaid the author expressed a longing for the ordinary life that he had never had. Andersen never married, and he died in his home in Rolighed in 1875.

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    Scientists investigated why Ebola virus is so deadly when it spreads from animals to humans and then from human-to-human contact. The research team looked at the Zaire Ebola virus in an animal system to understand how it gains strength. This virus is responsible for the current outbreak in West Africa. They found that initially the animal systems were not affected by the virus, but succeeding transmission(传送) into other animals caused the virus to “hot up” and become more severe.

    The team analyzed the viruses at different stages and were able to identify several changes in its genetic material that were associated with increased disease.

    Professor Julian Hiscox, who led the study from the University's Institute of Infection and Global Health, explains: “The work tells us that the evolutionary goal of Ebola virus is to become more fatal.”

    “We were able to show through genetic analysis which parts of the virus are involved in this process. The information we have gathered will now allow us to monitor for such changes in an outbreak as well as develop future treatment strategies.”

    Professor Roger Hewson, leading the study from Public Health England, Porton Down, said: “Ebola virus is such a destructive infection to the people affected by the disease and the economy of West Africa.”

    “Our understanding of Ebola virus biology is way behind that of other viruses and our cooperation shows how we can bring together our specialists' skills to close this knowledge gap.”

    Professor Miles Carroll, a co-author of the work, said: “This study has allowed the team to be at the forefront of developing methodologies to analyze patient samples recently taken by the European Mobile Laboratory from West Africa to understand disease evolution during the current outbreak.”

    For grown-ups, an afternoon snooze(打盹) is often easier said than done. But many of us have probably experienced just how simple it can be to catch some sleep in a gently rocking hammock(吊床). By examining brain waves in sleeping adults, researchers reported in the June 21 issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that they now have evidence to explain why that is.

    “It is a common belief that rocking causes sleep: we fall asleep in a rocking chair soon and, since ancient times, we cradle our babies to sleep,” said Sophie Schwartz of the University of Geneva. “Yet, how this works had remained a mystery. The goal of our study was made up of two parts: to test whether rocking does indeed improve sleep, and to understand how this might work at the brain level.”

    Schwartz, Michel Mühlethaler, and their colleagues Laurence Bayer and Irina Constantinescu asked twelve adult volunteers to nap on a custom-made bed or “experimental hammock” that could either remain still or rock gently. All participants were good sleepers who didn't typically nap and did not suffer from excessive sleepiness during the day. Each participant took two 45-minute afternoon naps, one with the bed still and one with the bed in motion, while their brain activity was monitored.

    “We observed a faster transition to sleep in each and every subject in the swinging condition,” Mühlethaler said. “Surprisingly, we also observed a dramatic boosting of certain types of sleep-related brain waves.”

    More specifically, rocking increased the length of stage N2 sleep, a form of non-rapid eye movement sleep that normally occupies about half of a good night's sleep. The rocking bed also had a lasting effect on brain activity, increasing slow brain waves and bursts of activity known as sleep spindles(纺锤体).

    Schwartz and Mühlethaler say the next step is to find out whether rocking can improve longer periods of sleep and to find out whether it may be useful for the treatment of sleep disorders, such as insomnia(失眠).

    My dad is the kind of parent that expects my best. He would never be angry if I failed at something as long as I tired. He never changes his mind after he makes it, which sometimes makes him seem too stubborn. My dad's strictness comes from the way he was raised. He grew up working long hours on his family farm. His dad was bad-tempered, and he would get angry enough to throw wooden boards at my dad when he did something wrong. In high school, my dad woke up at four in the morning to get his chores(家务杂事)done and walk to school so that he would make it to basketball practice by five.

    Through all of the duties my dad had at home, he played three sports and went to school on top of it. school would have been easy, but my dad had dyslexia(读写困难)which made it nearly impossible for him to read. Since dyslexia wasn't recognized back then, every teacher my dad had passed along thinking that he was just unable to learn. My dad struggled in school until one teacher took the time to sit down and teach him how to read and write.

    The best part about my dad is his attitude toward daily life. even though he likes things once right, he also knows how go to with the flow and have a good time. My dad doesn't worry about things he can't control. When he comes home from a terrible day at work, he always puts on a smile on his face because he knows family is a lot more important than any other tings.

    I know that I get my best qualities from my parents and the way they raised me. My dad has shown me that with discipline and hard work I can achieve anything, and have fun while doing it.

Rosie, a first-year university student in Beijing, entered a classroom for her oral English exam and slid her topic across the table to Joe, a foreign teacher. My Story, it read. "In middle school, my classmates laughed at me for having deaf-mute parents," she began softly. "From that moment on, I decided not to tell anybody. But today…"

It's widely considered taboo(忌讳) in Chinese to discuss the details of an unhappy family life with anyone other than very close friends. However, as Joe has noticed, many Chinese students appear surprisingly comfortable discussing emotional moments from their lives when they speak with foreign teachers in a language different from their own.

"Speaking English," one of his Chinese students told him, "I feel like another person." When speaking Chinese, he is kind of reserved; in English class, he is more open. English, to the Chinese speaker, may be like a mask, creating a buffer(缓冲物)between speaking the truth and the listener's reaction. Students focus on how to speak rather than what is being said. If there's a misunderstanding, English can take the blame.

Another reason why Chinese students are more comfortable sharing their secrets during English class may be the distinct approach to teaching used by their foreign teachers. "I always try to come to each student, make eye contact, have a 20-second conversation and see how they are doing," Joe said. Classes taught by Chinese teachers, in contrast, are more formal. Many students said they had never been asked their opinion in class.

Rosie's English vocabulary is now extensive, but she still can't find the words to describe her feelings towards the English language. "English makes me feel I am different," she said. "English is beautiful."