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    "There's Always a John" By Darla Boyd

    My first year of teaching, there was a kid named John in my class. John was difficult to control and he nearly drove me crazy. While talking about him one day, an old teacher put his hand on my shoulder and said, "There will always be a John. Your job is to learn to discover what makes him different and help him succeed." The next year, there was indeed another John. But that advice taught me that there is something to appreciate in everyone.

    "An Early Key Lesson" By Elaine West

    Before I began my first teaching job, my mother, a teacher of 30 years, gave me a very special gift, five simple words that have had an effect on my entire life." Make friends with the janitor（门卫）." Her wisdom taught me the respect for all types of characters and continues to enrich my life to this day. Just five little words but what an impact they can have when you take them to heart.

    “Raising Mommy” By Jan Davis

    Being a mother can always present challenges and rewards. Someone told me early that children will teach you everything you need to know. Being a mother is being raised. Our children become our advisers. Their dreams become our professors, as we are taking notes carefully. The sounds of their laughter and smiles are a great reward to us. Their tears remind us that it is okay to fail, and that we should wipe the tears away and try again.

    Americans drove more miles in 2015 than any year since the U.S. government started keeping records 45 years ago. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDT) recently reported that Americans drove a record of 3.148 trillion miles last year. In case you are wondering, that is enough to take 337 round trips from Earth to Pluto.

    There are a number of reasons why Americans are driving more miles. The social experts agree that the first is the price of gas, which has dropped to the level of the year 2004 in the past year. The American Automobile Association (AAA) said that the average price of gas was just $1.71 a gallon. That could be the lowest price since 2004.

    P.J. Sriraj, a director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Chicago, notes that the lower cost to fill up a car is just one reason. Another reason is that more Americans are back to work after the 2008 economic recession, and they drive to their jobs.

    Besides, more Americans have to travel a long distance every day between home and the office. There are a lot of Americans who must travel more than 45 miles per day for their jobs. And as for many, there is not enough public transportation.

    Because of the heavy traffic, roads are becoming more and more crowded. While modern cars are more fuel-efficient, the improvement is not enough to offset more cars on the road. “There is no doubt that driving more will make the air dirtier,” said P.J. Sriraj. And many Americans showed a great concern in a recent survey.

    Here's an idea whose time has come: A flu shot that doesn't require an actual shot.

    For the first time, researchers have tested a flu vaccine patch (疫苗贴) in a human clinical trial and found that it delivered as much protection as a traditional injection with a needle. Doctors and public health experts have high hopes that it will increase the number of people who get immunized (免疫的) against the flu.

    Seasonal flu is responsible for up to half a million deaths around the world each year according to the World Health Organization. A team led by Georgia Tech engineer Mark Prausnitz has come up with an alternative method that uses “microneedles”. These tiny needles are so small that 100 of them, arranged in order on a patch, can fit under your thumb (拇指).Yet they're big enough to hold vaccine for three types of flu.

    None of the study volunteers had serious side effects. The groups that got patches had mild skin reactions that were not seen in the regular needle group, while the volunteers in the regular needle group were more likely to experience pain. Overall, 70 percent of the volunteers who got vaccine patches said they'd rather use them again than get a traditional flu shot. The study authors declared it a success on all fronts.

    The biggest beneficiaries could be people in low- and middle-income countries, where flu vaccines are hard to come by. Reducing pain is nice, but other benefits—the patch costs less，is easier to transport, doesn't require refrigeration, can be self - administered and doesn't cause waste of needles—are even better.

    “Microneedle Patches have the potential to become ideal candidates for vaccination programs,” wrote Katja Hoschler and Maria Zambon of Public Health England.

                                       Cell phones：Is there a cancer link?

    Could your cell phone give you cancer? Whether it could or not, some people are worrying about the possibility that phones, power lines and Wi-Fi could be responsible for a range of illnesses, from rashes to brain tumors.

    Some say there is evidence to support the growing anxieties. David Carpenter, a professor of environmental health sciences at the university at Albany, in New York, thinks there's a greater than 95 percent chance that power lines can cause childhood leukemia (白血病). Also there's a greater than 90 percent chance that cell phones can cause brain tumors. “It's apparent now that there's a real risk, ”said Carpenter.

    But others believe these concerns are not justified. Dr Martha Linet, head of radiation epidemiology (流行病学) at the US National Cancer Institute, has looked at the same research as Carpenter but has reached a different conclusion. “I don't support warning labels for cell phones, ”said Linet. “We don't have the evidence that there's much danger.”

    Studies so far suggest a weak connection between EMFs (电磁场) and illness—so weak that it might not exist at all. A multinational investigation of cell phones and brain cancer, in 13 countries outside the US, has been underway for several years. It's funded in part by the European Union, in part by a cell phone industry group. The final report should come out later this year, but data so far don't suggest a strong link between cell phone use and cancer risk.

    Most people know that Marie Curie(居里夫人) was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, and the first person to win it twice. However, few people know that she was also the mother of a Nobel Prize winner.

    Born in September, 1887, Irene Curie was the first of the Curies' two daughters. Along with nine other children whose parents were also famous scholars, Irene studied in their own school, and her mother was one of the teachers. She finished her high school education at the College of Sévigné in Paris. Irene entered the University of Paris in 1914 to prepare for a degree in mathematics and physics. When World War I began, Irene went to help her mother, who was using X-ray facilities（设备） to help save the lives of wounded soldiers. Irene continued the work by developing X-ray facilities in military hospitals in France and Belgium. Her services were recognized in the form of a Military's Medal by the French government.

    In 1918, Irene became her mother's assistant at the Curie Institute. In December 1924, Frederic Joliot joined the Institute, and Irene taught him the techniques required for his work. They soon fell in love and were married in 1926. Their daughter Helene was born in 1927 and their son Pierre five years later.

    Like her mother, Irene combined family and career. Like her mother, Irene was awarded a Nobel Prize, along with her husband, in 1935. Unfortunately, also like her mother, she developed leukemia because of her work with radioactivity（辐射能）. Irene Joliot-Curie died from leukemia on March 17, 1956.

Owls and Larks

    Larks are most likely to be healthy, wealthy and wise, according to the old saying.

But those who are early to bed and early to rise do not always have the upper hand, researchers say. They have found that night owls are generally brighter and wealthier than those able to get up early in the morning.

    Experts from the University of Madrid carried out tests on around 1,000 teenagers and found that those who preferred to stay up late proved the kind of intelligence associated with honored jobs and higher incomes. “Larks” or “morning people”, however, often acquired better exam results, possibly because lessons are held at the wrong time of day for night owls. The researchers examined the habits and body clocks of the youngsters to determine whether they liked to stay up late and sleep later in the morning, or preferred to go to bed early and were at their peak in the morning. School performance and inductive(归纳的)intelligence, or problem solving, were measured and academic grades in the major subjects were also taken into account. The results showed that evening types scored higher than morning types on inductive reasoning, which has been shown to be a good estimate of general intelligence and a strong indicator of academic performance. They also had a greater capacity to think conceptually as well as analytically. Such abilities have been linked to innovative(创新的) thinking, more admired occupations and better incomes.

    Famous night owls include President Trump, Obama, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Keith Richards and Elvis Presley. George W. Bush, who is regularly in bed by 10 p.m., Thomas Edison, Napoleon, Condoleezza Rice, who wakes at 4:30 a.m., and Ernest Hemingway are among those known as larks. Jim Horne, professor of psychophysiology at Loughborough University, said, “Evening types tend to be the more active and creative types, the poets, artists and inventors, while the morning types are the deducers(推断者), as are often seen with civil servants and accountants.” A previous study of US Air Force recruits found that evening types were much better at thinking to solve problems than larks.