TOKYO—Lonely astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) may soon be getting a robot friend from Japan.

    Japan's space agency is considering putting a talking humanoid(有人的特点的) robot on the ISS to watch the work while astronauts are asleep, monitor their health and stress levels and communicate to Earth through the micro­blogging site Twitter.

    Japan's space agency JAXA announced this week that it is looking at a plan to send a humanoid robot to the space station in 2013 that could communicate with the ground through Twitter—primarily feeding photos, rather than original ideas —and provide astronauts with “comfort and companionship”．

    Following up on US NASA's “Robonaut” R­2 program, which is set for launch on the Discovery shuttle next week, the Japanese robot would be part of a larger effort to create and refine robots that can be used by the elderly, JAXA said in a statement.

    Japan is one of the leading countries in robotics and has a rapidly aging society with one of the world's longest life expectancies.

    Improving robot communication capabilities could help elderly people on Earth by providing a nonintrusive(无干扰的) means of monitoring the robot owner's health and vital signs and sending information to emergency responders if there is an abnormality, JAXA said.

    “We are thinking in terms of a very human­like robot that would have facial expressions and be able to talk with the astronauts，” said JAXA's Satoshi Sano.

    The robot was being developed with the advertising and communications giant Dentsu Inc and a team at Tokyo University.

    The NASA project has a human­like head, hands and arms and uses the same tools as station crew members. The “Robonaut” called R­2 is intended to carry out maintenance tasks in the station's Destiny lab.

    NASA says it hopes that humanoid robots could one day stand in for astronauts during spacewalks or perform tasks too difficult or dangerous for humans.

    For now, the $2.5 million NASA robot is limited to activities within the lab.

Helicopter Aerial Tour

    Explore the Grand Cannon(大峡谷)from the eyes of the eagle. A wonderful 12-to 15-minute helicopter tour will soar through the canyon for an aerial experience of wonderful views. Our aerial tour is not available anywhere else in the world! Ticket: $120. 00 per person, plus 10% tax. Please call us at 1-888-868-9378 for seasonal rates, specials or to book by phone.

Helicopter-Boat Tour

    Helicopter tour starts at the Grand Canyon, West Side. Take a 4,000-fool fall to the Colorado River below. Helicopters fall 4,000 feet from the canyon side to the banks of the Colorado River where visitors can enjoy 3 15- to 20-minute boat ride down the Colorado.

Ticket: $150.00 per person, plus 10% tax.

Champagne Helicopter Tour

    Experience the beauty of the Grand Cannon: Soar above the Hoover Dam and the dead volcanoes. You go aboard a million-dollar helicopter with all forward facing scats allowing 180 degrees of views in air-conditioned comfort. You will see the Hoover Dam, the Colorado River, the Grand Cannon and more! You land to have a champagne picnic lunch at the Grand Cannon.

Las Vegas Adventure Tour

    Helicopter tours to the Grand Canyon West include a wonderful Las Vegas adventure tour. Aerial sightseeing tours originating in Las Vegas, Nevada include breathtaking views of Lake Mead, the Mohave Desert, and the west edge of the Grand Canyon. Aerial tours including the round trip as well as combination tours attract many visitors.

    Visitors arriving at the Hualapai elation's Grand Cannon West Airport may select one of the activities above.

    Shape

    According to their website, Shape is a magazine for American women with active lifestyles. This women's health magazine covers everything from diet and exercise to psychology. What is great about Shape is that it knows that it must cover a lot more than Fitness to give women all the information they need to stay healthy. Besides all the great features included in their print magazine, they also have an easily accessible website that anyone can use.

    Women's Day

    Women's Day is not only specifically a women's health magazine, but also includes a little of what Shape has, along with more information on other parts of life: family, money, travel and style. Many of the articles in Women's Day deal with specific diseases that are common to women, such as heart disease, breast cancer and others.

    Women's Health

    From tips to recent health news to articles about world affairs, Women's Health has everything that you expect in a women's health magazine. Another great feature is that Women's Health has a great website full of information, as well as articles from past magazines that you can check out. This is a great resource, since it lets you get to see articles well at the office.

    Fitness

    This magazine covers important topics such as physical fitness, health & beauty, and mental health. It offers something new in each issue, and it's always easy to understand.

    The workouts are clearly presented with good photos to illustrate (说明) every movement, and almost all can be done without making a trip to the gym.

    Messages in honor of Stan Lee are pouring in on social media and other online sites.

    Lee is the creator of famous comic book characters, including Spider-Man, the Hulk, Black Panther and others. He died in Los Angeles, California, Monday. He was 95 years old.

    Marvel Entertainment and its parent company, Walt Disney, posted a video about the late writer, editor and publisher on their websites.

    Disney chairman and chief Bob Iger said Lee is "a super hero in his own right to Marvel fans around the world." He compared Lee to his comic book characters with "the power to inspire, to entertain, and to connect."

    Lee was born Stanley Martin Leiber in New York City. He began writing for comic books at 19. He wrote under the name Stan Lee. He explained that he used a false name because he wanted to write a serious and great piece of literature someday. He did not want his link with comic books to be known when that happened. But it never did happen. As the pride in his work grew, he decided to legally change his name to Stan Lee.

    Lee's comic book heroes stand apart from its competitor DC, the company that produced the seemingly perfect heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman. Lee's character often had super power, but they also had weaknesses and moral failings. In a piece for Marvel in 1969, Lee discussed the importance of creating these balanced characters. Nobody is all good, or all bad, he wrote, like Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man. He is a deeply gifted inventor with serious mental health issues; or, Peter Parker, a sensitive, brainy high-school student who has no idea how to deal with the frightening abilities he gets from the bite of a radioactive spider. Even Steve Rogers, whose Captain America was the most Superman-like of the Marvel group, had problems. Rejected as a candidate for the armed forces, he volunteers to take a "supersoldier" substance to make him a super-fighting machine.

    Actor Chris Evans has played that character in several Hollywood films. He posted a tribute to Captain America's creator on Twitter Monday. “There will never be another Stan Lee,” he wrote. Actor, writer and funny man Seth Rogen never played one of Lee's characters but he remembered him with thanks in a tweet. “Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel different realize they are special,” he wrote.

The thing that sets children apart from adults is not their ignorance, nor their lack of skills. Rather, it's their enormous capability for joy. A friend told me a story. One day, when she went to get his 6-year-old son from soccer practice, her kid greeted her with a sad face. The teacher had criticized him for not focusing on his soccer drills. The little boy walked out of the school with his head and shoulders hanging down. He seemed wrapped in sadness. But before reaching the car door, he suddenly stopped, crouching(蹲伏) down to look at something on the sidewalk. “Mom, come here! This is the strangest bug I've ever seen. It has, like, a million legs. It's amazing!” The little face was overflowing with indescribable excitement.

Nowadays, however, when we walk into a classroom, especially in a high school, we'll be choked by towering books and papers, and hiding behind them are a group of motionless creatures, pens in hand, minds dry, just as the hollow men portrayed by T. S. Eliot. Their pursuit of joy has given way to their hunger for grades. Laughter and happiness are a distant memory for them.

    Although joy is an unaffordable luxury in today's increasingly fierce competition, administrators and teachers need a mindset shift from crushing students with assignments to getting them to take pleasure in productive activities which develop their important qualities, like perseverance and obligation. The assumption that pleasure is the enemy of competence and responsibility makes no sense educationally.

Adults tend to talk about learning as if it were medicine: unpleasant, but necessary and good for you. Why not think of learning as if it were food—something so valuable to humans that they want to experience it as a pleasure?

    Britain and France are two important countries in Europe. They are neighbors, separated only by the 20-mile seaway of the English Channel. And for most of the time that the two countries have existed, the French and the British have been rivals or even enemies. One conflict between the two countries lasted over 100 years, and the British and French were at war through the 18th century.

    There is no fighting now, of course. But there is still a strong sense of rivalry (敌对) between the two nations. That's why a recent survey in the UK caused a major shock.

It revealed (揭露) that one third of the British people would like to live in France. It also showed that twenty-one percent of British people would actually prefer to have been born in France.

    Many reasons were given. France has a better climate and a more relaxed lifestyle, with some of the longest holidays in Europe. It is thought to have better public services in every area from health to transport. People in France work shorter hours and enjoy longer vacations. And think of the food and wine!

    Estimates (估计) of the numbers of Britons living in France range from 100,000 to half a million. But it is not one-way traffic. Around 15,000 French people per year come to live in Britain, mainly settling in London. They are attracted by higher pay in Britain, lower taxes, a more dynamic lifestyle. Now it seems that people can go to the place that suits them best.