A new study finds that young females in one group of African chimps(黑猩猩) use sticks as dolls more than their male peers (同龄) do, often treating pieces of wood like a mother chimp caring for a baby. In human cultures around the world, girls play with dolls and pretend that the toys are babies far more than boys do.

    Chimp observations, collected over 14 years of field work with the Kanyawara chimp community in Kibale National Park in Ugandan, provide the first evidence of a nonhuman animal in the wild that exhibits sex differences in how it plays. This finding supports an argument that biology as well as society underlies boys' and girls' different toy preferences.

    Stick play occurred most commonly between ages 3 and 9. Females spent a lot more time carrying sticks than males did. Young male chimps occasionally used sticks to mimic(模仿) childcare. "Far more often, they fought with sticks, an infrequent behavior among females," say Sonya Kahlenberg of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and Richard Wrangham of Harvard University.

    "Biological differences between the sexes make female chimps more receptive to stick-mothering than males," says Wrangham.

    Consistent with reported cultural traditions among adult chimps, Kanyawara youngsters learned from each other to play with sticks as if caring for babies. Stick play among young chimps showed no evidence of being directly influenced by older chimps. Child-bearing females never played with sticks and thus didn't model such behavior for younger chimps.

    Young females carried sticks for anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. They often rested in nests with their sticks, sometimes playing with them much as chimp mothers play with their babies though they didn't get any form of teaching from the adults.

Come and join us to celebrate his birthday.

    Michelle O.Donovan

    ISBN 9781462058679

    Life is not easy for nine-year-old Joshua during World War II.Because of his family's Jewish background,they are sent to live in the concentration camps（集中营）.Scared and alone,Joshua one day makes friends with a little mouse he calls Bethlehem who becomes his closest friend.

    Encourage Me!

 Inspirational Poetry

    Gloria Coykendall

    ISBN 9781412027854

    It is an easy-to-read collection of poems originally written to encourage in faith and to be a cure for chronic depression（长期抑郁）…cure to strengthen identity and purpose.

 Seeking the Edge

    Dr.Joseph L.Rose

    ISBN 9781462031795

    Seeking the Edge provides the tools and techniques to find that edge in one's life-driving readers to achieve success whether in your current job,finding a new job,in education,family,or even hobbies.

More Things in Heaven

    Bill Bosworth

    ISBN 9780595433582

    In his More Things in Heaven,Bill Bosworth presents the highlights（最有趣味的部分）of his 83 years of life, including his trips to India and the study of the writings of several great spiritual leaders.More things in Heaven will appeal to anyone who insists on finding the deepest meaning for their existence based on their own experience.

Creation,or Evolution

    Michael Ebifegha

    ISBN9781450289023

    Were humans created,or did they evolve（进化）?How old is the Earth?The debate between science and religion continues to be heated.In Creation or Evolution,Michael Ebifegha examines these two opposed world views within the structure of empirical（实证的）science.

    Everyone needs friends. We all like to feel close to someone. It is nice to have a friend to talk, laugh, and do things with. Surely, there are times when we need to be alone. We don't always want people around. But we will feel lonely if we never have a friend.

    Sometimes friends move away. Then we feel very sad. We miss them very much. But we can call them and write to them. It could be that we would even see them again. And we can make new friends. It is surprising to find out how much we like new people when we get to know them.

    No two people are the same. Sometimes friends don't get along well. That doesn't mean that they no longer like each other. Most of the time they will make up (和解) and go on being friends.

    Families sometimes name their children after a close friend. Many places are named after men and women who have been friendly to people in a town. Some libraries are named this way. So are some schools. We think of these people when we go to these places.

    There's more good news for people who have friends. They live longer than people who don't. Why? It could be that they are happier. Being happy helps you stay well. Or it could be just knowing that someone cares about you. If someone is concerned about you, you will feel good.

    Technology is always trying to meet our needs and demands. There's a new frontier in 3D printing that's beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn't stopping there.

    Food production

    With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that — it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to "recreate forms and pieces" of food that are "exactly the same," freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed, rather than farm to table.

    Sustainability (可持续性)

    The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydrocolloids (水解胶体) from plentiful renewables like algae (藻类) and grass to replace the familiar ingredients (烹饪原料). 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock "food" that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.

    Nutrition

    Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, "Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday's bread from the supermarket, you'd eat something baked just for you on demand."

    Challenges

    Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing, the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste (糊状物) before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are skeptical about 3D food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurant than homes and high-end restaurants.

A key part of protecting endangered species is figuring out where they're living. Using environmental DNA, or eDNA, to track species isn't new. For a few years now, researchers have been using DNA in water.

Two teams of scientists — one in Denmark led by Dr Kristine Bohmann and one in the UK led by Dr Elizabeth Clare — came up with the same question at about the same time: Could they identify the animals in an area from DNA that was simply floating in the air? DNA in the air is usually so small that it would take a microscope to see it. "I thought the chances of collecting animal DNA from air would be slim though much time had been spent on it, but we moved on," said Bohmann who was trying to think of a crazy research idea for a Danish foundation that funds far-out science.

One team collected samples from different locations at Denmark's Copenhagen Zoo, and the other at Hamerton Zoo Park in the UK. Clearly, they both chose the zoos. "We realized we have the Copenhagen Zoo," Bohmann recalls. In fact, both the zoos in the UK and Denmark were almost like the zoos that were custom-built for the experiments: The animals in the zoos were non-native, so they really stuck out in DNA analyses. "If we detect a flamingo (火烈鸟), we're sure it's not coming from anywhere else but the zoo," Bohmann says.

In the laboratory, by comparing their samples with examples of DNA from different animals, the scientists succeeded in identifying many different animals at the zoos.

Neither team knew that the other team was working on a similar experiment. The two were nearing submission to a scientific journal when they discovered about the other experiment. Rather than compete to rush out a publication first, they got in touch and decided to publish their findings as a pair. "We both thought the papers are stronger together," says Clare.

"The next step is to figure out how to take this method into nature to track animals that are hard to spot, including endangered animals," says Bohmann.