“To educate a girl is to educate a thousand people,” says Maimouna Samaké, a mother of six children (including five girls). “If you put one seed in the ground and rain comes, it will grow to produce many seeds.”

    Samaké, one of 2,000 residents, lives in a small village, Sounkala, in one of the world's poorest countries. Now she has a chance to see this wish come true thanks to Build On, an American non-profit organization that is building a school in her community.

    For 17 years, build On has been sending American high school students overseas to create schools in places where literacy (文化) and formal education are usually out of reach. The organization has built about 300 schools in Mali, Malawi, Nepal, Senegal, Nicaragua and Haiti. Its goal is to get young Americans in mostly urban areas to get involved in education. At the same time it can bring literacy to children and adults in poor villages in the developing world.

    Sounkala's current school only has about 70 children; mud floors, poor lighting, few desks and an absence of books mean that the school is not the most ideal learning environment. Therefore they certainly could use Build On's help.

    Samaké hasn't been to school, but she wants a better future for her five daughters, including Ramatou, 12, and Mariam, 10. “When a woman attends school, she will teach what she learns to her children,” said Ramatou, who wants to become a doctor. “She will also know how to take better care of her family.”

    Build On tries to build schools for grades one to three. If things go well over those three years, they return to help build another school for grades four to six, and then set up evening adult literacy classes.

    Ramatou and Mariam will not learn inside the walls of build On school since they are already in the sixth grade, but Samaké hopes that they will be able to attend evening classes to continue learning.

    The human brain remembers negative experiences more easily than positive ones. Our brains have developed this way because threats, like dangerous animals, had a more immediate effect on our ancestors' survival compared to positive things like food or shelter. As a result, you likely know what makes you unhappy, but do you know what makes you happy?

    Research suggests that our level of happiness depends partly on factors we cannot control—our genes and our life circumstances. But our level of happiness is also shaped by the choices we make. If you've been chasing wealth, fame, good looks, material things and power, you may be looking for happiness in all the wrong places. Psychologists suggest that the following habits make people happier.

    People who form close relationships tend to be happier than those who do not. The number of friends we have is not important. What matters is the quality of our relationships. Relationships that bring happiness usually involve the sharing of feelings, mutual respect, acceptance, trust and fun.

    People who exercise regularly improve both their physical and mental well being. Some research has shown that exercise can be as effective as medication in treating depression.

    When we are so interested in an activity we enjoy that we lose track of time, we are in a state of flow. The activity could be making art, playing piano, surfing, or playing a game. People who experience flow in their work or hobbies tend to be happier.

    People are more likely to be happy if they know what their strengths are and use them regularly, People who set goals and use their strengths to achieve them tend to be happier. People are especially happy when they can use their strengths to serve the greater good.

    People who think positively by being grateful, mindful and optimistic are more likely to be happy. Being grateful means being thankful, Bejing mindful means being open to, focusing on and enjoying the experiences of the present moment. Being optimistic means being hopeful about the future.

    A young woman sits alone in a café sipping tea and reading a book. She pauses briefly to write in a nearby notepad before showing her words to a passing café waiter: "Where are the toilets please?" This is a familiar scene in Tokyo's so-called "silent cafés", where customers are not allowed to speak, and only communicate by writing in notepads.

    The concept rises by a desire to be alone among young Japanese, a situation brought by economic uncertainty, a shift in traditional family support structures and the growing social isolation. The phenomenon is not limited to coffee shops but covers everything from silent discos, where participants dance alone wearing wireless headphones connected to the DJ, to products such as small desk tents designed for conversation-free privacy in the office. One Kyoto company even offers single women the opportunity to have a "one woman wedding"—a full bridal affair, complete with white dress and ceremony, and the only thing missing is the groom. The trend has its own media expression-“botchi-zoku”, referring to individuals who consciously choose to do things completely on their own.

    One recent weekday afternoon, Chihiro Higashikokubaru, a 23-year-old nurse, travelled 90 minutes from her home, to Tokyo on her day off in order to enjoy some solo time. Speaking quietly at the entrance of the cafe, Miss Higashikokubaru said: “I heard about this place via Twitter and I like the idea of coming here. I work as a nurse and it's always very busy. There are very few quiet places in Tokyo, and it's a big busy city. I just want to come and sit somewhere quietly on my own. I'm going to drink a cup of tea and maybe do some drawings. I like the idea of a quiet, calm atmosphere.”

    The desire to be isolated is not a new concept in Japan, home to an estimated 3.6 million "hikikomori" - a more extreme example of social recluses(隐士) who withdraw completely from society.

    Escaping predators (食肉动物), digestion and other animal activities—including those of humans—require oxygen. But that essential ingredient is no longer so easy for marine life to obtain, several new studies reveal.

    In the past decade ocean oxygen levels have taken a dive—an alarming trend that is linked to climate change, says Andreas Oschlies, an oceanographer at the Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Germany, whose team tracks ocean oxygen levels worldwide. "We were surprised by the intensity of the changes we saw, how rapidly oxygen is going down in the ocean and how large the effects on marine ecosystems are," he says. It is no surprise to scientists that warming oceans are losing oxygen, but the scale of the drop calls for urgent attention. Oxygen levels in some tropical (热带的) regions have dropped by an astonishing 40 percent in the last 50 years, some recent studies reveal. Levels have dropped less significantly elsewhere, with an average loss of 2 percent globally.

    A warming ocean loses oxygen for two reasons: First, the warmer a liquid becomes, the less gas it can hold. That is why carbonated drinks go flat faster when left in the sun. Second, as polar sea ice melts, it forms a layer of water above colder, more salty sea waters. This process creates a sort of lid that can keep currents from mixing surface water down to deeper depths. And because all oxygen enters the surface, less mixing means less of it at depth.

    Ocean animals large and small, however, respond to even slight changes in oxygen by seeking refuge in higher oxygen zones or by adjusting behavior, Oschlies and others in his field have found. These adjustments can expose animals to new predators or force them into food-scarce regions. Climate change already poses serious problems for marine life, such as ocean acidification, but deoxygenation is the most pressing issue facing sea animals today, Oschlies says. After all, he says, "they all have to breathe."

    Aside from food web problems, animals face various other physiological challenges as their bodies adjust to lower oxygen levels. Chinese shrimp (虾) move their tails less vigorously to preserve energy in lower oxygen environments. Some creatures, such as jellyfishes, are more tolerant of low oxygen than others are. But all animals will feel the impact of deoxygenation because they all have evolved their oxygen capacity for a reason, says Oschlies. "Any drop in oxygen is going to damage survivability and performance," he says.

Dear editor(编辑),

    Can't your newspaper do something about the custom (习惯) of hitchhiking?

    A short time ago, on a car travel I counted at least 50 people standing beside the road, asking for rides. Many of them were young women.

    Don't they understand how dangerous it is to get into the car driven by a stranger? How much do they know about the driver? Is he a good driver or not? They know nothing!

    Many of these young hitchhikers may come from good families. Don't their parents teach them anything about the world? I always taught my children not to talk to strangers. I never let them take rides from people they didn't know.

    Isn't there enough crime (犯罪) today without asking for trouble by hitchhiking? On the other hand, hitchhiking may bring some traffic trouble. Don't you think what I said is true?

    A Worried Grandfather