Six years ago at the age of 35,I suddenly decided I wanted to learn the cello（大提琴）.Straight away I rented an instrument and appeared before Wendell Margrave,professor of musical instruction.

    "You can be as good as you want to be,"Margrave said rather mysteriously.On a piece of paper he drew the notes E and F.He showed me where to put my fingers on the neck of the cello and how to draw the bow.Then he entered my name in his book: 10 am,Tuesday.Tuesday followed Tuesday,and soon it was spring.

Thus began my voyage out of ignorance and into the dream.E-F,E-F,we played together—and moved on to G.It was a happy time.I was again becoming something new,and no longer trapped as the same person.Surely the most terrible recognition of middle life is that we are past changing.We do what we can already do.The cello was something I couldn't do.Yet each Tuesday this became less and less true.Riding home on the bus one snowy night and learning the score of Mozart's C-Major Quintet(莫扎特的C大调五重奏),I felt the page burst into music in my hands.I could by then more or less read a score,and was humming（哼唱）the cello line,when suddenly all five parts came together harmonically（和谐地） in my head.The fellow sitting opposite stared.I met his glance with tears,actually hearing the music in my head for the first time.Could he hear it too, perhaps?No,he got off at the next stop.

    As the years slipped by,my daughter grew up,playing the piano well.My goal was that she and I would one day perform together.I also wanted to perform in public with and for my peers,and to be secretly envied.I continued to play,to perform,but it is not the same.Before,when I heard a cello,it was all beauty and light.Now,as the TV camera gets close to Rostropovich's face,I recognize that his smile shows his incredible determination.Even for him,the cello is a difficult instrument that doesn't respect your ambitions.I picked up my cello and practiced.As good as I wanted to be,I am as good as I'm going to get.It is good enough.

    The editor of the new Cool Camping Britain guide chooses some of his favorite new finds in England, Wales and Scotland.

    Cleadale, Isle of Eigg, Inner Hebrides

    Is this Britain's most beautiful campsite? From the grassy point looking seaward to the mountains, it's not hard for campers to see how the island inspired The Lord of the Rings author's fantasy landscapes. The campsite itself is as wild and wonderful as its setting.

    Open April - September, from ￡5 per tent per night.

    Swattesfield, Thornham Magna, Suffolk

    Deep in the wilds of north Suffolk, this seven-acre campsite has only been open for a few years, with two fields separated by a lake and surrounded by woodland. The position is perfect. It's a great place to do nothing but get into nature. You can put up your tent in the bottom field or the woodland beyond.

    Open Easter - October, from ￡10 per tent per night.

    Pleasant Streams Farm, near St Austell, Cornwall

    This site, by a lake, is all about simple pleasures. Located in the former mining village, it has a summerhouse(凉亭) with books and games for a rainy day. There are many animals including pigs, hens, goats and ducks on the farm and a pub just a 10- minute stroll away. There's very little to do here, no bells and no whistles. Campfires are encouraged.

    Open Easter - September, from ￡10 per tent per night.

    Troy town Campsite, St Agnes, Isles of Sciily

    Its only campsite, Troy town, couldn't be in a more remote position. Isolation is its greatest advantage — so bring plenty of books to read and don't expect a phone signal. But at least one of life's necessities is available. Lying on the hillside overlooking the bay and near the island of the Gugh, it might just win the prize for best beer garden view in England.

    Open March - October, from ￡7. 50 per tent per night,

    Nearly 20 U.S. states have started carrying out former president Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which places limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in an effort to reduce the impacts of climate change. The plan has been in legal limbo (边缘) for the past year. Yet scientists have now calculated another outcome of the policy: harm to crop yields (产量) if the plan is cancelled. Along with carbon pollution, coal-fired power plants spew (喷出) pollutants that form what we know as smog. The contribution of smog to increased rates of asthma (哮喘) and premature deaths was already known. The new research estimates the extent to which smog, under air-pollution policies-4n place before the Clean Power Plan, would limit production in 2020 of four major crops: corn, cotton, potatoes and soybeans.

    Led by environmental engineer Shannon L. Capps, now at Drexel University, the team also sketched the extent to which those crop production losses would reduce under three nationwide scenarios (方案). One improved the efficiency of individual power plants. Another modeled a policy similar to the Obama plan, setting state CO₂ emissions goals for the electricity department. A third established a tax on carbon emissions, under which emissions fell the most. But the greatest drop in smog-forming pollutants—and greatest gains in crop yields—came from policies such as the Clean Power Plan.

    Researchers calculated how well each scenario would reduce the potential productivity loss (PPL) of each crop. PPL is a projected value for 2020 and indicates how much crop growth would suffer because of smog. Scenario 2 most closely agrees with results expected from the Clean Power Plan.

    If you cannot afford to travel in any class above economy, flying generally sucks, either a little or a lot, depending on your tolerance level. But it especially sucks if you are too wide for the airline's design.

    Just getting to your seat can be a challenge, as your hips (臀部，髋) bounce from seat to seat on each side of the aisle (过道). If someone is standing up to put things in the overhead locker, there is a decision to be made about whether it's worth trying to squeeze past. Everything is just slightly too small: the seats, the overhead lockers, even the bathrooms—and those, it seems, are getting even smaller.

    The Washington Post recently reported that, on some newer planes flown by American, Delta and United airlines, the bathrooms in economy class are just 61cm wide: about 25cm narrower than the average portable toilet, and roughly the width of the average dishwasher. Your face might be the only thing you can poke in there comfortably—which makes it a poor design, considering what a passenger is likely to need the bathroom for.

    According to the manufacturer, these "Advanced Spacewell" bathrooms make space for six additional passengers, which is great for the airlines' financial bottom line. But what about the other bottom line? Concerning, well, bottoms that can't fit into their planes' bathrooms?

    As bodies get bigger and aeroplane spaces get smaller, the wide among us have come up with solutions. Armrests that turn us into sausages (香肠) can be pulled up, or slowly encased (围住，包起) into the soft flesh of our sides until we go numb (麻木). We can ask the flight attendant to get us a seat-belt extender, if security has confiscated the one we brought with us, as can sometimes happen. But squeezing into a tiny toilet and closing the door behind us? Not workable.

    Unlike the impossible task of squeezing down the aisle to your seat, or the side-to-side dance necessary to get big hips past the armrests, fitting into a space just 61cm wide is not just a challenge—it is almost impossible. It is not like missing out on an option for the in-flight meal—a bathroom is as essential as a safety-compliant seat belt, or the air that is pumped in to the cabin (飞机舱). If airlines are not willing to make space for us, bigger passengers may have no option but to reconsider booking a flight at all.

Smartphones can be a force for good. Your phone is always with you, making it the perfect device to push you into a more beneficial way of living. Here are some of the best apps that can help.

Habitica

Habitica turns the goal of forming good habits into a game, with its own characters and scoring. It's a lot of fun, and the app also lets you build habits with friends and family. In addition to regular repeating habits, you can add a more general to-do list, and the rewards you get can be customized too—you could treat yourself to a meal out or an extra hour of games.

Smoke free

If you're determined to give up smoking, Smoke Free is one of the most comprehensive apps for giving you that extra push you need to make a permanent change. The app offers a host of useful features to people wanting to go smoke-free: the ability to see your progress over time, charts showing how your health is improving, day-by-day encouragement, and some advice on techniques for giving up smoking.

MyFitnessPal

You can find tons of health and fitness apps for your phone, but My FitnessPal stands out not just because it is easy to use, but because it makes practical suggestions for you. It can take in a host of data, from the calories you're taking in to the number of swims you're doing per week, and offer reports on calorie consumption and macronutrient (大量营养素) breakdown.

Do you know that junk food isn't healthy? Of course you do! Do you eat it anyway? Of course you do! But a new study shows teaching adolescents about the ways food companies fool them into thinking junk food is cool can encourage kids to fight back—by eating healthier.

The pull of junk food can be super-strong. It's designed to be tasty, which makes eating well one of the great health challenges of our time. Everyone from doctors to the government has been trying to handle it. Yet we keep eating junk food.

Professor Christopher Bryan says, "Food companies want you to want junk food." They spend millions of dollars coming up with new ways to promote junk food consumption. They hire scientists to make new junk food almost irresistible. They might do this, for example, by adding more sugar. Rats fed junk food for six weeks will even walk across a floor that gives them electric shocks just to get more of such food.

Food ads often make unhealthy junk food seem healthy by featuring professional athletes, fit-looking pop stars and smiling, active teens. "We thought when the students learned this, it would matter to them," Bryan says. He worked with 8th graders at a Texas school. Half of them got a lesson Bryan created. It focused on the ways junk food is advertised, or marketed. A second group received lessons that focused on health. These lessons informed students junk food is bad, and that foods like apples or carrots are a better choice. The students learned a bad diet can lead to major weight gain, and that being overweight puts people at risk for serious diseases. They also learned how eating well now can keep you healthy when you're older.

After the lessons, the kids in both groups were asked how they felt about junk food. Most didn't have positive feelings about these unhealthy foods.