My father was always a good gardener. One of my earliest memories is standing without shoes in the freshly tilled soil, my hands blackened from digging in the ground.

    As a child, I loved following Dad around in the garden. I remember Dad pushing the tiller(耕作机) ahead in perfectly straight lines. Dad loved growing all sorts of things: yellow and green onions, watermelons almost as big as me, rows of yellow corn, and our favorite — red tomatoes.

    As I grew into a teenager, I didn't get so excited about gardening with Dad. Instead of magical land of possibility, it had turned into some kind of prison. As Dad grew older, his love for gardening never disappeared. After all the kids were grown and had started families of their own, Dad turned to gardening like never before. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer, he still took care of his garden.

    But then, the cancer, bit by bit, invaded his body. I had to do the things he used to do. What really convinced me that Dad was dying was the state of his garden that year. The rows and rows of multicolored vegetables were gone. Too tired to weed them, he simply let them be. He only planted tomatoes.

    For the first few years after he died, I couldn't even bear to look at anyone's garden without having strong memories pour over me like cold water from a bucket. Three years ago, I decided to plant my own garden and started out with just a few tomatoes. That morning, after breaking up a fair amount of soil, something caught the corner of my eye and I had to smile. It was my eight-year-old son Nathan, happily playing in the freshly tilled soil.

    Sure, you talk to your parents, but what if you need to really talk? Maybe you have a problem you can't solve alone, or it could be that you want to feel closer to Mom and Dad.

    It's easy to say" Hi, Mom" or "Dad, can you pass the potatoes?", but it can be harder to start a discussion about tougher topics. When you were younger, it probably felt easy to tell your parents about your trouble. Even though you're older now, it's still perfectly OK to believe in your parents. In fact, it can help a lot.

    So why does it seem so uncomfortable at times? Why is it hard to bring up the important stuff? Sometimes kids don't speak up because they don't want to feel embarrassed. Let's face it—talking about personal stuff can make you feel embarrassed. But remember, your parents know you pretty well, and they were your age once, too! So don't let a little embarrassment stop you. It's OK to go ahead and share the personal stuff.

    Other times, kids might not want to make their parents anxious or upset. As you explain your problem, your mom might look sad or your dad might look worried. But that's OK. Your mom and dad can deal with knowing about your problem, big or small. That look on their face just means they care, and they feel for you. That's what families do—we feel for the people we love.

    Sometimes, kids don't bring up a problem because they just don't want to think about it. They hope it will just go away. When meeting a problem, they will likely choose not to face it or just keep it for themselves. But running away from a problem hardly ever solves it. And bottling up your feelings can make you feel stressed.

    Talking things over with a parent can help you feel less stressed. Together, you can think of ways to solve the problem and make you feel better. Just knowing your parent understands and cares about what you're going through can reduce your stress a lot.

    We're surrounded by chemistry in everyday life. Sometimes it is easy to see, like when your science teacher conducts a big experiment in class. At other times, it can be extremely hard to see everyday chemistry at work, but nearly everything you touch or use has some element of chemistry in it.

    Something as simple as toothpaste contains at least three chemicals, if not more. It is the mixture of them and its chemical reaction that keeps your teeth clean. Other things you use every day are created by chemistry, such as hair products, shampoo and soap. Adding detergent (洗涤剂) to water involves chemistry. Without chemistry, we would never have realized that we need soap to get the oil out of clothes or skin.

    Chemistry not only helps us make products for use, but it also helps us understand the world around us. Chemistry helps us understand what the ozone layer (臭氧层) is and how it protects us. Chemistry also gives us sunscreen to protect us from the sun. Thanks to chemistry, we know bleach (漂白剂) can't be mixed with vinegar, because it can produce poisonous gas. Without chemistry, we wouldn't have had fireworks displays on important days like the Spring Festival.

    Chemistry plays a big role in food preparation. Cooking food causes it to go through a chemical change. That is why cooked food often tastes different from raw (生的) food. Baking is a great example of chemistry. Too much or too little of any ingredient makes a difference to the result of baking, for example, the dough (面团) won't rise or the cake will be flat.

    Chemistry isn't something that just lives in a lab; it's something that you come across hundreds of times every day. If you know how chemistry works, you will get a greater comprehension of the science behind some of the simplest looking things.

    As global temperatures rise, trees around the world are experiencing longer growing seasons, sometimes as much as three extra weeks a year. All that time helps trees grow faster. For the past 100 years, trees have been experiencing fast growth in temperate regions from Maryland to Finland, to Central Europe, where the growth rate of some trees has even sped up nearly 77% since 1870. Assuming wood is just as strong today, those gains would mean more timber(木材) for building, burning, and storing carbon captured from the atmosphere. But is wood really as dense as it used to be?

    Hans Pretzsch, a forest scientist at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, and his colleagues wanted to find an answer. They carried out a study of the forests of Central Europe. They started with 41 experimental plots in southern Germany, some of which have been continuously monitored since 1870. Pretzsch and his team took core samples from the trees—which included Norway spruce, sessile oak, European beech, and Scots pine—and analyzed the tree rings using a high-frequency probe.

    They found that in all four species, wood density has decreased by 8% to 12%, they report online in Forest Ecology and Management. “We expected a trend of the wood density like this, but not such a strong and significant decrease,” Pretzsch says. Increasing temperatures, and the faster growth they spur, probably account for some of the drop. Another factor, Pretzsch says, is more nitrogen in the soil from agricultural fertilizer(化肥) and vehicle exhaust. Previous studies have linked increased fertilizer use to decreased wood density. Above all, the study suggests that the higher temperatures—combined with pollution from auto exhaust and farms—are making wood weaker, resulting in trees that break more easily and wood that is less durable.

    “I am getting worried,” says Richard Houghton, an ecologist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, who was not part of the new study. As the density of the samples dropped, so did their carbon content, by about 50%. That means forests may suffer more damage from storms and may be less efficient at soaking up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) than scientists had thought, Houghton says.

    I must have looked deep in thought, or as deep in thought as an 11-year-old man can, when my grandmother glanced up from her weeding to ask, “You have something on your mind, don't you?”

    “Yes, I was thinking that someday I want to be an Olympic speed skating champion like my hero, Eric Haiden, I want to be a doctor like my parents and I want to help children in Africa.”

    I immediately knew I had confided in the right person when a knowing smile broke across her face. “Johann, of course! You can do anything you want to do!” she said simply. And with my grandmother's support, I set out to pursue my passions.

    14 years later, I was well ready to take hold of my first dream: becoming an Olympic champion. The Olympics in 1994 were in my home country, Norway. As I entered the Olympic stadium, I wasn't the best athlete, and many had doubts about my ability to perform well. But I had something special working for me. I had a woman in the first row who believed in me following my passions just as much as I did. For the first time ever, my grandmother was going to see me skate.

    It happened. Breaking a world record, I won the gold.

    As I stood on the podium(领奖台) that I had dreamed about my entire life, a curious question popped into my head. Why me? Why did I win, given all the other incredible competitors out there? The reason had to be more than a grandmother who shared a belief in her grandson's dream. The question led me to only one answer: because I wanted to make a difference in the world, and with all the media attention on my success, I could.

    I immediately knew what that difference had to be: hope in the lives of the children in Africa. Six months earlier, I'd been invited to Eritrea as an ambassador for Olympic Aid.

My love for libraries blossomed when I joined the public library. From the age of 8 I was allowed to walk from my home to the downtown library, housed above the police station. Once the librarian gave me my first membership card, I could enjoy a range of books, which started with Little House in the Big Woods. I was addicted instantly, and this love of libraries and reading would change my life, allowing me to one day create a safe space for high-school kids, too.

By the time I was in high school, I could read the authors that we were studying in class, including Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Emily Bronte. During the summer months, I got caught up in Gone with the Wind.

When I studied English literature at university, I thought it was time to build my own library. For the next 40 years, I continued to collect books. Until one day, I realized that all my books had become a part of the house, like wallpaper.

Toward the end of my teaching career, I became a teacher-librarian at my old high school, where I had first learned English literature. This position enabled me to regain my love and appreciation for libraries. I had a generous budget for my classes, so I searched for novels that would interest my teenage audience and hopefully spark a love of books. Fantasy, science-fiction, graphic novels -I bought almost any type of books that my students wanted to read. I bought sofas and comfortable chairs, turning the library into a safe public space, for everyone.

In doing so, I realized that the library isn't just a place to do research. They are, in fact, places that offer an opportunity to connect with the past, present and future. All that is required is a tiny bit of curiosity. Libraries are places that should be full of life. They help us adjust to the world, and their doors must be kept open to everyone for free!