It was Saturday morning. I heard loud noises of moving furniture in the next room. I could almost feel the excitement of John who was soon going to get a room of his own. I remember my own feelings when I was 13. I knew how much he longed for his right to privacy (私人空间) when he was sharing a room with his younger brother, Robot. He said, “Mum, Can I please have a room of my own? I could use Jeff's. He won't mind.”

    It was true that Jeff had graduated from college and flown from the nest. But would he mind? The room was the place where I told him a thousand stories and we had a thousand talks. As close as we were, though, the time came when Jeff needed a door between us. His life was spreading into areas that had less to do with family. I no longer could-or should-know everything about him.

It turned out that getting Jeff's permission was easy. He said, “Of course, Mum, it would be selfish of me to hold on to it.” Then his voice softened, “Mum, I won't be living at home again—you know that.” Behind his glasses, his eyes were lit with all the love. There were no doors closed here—they had all opened up again.

    As John and I were cleaning the room, I fixed my eyes on Jeff's things around me and could almost touch the little boy who I knew was gone forever. I looked at the room and, in my heart, I let it go. To hold on would be, as Jeff said, selfish. Now it was time for John, shouldering through the door, his eyes bright with promise of independence, to disappear behind the door. It was time for letting go to happen again.

    Most kinds of rose plants come from Asia. But roses are also native to other areas including northwest Africa, Europe and the United States. Some people say roses are difficult to grow. But you have a good chance of success if you start with a few suggestions from experts.

    You should plant your roses where they can get sunshine for about six hours on bright days. You can buy roses from a garden center or by mail order. You can buy potted（盆栽）roses, also known as container roses, or bare-root（裸根）plants. Each kind has its fans.

    Some gardeners say potted roses are easier to plant. They say the roots develop better. But Jeffrey Dinslage, president of Nature Hills Nursery in Omaha, Nebraska, points out that bare-root roses come without soil. So they weigh less to transport. If they arrive before you are ready to plant them, make sure the packing material is slightly wet. Keep the plants in a cool, dark place. You plant the roses while they are not active. The resting plants have no leaves but still need water.

    When growing roses, the soil should be wet. Watering should be done in the morning. That can prevent problem called black spots. But do not water too much. Jeffrey Dinslage says people often ask him about becoming discolored on rose leaves. He says the problems are usually caused by too much water. After heavy rains or too much watering, he advises pulling away mulch（覆盖物） from around the roots for a short time. This will help dry the soil. If your soil is very dry, you can add compost(堆肥), which returns nutrients（营养）to the soil.

    If you want to know more information, please click www. Planting.com.

    If you don't have a college degree, you're at greater risk of developing memory problems or even Alzheimer's (老年痴呆). Education plays a key role in lifelong memory performance and risk for mental disorder, and it's well documented that those with a college degree possess a cognitive（认知的） advantage over their less educated counterparts in middle and old age.

    Now, a large national study from Brandeis University published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry shows that those with less schooling can significantly make up for poorer education by frequently engaging in mental exercises such as word games, puzzles, reading, and lectures.

    “The lifelong benefits of higher education for memory in later life are quite impressive, but we do not clearly understand how and why these effects last so long,” said lead author Margie Lachman, a psychologist. She suggested that higher education may encourage lifelong interest in cognitive efforts, while those with less education may not engage as frequently in mental exercises that help keep the memory agile (敏捷地).

    But education early in adulthood does not appear to be the only route to maintain your memory. The study found that intellectual activities undertaken regularly made a difference. “Among individuals with low education, those who are engaged in reading, writing, attending lectures, doing word games or puzzles once a week or more had memory scores similar to people with more education,” said Lachman.

The study, called Midlife in the United States, assessed 3,343 men and women between the ages of 32 and 84 with a mean age of 56 years. Almost 40 percent of the participants had at least a 4-year college degree. The researchers evaluated how the participants performed in two cognitive areas, verbal memory and executive function — brain processes involved in planning, abstract thinking and cognitive flexibility. Participants were given a battery of tests, including tests of verbal fluency, word recall, and backward counting.

    As expected, those with higher education said they engaged in cognitive activities more often and also did better on the memory tests, but some with lower education also did well, explained Lachman.

    “The findings are promising because they suggest there may be ways to level the playing field for those with lower educational achievement, and protect those at greatest risk for memory declines,” said Lachman. “Although we can not rule out the possibility that those who have better memories are the ones who take on more activities, the evidence is consistent with cognitive plasticity (可塑性), and suggests some degree of personal control over cognitive functioning in adulthood by adopting an intellectually active lifestyle.”

    Many youths want to learn how to drive cars. This year one sixth of undergraduates in Beijing have registered at driving school. The students, mostly from majors such as business management or imitational trade, will finish their driving courses within 20 days or so.

    Training costs have dropped to 4, 500 yuan for students, according to the Haidian Driving School in Beijing. The price is not really low, but students will accept it, seeing it as an investment (投资) in their future. Familiarity with the operation of computers and fluent English are the basic skills graduating students need to find a job. But a driver s permit has become another factor (因素).

    "In the job market, owning a driver's permit sometimes strengthens a graduating student's competitiveness for a good position," says Li Hua, an undergraduate at the China University of Political Science and law.

    Cars will become a necessary part of many people's lives in the coming years, and it is difficult to get a permit out of campus because of the pressures on working people's time. "Having a full-time job after graduation offers limited time to learn to drive. We senior students have plenty of spare time, plenty of oppurtunity to learn," says another undergraduate at the university.

    Wu Dong, an official at the driving school, said undergraduates were very able and serious, and could grasp in an hour what ordinary people took four hours to learn. In this driving school, middle-aged people, young women and college students are the main customers.

    From March 1, 2018, to get a driver's permit, a beginner is now required to have at least 86 hours' practice before the final road test.

    A scientist working at her lab bench and a six-old baby playing with his food might seem to have little in common. After all, the scientist is engaged in serious research to uncover the very nature of the physical world, and the baby is, well, just playing…right? Perhaps, but some developmental psychologists have argued that this "play" is more like a scientific investigation than one might think.

Take a closer look at the baby playing at the table. Each time the bowl of rice is pushed over the table edge, it falls in the ground—and, in the process, it belongs out important evidence about how physical objects interact; bowls of rice do not flood in mid-sit, but require support to remain stable. It is likely that babies are not born knowing the basic fact of the universe; nor are they ever clearly taught it. Instead, babies may form an understanding of object support through repeated experiments and then build on this knowledge to learn even more about how objects interact. Though their ranges and tools differ, the baby's investigation and the scientist's experiment appear to share the same aim(to learn about the natural world ), overall approach (gathering direct evidence from the world), and logic (are my observations what I expected?).

Some psychologists suggest that young children learn about more than just the physical world in this way—that they investigate human psychology and the rules of language using similar means. For example, it may only be through repeated experiments, evidence gathering, and finally overturning a theory, that a baby will come to accept the idea that other people can have different views and desires from what he or she has, for example, unlike the child, Mommy actually doesn't like Dove chocolate.

Viewing childhood development as a scientific investigation throws on how children learn, but it also offers an inspiring look at science and scientists. Why do young children and scientists seem to be so much alike? Psychologists have suggested that science as an effort —the desire to explore, explain, and understand our world—is simply something that comes from our babyhood. Perhaps evolution provided human babies with curiosity and a natural drive to explain their worlds, and adult scientists simply make use of the same drive that served them as children. The same cognitive systems that make young children feel good about feel good about figuring something out may have been adopted by adult scientists. As some psychologists put it, "It is not that children are little scientists but that scientists are big children."

    Bottled water is a booming industry in New Zealand, but it's terrible for the environment —each bottle thrown away adding to the 190,000 tons of plastic New Zealanders throw into landfills each year.

    But now one company has created water storage that they hope will prove to be just as convenient as a plastic bottle—but contains no actual plastic.

    Skipping Rock Labs make Oohos, flexible membranes filled with water that are constructed using a seaweed extract—meaning they, re totally edible and biodegradable, wrapping and all.

    There aren't any known side effects from digesting the membranes, which are tasteless—though Ooho! says flavors can be added to make them more appetizing.

    The company took to crowdfunding site CrowdCube with the idea, and it has since gone viral— with more than 900 investors bagging them A£ 751,700 to develop and launch the Ooho! balls ( $ 1.35 million).

    Skipping Rock Labs create the balls by dipping ice into brown algae and calcium chloride, with the membrane taking shape around the ice—and while that may sound complicated, the company says it, s more cost-effective than producing a plastic bottle.

    A layer atop the membrane can be peeled off just before drinking, for hygiene purposes. Skipping Rock Labs are hoping their new product takes off—and that it starts to put a dent into the plastic packaging industry.