It was an autumn morning shortly after my husband and I moved into our first house. Our children were upstairs unpacking, and I was looking out of the window at my father moving around mysteriously on the front lawn. “What are you doing out there?” I called to him.

    He looked up, smiling. “I'm making you a surprise.'' I thought it could be just about anything. When we were kids, he always created something surprising for us. Today, however, Dad would say no more, and caught up in the business of our new life, I eventually forgot about his surprise.

    Until one gloomy day the next March when I glanced out of the window, I saw a dot of blue across the yard. I headed outside for a closer look. They were crocuses (番红花) throughout the front lawn—blue, yellow and my favorite pink, with little faces moving up and down in the cold wind. I remembered the things Dad secretly planted last autumn. He knew how the darkness and dullness of winter always got me down. What could have been more perfectly timely to my needs?

    My father's crocuses bloomed (开花) each spring for the next five seasons, always bringing the same assurance: Hard times are almost over. Hold on, keep going, and light is coming soon.

    Then a spring came with only half the usual blooms and the next spring there were none. I missed the crocuses, so I would ask Dad to come over and plant new bulbs (块茎植物). But I never did. He died suddenly one October day. My family were in deep sorrow, leaning on our faith.

    On a spring afternoon four years later, I was driving back when I felt depressed. It was Dad's birthday, and I found myself thinking about him. This was not unusual-my family often talked about him, remembering how he lived up to his faith. Suddenly I slowed as I turned into our driveway. I stopped and stared at the lawn. There on the muddy grass with small piles of melting snow, bravely waving in the wind, was one pink crocus.

    How could a flower bloom from a bulb more than 18 years ago, one that hadn't bloomed in over a decade? But there was the crocus. Tears filled my eyes as I realized its significance.

    Hold on, keep going, and light is coming soon. The pink crocus bloomed for only a day, but it built my faith for a lifetime.

    Guide to Stockholm University Library

    Our library offers different types of studying places and provides a good studying environment.

    Zones

    The library is divided into different zones. The upper floor is a quiet zone with over a thousand places for silent reading, and places where you can sit and work with your own computer. The reading places consist mostly of tables and chairs. The ground floor is the zone where you can talk. Here you can find sofas and armchairs for group work.

    Computers

    You can use your own computer to connect to the wifi specially prepared for notebook computers; you can also use library computers, which contain the most commonly used applications, such as Microsoft Office. They are situated in the area known as the Experimental Field on the ground floor.

    Group-study Places

    If you want to discuss freely without disturbing others, you can book a study room or sit at a table on the ground floor. Some study rooms are for 2-3 people and others can hold up to 6-8 people. All rooms are marked on the library maps.

    There are 40 group-study rooms that must be booked via the website. To book, you need an active University account and a valid University card. You can use a room three hours per day, nine hours at most per week.

    Storage of study material

    The library has lockers for students to store course literature. When you have obtained at least 40 credits(学分), you may rent a locker and pay 400 SEK for a year's rental period.

    Rules to be followed

    Mobile phone conversations are not permitted anywhere in the library. Keep your phone on silent as if you were in a lecture and exit the library if you need to receive calls.

    Please note that food and fruit are forbidden in the library, but you are allowed to have drinks and sweets with you.

    Differences are important and they should be respected. For example, many important people throughout history were considered different, such as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln. They did great things, but some people thought they were strange because they had strong feelings about something. I can understand these people because I've been in that situation before many times.

    It all started in elementary school when I realized that I wasn't like everyone else. My mom says that I have a tendency to be obsessed(着迷)with certain subjects. Unfortunately, these subjects don't interest other kids of my age and they really don't interest my teachers. In fact, my kindergarten teacher said she would scream if I mentioned snakes or lizards one more time while she was teaching the days of the week. I would get into trouble for not paying attention and the teasing began.

    In the third grade, my teacher informed me that I have Asperger's Syndrome（症状）. I said, “So what? Do you know that Godzilla's suit weighs 188 pounds?”

    Later, I asked my mom, “What's Asperger's Syndrome? Am I gonna die?” She said that it's like having blinders on, and that I can only see one thing at a time, and that it's hard to focus on other things.

    People also make fun of me for knowing facts about volcanoes, whales, tornadoes and many other scientific things. My mom says that she has been able to answer many questions on Jeopardy! just by listening to what I have to say, but I've even been laughed at for being smart.

    Maybe someday I'll become a gene engineer and create the real Godzilla. I can dream, Can't I?

    Empathy is the ability to share and understand the emotions of others. It is a construct of multiple components, each of which is associated with its own brain network. New research has found empathy may have a genetic component that affects personality, and cognition, psychiatric (relating to mental illness) conditions. The findings are highlighted in a new study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, the University Paris Diderot and the Institute Pasteur, and 23andMe.

    Published yesterday in Molecular Psychiatry, the first study found evidence that genes influence our ability to read and understand emotions in others. The team at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge analyzed data from 89,000 individuals worldwide, the majority of whom were 23andMe customers, who were willing to be researched.

    Participants completed a “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test”, in which they were shown photos of the area around the eyes and asked to identify one of two possible emotions. This assessed Theory of Mind and the ability to recognize and appreciate another person's mental state. Researchers identified that women with certain genetic variants（变异）on chromosome（染色体）3 performed better, with higher levels of empathy. Interestingly, male performance on the test was not associated with a genetic variant. Overall, women consistently performed better than men, exhibiting higher levels of empathy.

    The genetic variant associated with empathy in women is near the gene LRRN1(Leucine Rich Neuronal 1) on chromosome 3, which is highly active in an area of the human brain. Brain scans have indicated that this section of the brain may play a role in cognition empathy.

    This is also the unprecedented study that relates measures of empathy with variation in the human genome（基因组）. Previous research that has attempted to assess the genetic associations of personality and psychological traits has sometimes been unreliable, due to their small sample size. 23andMe's large data offering enables scientists to gain insight into the biology behind features such as empathy.

    23andMe is committed to furthering such research and approximately 85 percent of customers agrees to allow their de-identified（去识别的）data to be made available for study. By allowing scientists access to its unique and powerful research resource engine, 23andMe helps open up genetics to qualified researchers, providing novel insights into individuals' features, genetic diseases and a variety of other conditions.

    Lily went to London with her parents for a two-week vacation. She sent postcards to her friends.

Simply being quiet is a growing appeal. Lots of business have appeared to meet a rising demand for quiet time, from silent weekend getaways to silent dining, silent reading parties and even silent dating. Silence can mean different things to different people. We are usually silent only with those closest to us. So there is something almost radical(不同凡响的)about the recent trend towards enjoying silence with strangers.

Mariel started a regular silent reading party in Dundee just under a year ago. Readers bring their books and meet in a bar, where they read together in silence for an hour or sometimes two and then put their books away to chat and have a drink. "When the reading party starts, everything goes quiet," says Mariel," It's a little bit surreal (超现实的), especially in what is usually a noisy bar. However, there is something special about sharing the silence with others. It offers a chance to escape from reality; everyone is so busy with work and with technology being ever present. An event like this gives people the opportunity to escape these things for a while."

Honi Ryan is an artist based in Berlin who began hosting silent dinner back in 2006. The rules of the dinner are: no talking, no using your voice, no reading or writing, trying to make as little noise as possible, not connecting with technology, and staying for at least two hours. So far she has taken her silent dinner project to Mexico, the US, Australia and China. "It's evident that the age-old connections we make over food do not depend on the words around it. Silence creates the space for the people and places involved to fill with whatever is needed; it is quite different from our usual social behaviors."