When I was 12, all I wanted was a signet (图章) ring. They were the "in" thing and it seemed every girl except me had one. On my 13th birthday, my Mum gave me a signet ring with my initials(姓名首字母) carved into it. I was in heaven.

    What made it even more special was that it was about the only thing that wasn't being "replaced". We'd been burnt out in fires that swept through our area earlier that year and had lost everything—so most of the " new" stuff (东西) we got was really just to replace what we'd lost. But not my ring. My ring was new.

    Then, only one month later, I lost it. I took it off before bed and it was missing in the morning. I was sad and searched everywhere for it. But it seemed to have disappeared. Eventually, I gave up and stopped looking for it. And two years later, we sold the house and moved away.

    Years passed, and a couple of moves later, I was visiting my parents' when Mum told me that she had something for me. It wasn't my birthday, nor was it Easter or Christmas or any other gift-giving occasion. Mum noticed my questioning look. " You'll recognize this one," she said, smiling.

    Then she handed me a small ring box. I took it from her and opened it to find my beautiful signet ring inside. The family who had bought our house 13 years earlier had recently decided to do some redecorations, which included replacing the carpets. When they pulled the carpet up in my old bedroom, they found the ring. As it had my initials carved into it, they realized who owned the ring. They'd had it professionally cleaned up by a jeweler before sending it to my mother. And it still fits me.

    Emily and her boyfriend had just had a fight. She felt alone and hopeless. Then she went into the kitchen and grabbed what she needed before going back up to her room quietly. She switched on the TV and started eating…and eating…for hours, until it was all gone.

     What Emily didn't know at the time was that she was suffering from an illness called binge-eating disorder(BED)(暴饮暴食).

    For years, Emily didn't tell anyone what she was doing. She felt ashamed, alone, and out of control. Why don't famous people confess (承认) to BED, as they do to anorexia? It's simple: There's a stigma（污名）involved. “Overeating is seen as very bad, but dieting to be skinny is seen as positive and even associated with determination," says Charles Sophy, a doctor in Beverly Hills , California.

    "Some parents or friends may look at a teen with BED and think, 'Oh, a good diet and some will-power will do the trick.' But that's not true," says Dr.Ovidio Bermudez , a baby doctor at the Eating Recovery Center in Denver. "Eating disorders are real physical and mental health issues; it's not about willpower." The focus in treating BED shouldn't be on weight, because as with all eating disorders, the behaviors with food are a symptom of something deeper.

    Like most other diseases, genetics may play a big part in who gets BED and who doesn't. If you have a close relative with an eating disorder, that means you're more likely to develop an eating disorder of your own.

    Besides, many people with BED have tried at some point or another to control it by going on a diet, but paying more attention to food doesn't help. And it might even make things worse, like it did for Carla, who's 15 now and is recovering from BED. "My parents would always tease me about my weight, so when I was 14, I went on a very restrictive diet," she says. When you can't have something, you only want it more, so every time Carla would have a bite of something that wasn't allowed on her strict diet. She would quickly lose control and binge (狂欢).

    Antarctica, with its seemingly endless icy beauty, is one place where one look is worth a thousand words. My own dream to see it came true last January when I joined the sixth exploration crew(考查队) of the China National Marine Bureau. We spent 10 days connecting flights to reach our goal, but finally arrived at the Great Wall Station on Antarctica on the eve of Chinese New Year.

    There are only two seasons in Antarctica: winter and summer. You get polar nights in winter and polar days in summer. Day is longer than night in summer, and the temperature often reaches below zero. Luckily, there are no snowstorms in summer, which makes it the best season to travel. What I imagined before starting for Antarctica was a world of ice, storms, endless cold and loneliness. When I stopped on Antarctica for the first time, however, I saw rich, energetic and beautiful scenery that was beyond anything I had imagined.

    We only spent 11 days at the South Pole, but every minute was spent taking pictures and losing our heart to the wonderland. Beauty enveloped us as we watched the world around us. The mountains, oceans, ice, snow, sky, earth and people all seemed to have their own stories.

    Rocks from Antarctica are considered valuable. Unfortunately, I didn't bring one back. However, my heavy bags full of films are certainly worth that. It is in these pictures that the true Antarctica comes alive.

    When you're a parent to a young child, you spend a lot of time talking about feelings: about having to share, about being disappointed because you may not have a cookie instead of broccoli (绿花椰菜), about the great injustice of a parent pressing the elevator button before the child has a chance to.

    And in a parenting culture that's increasingly concerned with centering children's needs above all else, mothers and fathers have become skillful at talking about their kids' feelings while masking their own. But new research suggests that parents who hide their negative emotions are doing their children, and themselves harm.

    A study published this month says that when parents put on a faux­happy (假开心) face for their kids,  they do damage to their own sense of wellbeing and authenticity.

"For the average parent the findings suggest when they attempt to hide their negative emotion expression and overexpress their positive emotions with their children, it actually comes at a cost: doing so may lead parents to feel worse themselves," researcher Dr. Emily Impett, says.

    It makes sense that parents often fall back on amping up (扩大) the positivity for the sake of their children — there are a lot of things in the world we want to protect our kids from. But children are often smarter than we expect and are quite in tune with what the people closest to them — their parents — are feeling.

    There was a time about a year or so ago, for example, when I received some bad news over the phone; I was home with my four­year­old and so I did my best to put on a brave face.  She knew immediately something was wrong though, and was confused.

    When I finally let a few tears out and explained that Mom heard something sad about a friend, she was, of course, just fine. My daughter patted my shoulder, gave me a hug, and went back to playing. She felt better that she was able to help me, and the moment made a lot more sense to her emotionally than a smiling mom holding back sobs. I was glad that I could feel sad momentarily and not have to work hard to hide that.

    Relaying positive feelings to your children when you don't feel them is a move the researchers called high cost — that it may seem like the most beneficial to your child at the time but that parents should find other ways of communicating emotions that "allow them to feel true to themselves".

    But this is also about children seeing the world in a more honest way. While we will want to protect our children from things that aren't age­appropriate or harmful, it's better to raise a generation of kids who understand that moms and dads are people too.

    Here's the bad news: Men are hurting, and, according to many researchers. masculinity (男子气) is what is hurting them and making it hard for them to maintain friendships. Society tells men to hide their feelings and expects them to be aggressive, so many men lose their friendship when growing up. The good news is that those skills can be recovered!

    There are a lot of experts who can help. and here's what they recommend:

    ⒈Accept your own desire and normalize it for the people in your life. Way, an expert, recommends sharing articles about masculinity and friendship so that you can start these conversations! Concentrate on them and don't forget you have the entire Internet at your fingertips, friend!

    ⒉Model vulnerability. Say the thing that frightens or worries you. like "I'm afraid nobody will go to my party," or "I miss my grandma every day." Doing so will make it easier for other people to follow your lead. We are all on the elevator to a society where emotional availability is normalized, and I want you to press "door open".

    ⒊Ask more questions. People sometimes feel they might be prying (爱打听的) if they ask someone about themselves-especially when their friend is sharing something tough. But if you get curious in moments of vulnerability you will open the door to all kinds of growth in your relationship. Take the opportunity to really see your friend and show them they matter by following up.

    ⒋Get close with the children in your life. Way's research says that the top priority that helps children (especially boys) grow up to have enriching friendships is to be close with an adult relative who was not afraid to express emotions. So. if you are a father. stepfather. or thinking about becoming one. or if you have nieces or nephews, take the opportunity to be close to them and help them grow up to be good friends, too.