“Is there anything else you need, honey？” my dad asked  me as he put three twenty­dollar bills in my hand. I was traveling  back home from a family visit, and after treating me to breakfast  and filling my car with gas, it was obvious that my dad wanted  to make sure that I would be okay on the road.

    “No, Dad. You've done so much already. Thank you！” I was overwhelmed once again by his kind acts of providing  everything I needed, despite the fact I just turned 40. Yet I realize that in my father's eyes, I will always be his little girl. He takes deep pleasure in knowing his children are all right.  Now that he has enough money, he loves to give whenever he  sees a need.

    But this was not always the case.  Divorced from my mother when I was 11, my dad couldn't be around his kids as  often as he would have liked. Money was also tight; even weekend visits were rare. However, my dad stayed in constant  communication with us and made sure he was involved in our lives. Though he couldn't always be there in person, I knew  he was only a phone call away. I could always count on that.

    Even now, almost 30 years later, I treasure knowing that I can pick up the phone and call Dad, and he'll be there for me. I have a wonderful husband, but that hasn't changed how   Dad sees me. I'm still his child and he loves to see that my   needs are met.

    I remember a time when I was shopping in a hardware store(五金店)with Dad. I mentioned my plans to paint one wall in my house. Well, that's all it took for Dad to take   action. By the time I got to the checkout(结账) line, all the supplies I picked out were put out of my hands and placed with things he bought.

    Then there was the time when I took him with me to do some grocery shopping for just a few “ items”. By the time we  were finished, my shopping cart was full of groceries from  every shelf in the store! My sister and I joke that if you don't want Dad to buy it for you, avoid even mentioning you want something.

    A good joke can be the hardest thing to understand when studying a foreign language. As a recent article in The Guardian newspaper noted, “There's more to understanding a joke in a foreign language than understanding vocabulary and grammar.”

    Being able to understand local jokes is often seen as an unbelievable ice-breaker for a language learner eager to form friendships with native speakers. “I always felt that humor was a ceiling that I could never break through,” Hannah Ashley, a public relations account manager in London, who once studied Spanish in Madrid, told The Guardian, “I could never speak to people on the same level as I would speak to a native English speaker. I almost came across as quite a boring person because all I could talk about was facts.”

    In fact, most of the time, jokes are only funny for people who share a cultural background or understand humor in the same way. Chinese-American comedian Joe Wong found this out first-hand. He had achieved huge success in the US, but when he returned to China in 2008 for his first live show in Beijing, he discovered that people didn't think his. Chinese jokes were as funny as his English ones.

    In Australia, meanwhile many foreigners find understanding jokes about sports to be the biggest headache. “The hardest jokes are related to rugby because I know nothing about rugby,” said Melody Cao, who was once a student in Australia. “When I heard jokes I didn't get, I just laughed along.”

    In the other two major English-speaking countries, the sense of humor is also different. British comedian Simon Pegg believes that while British people use irony (反话)—basically, saying something they don't mean to make a joke—every day, people in the US don't see the point of using it so often. “British jokes tend to be more subtle and dark, while American jokes are more obvious with their meanings, a bit like Americans themselves,” he wrote in The Guardian.

    Harvard researchers have created a tough, low-cost, biodegradable (可生物降解的) material inspired by insects' hard outer shells. The material's inventors say it has a number of possible uses and someday could provide a more environmentally friendly alternative to plastic. The material, made from shrimp ('虾) shells and proteins produced from silk, is called "shrilk." It is thin, clear, flexible and strong.

    A major benefit of the material is its biodegradability. Plastic's toughness and flexibility represented a revolution in materials science during the 1950s and '60s. Decades later, however, plastic's very durability (耐用性) is raising questions about how appropriate it is for one-time products such as plastic bags, or short-lived consumer goods, used in the home for a few years and then cast into a landfill where they will degrade for centuries. What is the point of making something that lasts 1,000 years?

    Shrilk not only will degrade in a landfill, but its basic components are used as fertilizer(肥料), and so will enrich the soil.

    Shrilk has great potential, the inventors said. Materials from which it is made are plentiful in nature, found in everything ranging from shrimp shells, insect bodies to living plants. That makes shrilk low cost, and its mass production possible should it be used for products demanding a lot of material.

Work on shrilk is continuing in the lab. The inventors said the material becomes flexible when wet, so they're exploring ways to use it in wet environments. They're also developing simpler production processes, which could be used for non-medical products, like for computer cases and other products inside the home. They're even exploring combining it with other materials, like carbon fibers, to give it new properties.

    Those who are in love really know each other's thoughts and can see into one another's ice cream bowl.This truth became so clear to me the other day.

    At about 11:00 a.m.,my husband Gary called from work to see what was up at home."Oh nothing,"I said,"just having a little early lunch."Then he said,"So how's the coffee ice cream I bought?"I could almost "hear" him smiling.

    "What?"I was stunned.How in the world did he know I was eating ice cream?I never eat the ice cream, especially in the morning.Besides,he knows that I had been trying to diet again.However,I could hardly hide the laughter in my voice as I calmly asked,"Why would you think I'm eating coffee ice cream?"

    Gary said,"Uh...first,you said 'Just having a little early lunch' in a guilty,high voice.Second,your tongue must be rather cold because your words were a bit slow."What he said made me laugh out loud."The other thing is,I noticed you left some coffee ice cream untouched last night.That was like me hiding some cigarettes in the corner to enjoy later."

    We laughed long and hard together before he asked me gently,"What happened?Er...something must have happened to make you eat ice cream before lunch."

    Suddenly,I felt a rush of love for the man on the other end of the line.He knew me well-cared enough to find out what was bothering me,and trusted me enough to help me laugh at myself.

    Last fall, I happened to overhear a student telling the others he had decided not to sign up for an introductory philosophy course. The demands of his major, he said seriously, meant he needed to take "practical" courses, and "enlightenment" would simply have to wait. For now, employability was the most important.

    The students' conversation fits into a larger alarming narrative about the role of the humanities in higher education. In a time of dizzying technological achievement and of rapid scientific innovation, sceptics of the humanities may question the usefulness of studying Aristotle, the Italian Renaissance or Chinese fiction.

    Actually, I regret not interrupting that student to argue for taking that introductory philosophy course. I would have started by reminding him that, for much of America's history, college graduates were not considered truly educated unless they had mastered philosophy, literature, political theory and history. The key role of higher education was to invite students into the conversations about matters like what it means to be alive and the definition of justice. Fostering engagement with these subjects is still an essential part of the university's function in society.

    I would have also mentioned to the student that he was misinformed about the job market. It is true that many employers are looking for graduates with specialized technical skills, but they also look for other capabilities. As the world is transformed by artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation, the unique human qualities of creativity, imagination and moral reasoning will be the ultimate coin of the realm. All these skills are developed in humanities courses.

    Further, I would have argued that while a degree anchored in the sciences is an important precondition for many jobs, it is not the only route. Look no further than the founders of companies such as LinkedIn, Slack and Flickr, who are among the many tech businesspersons with degrees in the humanities, and who credit that training for their success.

    Contrary to the widely held belief that humanities majors have a hard time getting jobs, recent studies show that those with humanities degrees are successful in the workplace, experiencing low rates of unemployment and reporting high levels of job satisfaction. The ratio between average median(中位数) incomes for humanities degree holders and those with business, engineering, and health and medical sciences degrees has been shown to narrow over the course of a career.

    The case for the humanities can also be understood in less transactional terms and more as a foundational preparation for a life well lived. A humanities education plays a vital role in encouraging citizens to lead an examined life. It fosters critical thinking, self-reflection, empathy and tolerance, the usefulness of which only becomes more apparent as one navigates life's challenges.

    By all means, students should take courses they think practical and follow their interests, but if they also make a point of studying the literature of the Renaissance, or researching into modern poetry, or even taking introductory philosophy, we will all benefit.

    Almost every night for more than 10 years, Kirk Alexander, 48, ordered a late dinner from his local restaurant Domino's Pizza. But for the past two weeks, he hasn't called for even once.

    "A few of my staff mentioned that we hadn't seen his order in a while. Then I found that it had been 12 days since he last ordered, which is not like him," Domino's general manager Sarah Fuller said, feeling she could no longer ignore Kirk's recent absence.

    Sarah has known Kirk since 2009 when she started working at the Domino's Pizza as a delivery driver (送餐员) and often made the short trip to Kirk's home about six minutes away. She knew Kirk worked from home, and neighbors said he seldom left. She also knew that he suffered some health problems in the past. Something, Sarah worried, was wrong.

    Around 1 a. m. on May 8, Sarah sent delivery driver Sean Hamblen to visit Kirk's home. Sean arrived at Kirk's home and knocked on the front door several times. There was no answer. He later noticed that the lights and the TV in the home were on. When he called Kirk's phone, it went straight to voice mail.

    Sean drove back to the restaurant to tell Sarah and they decided to call 911. Soon, officers arrived at Kirk's home. So did Sarah and Sean. They heard a man calling for help from inside. Officers broke down the door and found Kirk on the floor in need of medical attention at once after suffering from a heart attack (心脏病发作). One day later, they might have been too late.

    So is keeping an eye on regular customers (老顾客) part of Domino's business plan? Not really. "Kirk is part of our family here and we feel like we need to do something." Sarah said.