Two summers ago I was about to turn fifty and wanted to do something I'd never done before. My daughter Bailey thought skydiving (跳伞) would be perfect for me. I can promise you that of all the things I was thinking of doing, jumping out of an airplane never came close to making the list. As I age, I seem to have developed a growing fear of heights.

    After several requests from my daughter, I finally said yes and she looked almost shocked. I told a friend what we were doing, then we set off. We had a 3-hour drive to the jump site. We drove through some beautiful countryside, but then we passed a small cemetery(墓地). Then we passed another cemetery and another one. I asked if so many people died jumping out of airplanes in this area that they needed to keep building more cemeteries to bury all the bodies!

    As we squeezed into the little plane, I tightly held the right hand of my partner Ronnie. The short ride to altitude was cruel for me. As Bailey stepped to the door, she looked back at me and said “Dad, I'm sure you can do it!” I said yes as she rolled out. I immediately looked behind me and said “RONNIE I AM NOT FEELING GOOD!” He said, “It's going to be great. Besides, it's too late now anyway”, and we jumped out.

    The next five minutes were some of the most amazing of my life. It was so beautiful and peaceful—except for the parts where I was screaming. I prayed to God for the parachute (降落伞) to open, but mostly I told Him how thankful I was for my life and being with me through good and bad.

    Anaya Elick was born without hands – she has stubs（残端）where most people's wrists begin.

    To hold a pencil, she must balance it between her wrists, then use her arms to push it along the page. But that didn't stop her from winning a national handwriting contest when she was in first grade.

    In the two years since, she has taken on greater challenges. Last week, she won another national handwriting contest, this one for cursive（草书）. And by all accounts from her teachers at Greenbrier Christian Academy, she has become an accomplished artist.

    Anaya isn't one to boast about her successes. She unwillingly says they make her proud but adds that they come from “lots of practice.”

    Her friends at school said, “She inspires everybody by what she does and how she does it” child to fail, and raising one who was born with a disability can heighten that protective instinct.

    Before Anaya was born, doctors knew about her condition, although not its cause. Other than having no hands, she is a regular 9-year-old girl.

    Anaya succeeds because she is not afraid to fail, Middleton said. The two began practicing cursive last year, when Anaya was in second grade. She struggled sometimes, because unlike traditional penmanship, which allows for breaks after each letter, cursive words are written straight through – and added effort for someone who must balance rather than hold the pencil.

    Middleton could see her daughter thinking through the challenge, figuring out how she could do better. She'd get frustrated at times, but she never hesitated to do things as often as it took to get them right.

    “I don't think I've ever heard Anaya say I can't do something,” Middleton said.

    That attitude carries over to her other interests.

    Recently, Anaya and her classmates sat in Cheryl Leader's art room, working on an exercise. The goal was to get them thinking about different concepts, like color combinations and how an image can be formed by fully coloring inside straight and diagonal lines.

    It has been around for centuries, but up until very recently, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) wasn't fully accepted abroad. Proof of this can be found in The Treatment (《刮痧》), a 2001 film that tells the story of a Chinese man in the US who's accused of abuse after he uses guasha, a form of TCM treatment, to cure his grandson's disease.

    During the last 10 years or so, however, TCM has been getting increasingly popular all over the world. A report released by the State Council Information Office on Dec. 6 says this style of health care, which includes different forms like herbal medicine and exercise, has spread to 183 countries and regions.

    "We have set up 10 TCM centers outside China, and all of them are popular among locals," Wang Guoqiang, head of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said at a news conference on Dec 6. "Governments of 86 countries and regions have signed agreements with the Chinese government on TCM corporation."

    One of the reasons behind the growing popularity of TCM is the increase of scientific research into it. And after Tu Youyou, the Chinese scientist who discovered the anti-malaria (抗疟疾) drug qinghaosu (青蒿素), won the Nobel Prize in 2015, TCM became even more famous internationally.

    However, all these achievements in TCM don't mean that it's problem-free. Over the years, TCM has faced challenges in being able to prove that it has certain effects.

    Some researchers have suggested TCM should be more exact and work together with Western medicine.

    "Bringing together with Western medicine and TCM, rather than being in competition, is where the potential for great effects is," said Bernhard Schwartlander, the China representative of the World Health Organization.

    An 80-year-old man was sitting on the sofa in his house along with his 45-year-old son. Suddenly a crow landed on their window. The father asked his son," What is that?" The son replied," That's a crow."

    After a few minutes, the father asked his son for the second time. The son said," Father, I told you just now. It is a crow." After a little while, the father asked his son the same question for the third time," What is that?" This time, the son said to his father in a low and cold tone," It's a crow, a crow."

    After a moment, the father yet again asked his son for the fourth time," What is that?" This time his son shouted at the father," Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again? I have told you already, ‘IT IS A CROW.' Are you not able to understand this?"

    A minute later the father went to his room and came back with a diary, which he had kept since his son was born. On opening a page, he asked his son to read that page.

    "Today my little son aged 3 was sitting with me on the sofa when a crow suddenly landed on the window edge. My son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied him 23 times that it was a crow. I hugged him lovingly each time he asked me the same question. I did not at all feel angry, but instead felt affection for my son."

    If your parents reach old age, do not look at them as a burden, but speak to them gently, and be kind to them. From today say this aloud, "I want to see my parents happy forever. They have cared for me ever since I was a little child. They have always showered me with love. I will take care of my old parents in the BEST way no matter how they behave."

    Think plants are just boring green things that you use for food and decoration? Think again! Plants are able to do some pretty awesome things that you're probably totally unaware of.

    Researchers have discovered that plants have the ability to communicate with an underground network made up of fungus (真菌) , which serves the plants in many ways. Tomato plants use the fungus web to warn each other of their own unhealthy conditions. Trees connected through the fungus network could move nutrients (养分) to and from each other. It is believed that larger trees move nutrients to smaller ones to help them to survive.

    Not only that, but they can also damage unwelcome plants by spreading poisonous chemicals through the fungus. It sounds like the plant world had the Internet before we did.

    Some plants have a rather impressive line of defense against being eaten. When sensing they are being swallowed, they give off a chemical into the air that attracts the insect's natural enemy. The enemy attacks the bug, thus saving the plants. This is basically the plant kingdom version of getting your older brother to beat up that kid who steals your lunch money.

    You might be aware that humans and animals have an internal clock. But did you know that plants also have this clock? This means they can prepare for certain times of day just like we do. Is it because they can react to light at sunrise? In a study, scientists found that plants use the sugars they produce to keep time, which help to regulate the genes responsible for the plant's own internal clock. So, in a sense, wake up with petunias (矮牵牛) is just as valid as ―wake up with the chickens.

    Nature is full of surprises. So for those of you who didn't know the wonders of plants, now you do.

Learning New Vocabulary during Deep Sleep

    Sleeping time is sometimes considered unproductive time. This raises the question whether the time spent asleep could be used more productively, e.g. for learning a new language? Up-to-now sleep research focused on the stabilization and strengthening of memories that had been formed during wakefulness. However, learning during sleep has rarely been examined. There is enough evidence for wake-learned information undergoing a revision by replay in the sleeping brain. The replay during sleep strengthens the still weak memory and leaves the newly acquired information in the pre-existing store of knowledge.

    If re-play during sleep improves the storage of wake-learned information, then first-play, i.e. the initial processing of new information, should also be possible during sleep.

    The research group of Katharina Henke examined whether a sleeping person is able to form new semantic（语义的）associations between played foreign words and translation words during the brain cells' active states, the so-called "Up-states." It turned out to be that what they thought was reasonable. When we reach deep sleep stages, our brain cells progressively coordinate their activity. During deep sleep, the brain cells are commonly active for a brief period of time before they jointly enter into a state of brief inactivity. The active state is called "Up-state" and the inactive state "Down-state". The two states alternate（交替）about every half-second.

    New evidence for sleep-learning challenges current theories of sleep and theories of memory. The concept of sleep that we are separated from the physical environment is no longer reasonable. "It's false that complex learning be impossible during deep sleep," says Simon Ruch, co-first-author. "In how far and with what consequences deep sleep can be applied for the acquisition of new information will be a topic of research in upcoming years," says Katharina Henke.

    The research group of Katharina Henke is part of the Interfaculty Research Cooperation (IRC). Thirteen research groups in medicine, biology and psychology are part of the IRC. The aim of these research groups is to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms（原理）involved in sleep and consciousness.