"Some secrets are hidden from health," wrote John Updike in his poem "Fever".

    I have experienced the truth of Updike's observation. My excellent health kept me from seeing some things—things that became secrets of sort.

    One relates to my son Chris. When I lost my health in March, I discovered something I had missed about him.

    Christopher has been a scholar and athlete through high school. He has behaved responsibly, engaged in community service. He has had an impressive peer group of  serious students.

    While I saw these things, I had missed before what I experienced while in hospital. Early on, Christopher offered the clearest and most forceful words about my need to be positive and to fight acute leukemia(急性白血病). He never left the room after a visit without making me promise that I would be mentally tough and positive.

    During the first week, he showed his own mental toughness, researching leukemia and learning what the chances were. He even stopped my doctor outside the room, introduced himself and asked directly what he thought of my chances. He processed the answer without overreaction.

    Christopher did admonish(劝告) me against my choice of words the first week at home. I had moved back into my room from weighing myself, discovering a thin figure I did not know. I announced to him and my wife, “dead man walking”. I thought it was a way to lighten the obvious. He saw it as negativity and was strongly against such thinking and talking.

    When I resisted taking medicine sometimes, Christopher formed a “good-cop-bad-cop” team with his mother. Betsy gently and patiently encouraged. He directly and forcefully insisted. He always made the logical arguments for why I needed to take some awful pills.

    My health had hidden something from me; my ill-health helped me to see it.

    A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, walked into the Harvard University president's outer office.

    "We want to see the president,"the man said softly.

    The president met with the couple.

    The lady told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He love Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. We would like to build a memorial（纪念物）to him, somewhere on campus."

    The president was not touched. "Madam, we can not put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died."

    "Oh, no," the lady explained. "We do not want a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

    The president rolled his eyes, "A building! Do you have any idea how much a building costs?"

    For a moment the lady was silent. Then she turned to her husband and said quietly, "How much does it cost to start a university? Why do not we just start our own?"

    Her husband nodded.

    Mr. And Mrs. Stanford got up and walked away, travelling to California where they established Stanford   University's memorial to their son.

    Visit one of the most outstanding prehistoric sites in the United Kingdom, and enjoy amazing historic English attractions. Please notice that every tour starts and ends in London. Have a tour with visiting Britain.

    Stonehenge Direct Tour

    Visit one of the most outstanding prehistoric sites in England and in the world: Stonehenge.

    Duration：1 day

    Price：Adults ￡29.99，Children ￡28.99

    Stonehenge and Bath Tour

    Enjoy a late breakfast before heading to the Stonehenge site and end your day with an original visit to the Roman Baths.

    Duration：10 hours(departure 10：30 a．m.，return 8：30 p．m.)

    Price：Adults ￡64，Children ￡60

    Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle Tour

    Explore three of England's most popular sites to visit: Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and the Roman Baths.

    Duration：1 day(return 8：30 p．m.)

    Price：Adults ￡64.80, Children ￡61.20

    Stonehenge, Lacock and Bath Tour

    Come and feel the warmth of Bath, see the pleasant village of Lacock, and solve the mystery of Stonehenge.

    Duration：1 day(return 6 p．m.)

    Price：Adults ￡85，Children ￡78

    Stonehenge, Windsor and Oxford Tour

    Choose Stonehenge ，Windsor and Oxford Tour and enjoy ancient mysticism, royal history and illustrious knowledge.

    Duration：1 day

    Price：Adults ￡72, Children ￡68

    Stonehenge, Bath and Stratford Tour

    Take a tour to make the most of the English historic attractions：the Stonehenge site, Bath and Stratford, the birthplace of playwright William Shakespeare.

    Duration：1 day(return 8 p．m.)

    Price：Adults ￡79, Children ￡68

    Jack London, one of America's major writers of adventure tales, was born in California in 1876. During his life, London worked at many jobs. His broad life experiences would become the background for his writing.

    London loved to read. As a teenager, he spent many hours educating himself at the Oakland, California, public library. He attended college at the University of California at Berkeley, but he stayed for only six months. He thought Berkeley was “not lively enough” and wanted to do something more exciting.

    London wrote stories about working people and the hard times they had making a living. He knew their problems first hand. He worked as a sailor, farmer, factory employee, railroad worker, and gold prospector, to name just a few of his many jobs.

    London grew up near the waterfront in Oakland. He loved the water. When he was fifteen years old, he bought a small sailboat called a sloop. Later he sailed to Japan on a schooner, which is a much larger sailing boat. Like many people of the time, London caught the Klondike Gold Rush Fever. In 1897, he headed for Alaska. He didn't find gold, but he discovered something even more valuable. He discovered that people enjoyed listening to the stories he made up with his vivid imagination. London entertained the miners with story after story. Later, using his experiences during the Gold Rush, he created many more colorful stories.

    London resolved to live a full, exciting life. He once said, “I would rather be a superb meteor(流星), every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.” Each day, he pushed himself. Once London determined that he was going to be a writer, nothing could stop him. His goal was to write at least one thousand words every day. He refused to stop even when he was sick. In eighteen years, the writer published fifty-one books and hundreds of articles. He was the best-selling and highest-paid author of his day. Many people also considered him to be the best writer. White Fang and The Call of the Wild are his most famous stories and are about surviving in the Alaskan wilderness. Readers can enjoy Jack London's energy and his talent for telling wonderful stories each time they open one of his novels.

    As our closest neighbor in space, the moon has been the subject of popular myths, songs and poems since ancient times. And it has no less fascinated scientists. But even after centuries of research many questions remain to be answered about Earth's only satellite. Perhaps the Chang'e-4 lunar probe will be able to reveal more of its secrets.

    On Dec 8, the probe lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province. It is the first probe to the far side of moon.

    The Earth's gravity slows the moon's rotation, matching it to the speed of its orbit. Thus, the far side of the moon is always dark and has never been seen. It's this sense of the unknown that makes the far side of the moon such an interesting place for scientific and space exploration.

Long exposed to solar winds, the far side may have the special soil and minerals in its upper mantle(地幔).For this reason, Chang'e-4 will study the effect of solar winds on the lunar surface and any minerals found beneath the spacecraft.

    Chang'e-4 is also carrying flower seeds and potato and silkworm eggs to see whether life is possible on the moon. If it is, then the moon will become a more likely destination for space travel in the future. However, due to communication problems, exploration of the dark side will not be easy.

    As the far side is blocked off from us, radio noise coming off Earth is also blocked. This is why China launched the relay satellite Queqiao in May—so that communication between Earth and the probe could go ahead. Power supply will also be a challenge to the mission.

    Chang'e-4 gets energy from the sun through its solar panels. However, a lunar day has the length of 28 Earth days. This means that the probe will need to orbit the moon for over 20 days to be in a position to be able to land in moon daylight and so use its solar panels.

    According to Xinhua, if everything goes well, the satellite will land on the far side on Jan 2.

    The New York Times described the journey as “groundbreaking”, and wrote that it will “give clues to the history and development of the moon”.

A new study looks at how pets provide important support through petting, cuddles (拥抱), and a frequent physical presence. This is especially key when people feel lonely.

The researchers interviewed 32 people aged 59 to 83 years old. Pets included dogs, cats, birds, etc. More than 90%of the people spoke about touch in the relationship with their pets. "Participants often described touch-based interactions with their pets as being comforting or relaxing in a way that contributed to their overall wellbeing," the researchers say. "For our participants, comfort is the sense of being somehow cared for by another being. "

Many people in the study spoke about how their pets just seemed to "know" when they weren't feeling well and they'd move to get physically near them. Different pets were better at providing comfort, some participants insisted. Many said cats were more relaxing companions than dogs, while others said dogs could be relaxing as long as they were "the right kind of dog". But almost all pets provided some sort of comfort to their owners when it came to touch.

Janette Young, lecturer in health sciences at the University of South Australia, and her team uncovered an interesting thing about the pet-human relationship. People in the study often spoke about how their animals demanded to be petted or seemed to take joy in the interaction. This, in turn, made the humans feel good.

The researchers suggest that pets can be "helpful in reducing touch deprivation(匮乏)" and the benefits can come from all kinds of pets. This connection can be particularly important in health care and senior care settings where patients and workers are less likely to be able to see friends and family; yet touch is important and can improve health and happiness.

Pets can also offer benefits that in some cases people can't offer. "Relationships with pets are different to those with humans," Young says. "Animals don't judge and are always with us."