I was at my parent's dinner table. Before me was a worn journal of thin and discolored pages. It was my grandfather's journal and now belonged to my father. My grandfather had passed away in the months leading up to my birth. I never got to visit the places he had frequently and people who had been a part of his life's journey.

    I was now about to enter his world, through the words he had left behind. Within minutes, I was attracted by the power of the written words. In the magical script before me, I was transported to another age when food was an everyday art, planned, prepared and enjoyed in the company of others, and a time when people had the heart to pause，their own lives to embrace (拥抱）each other's struggles. All this was conveyed to me in the beauty of the words that flowed together to connect with the writer's mind and understand the world they lived in.

    That kind of writing seems to be lost on us today. We have gotten used to writing in bite-sized pieces for a public looking for entertainment, and hungry for information. No wonder, there are nearly 200 million bloggers on the Internet and a new blog is created somewhere in the world every half a second. Instead of adding to our collective wisdom, most of these writings reflect the superficiality (肤浅)and impatience of our day and age.

    This not only robs us of the skill of writing impressive essays, it also prevents us from exploring what is truly important. Writing humbles us in a way that is vital for our character growth, by reminding us about the limits of the self and our appropriate place in the vast flow of life. Writing frees us by helping us explore the unknown so that we truly open up to the magic of the world around us. I saw all of this in the writing s of my grandfather. And I've seen it again and again in the writings of the greatest thinkers of humanity. Their writings reflect deep thought on issues of human importance.

    Do you drink water that's been left sitting out overnight or even for another day? Have you noticed it tastes different?

    Tap water that has been left to sit out slowly begins to acquire(获得) off taste. Many people think that this is because of microorganisms. But that's not what makes old water taste not fresh. For that we can thank carbon dioxide. After about 12 hours, tap water starts to go flat as carbon dioxide in the air starts to mix with the water in the glass, lowering its pH and giving it an off taste. But it's most likely safe to drink.

    However, back to those microorganisms. If you use a dirty glass day after day, there is more of a chance of bacteria making themselves known; a risk that increases if you share the glass with another mouth as well. But assuming(假设) you use a fresh glass every few days, you probably won't have a problem unless the glass has been touched by dirty fingers, and especially if those dirty fingers went unwashed after using the bathroom.

    As for plastic water bottles that have been left out in the sun or in the car, step away from the bottle, warns Dr. Kellogg Schwab, director of the Johns Hopkins University Water Institute. "A chemical called biphenyl-A, or BPA, along with other things used to make plastic can leach(过滤) into your water if the bottle heats up or sits in the sun," he explains. BPA, as you probably know, has been linked to everything from heart disease to cancer. Schwab also adds that plastic used for commercial bottled water isn't meant to be washed or refilled, so use only one time and recycle. Or don't buy them at all; use refillable water bottles instead.

    Researchers are trying to figure out exactly when and where a lizard got trapped in the sap(汁、液) of a tree. Over time, the tree sap turned into amber (琥珀), preserving the lizard's mains, which a man discovered and donated to the Miller Museum of geology at Queen's University. But the man didn't report the amber's age and where he got it.

    “The man who donated it died, unfortunately,” said Ellen Handyside, an undergraduate student at Queen's University. “We are really starting from scratch in determining its history Ellen Handyside is leading the research into the amber-surrounded lizard. She and her colleagues analyzed the chemical composition of the 4.7-inch -long piece of amber and learned some facts. “The amber wasn't actually artificial,” she told Live Science, “and we found that it did match up quite well to an amber sample.”

    The researchers analyzed the amber's carbon and hydrogen isotopes(同位素) and the results indicated that the amber was formed from the sap of a flowering tree. Moreover, the results suggested that the tree and the lizard, for that matter, lived in an area with a lot of rainfall and dated to the Neogene, a period that lasted from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago to the beginning of the present Quatemary Period. Next, the scientific team realized that the 2.7-inch-long lizard was likely a gecko(壁虎), according to a detailed, 3D, digital model of the animal's body that the researchers created through X-ray microscopy scans.

“We looked at the skull —the teeth are in place and the ear bones are there too. And we've even got some flesh, skin and its long toes,” Handyside said. “It's fantastic!” She said she hoped that they could figure out how the creature fit into the gecko family tree. “When you think of a gecko, you think of short and fat toes and sticky pads. That isn't what we're looking at, but it's more likely to live in trees. If it were a tree-living creature, then its death actually could make more sense,” Handyside said.

    On August 25, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Southern Texas. The storm lasted for days, pouring almost 52 inches of rain. The downpour has caused widespread flooding, forcing more than 32,000 people into shelters and damaging the city's water supply system.

    The only silver lining is that disasters like these seemed to unite people. While the number of organizations and individuals that have gone all out to assist the victims is too many to list, here are some highlights of the outpouring of support that has made headlines this past week.

    A week ago, NFI player JJ Watt set up a website with a goal to raise $200,000. Soon he has collected over $18 million, and the donations keep pouring in. The thrilled football star wants to ensure the money is used where needed, saying, “We're trying to make sure it goes directly to the people. So our first wave of operation is we'll have nine semi-trucks going out there and I will go straight into the communities and hand stuff out there.”

    Ordinary individuals are not shying away from helping either. Jim McIngvale, the owner of a furniture store, turned his two 100,000-square-foot warehouse into shelters. When asked if he was concerned about the furniture that was being used by those living there, he responded, “These people are nice. They're taking care of the furniture. Furniture's made to be sat on, slept on or laid on. It's just a product.”

    There are also many unsung heroes that are putting their lives at risk to help others. After discovering an elderly man trapped inside his truck, local people made a human chain through the dangerous water to drag him to safety.

    While there is not much anyone could have done to prevent the loss, people across the US are doing everything they can to help its people recover.

    Dolphin or not a dolphin? That is the question! You see, there are several types of dolphins. Some are saltwater dolphins while others are river dolphins.

    "What are the 32 types of dolphins?" When people are asking the question, they are actually referring to the saltwater dolphins in oceans and seas. The river dolphins living in fresh water are not included in these species. But what would be the answer in this case if we ask. "Dolphin or not a dolphin?" The answer would obviously be yes. River dolphins still belong to the dolphin family.

    Among the 32 types of dolphins do not actually wear the word "dolphin" in their names, such as the tucuxi, while others actually have the word "whale" as part of their names even if they are not whales but in fact, belong to the dolphin family, for example, the melon-headed whale and the killer whale. So what would be the answer to the question "Dolphin or not a dolphin?" in these cases? It would be yes. All these species do belong to the dolphin family.

    Another question that people ask is. "Are the sea animals that perform at aquariums(水族馆)all dolphins?" So ,it always seems to come back to the question, "Dolphin or not a dolphin?" Well the answer is no in this case. The sea animals that perform there are not all dolphins. The beluga which people tend to think belong to the dolphin family because they show what seems like a smile, like most dolphins, are in fact a species of the whale family.

    Now that you read these facts about dolphins, you probably realize that certain sea animals may appear to be part of the dolphin species and that others seem to be part of the whale family but in either case, it is not obvious and can be surprising when you identify a sea animal as being a dolphin or not a dolphin. That is the question ！

    Even plant can run a fever, especially when they're under attack by insects or disease. But unlike human, plants can have their temperature taken from 3,000 feet away straight up. A decade ago, adopting the infrared（红外线） scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers precisely（精确的） target pesticide（杀虫剂） spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which always includes plants that don't have pest problems.

    Even better, Paley's Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems before they became visible to the eye. Fixed on a plane flown at 3,000 feet at night, an infrared scanner measured the heat sent out by crops. The data were transformed into a color﹣coded map showing where plants were running "fevers". Farmers could then spot﹣spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide that they otherwise would.

    The bad news is that Paley's company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long﹣term supporters were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce and refinements（改进） in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt that the technology works. "This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States," says George Oerther of Texas A&M, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture, thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial support which he failed to obtain 10years ago.