Teens Spring Events at San Francisco Public Library

    GREAT TEEN BOOK SWAP

    Sunday, March 19, 2017— 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

    FREE book! Just leave us a review.

    Here's how it works: Every Thursday, the librarian will bring out several books and allow teens the chance to look through them for one that you'd like to keep. You will, in turn, swap us a review of the book by the end of the month.

    For ages 12— 18.

    For more information, contact Dorcas at dorcas.wong@sfpl.org.

    THE MIX BOOK CLUB!

    Sunday, March 19, 2017— 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

    Teens aged 13— 18 are welcome to The Mix at SFPL Book Club! We read a different book each month that you help choose. This month we're reading The Sun is Also A Star, by Nicola Yoon. New members and drop-ins are always welcome!

    For more information, please e-mail catherine.cormier@sfpl.org or call (415)557-4404.

    THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY BY HENRY JAMES

    Sunday, March 19, 2017— 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

    Please join Chinatown's World Literature Book Club for an enjoyable discussion of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. This famous novel follows the young, free-spirited heiress, Isabel Archer, as she travels from New York to Europe.

    CARTOONING & GRAPHIC NOVEL WORKSHOP

    Saturday, March 25, 2017— 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

    Join teaching artist and cartoonist Aaron Southerland for a cartooning and graphic novel workshop. Students will learn to create their very own cartoon and comic characters through advanced drawing techniques.

    This is a Reading, Writing & Poetry program from SFPL. We love reading/ sharing/ creating words.

    The number of accidents involving pedestrians (行人) wearing headphones is on the rise, a report suggests, causing fresh warning from road safety groups in Britain.

    A US-based study found a total of 116 reports of death or injury to pedestrians wearing headphones between 2004 and 2011, jumping from 16 in 2005 to 47 in 2011.

    Most victims were men (68%) and under the age of 30 (67%), with around one in ten of all cases (9%) under the age of 18.Some 89% of the cases occurred in urban areas and more than half (55%) of the victims were struck by trains .

Eighty-one of the 116 accidents (70%) resulted in the person's death—even though a warning was sounded in around a third of the cases.

    The study concluded, “The use of headphone may be a safety risk to pedestrians , especially in environments with moving vehicles（cars）. Further research is needed to determine if and how headphone use threatens pedestrian safety.” British road safety groups warned pedestrians to be careful.

    Floor Lieshout, director of Youth For Road Safety, said,“ This study shows once more the importance of using all of our senses while we are near traffic. It is important that we find an attractive way to make youth learn about the risks of wearing headphones in traffic.”

    Andrew Howard, who is the head of road safety at the Automobile Association, added that some pedestrians can be “so focused in their own little world they forget the world going on around them”. That can include headphone wearers, Howard said, but also people talking on phones.

    However, Howard said that more researches needed to be done.

    Earlier studies have shown that people wearing headphones or talking on phones can suffer “inattentional blindness” which makes them isolated (孤立) from the world around them .

    Ian Harvey, at the charity Civic Voice, said that “ to defeat isolation and to help build a civic(文明的) society, people need to interact(交往) with each other .

    He said,“ A basis for any civilized society is communication—Surfing the web, listening to MP3s, reading blogs or sending e-mail is not interacting with a person; it's interacting with a machine.

    “If people feel socially isolated, they need to have more face-to-face interactions with other human beings and in time, will begin to feel happier and more connected to the world and place they live in.”

    When Ron first started with his organization, he loved his job. He went into work every day filled with purpose and passion (热情). Three years later, however, it was hard to recognize him. Now, Ron detests going to work. He feels that his work is meaningless, he's always stressed, and he calls in sick frequently.

    These are basic symptoms (征兆) of burnout. If you've experienced this yourself, it's important that you should know how to recover from it before you have difficulty in having a sense of satisfaction and then dislike your job.

    You first need to know why you've experienced burnout. First, look at any resentment (愤怒) that you feel towards your work. Often, feelings of resentment point to something important that is missing.

    Here's a good example. Jennifer manages a team around the world, so her workday often starts at 6 a.m. She doesn't mind this because she likes her team and her job. But she feels resentful when her boss forgets that she starts work so early and repeatedly asks her to stay late, which causes her to miss important time with her family.

    In this example, burnout wouldn't happen if Jennifer disliked her job; in fact, she loves what she does. She experiences burnout because she hates missing out on family time in the evenings.

    Take time to think about any negative feelings that you have about your role, and try to get to the root of the problem. Once you've known the cause of your burnout, write down at least one way that you can manage that source of stress. This might include giving some of your duties to others, working from home one day a week, or even changing roles.

    Why can some people sleep through noises like a honking car or flushing toilet, while others are awakened by the lightest sound?

    To find the answer, sleep researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital conducted an unusual study of 12 self-described deep sleepers. After tests confirmed that the healthy volunteers were solid sleepers, they took part in a three-night study in the university's sleep laboratory. The participants spent the night in a big and comfortable room. But the room also included four speakers positioned near the top of the bed.

    During the night, the deep sleepers were subjected to 14 different recorded sounds, like street traffic, toilets flushing, and an airplane flying overhead. Next door, the researchers monitored their sleep patterns and brain waves.

    As expected, all of the participants slept relatively well, but there were differences in how they responded to the noisy interruptions. Some of the sleepers didn't wake up even when a sound was blasted at 70 decibels（分贝）; others were awakened by sounds at 40 or 50 decibels.

    The researchers discovered that the difference in a sleeper's reaction to noise could be predicted by the level of brain activity called "sleep spindles（纺锤体）". A sleep spindle is a burst of high-frequency brain activity coming from deep inside the brain during sleep. The source of the spindles is the thalamus（丘脑）, a part of the brain that sends sensory information to the rest of the cortex（皮层）.

    Before the study, the Massachusetts researchers theorized that the spindles are the brain's way of preventing sensory information from passing through the thalamus and waking the rest of the brain during sleep. They found that sleepers who experienced the most sleep spindles during the night were also the soundest sleepers and were least likely to be awakened by noise.

    Scientists already know that most people become lighter sleepers with age, most likely because older people experience less "slow wave sleep", which is the deepest stage of sleep. People also produce fewer sleep spindles as they age. But even when controlling for the stage of sleep a person was in, the number of sleep spindles still predicted their risk for awakening because of noise.

    More research is needed, but the findings suggest that a better understanding of sleep spindles could lead to new behavioral or drug therapies for people with sleep disorders. For example, future studies may try to determine whether diet, exercise or other behaviors may influence the number of sleep spindles a person produces during the night.

    Students in a college French class have helped fill the empty bookshelves of a very poor Haitian(海地的) school by writing 90 books. Although many children in Haiti speak Creole(克里奥尔语) at home, French is taught in classrooms and used by the government , and students are asked to know the language in order to get further education. Therefore, the class hoped to provide resources to help the young students learn French well.

    The project, called Little French Books, was headed up by Jennifer Shotwell, a French professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. Shotwell had visited Haiti with a group of students in 2013 to support a Haitian student and give books to a new library. Following the trip, Shotwell brought the experience back to her classroom.

    "My students have a chance to use the French language in a special way by writing children's books," Shotwell said. "Though some learners don't think they can produce much with a new language, my students are learning to express themselves and create entertaining stories that we finally share with disadvantaged children who are also learning French."

    Shotwell had sent French books to Haitian schools, but they were printed on cheap paper that could be easily broken. So she started a Kickstarter, which collected more than $1,000 to make books with durable covers.

    The books, which included stories about princesses, dinosaurs and exciting experiences, were given to the St.Gabriel's school in Lascahobas.

    "Each time a child gets into a new book, he will no doubt get new knowledge and new understanding. The Little French Books means a lot to our students, said Gardy Myrtil, a teacher at the school.