New Sciencenter Featured Exhibition: Ocean Bound!

    Opening weekend

    Member Preview: Friday, February 3, 6—8 pm

    Public Opening: Saturday, February 4, 10 am — 5 pm

    Start a journey through watersheds to see how everyone's actions affect the health of our ocean. Enjoy interacting with 3D watershed models, piloting a full-size submersible from mountain stream to ocean, guiding water safely through a hazardous maze, diverting pollutants as they travel through storm-water drains, playing with early education exhibits inside a clubhouse, and many more engaging interactive exhibits.

    Showtime! Plant and Animal Double-Takes

    Saturday, January 21, 2 pm

    Have you ever looked at a living thing and wondered, Is that a plant or an animal? Join Sciencenter educators Julie Yurek and Sarah Cox to look into species that make you take a second look. Explore the surprising differences between these plants and animals.

    Showtime! Solar Power Goes Nano

    Saturday, February 11, 2 pm

    Did you know scientists are using nanotechnology to store solar energy? Learn about solar power and the emerging use of hydrogen fuel cells. Justin Sambur, NSF Postdoctoral Research Associate at Cornell's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, will demonstrate a model race car that uses a hydrogen fuel cell kit powered by solar energy.

    Special Showtime! Presentation: Animal Adaptations for Winter

    Wednesday, February 22, 1 pm

    Have you ever wondered how animals survive in winter? Join Emma Brofsky of Cornell's Naturalist Outreach Program to explore animal adaptations for winter and learn how biology helps animals cope with cold weather, food shortages, and limited habitats. Touch animal pelts and do a hands-on activity on animal insulation.

    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.

    It is a cold and dry winter morning. When you wake up, you feel that your throat hurts. You begin to sneeze and later you may cough. You must have a cold! Wait a moment. Could it just be a common cold or the flu that's been going around?

    A cold gives you a runny nose and cough. But it's usually easy to deal with. Some take medicine while others drink herbal tea or chicken soup. Usually you feel better after a week.

    On the other hand, the flu can be much more dangerous. It usually gives you fever.

    Sometimes it can cause death. According to an American magazine, the worst flu killed about 50 million people from 1918 to 1919.

    Don't worry. If you get a flu vaccine（疫苗）, it can stop you from getting the virus. Flu vaccines work by giving the body a small amount of flu viruses. This causes your body to develop antibodies. So next time you get the flu, the antibodies should help you.

    The flu virus changes every few years. Therefore, there are so many types of flu, such as H1N1 and H5N1. The antibodies for one type of flu can't help us against all types of flu. That's why we need to get vaccine every year.

    However, good health habits may also help stop you developing a cold or flu. Washing your hands often helps stop you from getting viruses. It is also important to get regular exercise and eat healthy food. All these can help you strengthen your immune system.

    David Brown and Anne are two patients in the Adult Day Care Program at Mercy Hospitals. David Brown is seventy-two years old. He's friendly and likes to talk. He lives with his wife in the city. But David is becoming forgetful. His wife says, “He'll heat up some soup, then forget to turn off the gas.” She is sixty-one and still works. She is worried about leaving her husband alone.

    Anne is eighty and lives with her 60-year old daughter. Her daughter says that she needs a rest. “Mom follows me everywhere. She follows me when I read newspapers. I need a rest and she does, too.”

    And so, several times a week, David and Anne's families take them to the Adult Day Care Center. Many hospitals have this program, Patients come to the Center for a full or half day, from one to five days a week. All the patients live with their families and most are old people.

    Mrs. Carol Johnson is the director of the Center. She says, “We help the patients learn many things here. Patients have the chance to get out of their houses. Husbands, wives or grown children can work or have a rest. Most important of all, families are able to stay together.”

    There are plenty of mindless activities to keep a child busy in this information age. Yet despite the competition, my 8-year-old daughter Alice wants to spend her leisure time writing short stories. She wants to enter one of her stories into a writing contest, a competition which she won last year.

    As a writer, I know about winning contests—and about losing them. I know what it is like to work hard on a story only to receive a rejection letter from the publisher. I also know the pressure of trying to live up to a reputation created by previous victories. What if she doesn't win the contest again? That's the strange thing about being a parent. So many of our own past scars and destroyed hopes can resurface in our children.

    A revelation (启示) came last week when I asked her, "Don't you want to win again?" "No," she replied. "I just want to tell the story of an angel going to first grade."

    I had just spent weeks correcting her stories as she spontaneously (自发地) told them. Telling myself that I was an experienced writer guiding the young writer across the hall, I offered suggestions for characters, conflicts and endings for her tales. The story about a fearful angel starting first grade was quickly "guided" by me into the tale of a little girl with a wild imagination taking her first music lesson. I had turned her contest into my contest without even realizing it.

    Staying back and giving kids space to grow is not as easy as it looks. Because I know very little about farm animals who use tools or angels who go to first grade, I had to accept the fact that I was co-opting (借鉴) my daughter's experience.

    While stepping back was difficult for me, it was certainly a good first step that I will quickly follow with more steps, putting myself far enough away to give her room but close enough to help if asked. All the while I will be reminding myself that children need room to experiment, grow and find their own voices.

Many people who are learning English want to know how to improve their reading skills. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The effective way to improve your reading skills is to love reading and practice more.

Reading is one of the most important language skills because we use it to expand our vocabulary and improve the way we speak, write and listen. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Seeing new ways to say things can help your understanding of English and improve not only your reading, but also your other language skills.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#} If we do not understand something, we can go over it again and even look up the words we do not know the meanings of. This means that we have a much greater chance of understanding information that we read than information that we hear.

So how do we practice reading so that our skill level improves? When we read a passage, we need to understand it. We must understand what the important words mean in each sentence. This does not mean that we need to know the meaning of every word. In many cases, we can find out what words mean from the words around them. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} To do this, we must understand how words work together. In many cases, we must "see" part of the message that has not been written, or we must form an opinion ourselves.

Reading is an essential part of your study of the English language. It can help you understand and learn more. It can also become a satisfying hobby.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A．Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this.

B．Unlike listening, reading allows us to take our time.

C．Among the four skills, listening is the most important one.

D．It is hoped that you will love reading and improve your reading skills.

E．When we read, we can see how things are said, from sentence structure to expression.

F．If we do not, we will not be able to understand what the entire article or story is about.

G．Once we understand what the words mean, we need to figure out what the message is.