Wearing a red nose for a day may seem like a strange way to raise money for charity. However, it seems to work in Britain

Red Nose Day (RND) is well-known in the UK. The aim of the day is to raise money for a charity called Comic Relief which helps people in need in Africa and in the UK.

    Red nose?

    Comic Relief was started in 1985 by the scriptwriter Richard Curtis. It's called Red Nose Day, as on this day many people buy a plastic red nose to wear! The money made from selling red noses goes to the charity.

    When is RND?

    Red Nose Day takes place every two years in the spring and is now so famous that many people consider it to be an unofficial national holiday. For example, many schools have non-uniform days. This year Red Nose Day was on 13^th March 2015.

    Money

    Across Britain, people are encouraged to “Do Something Funny for Money”. The money that is collected helps children to go to school, and educates the adults with HIV and AIDS. Comic Relief also works closely with disabled and elderly people to make sure they have equal rights and a better life.

    So, if you are ever in the UK on Red Nose Day, now you know why you may find normal people wearing red noses and doing silly things! It's all for a good cause! If you want to find out more about the day, have a look at the official Read Nose Day website.

    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.

    Health experts are calling for action to increase cancer care and control in the developing world. A medical research paper says cancer was once thought of as a problem mostly in the developed world. But now cancer is a leading cause of death and disability in poor countries as well. Experts from Harvard University and other organizations urge the international community to fight cancer actively, saying it should be fought in the way HIV/AIDS has been fought in Africa.

    Cancer kills more than 7.5 million people a year worldwide. Almost two thirds are in low-income and middle-income countries.

They discover cancer kills more people in developing countries than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. But the world spends only 5% of its cancer resources in those countries.

    Felicia Knaul from Harvard Medical School was one of the writers of the paper. She was in Mexico when she was found to have breast cancer. She received treatment there and her experience showed her the sharp difference between the rich and the poor in treating breast cancer.

    Felicia Knaul says, “And we are seeing how this is attacking young women. It's the number two cause of death in Mexico of women thirty to fifty-four. All over the developing world, it's the number one cancer-related death among young women. I think we have to again say that there is much more we could do about it than we are doing about it. ”

    Professor Knaul met community health workers during her work in developing countries. They were an important part of efforts to reduce deaths from the cancer. They were able to persuade people to get tested to prevent the illness. The experts say cancer care does not have to be costly. For example, patients can be treated with lower-cost drugs.

My Favourite Books

    Jo Usmar is a writer for Cosmopolitan and co­author of the This Book Will series(系列)of lifestyle books. Here she picks her top reads.

Matilda

Roald Dahl

    I once wrote a paper on the influence of fairy tales on Roald Dahl's writing and it gave me a new appreciation for his strange and delightful words. Matilda's battles with her cruel me parents and the bossy headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, are equally fumy and frightening, but they're also aspirational.

After Dark

Haruki Murakami

    It's about two sisters­Eri, a model who either won't or can't stop sleeping, and Mari, a young student. In trying to connect to her sister. Mari starts changing her life and discovers a world of diverse "night people" who are hiding secrets.

Gone Girl

Gillian Fynn

    There was a bit of me that didn't want to love this when everyone else on the planet did but the horror story is brilliant. There's tension and anxiety from the beginning as Nick and Amy battle for your trust. It's a real whodunit and the frustration when you realize what's going on is horribly enjoyable

The Stand

Stephen King

    This is an excellent fantasy novel from one of the best storytellers around. After a serious flu outbreak wipes out 99.4% of the world's population, a battle unfolds between good and evil among those let. Randall Flagg is one of the scariest characters ever.

High-Wire Act

    Mickey Wilson had been on the mountain only a few seconds when he heard the scream. Wilson, 28 years old, had just gotten off the cable car (索道缆车) at the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in Keystone, Colorado, along with his friends Billy Simmons and Hans Mueller. Their friend Richard had been on the cable car ahead of them, but when the men reached the top of the lift, he had disappeared. The men walked toward the source of the scream and found skiers stopped on the slope, pointing to the cable car. And then the friends screamed too.

    "Oh, Richard!" yelled Mueller.

    When Richard had tried to jump off the cable car, his backpack had been caught in the chair, which then dragged him back down the hill. In the process, the backpack belt twisted around his neck, making him breathless. Now Richard's body was swinging four feet above the snow. The cable car operator had quickly stopped it, and the friends kicked off their skis and ran toward the scene. They made a human pyramid to try to reach Richard, but the unconscious man was too far off the ground. With the clock ticking, Wilson ran to the ladder of a nearby lift tower. Scared skiers watched as he struggled the 25 feet. After he reached the top, Wilson's first challenge was to climb onto the two-inch steel cable that held the chairs. He handled the balance and height bravely, but he knew he could not walk on the cable. Therefore, he calmed down and sat over it and then used his hands to pull himself to Richard quickly. Wilson's greatest fear wasn't that he'd fall, but that he wouldn't reach Richard. "This was life or death," he said.

    When he reached Richard's chair, Wilson swung a leg over the cable and attempted to drop down onto it. But as he did that, his jacket caught on the movable footrest, which was in the up position. The footrest began to slide down, with Wilson attached. But before that could happen, he managed to free himself and reached Richard.

    Fortunately, the ski patrol (巡查) had gathered below and performed emergency treatment on Richard, who had been hanging for about five minutes, then skied him down to an ambulance.

    That night, Richard called from the hospital to express his thanks to Wilson, his other friends and the workers at the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area.

Erin Alexander, who was suffering from the loss of her relative, was having a hard day. However, her day took an unexpected turn when she picked up her order and noticed a message on the cup: "Madam," the waitress had written next to a heart, "your heart is golden." The small and unexpected act moved her deeply, brightening the rest of her day.

New research confirms the great influence of experiences like Ms. Alexander's. Researchers found people who perform an unplanned act of kindness tend to undervalue how much the receiver will appreciate it. This could hold many of us back from doing nice things for others more often.

In a recent experiment, 84 participants (参与者) were given a hot chocolate on two cold weekends at a park and were told they could keep it or give it to a stranger. The 75 participants who gave away their drink were asked to guess how "big" their kind act would feel to the receiver on a scale (等级) from 0 to 10, and how the receiver would rate their feelings upon receiving it. The receivers were then asked to report how they actually felt using the same scale.

It turned out that the people doing the kind thing always undervalued the importance of their actions. While they thought they were offering something small, the receivers considered it more meaningful because someone had done something nice for them.

Despite longing for kindness, many people feel awkward at the thought of being kind. The "little inner voice" often leads them to question whether their behavior might be misunderstood or whether it will make the receiver feel pressured to pay it back.

But an act of kindness is unlikely to have unintended results; it can lead to even more kindness. If you are not already in the habit of performing unplanned kind acts, start by thinking about what you are interested in and how you can turn that into an offering for others.