Every city, in fact, can be felt by its warmth-not in terms of its natural climate but its human touch.

    About twenty years ago, I arrived in Australia. Searching for a place in a map in the street, I was approached by an elderly man who asked “How are you? Are you lost? How can I help you?”, which really impressed and warmed me. Another time, as I was pushing my bike on the sidewalk one night, a young lady shouted to me: “Carry me please” and then jumped onto my bicycle. While we had a little chat, she got where she wanted and hopped off my bike with “Thanks, bye!” At that moment, I had a sense as much of pleasant surprise as of “being trusted”.

    Still in Australia, two of my friends decided to hitch（搭便车）their way to Sydney in order to save money. A young driver stopped, and luckily he was also going to Sydney, so he let them in and even allowed them to drive while he went to sleep on the back seat. About eight hours later, they arrived and he woke up. Saying thanks to each other, they went their separate ways.

    In my opinion, no matter how developed and advanced it is, if in general a place presents itself with a cold and indifferent（冷漠的）face to people, especially to strangers, even keeping them highly alert（警惕的）not to be cheated all the time, can perhaps hardly be classified as a land of civilization（文明）. In a sense, the attitude towards strangers that the people have in the city mirrors its warmth.

    Many people want to grow their own garden, but they simply do not have the room. Do not worry. There is a solution. Consider container gardening.

    The great thing about container gardening is that you can use a variety of different containers. You simply have to use your imagination. You could create a beautiful garden with things such as cement blocks, hanging baskets, clay pots, or window boxes. There are so many options when it comes to container gardening; it is only limited by your imagination.

    Of course, you will want to take the following into consideration when you are ready to begin container gardening, in order for it to be successful.

    First, you should avoid any containers that have been used to store chemicals, as well as treated wood. This could lead to the sudden death of your flowers and lead to the failure of your container gardening.

    With any container that you choose, you need to ensure that it allows the water in it to drain when necessary. So it may be essential for you to create holes in the container to help this along. You should also make sure the containers are placed on a raised surface, not upon the floor, to ensure the best possible drainage.

    Ensure that the containers you choose are appropriate in size for the plants you choose. You need to prevent the roots from overgrowing the container.

    If you like fresh veggies, you could consider container gardening with vegetables. This requires a process that differs from that of flower gardening. Talk to an employee at a supply store in your area. They can help you choose the right containers for the vegetables you are wishing to grow.

    The following are the best restaurants to dine out with your parents in San Francisco.

    Maybeck's

    Marina

    3213 Scott St.

    Telephone(415) 400-8500

    What do you get when you mix amazing foods with a pleasant atmosphere? The perfect place for family dinner. Maybeck's homemade pastas will transport you to the Italian countryside but the fried chicken brings you right back down to earth. It's a great meal in a peaceful setting that everyone will be sure to remember.

    Liholiho Yacht Club

    Nob Hill

    871 Sutter St.

    Many people believe that you lose the ability to learn new languages as you get older. Language experts, however, will tell you that you're never too old to learn a new language. As you get older, it can be more difficult to learn a new language, though.

    Children and adults learn new languages in different ways. For children, language is their life. They study for thousands of hours every year, because they need to learn languages to become part of their communities. Adults, on the other hand, are already part of a language community. Learning a new language means becoming part of another language community, and adults rarely get the chance to practice as much as young children do.

    Moreover, children learning a new language are expected to make mistakes. This gives them freedom when learning to be daring and confident. Adults, however, often feel stressed to be perfect when learning a new language. This can discourage many people and make it even harder to learn a new language.

    When young children learn a new language, they come to see various languages as a “normal” part of society. This mindset helps them to learn a new language without feeling like they're doing something unusual or “too hard”.

    So if you want to learn a new language, go for it! It's never too late to learn a new language. If you're older, it may take more work, but it can be done. If you're a young child, though, now is the time to step out and learn a new language!

    For centuries, medical pioneers have refined a variety of methods and medicines to treat sickness, injury, and disability, enabling people to live longer and healthier lives.

    “A salamander (a small lizard-like animal) can grow back its leg. Why can't a human do the same?” asked Peruvian-born surgeon Dr. Anthony Atala in a recent interview. The question, a reference to work aiming to grow new limbs for wounded soldiers, captures the inventive spirit of regenerative medicine. This innovative field seeks to provide patients with replacement body parts.

These parts are not made of steel; they are the real things — living cells, tissue, and even organs.

    Regenerative medicine is still mostly experimental, with clinical applications limited to procedures such as growing sheets of skin on burns and wounds. One of its most significant advances took place in 1999，when a research group at North Carolina's Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine conducted a successful organ replacement with a laboratory-grown bladder. Since then, the team, led by Dr. Atala, has continued to generate a variety of other tissues and organs—from kidneys to ears.

    The field of regenerative medicine builds on work conducted in the early twentieth century with the first successful transplants of donated human soft tissue and bone. However, donor organs are not always the best option. First of all, they are in short supply, and many people die while waiting for an available organ; in the United States alone, more than 100,000 people are waiting for organ transplants. Secondly, a patient's body may ultimately reject the transplanted donor organ. An advantage of regenerative medicine is that the tissues are grown from a patient's own cells and will not be rejected by the body's immune system.

    Today, several labs are working to create bioartificial body parts. Scientists at Columbia and Yale Universities have grown a jawbone and a lung. At the University of Minnesota, Doris Taylor has created a beating bioartificial rat heart. Dr. Atala's medical team has reported long-term success with bioengineered bladders implanted into young patients with spina bifida (a birth defect that involves the incomplete development of the spinal cord). And at the University of Michigan, H. David Humes has created an artificial kidney.

    So far, the kidney procedure has only been used successfully with sheep, but there is hope that one day similar kidney will be implantable in a human patient. The continuing research of scientists such as these may eventually make donor organs unnecessary and, as a result, significantly increase individuals' chances of survival.

    We talk a lot in the U.S. about success. Success is the dream and the end point. And not by coincidence the idea that hard work leads to personal success is as American as apple pie.

    But the reality is that sometimes we fail. And sometimes things, through no fault of our own, don't go our way. We're faced with a life-changing diagnosis (诊断), the passing of a loved one or job loss. We don't, as a society, have as much to say here.

    I think uncertainty does us all harm. We'd feel better equipped to deal with uncertainty if we talked about it more. I had so fully bought into the belief that with enough effort, I could control what happened in my life. I actually caught myself thinking I could "work my way out" of my cancer. As it turns out, cancer doesn't really care about one's work.

    We might also make wiser decisions — this isn't just a feel-good exercise. For example, technology and medicine have progressed to the point that many patients are living longer than they would have even a decade ago. These are achievements worth celebrating. And yet I wonder if the focus on success is sometimes misguided here as well. If it is one reason why we tend to pursue expensive end-of-life treatments, they often accomplish little other than to make a patient's final days painful and frightening. The fact is that, when asked, many patients would rather focus on living meaningfully in their final days.

    My hope here is to make a case for thinking about meaning, in the same way we think about pursuing success. In that spirit, I've asked several people, each of whom has met misfortune, how they find meaning in their lives. The diversity in their responses reflects the fact that there are no right or wrong answers here. We each can find meaning in different things.