My grandfather died more than twenty-five years ago. I was fifteen then. He was kind, strong, fair, and very funny. When I was a young musician, he was my biggest fan. I played my violin for him when he visited, and he loved everything, but each time he had one request. “Could you play Amazing Grace%” he asked, full of hope and with a twinkle in his eye, because he knew my answer was always, “I don't know that one!” We went through this routine at every major holiday, and I always figured I'd have time to learn it for him later.

    About the time I entered high school and started guitar, Grandpa got cancer. The last time I saw him alive was Thanksgiving weekend in 1985. My mom warned us that Grandpa didn't look the same anymore and that we should prepare ourselves. For a moment I didn't recognize him. He looked so small among all the white sheets. We had all gathered in Ohio for the holiday, and I'm sure we all knew we were there to say good-bye. I can see now that Grandpa held on long enough to see us each one more time. I remember how we ate in the dining room and laughed and talked while Grandpa rested in his hospital bed. I wonder if it was sad for him to be alone with our voices and laughter. Knowing Grandpa, he was probably content.

    The next morning, I found my moment alone with him. I pulled out my guitar, tuned to his appreciative gaze, and finally played for him Amazing Grace. I had worked on it for weeks, knowing it never mattered whether I actually played it well and choosing not to believe as I played that it was my last concert for my biggest fan. The cancer had stolen his smile, but I saw joy in his eyes. He held my hand afterward, and I knew I had done something important.

    I argued with people all through college about my music major. I was told by strangers that music wouldn't make me any money and it wasn't useful like being a doctor. But I know first-hand that with music I was able to give my grandpa something at a point when no one else could.

    Looking almost as fresh as the day it was bought, this McDonald's Happy Meal is in fact six months old. Photographed every day for the past six months by Manhattan artist Sally Davies, the kids meal of fries and burger hasn't any signs of mould(霉菌) or decay(腐烂).

    Sally put the Happy Meal on a shelf in her apartment and watched it with increasing shock. Even her dogs stopped trying to steal a free tasty snack.

    “I bought the meal on April 10 this year and brought home to see how it changed,” she said. “I chose McDonald's because it was nearest to my house, but the project could have been about any other fast food. The first thing that shocked me on the second day of the experiment was that it no longer gave out any smell. And my dogs stopped circling the shelf.”

    Sally expected the food to go mouldy after a few days. In fact, Mrs. Davies' surprise turned to shock as the food still had not shown any signs of decay after two weeks. “It was then that I realized that something strange might be going on with this food that I had bought,” she explained. “The appearance of the food did not change as the weeks turned to months. And now, at six months old, the food is plastic to touch. The only change that I can see is that it has become as hard as a rock.”

    The experiment has brought her amusement rather than fear. “Maybe I would be frightened at seeing this if I were a meat eater.” she said.

    Can you imagine how great the United Kingdom is? The queen of Britain, Queen Elizabeth II, is also the queen of other 16 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Jamaica. Her face is seen on stamps and coins all around the world.

    Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born in London on April 21st 1926. Her parents were George, the Duke of York, and Elizabeth, the daughter of the Earl and Count-ness of Strathmore. As a child, Princess Elizabeth lived with her parents and younger sister in London and Windsor. Every summer, she traveled to Scotland to visit her mother's parents. She was interested in all sorts of sports, but her favorites were horse riding and swimming. She was also fond of acting, art and music.

    As princess Elizabeth grew older, she started to play a part in British public life. When she was 14, she broadcast a radio message to all the children of Britain and the Common-wealth(共和国). Two years later, she carried out her first public engagement, and started to go on official tours shortly after that. After a tour to South Africa in 1946, she married Philip Mountbatten. The couple had four children: Prince Charles, born in 1948, Princess Anne, born in 1950, Prince Andrew, born in 1960 and Prince Edward, born in 1964.

    After her father died, Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II in a ceremony held in London in 1953. As a queen, she has many duties, and leads a very busy life. She travels throughout the world, meeting the leaders of other countries, and attends a large number of official functions. She also holds a meeting every week with the British Prime Minister. Every year, on Christmas Day, she broadcast a message to the people of British and the Commonwealth, talking about her hopes for the future.

    Queen Elizabeth has been on the throne for more than 40 years and has become one of the most famous women in the world. Lots of people in British believe that she tries hard to understand her people and be a good queen. More than her title, this quality has earned her much love and respect.

    On average, Americans spend about 10 hours a day in front of a computer or other electronic devices and less than 30 minutes a day outdoors. That is a claim made by David Strayer, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah. In his 2017 TED Talk, Strayer explained that all this time spent with technology is making our brains tired.

    Using an electronic device to answer emails, listen to the news and look at Facebook puts a lot of pressure on the front of the brain, which, Strayer explains , is important for critical (有判断力的)thinking , problem-solving and decision-making.

So, it is important to give the brain a rest. And being in naure, Strayer claims, helps get a tired brain away from too much technology. More than 15,000 campers from around the world attended an international camping festival in September. That is when friends and family take time off and escape to nature for several days. They take walks, climb, explore, swim, sleep, eat and play. Camping may be just what a tired brain needs.

    Take Carl for example .He lives in West Virginia and enjoys camping. He says that staying outdoors makes him feel at ease. It also prepares him for the work he must do. Kate Somers is another example who also lives in West Virginia. She says she enjoys camping with her husband and two children. She calls it a “regenerative” experience.

    At the University of Utah, David Strayer has studied both short-term and long-term exposure to nature. He found that spending short amounts of time in nature without technology does calm the brain and helps it to remember better. However, he found, it is the long-term contact with nature that does the most good. He and his research team found that spending three days in nature without any technology is enough time for the brain to fully relax and reset itself.

    When an earthquake hit a small town, many houses fell down. After the earthquake, all the newspapers reported many stories about some of the families who were in trouble.

    One Sunday, when I was reading a newspaper, a special picture touched me. It gave the clothing sizes of each family member. I thought that this would be a good chance to teach my children to help those who were less lucky than themselves. I said to my seven-year-old twins, Brad and Brett, and three-year-old Meghan, "We have so much, and these poor people now have nothing. We'll share what we have with them."

    I filled a box with foods and clothes. While I was doing this, I encouraged the boys to choose their toys and donate some of their less favorite things. Meghan watched quietly as the boys took out their old toys and games and put them together. Then she walked away. A few minutes later, she came back with Lucy, her much-loved doll. She put the doll on top of the other toys. "Oh, dear," I said. "You don't have to give Lucy. You love her so much." Meghan said, "Lucy makes me happy, Mommy. Maybe she'll make another little girl happy, too."

    I looked at Meghan for a long moment. She taught me a lesson. It's easy to give something that we don't want any more, but hard to give what we cherish(珍爱), isn't it?

What is the best part of a typical relaxing summer day? Nothing is better than sitting in an armchair with a beer and some chips in your hand, enjoying the great comfort.

The much-loved combination of beer and chips is being exploited for the first time to deal with climate change. Chips firm Walkers has adopted a technique it says will cut CO₂ emissions (排放) from its production process by 70%.

The technology will use CO₂ captured from beer processing in a brewery (啤酒厂), which is then mixed with potato waste and turned into fertilizer. It will then be spread on UK fields to feed the following year's potato crop. Creating fertilizer normally produces high CO₂ emissions, but the technology adopted by Walkers makes fertilizer without generating CO₂. So, the beer-and-chips combination performs a double function. It stops the emission of brewery CO₂ into the atmosphere — and it saves on the CO₂ normally generated by fertilizer production.

This Creative win-win solution was developed with an approval from the UK government by a 14-employee start-up called CCm. The fertilizer was experimented on potato seed beds this year, and next year Walkers will install CCm equipment at its Leicester factory to prepare for its 2022 crop.

A decision has not yet been made on which brewery Walkers will work with on this. The new technology adds to carbon-saving techniques already under way. The firm has installed an anaerobic digester (厌氧消化池), which feeds potato waste to bacteria to produce a useful gas. The gas is burned to make electricity for the chip-frying process — so this saves on burning gas or coal.

The new system will go a step further by taking away potato "cake" left after digestion — and mixing the brewery CO₂ into it to make an enriched fertilizer which will help put carbon back into the soil as well as encouraging plant growth.

It's an example of scientists finding ways to use CO₂ emissions which otherwise would increase the over-heating of the planet.