A long-term American study shows the importance of early education for poor children. The study is known as the Abecedarian Project. It involved more than one-hundred young children from poor families in North Carolina.

    Half of the children attended an all-day program at a high-quality child-care center. The center offered educational, health and social programs. Children took part in games and activities to increase their thinking and language skills and social and emotional development. The program also included health foods for the children.

    The children attended the program from when they were a few weeks old until the age of five years. The other group of children did not attend the child-care center. After the age of five, both groups attended public school.

    Researchers compared the two groups of children. When they were babies, both groups had similar results in tests for mental and physical skills. However, from the age of eighteen months, the children in the educational child-care program did much better in tests.

    The researchers tested the children again when they were twelve and fifteen years old. The tests found that the children who had been in the child-care center continued to have higher average test results. These children did much better on tests of reading and mathematics.

    A few years ago, organizers of the Abecedarian Project tested the students again. At the time, each student was twenty-one years old. They were tested for thinking and educational ability, employment, parenting and social skills. The researchers found that the young adults who had the early education still did better in reading and mathematics tests. They were more than two times as likely to be attending college or to have completed college. In addition, the children who received early education were older on average, when their first child was born.

    The study offers more evidence that learning during the first months and years of life is important for all later development.

    The researchers of the Abecedarian Project believe their study shows a need for lawmakers to spend money on public early education. They believe these kinds of programs could reduce the number of children who do not complete school and are unemployed.

Make a five-minute film and win!

    Do you love the summer holidays but hate being bored? Then why don't you enter the Film Street Summer Shorts Competition by making a short film this summer with your family and friends?

What you have to do

    To enter the competition, you have to make a short film that around 5 minutes long (It can be shorter but not longer!) on a digital camera, or mobile phone.

Awards

    The best short film entered into our competition will be shown in Film Street's Cinema and you'll win a Cineworld Cinemas pass for yourself and there more for other members of your film crew. If you have a Cineworld Cinemas pass, you can watch as many films as you like for a year, for free, at any Cineworld Cinema!

Rules

.We can't show films that tell others about either your, or any other kids', name or address.

.We can't show films that hurt, harm or insult(侮辱） other people。

.We can't show films that have bad language.

Copyright Checklist

Getting permission to use someone else's work in your film can be expensive, so check your film to make sure that:

.Your film is original and you haven't copied someone else.

.There are no scenes of branding on shop signs, books, magazines or CDs.

.There are no scenes of someone else's artwork.

Address and Date

Post your finished film on tape, CD or DVD by Monday, October1st, 2007 to:

Unit 6,Third Floor, The Bond

180-182 Fazeley Street; Birmingham

    So what's stopping you? Start making your Film Street Summer Short now!

    The New York Times——Stephen Hawking, the brightest star in the firmament(天空)of science, whose insights shaped modern cosmology(宇宙论)and inspired global audiences in the millions, has died aged 76. His family released a statement in the early hours of Wednesday morning confirming his death at his home in Cambridge. Hawking's children, Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement: "We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today." "He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years to come. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humor inspired people across the world."

    When Hawking was diagnosed with motor neuronal (神经元的)disease in 1963 at the age of 21, doctors expected him to live for only two more years. But Hawking had a form of the disease that progressed more slowly than usual. He survived for more than half a century and long enough for his disability to define him. His popularity would surely have been diminished without it. Those who live in the shadow of death are often those who live most.

    For Hawking, the early diagnosis of his terminal disease, and witnessing the death from leukaemia of a boy who he knew in hospital, ignited(点燃)a fresh sense of pursue. "Although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before. I began to make progress with my research," he once said. Embarking (着手) on his career in earnest, he declared: "My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

    There's a new frontier in 3D printing that's beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook, and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn't stopping there.

    Food production

With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that—it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to" re-create forms and pieces" of food that are" exactly the same,” freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed, rather than farm to table.

    Sustainability(可持续性)

    The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydrocolloids( 水解胶体)from plentiful renewables like algae(藻类) and grass to replace the familiar ingredients(烹饪原 料). 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock "food" that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.

    Nutrition

    Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, "Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday's bread from the supermarket, you'd eat something baked just for you on demand."

    Challenges

    Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing，the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste( 糊状物)before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are doubtful about food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurants than homes and high-end restaurants.

    I never planned to be a teacher. I was headed for a law school, for a real career. Teaching was something to "get out of my system". I would teach a couple of years and then go to get a real job. After the first couple of years, I promised myself I would leave if I didn't love my job any more. Twenty-nine years later, that day still has not come.

    So, why do I stay? I stay because I laugh and learn every day. The children are funny, insightful, and honest. If my shoes don't match my outfit, they tell me. If my argument that Invisible Man is an important twentieth century classics doesn't convince them, they tell me.

    I stay because every single day is different. Some days, my lessons are great, and I have classes of students who are engaged in reading, writing and thinking. Some days, my lessons fall flat, and I realize that I need to start from scratch — even after 29 years.

    I stay because I love to see the children realize that they have learned something — whether it's how to craft an argumentative thesis sentence or how to understand the effect of repetition in The Declaration of Independence. I love to see the children write well; I love the feeling of reading a well-argued essay, and I love smiling as I write a final "Awesome job!" on a paper on which a student has worked hard.

    I stay because what I've learned in 29 years is that I do have a "real" job — the most real job there is. It's the one that leads to other jobs, that helps to create good thinkers who go on to be productive in our society, and that supports our community as it grows and times change. My job is among the ones that matter most.

    NASA's (美国宇航局的) newly announced space tourism program is possibly the biggest mistake in the agency's history.

    Beginning as early as 2020, NASA will offer visits to the International Space Station for $35,000 per night, not including transportation, to pretty much anyone who can pass a physical.

    The reason this is a mistake, and a big one, is that NASA has worked for generations to create an image of astronauts as extraordinarily skilled, highly trained, courageous heroes. For example, NASA invites grade schools to participate in creating experiments that are carried on the space station. The astronauts talk to kids from space, sending a message that if you study, work hard and learn math and science, you may reach these heights, too.

    According to one report, Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace is making plans to haul four tourists at a time to the space station on SpaceX rockets. U.S. taxpayers forked over a hundred billion dollars to build the International Space Station. It would be nice to try to preserve the image of it as an inspirational achievement, instead of turning it into a flying Howard Johnson's.

    NASA's press release about the space tourism program tries to cast it as a partnership with the private sector to "provide expanded opportunities" at the space station to "manufacture, market and promote commercial products and services." But it also states that one goal is "quantifying NASA's long-term demand for activities in low-Earth orbit."

    The space station has been costing U.S. taxpayers between $1.5 billion and $3 billion each year. If it's perceived as a private Disneyland for the top tax bracket, public support for the entire space program could be at risk.

    But worse, we will have degraded what once inspired us. Sometimes a nation needs stars in its eyes.