The Scar of Love

    Some years ago on a hot summer day in south Florida a little boy decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole behind his house.In a hurry to dive into the cool water,he ran out of the back door,leaving behind shoes,socks and shirt as he went.He flew into the water,not realizing that as he swam toward the middle or the lake,an alligator（短嘴鳄）was getting close.The mother in the house was looking out of the window and saw the two as they got closer and closer together.In great fear,she ran toward the water,yelling to her son as loudly as she could.Hearing her voice,the little boy became alarmed and made a U—turn to swim to his mother.It was too late.Just as he reached her, the alligator reached him.From the dock,the mother grabbed her little boy by the arms just as the alligator snatched（抓住）his legs.That began an unbelievable tug-of-war（拔河比赛）between the two.The alligator was much stronger than the mother,but the mother was much too passionate to let go.A farmer happened to drive by,heard their screams;rushed from his truck,took aim and shot the alligator.

    Remarkably,after weeks and weeks in the hospital,the little boy survived.His legs were extremely scarred by the terrible attack of the animal.And on his arms,were deep scratches where his mother's fingernails dug into his flesh in her effort to hang on to the son she loved.

    The newspaper reporter,who interviewed the boy after the trauma（外伤）,asked if he would show him his scars. The boy lifted the pant legs.And then,with obvious pride,he said to the reporter,"Look at my arms.I have great scars on my arms,too.I have them because my mum wouldn't let go."

    You and I can identify with（认同）that little boy.We have scars,too.Not from an alligator,but the scars of a painful past.Some of those scars are unsightly and have caused us deep regret.But,some wounds,my friends,are because we have refused to let go.

    Whether in the home or the workplace, social robots are going to become a lot more common in the next few years. Social robots are about to bring technology to the everyday world in a more humanized way, said Cynthia Breazeal, chief scientist at the robot company Jibo.

    While household robots today do the normal housework, social robots will be much more like companions than mere tools. For example, these robots will be able to distinguish when someone is happy or sad. This allows them to respond more appropriately to the user.

    The Jibo robot, arranged to ship later this year, is designed to be a personalized assistant. You can talk to the robot, ask it questions, and make requests for it to perform different tasks. The robot doesn't just deliver general answers to questions; it responds based on what it learns about each individual in the household. It can do things such as reminding an elderly family member to take medicine or taking family photos.

    Social robots are not just finding their way into the home. They have potential applications in everything from education to health care and are already finding their way into some of these spaces.

Fellow Robots is one company bringing social robots to the market. The company's “Oshbot” robot is built to assist customers in a store, which can help the customers find items and help guide them to the product's location in the store. It can also speak different languages and make recommendations for different items based on what the customer is shopping for.

    The more interaction the robot has with humans, the more it learns. But Oshbot, like other social robots, is not intended to replace workers, but to work alongside other employees.“We have technologies to train social robots to do things not for us, but with us,” said Breazeal.

    Eye Health Care

    Daily

    Healthy habits mean healthy eyes. Here are some daily tips for eye health.

    P Clean your eyes with pure cold water regularly. This is one of the best ways to keep eyes healthy and disease free.

    Avoid looking directly at the sun

    Roll your eyes up and down, then side to side. Then move your eyes in a circular motion（圆周运动） Exercise5tol0 times a day to relax your eyes

    Keep a good distance from the computer screen-sit about 22-28 inches away from it.

    Visit your eye doctor on a regular basis

    There are also some tips for healthy contact lens（隐形眼镜）wear and care to help prevent eye infections (感染). Please visit CDCS healthy contact lenses website and you can also follow them on social media(www.cdc.goy/contactlenses).

    Right now, I am looking at a shelf full of relics, a collection of has-beens, old-timers, antiques, fossils. Right now, I am looking at a shelf full of books. Yes, that's right. If you have some spare cash (the going rate is about $89) and you are looking to enhance your reading experience, then I highly suggest you consider purchasing an e-reader. E-readers are replacing the books of old and I welcome them with open arms (as you should).

    An e-reader is a device that allows you to read e-books. An e-book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images or both, and produced on, published through and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the e-book as "an electronic version of a printed book", but e-books can and do exist without any printed equivalent.

    E-readers put printed books to shame. E-readers are superior to printed books because they save space, are environmentally friendly and provide helpful reading tips and tools that printed books do not.

    The average e-reader can store thousands of digital books, providing a genuine library at your fingertips. What is more, the e-reader itself is very small. It is easy to hold and can fit in a pocketbook or briefcase easily. This makes handling wooden giant such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina a breeze. Perhaps the only drawback to the space-saving aspect of an e-reader is that it requires you to find new things to put on your shelves.

    In addition, e-readers are environmentally friendly. The average novel is about 300 pages long. So, if a novel is printed 1000 times, it will use 300,000 pieces of paper. That's a lot of paper! And for the super bestsellers, these figures increase dramatically. For example, the Harry Potter book series has sold over 450 million copies. That's about 2 million trees! Upon viewing these figures, it is not hard to grasp the severe impact of printed books on the environment. Since e-readers use no trees, they represent a significant amount of preservation in terms of the environment and its resources.

    Finally, e-readers provide helpful reading tips and tools that printed books do not. The typical e-reader allows its user to adjust letter size, letterform and line spacing. It also allows highlighting and electronic bookmarking.

    Furthermore, it grants users the ability to get an overview of a book and then jump to a specific location based on that overview. While these are all nice features, perhaps the most helpful of all is the ability to get dictionary definitions at the touch of a finger. On even the most basic e-reader, users can find instant definitions without having to hunt through a physical dictionary.

    It can be seen that e-readers are superior to printed books. They save space, are environmentally friendly and provide helpful reading tips and tools that printed books do not. So what good are printed books? Well, they certainly make nice decorations.

    In a recent series of experiments at the University of California, researchers studied toddlers' thinking about winners and losers, bullies (欺凌) and victims.

    In the first experiment, toddlers (学步儿童) watched a scene in which two puppets (木偶) had conflicting goals: One was crossing a stage from right to left, and the other from left to right. The puppets met in the middle and stopped. Eventually one puppet bowed down and moved aside, letting the other one pass by. Then researchers asked the toddlers which puppet they liked. The result: 20 out of 23 toddlers picked the higher-status puppet—the one that did not bow or move aside. It seems that individuals can gain status for being dominant (占优势的) and toddlers like winners better than losers.

    But then researchers had another question: Do toddlers like winners no matter how they win? So researchers did another experiment very similar to the one described above. But this time, the conflict ended because one puppet knocked the other down and out of the way. Now when the toddlers were asked who they liked, the results were different: Only 4 out of 23 children liked the winner.

    These data suggest that children already love a winner by the age of 21-31 months. This does not necessarily mean that the preference is inborn: 21 months is enough time to learn a lot of things. But if a preference for winners is something we learn, we appear to learn it quite early.

    Even more interesting, the preference for winners is not absolute. Children in our study did not like a winner who knocked a competitor down. This suggests that already by the age of 21-31 months, children's liking for winners is balanced with other social concerns, including perhaps a general preference for nice or helpful people over aggressive ones.

    In a time when the news is full of stories of public figures who celebrate winning at all costs, these results give us much confidence. Humans understand dominance, but we also expect strong individuals to guide, protect and help others. This feels like good news.

    It was a normal school day for senior Solymar Solis until an unexpected visitor arrived. Her dad, Sgt. Carlos Solis Melendez, surprised her by coming home early from Kuwait and visiting her unannounced at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina.

    After serving in Kuwait for nine months, Melendez returned home a week earlier than his daughter expected. He held balloons and flowers in a classroom as he sat at a student's desk to blend in with the crowd. "It came across my mind like, ‘How is she going to react?" he recalled the heartwarming moment. "Is she going to be happy and run to me and hug me, or cry? That was all going on through my mind."

    As unsuspecting Solymar entered the classroom, she was soon overcome with emotion, immediately bursting into tears and covering her mouth. She didn't talk. She was just crying. She was overwhelmed with everything. She thought it was a dream.

    Melendez was a single parent so while he was deployed (调动), he got his sister to live with his daughter. When he was coming back and talking to his sister, both of them came to the conclusion that they should do something special for his daughter. Melendez and his sister got in touch with the school, and they planned this whole being-in-the-classroom thing, and it turned out perfect.

    The two are very much looking forward to some good daddy-daughter time now that he's home. "It means everything," Melendez said of being able to surprise his daughter this way. "After all the sacrifices she's made, she deserves all the special arrangements and special occasions and celebrations. I'll do anything for my daughter. I believe I'm doing good parenting."