Traditionally, across the world, boys and girls attend a mixed school, where they study together. But boys' schools are the perfect place to teach young men to express their emotions (情感) and encourage them to take part in activities such as art, dance and music.

    Boys at single-sex schools were said to be more likely to take part in cultural and artistic activities that helped develop their emotional expressiveness, rather than feeling they had to correspond to(和…相符) the "boy code" of hiding their emotions to be a "real man".

    The findings of the study go against accepted wisdom that boys do better when taught together with girls.

    Tony Little, head master of Eton, warned that boys were being failed by the British education system because it had become too focused on girls. He criticized teachers for failing to recognize that boys are actually more emotional than girls.

    The research argued that boys often perform badly in mixed schools because they become discouraged when girls do better earlier in speaking and reading skills.

    But in single-sex schools teachers can tailor (量身定做) lessons to boys' learning style, letting them move around the classroom and getting them to compete in teams to prevent boredom, wrote the study's author, Abigail James, of the University of Virginia.

    Teachers could encourage boys to enjoy reading and writing with "boy-focused" approaches such as themes and characters that appeal to them. Because boys generally have more acute vision, learn best through touch, and are physically more active, they need to be given "hands-on" lessons where they are allowed to walk around. "Boys in mixed schools view classical music as feminine（女性的） and prefer the modern genre （类型） in which violence and sexism are major themes," James wrote.

    Single-sex education also made it less likely that boys would feel that they had to be "masterful and in charge" in relationships. "In mixed schools, boys feel forced to act like men before they understand themselves well enough to know what that means," the study reported.

    Five meteorologists (气象学家) who were trapped for two weeks after polar bears surrounded their weather station are now able to leave after the creatures were chased away. Their supervisor told NBC News early Wednesday.

    Russian officials had feared the siege could last for another month, the time it would take to reach the islands in the Kara Sea, high in the Arctic Circle. But on Tuesday night a research ship took a detour (绕道) to assist those weathermen, station supervisor Vasily Shevchenko told NBC News. The ship run by Russia's state-run oil firm Rosneft frightened away the bears using its helicopter, before resupplying the weather station with more food and puppies (幼犬) . The puppies are not yet big enough to deter the bears, but the station is planning to draft in a replacement adult guard dog as soon as possible.

    Some of the bears had taken to sleeping directly outside the windows of remote outpost. There was no risk of the researchers starving because they had a year's worth of food, but they were forced to take dangerous trips to a nearby building, holding a gun for protection, according to Shevchenko.

    Polar bears are an endangered species. In Russia, it's a crime to shoot them unless in self-defense. The bears usually leave the islands in the summer, but this time they were trapped by the melting ice, an apparent sign of climate change, according to Shevchenko. “They've stayed on the island because there is nowhere for them to go,” he said.

    The animals suffer from global warming because it shrinks the floating ice that forms their main hunting ground. According to the environmental group the World Wide Fund for Nature, known as the WWF, this has got some polar bears to go near human habitats in search of food.

    Drive through any suburb in the U.S. Today, and it's hard to miss the recycling bins that have become companions to America's trash cans. Recycling has become common, as people recognize the need to care for the environment. Yet most people's recycling consciousness extends only as far as paper, bottles, and cans. People seldom find themselves facing the growing problem of e-waste.

    E-waste rapidly increases as the techno- fashionable frequently upgrade to the most advanced devices, and the majority of them end up in landfills (垃圾填埋地). Some people who track such waste say that users throw away nearly 2 million tons of TVs, VCRs, computers, cell phones, and other electronics every year. Unless we can find a safe replacement, this e-waste may get into the ground and poison the water with dangerous toxins (毒素), such as lead, mercury, and arsenic. Burning the waste also dangerously contaminates the air.

     However, e-waste often contains reusable silver, gold, and other electrical materials. Recycling these materials reduces environmental problems by reducing both landfill waste and the need to look for such metals, which can destroy ecosystems.

    A growing number of states have adopted laws to ban dumping e-waste. Still, less than a quarter of this waste will reach lawful recycling programs. Some companies advertising safe disposal in fact merely ship the waste to some developing countries, where it still ends up in landfills. These organizations prevent progress by unsafely disposing of waste in an out- of- sight, out- of- mind location.

    However, the small but growing number of cities and corporations that do handle e- waste responsibly represents progress toward making the world a cleaner, better place for us all.

    An idea that started in Seattle's public library has spread throughout America. The concept is simple: help to build a sense of community (社区) in a city by getting everyone to read the same book at the same time.

    In addition to encouraging reading as a pursuit (追求) to be enjoyed by all, the program allows strangers to communicate by discussing the book on the bus, as well as encouraging reading as an experience to be shared in families and schools. The idea came from Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl who launched the “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book” project in 1998. Her original program used author visits, study guides and book discussion groups to bring people together with a book, but the idea has since expanded to many other American cities, and even to Hong Kong.

    In Chicago, the mayor (市长) appeared on television to announce the choice of To Kill a Mockingbird as the first book in the “One Book, One Chicago” program. As a result, reading clubs and neighborhood groups sprang up around the city. Across the US, stories emerged of parents and children reading to each other at night and strangers chatting away on the bus about plot and character.

    The only problem arose in New York, where local readers could not decide on one book to represent the huge and diverse population. This may show that the idea works best in medium-sized cities or large towns, where a greater sense of unity (一致) can be achieved. Or it may show that New Yorkers rather missed the point, putting all their energy and passion into the choice of the book rather than discussion about a book itself.

    Ultimately, as Nancy points out, the level of success is not measured by how many people read a book, but by how many people are enriched by the process, or have enjoyed speaking to someone with whom they would not otherwise have shared a word.

    I was born in England, but I am an American. Americans like to travel on their yearly holiday. Today, more and more travelers in the United States are spending nights at small houses or inns (客栈) instead of hotels. They get a room for the night and the breakfast the next morning.

    Rooms for the night in private homes with breakfast have been popular with travelers in Europe for many years. In the past five to ten years, these bed­and­breakfast places have become popular in the United States. Many of these America's bed­and­breakfast inns are old historic buildings. Some bed­and­breakfast inns have only a few rooms; others are much larger. Some inns do not provide telephones or televisions in the rooms; others do.

    Staying at a bed­and­breakfast inn is much different from staying at a hotel. Usually the cost is much less. Staying at an inn is almost like visiting someone's home. The owners are glad to tell about the areas and the interesting places to visit. Many vacationers say they enjoy the chance to meet local families.

    I was in the seventh grade, and we had moved to New Jersey in November. By then, everyone already had had their own friends, and no one wanted to talk to a new girl. To make things worse, they put me in "Section L". I found out later that everyone called Section L "Loserville". It was sort of an open secret that it was the section for troublemakers and not-so-smart kids. When I found out, I wanted to scream. I had always been a good student and had amazing friends, and now everyone thought I was a loser!

    I did text my friends in Illinois almost every night, especially my best friend, Ana. At first my friends wanted to hear all about it. But then some stopped texting back once I said something about how miserable I was. One night when I was texting with Ana, I complained about another friend who had just done that.

    Ana's texts came really fast for the next few minutes and they surprised me. She said that she was tired of hearing about how bad everything was in New Jersey, too. She said she did not want to hurt my feelings but that I needed to stop feeling so sorry for myself all the time, I had to try to make things better.

    The next day, I thought a lot about what Ana had said. She was right!

    I wish I could say that everything changed overnight after that, but it didn't. I was still stuck in "Loserville", and some people were still mean to me, even though I tried to just stay out of their way.

    But what did change was me—I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and did something about making friends. I signed up to make sets for the school play. I met a lot of new people there, and suddenly I had friends to say hi to in the halls!

    I still miss Illinois sometimes  but life in New Jersey isn't so hard anymore. Even though I couldn't change my situation, I could change my attitude—and that made all the difference.