Today's demands for measuring childhood success have chased household chores from the to-do lists of many young people. In a survey of 1,001 US adults released by Braun Research, 82% reported having regular chores growing up, but only 28% said that they require their own children to do them. “Parents today want their kids spending time on things that can bring them success, but ironically, we've stopped doing one thing that's actually been a proven predictor of success—and that's household chores.” says Richard Rende, a developmental psychologist.

    Giving children household chores at an early age helps to build a lasting sense of mastery, responsibility and independence, according to research by Marty Rossmann, professor at the University of Minnesota. In 2002, Dr. Rossman analyzed data from a longitudinal(纵向的) study that followed 84 children across four periods. She found that young adults who began chores at ages 3 and 4 were more likely to have good relationships with family and friends and to achieve academic and early career success, as compared with those who didn't have chores or who started them as teens.

    Chores also teach children how to be empathetic(感同身受的) and responsive to others' needs, notes psychologist Richard Weissbourd. In research, his team surveyed 10,000 high-school students and asked them to rank what they treasured more: achievement, happiness or caring for others. Almost 80% chose either achievement or happiness over caring for others. As he points out, however, research suggests that personal happiness comes most reliably not from high achievement but from strong relationships. “We're out of balance,” says Dr. Weissbourd. A good way to start re-adjusting priorities(优先事项), he suggests, is by learning to be kind and helpful at home.

    The next time that your child asks to skip chores to do homework, resist the urge to let him or her off the hook. Being slack(懈怠的) about chores when they compete with school sends your child the message that grades and achievement are more important than caring about others. What may seem like small messages in the moment but add up to big ones over time.

    Last night's meteor(流星) shower left many people in Emerald Valley dissatisfied. They gathered in the suburbs of the city with heavy telescopes，expecting to watch the brightly burning meteors passing through the sky. However, what they found was a sky so brightened by the city's lights that it darkened the light of the meteors passing overhead.

    “My family was so frustrated，” admitted town resident Duane Cosby, “We wanted to make this an unforgettable family outing，but it turned out to be a huge disappointment.”

    Astronomers—scientists who study stars and planets—have been complaining about this problem for many years. They say that light pollution prevents them from seeing objects in the sky that they could see quite easily in the past. They call on people and the government to take measures to fight against it.

    Besides professional and amateur(业余的) star observers, there is yet a population that suffers even more from light pollution. This population consists of birds，bats, frogs, and snakes etc. For example, outdoor lighting severely affects migrating(迁徙的)birds. According to the International Dark­Sky Association, “100 million birds a year throughout North America die in crashes with lighted buildings and towers. ”

    Countless animals injuries and deaths result from the use of artificial lighting. Clearly, people enjoy the benefits of lighting their evenings, but some scientists think it can be harmful to humans, too. They worry that exposure to light while sleeping can increase people's chances of getting cancer.

    Emerald Valley is only one community that is becoming aware of the negative effects of light pollution. For years, Flagstaff, Arizona has enforced lighting rules in its city in order to help astronomers with their observations. Similar efforts have been made worldwide, and a movement is underway to remind us to turn off lights when we are not using them, so that other creatures can share the night.

    The Adler Planetarium Chicago is home to more than 35,000 square feet of exhibits. From huge models of the Solar System, to ancient astronomical instruments , to interactive adventures, Adler's exhibit galleries provides a passageway for you to explore the universe. The Adler also offers mini science exploration activities that are quick l0-minute lessons. Visitors can learn some interesting astronomical facts from the small activity parts.

    The Adler Planetarium Chicago is the only museum in the world with two-full size planetarium theaters. Since 1930 , people. have been able to see the wonder of the stars in the historic Sky Theater. Powered by brand new Digistar 3TM technology, the StarRider Theater is a completely digital, virtual outer space environment. The famous Zeiss Planetarium projector is able to accurately reproduce the movement of every aspect(方面) of the night sky.

Do's and Don'ts :

    Do Take the Bus/Train: Leave the car at home for this museum trip. The Adler is located close to public transit(中转站).

    Don't Miss the Doane Observatory: When weather permits , the Doane is open at the Adler for observing with its 20-inch diameter telescope. Don't Miss Museum Special Events :The Adler offers a summer camp for kids from mid-June to August.

    Ticket Price :

    Adult: $ 28; child: $ 22. Book online now for a discount 37%.

    Regular Schedule :

    Mon.—Fri. 10 a. m.—4 p. m. ;Sat.—Sun. 10 a. m.—4:30 p. m.

    Summer Hours: 9: 30 a. m.—6 p. m. daily.

    Nearest Transit: Roosevelt Metro Station.

    Address: 1300 S Lake Shore Dr, Chicago, IL 60605.

    Anki has introduced Cozmo, a little robot powered by an advanced artificial intelligence. Cozmo promises to be for more interactive（互动的）than any toy robot.

Cozmo, which can lie in your hand, has a “brain”—technically its CPU—that can process data amazingly fast. In addition, Cozmo has a playful personality. He's designed to react to emotions and even ask users to play with him.

    Cozmo is not the first interactive toy to reach the market nor is it the first robot toy. What sets Cozmo apart from the other “smart toys” is that it has greater play value than those toys, which can become repetitious all too quickly.

    “Every interaction with Cozmo is different, so you do not put up with repetitive play patterns and responses typically found with other preprogrammed robots,” explained Anki spokesperson Peter Nguyen. Because it has functionality that is similar to that of video games, Cozmo also can receive regular updates, which could extend its playability. Still, Anki has designed this toy to be just that: a toy. It's not an advanced computerized robot. Its software is app-based.

    Cozmo lacks the “traditional” human-like robot form factor（要素）of legs, arms, and a head. But Cozmo does have an OLED screen/face with blue eyes, which in fact were designed to help it connect with its user.

    “I'm glad my kids are already raised,” said Roger L. Kay, analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. “Otherwise, they might become more antisocial if their relationship with Cozmo is more satisfying than those with real people,” said Kay. “Cozmo might encourage kids to learn more about technology or even inspire them to try programming and similar studies,” said Charles King, analyst at Pund-IT.

    Yet this technology does promise to be more than a toy. “It's a pretty cool invention and might have further applications, for example in elder care,” suggested Kay.

At a large forest park in eastern Beijing, 11 birds on the state-level protection list were recently released.

These birds had recovered after the Beijing Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center rescued and took care of them. "We will speed up our efforts to push the establishment of district-level wildlife rescue centers to jointly guard the health of wildlife," said Du Lianhai, director of the center.

The center was set up in 2001 and built a wildlife rescue base in the capital's Shunyi District in 2005. Staff at the base have rescued and rehabilitated over 30,000 wild animals in total.

Wildlife protection has been strengthened in Beijing in recent years. On June 1, the city's newly adopted regulation on wildlife protection took effect, introducing stricter and more concrete measures to protect the environment and wildlife.

For example, the regulation states clearly that Beijing bans hunting throughout the year, compared with the previous regulation which bans hunting during the periods of March to May and September to November each year. The new regulation also gives severer punishment for poachers.

After years of monitoring, data with the Beijing Gardening and Greening Bureau recently showed ecological reconstruction progress. The species and quantity of wild animals in Beijing are continuously increasing, with the number of terrestrial spinal wild animals (陆地脊椎野生动物) growing from 461 species in 1994 to more than 500. The habitat of the endangered bird has expanded from Fangshan District to the whole city, according to the bureau.

"The enforcement of the new regulation marked a new phase in Beijing's wildlife protection work," said Dai Mingchao, deputy director of the Beijing Gardening and Greening Bureau.

"We will step up the publicity of the regulation and raise citizens' awareness of wildlife protection," Dai said. "In our integrated protection of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands, we take into full consideration the requirements of food-chain construction, ecological corridor construction, and wildlife and their habitat protection."

Research spanning several decades demonstrates that you are more likely to think the information that is repeated to be true than the information you hear only once. You usually assume that if people put in effort to repeat a statement, this reflects the truth of the statement. This tendency-also called the truth effect-is a bias （偏见） that can lead you to draw incorrect conclusions. 

To what degree are people aware of the truth effect? This question was addressed in a paper in the journal Cognition early this year. 

In the critical study in this paper, participants did two sessions. In one session, they read about a hypothetical （虚构的） study in which they were exposed to some statements and then were asked whether both statements they had heard before as well as these new statements were true. They were asked to predict the proportion （比例） of each statement that would be judged as true. They did this both as a prediction of other people's performance as well as a prediction of how they would do in this study. 

At another session a few days later, participants actually performed this study, reading a set of 20 statements in the hypothetical study again and then judging the truth of altogether 40 statements, half of which were from the hypothetical study and the other half of which were new. 

This study did replicate the well known truth effect. People were more likely to judge statements they had seen before as true than statements that were new. Two interesting findings emerged from the prediction. First, participants tended to underestimate the size of the truth effect for everyone. T hat is, while they did expect some difference in judgments between the statements seen before and those that were new, they thought this difference would be smaller than it actually was. Second, participants more significantly underpredicted the truth effect for themselves compared to that for other people. 

This study is particularly important in light of the amount of misinformation present in social media. Many people have the power to influence public opinion about important matters. Flooding social media feeds with misinformation will lead people to believe this information is true just because it is stated. Recognizing that we are all susceptible to this influence of repeated information should lead us to mistrust our intuition （直觉） about what is true and to look up important information prior to using it to make important judgments and decisions.