One night in February 1962, John H. Glenn. Jr., flew over Australia. The man in the Mercury(水星) capsule（宇宙飞行容器）was alone, but friendly voices reached him by radio. On the dark land 100 miles below, he saw a sprinkling of light. They marked the city of Perth, where people had turned on their lights as a greeting to him.

    In Friendship7, Glenn radioed, “ The lights show up very well. Thank for everybody for turning them on.” His capsule raced on to the east.

    During his three orbits of the earth, Glenn could always reach one of eighteen tracking stations. Some of them were on ship at sea. Others were in the United States.

    Many of the stations had been built with the help of other countries.These countries allowed Americans to bring in radio equipment and set it up. Without the help of such lands as Nigeria（尼日利亚）, Zanzibar（尚巴西，坦桑尼亚领土的一部分）, and Mexico, there would have been breaks in the worldwide radio network.

    John H. Glenn. Jr., was the first America to orbit the earth. For his flight, the tracking network（跟踪网络） covered 60,000 route miles. Five hundred men worked in the stations along the route. Since his flight, the network has grown. Today, it covers more than 100,000 route miles and has about one hundred stations. One-third of these stations are outside of the United States.

    John J. Lennon, who's currently serving a 28-year life sentence for drug dealing and a murder he committed in 2001. He is one of 23 out of 2,300 inmates(监犯)participating in an education program, and he advocates greater access to education in prison through TV. Currently, he says the TV is used as “an inability tool; it's a tool to keep us entertained cells.” But he suggests that prison TVs should stream online courses instead of movies.

    “If inmates had the chance to watch an online course then they might say, ‘Hey, look what's on Channel 3; it's an interesting lecture from a professor of philosophy.' Believe it or not, people will tune in, and after the lecture they're going to go on their gates, hang on their bars, and they're going to talk about it.”

    Education, he says, also makes prison a safer place. “If I'm working on a paper banging away(砰砰响个不停)on my typewriter, I have other things on my mind. I'm not fighting in the prison yard.” Most prison administrators support that view. “They understand it makes prison a safer place if you have a group of guys with their eyes on the prize who are trying to change themselves.”

    John J. Lennon arrived at Attica in 2004 with a 9th grade education, but in May will graduate with a two-year associate degree. Attica creative writing workshops have changed his life.

    “I came into prison looking up to gangsters(匪徒), now I look up to scholars and intellectuals like Doran Larson, Tim Golden, all these Pulitzer-winning journalists. Education has changed the lens(镜头)through which I view the world. I don't look up to gangsters anymore. I think it's a horrible lifestyle.”

    Hamilton College professor Doran Larson has been teaching creative writing workshops at Attica since 2006. He says the demand for education from inmates is enormous and that it's “almost impossible to create a program large enough to satisfy the desire which pushes against the public perception(认识)that such people inside aren't interested in education.”

    Thoughts on prison education have changed over the years. Until 1973, there was a period of rehabilitation(改造)in American prisons. Even after that year, college degree programs were available for inmates nationwide until 1994, when the country's movement to get tough on crime made prisoners not qualified for Pell fund aid. “We have moved to a punishment mentality(心态),” Larson says. No one cared about these people “as long as they are kept from the outside.”

    Larson argues that inmates want to become productive members of society. The prison population is “a huge untapped resource, both commercial and intellectual. And right now there is far from enough being done to tap into skills which can get them off the public dole(失业救济金)and turn them into taxpayers.”

    I've never been the kind of person to say, “it's the thought that counts” when it comes to gifts. That was until a couple of weeks ago, when my kids gave me a present that blew me away.

    For years now, I've been wanting to sell our home, the place where my husband and 1 raised our kids. But to me, this house is much more than just a building.

    In the front room, there's a wall that has hundreds of pencil lines, marking the progress of my children's growth.

    Every growth stage is marked in grey, with each child's name and the date they were measured. Of all the objects and all the memories, it's this one thing in a home that's the hardest to leave behind. Friends I know have returned home after work only to discover their wall of heights has been freshly painted over. A new paint job wouldn't normally be greeted by tears, but erasing that evidence of motherhood hurts more than it should. Our kids grow in so many ways, but the wall is physical evidence of their progress, right there for everyone to see.

    Over the years, I've talked about how much I would hate leaving that wall behind when I moved, even though the last marks were made 10 years ago when my kids stopped growing.

    So one day, while I was at work, my children decided to do something about it.

    They hired Jacquie Manning, a professional photographer whose work is about capturing (捕捉) the beautiful things in life, from clear lakes and skies to diamonds and ballgowns (舞会礼服).

    She came to our house while I was at work, and over several hours, took photos of the hundreds of drawings and lines, little grey fingerprints (手印), and old marks. Somehow, she managed to photograph all those years of memories perfectly. Afterwards, she put all the photos together into one image, transforming them into a beautiful history of my family.

    Three weeks later, my children's wonderful gift made its way to me—a life-size photo of the pencil lines and fingerprints that represents entire lifetimes of love and growth.

    Singapore's public transport system is one of the best in the world, so you should have no problem finding your way around like a local. There are three main forms of public transport that you would find in any other major city－trains, buses and taxis.

TRAINS

    Trains run from 6:00 am to midnight. Single trip tickets start at 80 cents. If you buy an EZ-Link card for $15, you can ride the trains and buses as you like.

If you need more information, just call Transit Link on 1800 767 4333.

BUSES

    There are several bus services in Singapore and fares start at 80 cents. Be sure always ask the driver the cost of your ticket as he cannot give change.

If you need help, just call Transit Link on 1800 767 4333.

TAXIS

    There are three main taxi companies－City Cab (6552 2222), Comfort (6552 1111) and Tibs (6552 8888). Booking can also be easy by calling the numbers listed above.

RENTAL CARS

    Driving in Singapore is a pleasure and if you like to travel at your own pace, renting a car is a good choice. Renting takes away the hassle of getting to places around Singapore. Just sit back and enjoy the city. It also means you'll get to see a lot more that a trains or a bus won't let you see.

    For car rental, call Avis on +65 6737 1668.

    When you watch a movie these days, it's difficult to tell what's real and what's created by using computers. Visual effects can even change how movies are made.

    Almost anything that can be imagined by a director can now become reality in the world of movies. "We're really not limited by the technology, '' said David Smith, the CEO of Sony Pictures Imageworks. Mr Smith said that with today's technology, the digital world was more realistic than ever before. For The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Mr Smith's team created a Times Square that was exactly like the real one in New York. "If there are lights inside the stores that are lighting areas inside the store we put those lights there," said Mr Smith.

    But there was still one challenge for visual effects artists, said Paul Debevec of the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies. "We're still trying to figure out how to perfect the human face in movies, " said Debevec. He said the movie — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was still one of the best examples of computer generated movies, as actor Brad Pitt could be from an aged man to a baby in the movie.

    Mr Debevec added that besides changing the look of an actor's face, there could be another use for digital faces in the entertainment. Last year, effects artists created a digital face of the Asian pop singer Teresa Teng who was dead. Fans could still see and hear the concert on YouTube.

    Mr Debevec expects directors will start to use more virtual production techniques, like those seen in the movie Avatar. Mr Debevec says that with virtual production, there won't be a need for so many people behind the scenes. But visual effects artists agree, even with advanced technology, there is no replacement for a real actor showing a character in a movie.

    Your teenage best friend could be good for your long-term mental health, according to a new study published in the journal Child Development According to the findings, teenagers aged 15 to 16 who had a close friendship rather than a larger group of friends they were less close to had a greater sense of self-worth by the time they were 25 years old. Those people with a very close best friend were also less likely to experience depression and social anxiety, the study found.

    "Close friendship strength in mid-adolescence predicted relative increases in self-worth and decreases in anxiety and depressive symptoms by early adulthood, "the authors, led by Rachel K, Narr, a postdoctoral student focused on clinical psychology at the University of Virginia, wrote.

    A past research has suggested that adolescent friendships are important. Friendships during the teenage years predict academic success and improved mental health. But the new research further explores the type of friendships teenagers have. "My hunch(预感)was that close friendships compared to broader friendship groups and popularity may not function the same way," Narr told Quartz. "Being successful in one is not the same as being successful in the other."

    Many study participants did not continue to have a close relationship with their high-school best friend, leading the researchers to wonder what exactly was responsible for the mental health benefits. They suspected that the skills and ability to build such a friendship may be more important than the friendship itself.

    And as the researchers point out, those skills are not necessarily brought to bear in the world of social media. "As technology makes it increasingly easy to build a social network of shallow friends, focusing time and attention on developing close connections with a few individuals should be a priority," study co-author Joseph Allen said in a statement.