Are you looking for some new and exciting places to take your kids to? Try some of these places.

    Visit art museums. They offer a variety of activities to excite your kids' interest. Many offer workshops for making hand-made pieces, traveling exhibits, book signings(签名) by children's favorite writers, and even musical performances and other arts.

    Head to a natural history museum. This is where kids can discover the past from dinosaur(恐龙) models to rock collections and pictures of stars in the sky. Also, ask what kind of workshops and educational programs are prepared for kids and any special events that are coming up.

    Go to a Youtheater. Look for one in your area offering plays for child and family visitors. Pre-show play shops are conducted by area artists and educators where kids can discover the secret about performing arts. Puppet(木偶) making and stage make-up are just a couple of the special offerings you might find.

    Try hands-on science. Visit one of the many hands-on science museums around the country. These science play-lands are great fun for kids and grown-ups alike. They'll keep your child mentally and physically active the whole day through while pushing buttons, experimenting, and building. When everyone is tired, enjoy a fun family science show, commonly found in these museums.

    A black hole is created when a large star burns out. Like our sun, stars are unbelievably hot furnaces(熔炉) that burn their own matter as fuel. When most of the fuel is used up, the star begins to die.

    The death of a star is not a quiet event. First there is a huge explosion. As its outer layer is blasted off into space, the dying star shines as brightly as a billion suns.

    After the explosion, gravity pulls in what's left of the star. As the outside of the star sinks toward the center, the star gets smaller and smaller. The material the star is made of becomes tightly packed together. A star is so solid that a teaspoon of matter from it weighs billions of pounds.

    The more the star shrinks(收缩), the stronger the gravity inside it becomes. Soon the star is very tiny, and the gravity pulling it in is unbelievably strong. In fact, the gravity is so strong that it even pulls light into the star! Since all the light is pulled in, none can go out. The star becomes black when there is no light. Then a black hole is born!

    That's what we know about black holes. What we don't know is this: What happens inside a black hole after the star has been squeezed into a tiny ball? Does it keep getting smaller and smaller forever? Such a possibility is hard to imagine.

    But if the black hole doesn't keep shrinking, what happens to it? Some scientists think black holes are like doorways to another world. They say that as the star disappears from our universe, it goes into another universe. In other words a black hole in our universe could turn into a "white hole" in a different universe. As the black hole swallows(吞噬) light, the white hole shines brightly--somewhere else. But where? A different place, perhaps, or a different time--many years in the past or future.

    Could you travel through a black hole? Right now, no. Nothing we know of could go into a black hole without being crushed(挤压). So far the time being, black hole must remain a mystery.

Black holes are a mystery--but that hasn't stopped scientists from dreaming about them. One scientist suggested that in the future we might make use of the power of black holes. They would supply all of Earth's energy needs, with plenty to spare. Another scientist wondered if a black hole could some day be used to swallow earthly waste--a sort of huge waste disposal(处理) in the sky!

    One of the most firmly established idea of manliness(男子汉) is that a real man doesn't cry. Although he might cry a bit at a funeral, he is expected to quickly regain control. Crying openly is for girls. One study found that women cry significantly more than men do—five times as often, on average, and almost twice as long per period.

    Historically, however, men usually cried, and no one saw it as shameful. For example, in the Middle Ages, knights(骑士) cried only because they missed their girlfriends. In The Knight of the Cart, no less a hero than Lancelot cries at a brief separation from Guinevere. There's no mention of the men in these stories trying to hold back or hide their tears. They cry in a crowded hall with their heads held high. Nor do other people make fun of this public crying; it's universally regarded as an expression of feeling to show love.

    So where did all the male tears go? The most obvious possibility is that this is the result of changes as we moved from an agricultural(农业的) society to one that was urban(城市的)and industrial(工业的). In the Middle Ages, most people spent their lives among those they had known since birth. If men cried, they did so with people who would sympathize(同情). But from the 18^th to 20^th centuries, the population became increasingly urbanize, and people were living in the midst of thousands of strangers. Furthermore, changes in the economy required men to work together in factories and offices where expressions of feelings and even personal conversations were discouraged as time wasting.

    Yet human beings weren't designed to hide their feelings, and there's reason to believe that restraining tears can be harmful to your well-being. Research from the 1980s has suggested a relationship between stress-related illnesses and not enough crying. Crying is also, somewhat related with happiness and wealth. Countries where people cry the most tend to be richer and more confident.

    Chinese has overtaken French, Spanish and German to become one of the most promising foreign languages for job seekers in the UK. Research shows graduates in Chinese earn an average yearly salary of 31,000 pounds or more.

    Chinese students set themselves up for a different university experience from others who take traditional subjects. While an English student may have as little as six hours of a week, those studying Chinese are in class for most of the day. "I had a lot of friends on other courses who didn't do much in first or second year. You can't play at Chinese. You have to spend hours and hours writing characters," says Hannah, who graduated in Chinese Studies from Sheffield University. "The first year was really difficult. Most of my friends admitted at one point to crying because of the pressure. I was almost told at one point that I might want to reconsider and drop out. "

    So are the evenings in learning characters while your friends are at the student bar really worth its Despite the painful studying experience, most of the graduates think so. They use Chinese in their chosen careers, and would not have been in the jobs they do now without their knowledge of the language.

    Liberty now works for the civil service in Beijing. She earned a place on the Department for International Development graduate scheme with a salary of over 30, 000 pounds within two years. "The degree was absolutely worth it. Looking around at people I know who have studied French or Spanish at university, there's not such a chance to use it in the workplace."

    Hannah has set her apart in the workplace, but she warns ambitious students to think about whether they would really want to live in China in the future." Some people think they are going to learn Chinese and then be a big success, but I think it's important to be quite realistic about that. "

Riding clubs

    You can start horse-riding at any age. Choose private or group lessons any weekday between 9 am and 8:30 pm (3:30 pm on Saturdays). There are 10 kilometres of tracks and paths for leisurely rides across farmland and open country. You will need a riding hat.

    Opening Hours: Monday through Friday: 9:00 am—8:30 pm

    Phone: (412)396—6754 Fax: (412)396—6752

Sailing Club

    Our Young Sailor's Course leads to the Stage 1 Sailing qualification. You'll learn how to sail safely and the course also covers sailing theory and first aid. Have fun with other course members afterwards in the clubroom. There are 10 weekly two—hour lessons (Tuesdays 6 pm—8 pm).

    Opening Hours: Tuesdays: 6:00 pm-8:00 pm

    Phone: (412)396—6644 Fax: (412)396—6644

Diving Centre

    Our experienced instructors offer one-month courses in deep-sea diving for beginners. There are two evening lessons a week, in which you learn to breathe underwater and use the equipment safely. You only need a swimming costume and towel. Reduced rates for couples.

    Opening Hours: Monday and Friday: 6:30 pm—8:30 pm

    Phone: (412)396—6312 Fax: (412)396—6706

Medical Center

    The staff of the Medical Center aim to provide convenient and comprehensive medical care to students and staff of the university. The center is well equipped and the staff here are trained to deal with a broad range of medical problems. Both female and male doctors as well as nursing staff are available for consultation. Also, all kinds of medicines are sold here and are cheaper for students than other drugstores.

    Opening Hours: 24 hour from Monday to Sunday

    Phone: (412)396—6649 Fax: (412)396—6648

Watersports Club

    We use a two-kilometre length of river for speedboat racing, and water-skiing. A beginners, course consists of ten 20-minute lessons. You will learn to handle boats safely and confidently, but must be able to swim. The club is in a convenient central position and is open daily from 9a.m to 4p.m, with lessons all through the day.

    Opening Hours: Monday through Friday: 9 am—4 pm

    Phone: (412)396—6899 Fax: (412)396—6890

It is the stock response to a parent struggling with a crying baby or a bad-tempered teenager: "Treasure every moment because they grow up so fast." Now researchers have found there may be something in the old saying. Watching children grow up really does seem to make time fly. Scientists have found that parents feel time passing more quickly than non-parents.

The findings could be due to the fact that children change fast. "Over ten years, children go through dramatic changes not only in their physical appearance, but also in their understanding abilities and their status," the researchers said. The results could also be a consequence of parents spending a large amount of their time on their children, they said, even though they found no difference in the time pressures recorded by parents compared with non-parents in the study.

For the study, published in the journal Timing & Time Perception (感知), the researchers asked 431 people aged from 20 to 59 to fill in a subjective time questionnaire, a tool used by psychologists to measure time perception. They were asked: "How fast did the last ten years pass for you?" An answer of very slowly gave a score of-2; slowly was-I; neither fast nor slow was 0; fast was I and very fast scored 2. So the higher the score, the faster they felt time had passed. The parents had an average score of I. 22, compared with 0. 76 for the non-parents.

Participants were also asked how quickly the last year, month and week had passed, but there were no differences between the groups for these shorter intervals (间隔). Previous studies have suggested that time also seems to speed up when we get older. Research published in 2019 by Duke University in North Carolina suggests this could be due to physical changes in our bodies, with a slowdown in image processing speeding up our perception of time passing.

Days that seemed to last forever in our youth were "not due to experiences being much deeper or meaningful", the researcher Adrian Bejan said, "but due to the fact that they were being processed rapidly."