It was 3:21 a.m. when nine-year-old Glenn Kreamer awoke to the smell of burning. Except for the cracking(爆烈声) of flames somewhere below there was not a sound in the two-storey house at Baldwin Long Island.

    With his father away on night duty at a local factory, Glenn was worried about the safety of his mother, his sister Karen, 14 and his 12-year-old brother Todd. He ran downstairs through the smoke-filled house to push and pull at Karen and Todd until they sat up. Then he helped each one through the house to the safety of the garden. There, his sister and brother, taking short and quick breaths and coughing, fell down onto the lawn.

    The nine-year-old boy raced back into the house and upstairs to his mother's room. He found it impossible to wake her up. Mrs. Kreamer, a victim of the smoke, was unconscious(昏厥的), and there was nobody to help Glenn carry her to the garden. But the boy remained calm and, as a fireman said later, "acted with all the self-control of a trained adult."

    On the bedroom telephone, luckily still working, Glenn called his father and, leaving Mr. Kreamer to telephone the fire brigade and ambulance service, got on with the task of saving his mother.

    First he filled a bucket with water from the bathroom and threw water over his mother and her bed. Then, with a wet cloth around his head he went back to the garden.

    He could hear the fire engine coming up, but how would the firemen find his mother in the smoke-filled house where flames had almost swallowed up the ground floor?

    Grasping firmly a ball of string(线) from the garage, Glenn raced back into the house and dashed upstairs to his mother's room. Tying one end of the string to her hand, he ran back, laying out the string as he went, through the hall and back out into the garden.

    Minutes later he was telling fire chief John Coughlan, "The string will lead you to mother." Mrs. Kreamer was carried to safety as the flames were breaking through her bedroom floor.

    Watching a 3D movie can more than double the concentration powers and the cognitive（认知的）process of children,new re-search claims.

    A study by visual technology firm Read and led by child psychologist Dr Richard Woolfson and associate lecturer at Goldsmiths Patrick Fagan suggests that children aged between 7 and 14 experienced twice the cognitive processing speed and performed better in tests after watching 20 minutes of a 3D film.

    This suggests that children's attention spans have shortened in the last decade due to unlimited access to entertainment,including on-demand TV,gaming and social media.

    A 2015 study claimed that watching 3D content had a similar effect to brain-training exercises.

    Consumer psychologist Mr Fagan said that the increased stimulation found in watching something in 3D "exercised" the brain and improved performance in the short term.

    3D films can play the role of brain-training "games and help to make children 'smarter' in the short term," he said. "The response speed after watching 3D was almost three times as quick as that gained from watching 2D; in other words,3D helps children process aspects of their environment more quickly.This is likely because 3D is a mentally exciting experience which 'gets the brain's juices flowing'."

Welcome to the Kids' Science Challenge!

    Do you like science projects and winning some awesome gifts? This is the challenge for you. What's even better is that you don't have to build anything--simply come up with an original idea or design that relates to one of three topics given below.

Wonderful Sounds

    Ready for Wonderful Sounds? Click on Science Secrets to meet our sound specialist. And be sure to download fun activities with crazy new sounds and musical instruments in the Dig In section! Now what kind of new musical instrument can you invent?

Super Material for Sports

    Ready for Super Material for Sports? You'll discover the amazing world of Materials Science, where scientists and engineers develop new materials for everyday functions--like sports! Click on Science Secrets for information about our scientist. And don't forget to download the fun activities in the Dig In section! Now can you come up with a new sports material that would help you play your favorite sport?

Magical Microbes

    Ready to discover Magical Microbes, the tiniest living things on earth? Click on Science Secrets for information about our scientists. And be sure to download all the fun activities in the Dig In section! Now can you think of a brand new way that microbes can help people?

    Valerie Jarrett, 58, is serving as a top adviser to President Obama and has been close to the first family since the early 1990s. Joe Heim from WashingtonPost had an interview with her.

    Joe Heim: What do you think of a reporter who interviews you for 25 minutes, then later finds out his recorder stopped working and asks you to do the interview again?

    Valerie Jarrett: That he's human. Everybody could make mistakes.

    Joe Heim: You're considered the president's closest adviser. What do you think the role of an adviser is?

    Valerie Jarrett: I think so as that the president's management style is very effective (有效的), all of his advisers should speak openly about their advice.

    Joe Heim: What misunderstandings are there of you?

    Valerie Jarrett: A little-known fact is that I started my life very shy and remained very shy well into adulthood. Painfully shy, I would call it. And I often share this, particularly with young people, because it's something I really had to work hard to overcome. And for all the shy people out there I say, you, too, can overcome it. But it took a lot of hard work on my part, and I discovered along the way that just because you're nervous and you have butterflies in your stomach doesn't mean that it has to show. My point in sharing it with you is that part of life is pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone (舒适区). And if you're going to grow, you have to learn how to take on new challenges that you might not be good at.

    Joe Heim: Will you stay until the end of his term?

    Valerie Jarrett: I serve at the pleasure of the president. If he wants me to stay, I will.

    Here are our suggestions for keeping busy this week. Dive in!

    Take to the waves in Southampton

    Always fancied trying your hand at sailing? Now's your chance. The Southampton Boat Show has plenty of opportunities for visitors to get out on the water to experience boat sailing, power boating or taking a ride on a RIB ― all for free.

    Discover an island on the Thames

    To celebrate Totally Thames, a month-long festival is held at various locations across London. We've discovered 21 of the river's most fascinating islands ― all of them with interesting stories to tell. Make the most of it with our map here.

    Catch great films in Bristol

    Over six days, Encounters Film Festival screens up to 400 films from over 60 different countries. The Bristol festival provides a platform for international filmmakers, and offers a gateway to the likes of the BAFTAs, Oscars and European Film Awards. See here for full details.

Get scientific in London

    Experience the latest, best and most challenging science covering all areas of our lives and universe at New Scientist Live at ExCel London. New Scientist Live is a four-day festival full of ideas and discoveries from the team behind the world's most popular science weekly magazine, featuring four zones Brain & Body, Technology, Earth and Universe as well as talks from experts and over 200 exhibitors.

    As a young child, Ann Makosinski would spend hours experimenting with her toys and other everyday objects around her to create her own inventions.

    Now a first-year Arts student, Makosinski is a well-known inventor. She won the recent Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award of Excellence, which recognizes creative business solutions to social problems一the same recognition was given to Barack Obama in 2014. Her two inventions—the Hollow Flashlight and the e-Drink—have been causing excitement internationally since their creation.

    When Makosinski was 15 years old, she created a flashlight powered by the heat of one's hand. This invention was the result of a 9th grade science project, but her goal was to offer a practical solution to people with unlimited access to power and electricity. "One of my friends from the Philippines told me that she failed school because she had no light to study with at night, so that was kind of the inspiration." Makosinski explained.

    At 12th grade, Makosinski then went on to create the e-Drink. It is a coffee cup that harvests the extra heat of a hot drink while it cools, stores it as electricity in an intemal(内置的）battery and makes it available to charge an external device such as a phone, whose life can now be longer by approximately 10 to 30 minutes.

    "My favorite part of creating inventions would be when you had the idea and you have to physically build it, and it doesn't work out," she said. "So you have to figure out different ways to solve it. A lot of times, I'll give up and I'll come back after a couple of days and I'll take it up again."

    Her advice to other student innovators? "Start now. There's nothing holding you back. Actually, you can do whatever you want." Makosinski said, "If you want to make something, follow your heart, then go ahead. If there's something you really want to do, you will make time for it and you will find time in the day to do your schoolwork."