My 17-year-old daughter went off to college and having her away from home brought back memories of watching Peter Pan when she was little. In the classic TV production, one scene in particular impressed me: when Mrs. Darling puts her children into bed. As she turns off the last of the night light, she takes one last look at the bedroom and says, “Dear night lights, protect my sleeping children.” As a mother, I know how much she loves her children.

    It has been several weeks since we took our daughter to college and she seems to be adjusting  well after a short period of homesickness. For us, though, it's another story. Like most parents, I love checking in on my children at night. But now she's gone, and I find night times the hardest. I miss her most at night.

    In my neighborhood, most of the parents whose kids are off to college are dealing with similar melancholy. My husband is filled with anxiety. One friend talked about getting this sick feeling in her stomach as she prepared for the college drop-off. We complained that many of us were too busy to truly enjoy being with our children while we had them.

    For us moms, seeing Toy Story 3 only made the sadness worse as we watched the character Andy, who is the same age as our kids, say goodbye to his childhood as he prepares to leave for college. And it's not just “first-time” parents like me. Two moms who have kids already well into college said the separation didn't get any easier. “You feel like something has been taken away from inside you” said one of them.

    I imagine things will get easier with time, especially as I see my daughter adjust to college life. Meanwhile, as I keep my cell phone close to me in bed and text my daughter goodnight and sweet dreams every night, I like to think that messages serve as a night light that keeps her safe.

    THURSDAY, July 9 (Health Day News) — A new study that found that a lower calorie diet slowed the aging process in monkeys could be the best proof yet that restricted diets might do the same for humans.

    “The big question in aging research is, ‘Will caloric restriction in species closely related to humans slow aging？'” said Richard Weindruch, senior author of a paper appearing in the July 10 issue of Science. This is the first clear demonstration that, in a primate species, we' re inducing a slowdown of the aging process — showing increased survival, resistance to disease, less brain atrophy and less muscle loss.

    “This predicts humans would respond similarly，” added Weindruch, professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin and an investigator at the Veterans Hospital in Madison. Another expert noted that, despite some highly publicized studies in certain species, the link between restricted eating and longer lifespan has been far from proven.

    “The idea that dietary restriction extends lifespan in all species is not true. Many strains of rats and mice do not respond. In some strains, it's actually deleterious,” explained Felipe Sierra, director of the biology of aging program at the US National Institute on Aging (NIA), which supported the new study. “The fact that it doesn't work in some mice but it does seem to work in monkeys is surprising and it gives us hope.”

    But there's a larger question: how to change humans' increasingly careless eating habits. “This finding doesn't give me hope that humans are going to go into dietary restriction,” added Marianne Grant, a registered dietitian at Texas A&M Health Science Center Coastal Bend Health Education Center in Corpus Christi.

    Almost every machine with moving parts has wheels, yet no one knows exactly when the first wheel was invented or what it was used for. We do know, however, that they existed over 5,500 years ago in ancient Asia.

    The oldest known transport wheel was discovered in 2002 in Slovenia. It is over 5,100 years old. Evidence suggests that wheels for transport didn't become popular for a while, though. This could be because animals did a perfectly good job of carrying farming tools and humans around.

    But it could also be because of a difficult situation. While wheels need to roll on smooth surfaces, roads with smooth surfaces weren't going to be constructed until there was plenty of demand for them. Eventually, road surfaces did become smoother, but this difficult situation appeared again a few centuries later. There had been no important changes in wheel and vehicle design before the arrival of modem road design.

    In the mid-1700s, a Frenchman came up with a new design of road—a base layer (层) of large stones covered with a thin layer of smaller stones. A Scotsman improved on this design in the 1820s and a strong, lasting road surface became a reality. At around the same time, metal hubs (the central part of a wheel) came into being, followed by the pneumatic tyre (充气轮胎) in 1846. Alloy wheels were invented in 1967, sixty years after the appearance of tarmacked roads (柏油路). As wheel design took off, vehicles got faster and faster.

    Born in Detroit, Michigan, on January 10^th, 1928. Philip Levine was formally educated in the Detroit public school system. After graduation from university, Levine worked a number of industrial jobs, including the night work in factories, reading and writing poems in his off hours. In 1953, he studied at the University of Iowa. There, Levine met Robert Lowell and John Berryman, whom Levine called his “one great guide”.

    About writing poems, Levine wrote: “I believed even then that if I could change my experience into poems I would give it the value and honor that it did not begin to have on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it, I could come to understand it: I believed that if I could understand my life——or at least the part my work played in it——I could write it with some degree of joy, something obviously missing from my life.”

    Levine published (出版) his first collection of poems. On the Edge in 1961, followed by Not This Pig in 1968. Throughout his life Levine published many books of poems, winning many prizes. A review said: “Levine writes poems about the bravery of men, physical labor, simple pleasures and strong feelings, often set in working-class Detroit or in central California, where he worked or lived.”

    He taught for many years at California State University, Fresno and served as Distinguished Poet in Residence for the Creative Writing Program at New York University. After retiring from teaching, Levine divided his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Fresno, California, until his death on February 14^th, 2015. His final poem collection, The Last Shift, as well as a collection of essays (短文) and other writings, My Lost Poets: A Life in Poetry, were published in 2016.

    There are many programs for high school students today that help lonely teenagers deal with loneliness. However, loneliness is not only an issue for teens but also an important and rarely acknowledged one in the elderly.

    In Britain, Tracey Crouch was appointed to be the first Minister of Loneliness in order to address the issues caused by loneliness. This is the first time such a position has been created.

    In Britain, there are around 9 million people who say they are lonely frequently. In Germany, a study conducted by Ruhr University Bochum found that 20 percent of people over the age of 85 felt lonely, and 14 percent of those between age 45 and 65 felt socially lonely. In the United States, more than 25 percent of the population lives alone, more than 50 percent are unmarried.

    Loneliness is generally associated with heart disease, overweight, and anxiety. Additionally, the stress from loneliness can cause your cells to change on a molecular(分子)level that reduces its abilities to defend your body against diseases. In fact, doctors believe having feelings of loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day in regard to its effect on health!

    In Britain, the new Minister of Loneliness will help introduce government policies on the issue and fund a charity—an organization for helping people in need, to devote their efforts towards aiding loneliness. There are charities that link lonely seniors to high school students in order to give them a line of communication whenever they feel lonely!

    The possibilities for the new Minister of Loneliness are endless. For example, she can provide education services to household businesses so that they can identify lonely customers if they see one. Loneliness fits into the category of being a social issue that must be monitored by the entire community in order to help those in need. Therefore, government involvement in medical services and care for seniors and others is vital for happy seniors.

    My first visit to London was one and a half years ago. It was a wonderful trip. I stayed in the city for three weeks, and I had many impressions. I visited all the famous places. I'd like to tell you about some of the places I visited in this beautiful city.

    First, I went to the Tower of London, and I want to say that it is a very interesting historical place. I found out that a long time ago, it was a prison. Later it became a castle for the royal(皇家的) family. Or maybe it is the reverse; I'm not sure, but later they left this place and lived in Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace.

    I also enjoyed visiting the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, two very popular places for tourists. They are very old and beautiful. The Abbey is built in a kind of Gothic style; it is fantastic.

    In London, you can also enjoy nature. There are many parks such as Hyde Park, Green Park, and Holland Park. These parks are wonderful green, quiet places where you can relax and escape the noise of the city.

    Trafalgar Square is a popular place for students and other young people. You will find lots of pigeons(鸽子) there. If you have time, you can feed them and they will be very happy. You can buy special food for them, but be careful! Tons of birds are going to surround you if you feed them.

    Another special place in London that I like is St. Paul's Cathedral which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. I also was impressed with the museums in London. They're very popular. I found them interesting because you can learn about the history of England.

    I had a wonderful time in London. I really liked it because it is a city that is rich in history.