Jack was born without eyes. He's very lucky with his timing. He grew up having other kittens to play and socialize with, and was used to people from the moment he was born since there are always kids hanging around the barn. He was a favorite amongst the students at the barn. However, when it came time to find the kittens homes, no one knew where Jack would end up. That's when I got an e-mail from my friend. All she asked was “Do you still want one of the kittens? There's one here with no eyes and no one can take him.” Without thinking I told her that I did want the kitten.

    When we first brought him home Jack stayed mostly in my room. He walked cautiously around, sniffing everything. After about a day he had no issues running around, jumping onto my bed and climbing on everything. He went through a time where he could climb the stairs, but couldn't get down. He would sit at the top and cry until someone came and got him. Every now and then when he gets disoriented he'll stop and cry. But we just call his name and talk to him and it isn't long before he finds his way back to us.

    Also, a few weeks after getting Jack, we got a new barn cat named Bear. I always take Jack outside at that time for some fresh air and exercise. He loves to run (at top speed!) around the back yard and gardens. Bear and Jack have become best friends. It doesn't matter that he can't see, Jack always knows when Bear is around. He'll run across the yard straight to Bear and wrap his front legs around his neck in a big hug. They chase each other around and wrestle, and when they're tired they'll lie down in the grass together.

    Jack is truly an inspiration. I've owned a lot of kittens in my life, but Jack is the happiest, most playful of them all. He doesn't feel sorry for himself. Heck, for all he knows, all cats are just like him. People who know Jack don't feel sorry for him. They cherish him for the treasure that he is. I have talked to a few people who haven't met him personally who tend to pity him, but they just don't understand. Jack doesn't need pity. I think Jean (who has Gumbo the eyeless ginger) said it best when she told me that cats don't have disabilities, they have adaptabilities.

    Do you need useful and interesting books? Here we've got plenty for you.

Successful Fishermen

    Fishing is a healthy hobby. You can enjoy fresh air when you go fishing in the countryside. This book will teach you how to choose fishing places and how to make good fishing rods(竿) easily. Many kinds of fishing skills are shown in the book. Read it and you will become a more successful fisherman.

    Best Learners

    This book can give you the answers to the questions most often asked by parents, teachers and students themselves. Read this book and learn:

    What the three difficulties in study are and how to deal with them.

    What to do if you are not interested in a subject you are studying.

    Twenty­six simple exercises to help you study easily and fast.

    You will get more from this book. For younger students, you can buy Learn in Study for Beginners. It is easier to understand.

    How to Keep Pets

    A pet can be our best friend. Do you have pets in your house? Are they in good shape? This book not only offers you many colorful pictures of lovely pets, but also provides you with the knowledge about:

    How to choose right pets for yourself.

    How to build houses or nests(窝) for your pets.

    How to feed the pets and how to keep them clean.

    Buy this book and you will learn more.

    We have many other books on sale. For more information enter www. knowbetter com. If you buy two or more books at a time, you'll get 10% off.

Volunteering

    Just like the animals we shelter, people are very special to us. The Animal Shelter of Sacramento County has 300 active volunteers and is always eager to add more. If you have a few hours each week and a love for dogs and cats, we at the shelter welcome your participation.

    Youth Volunteers

    Children 10 years of age or older are allowed to take part in some of our programs as youth volunteers when accompanied by an adult. The adult can be a parent, or guardian 18 years of age or older. Volunteering is rewarding for a number of reasons. Youth volunteers learn responsibility as they serve the community. Volunteers are rewarded with the love for our sheltered animals. Volunteers learn about the needs of dogs and cats and how to care for those needs.

    Youth Volunteer Qualifications

    A youth volunteer must:

    *care deeply about animals and their happiness

    *complete an application form

    *be at least 10 years of age and accompanied by an adult

    *attend a training program

    Youth Volunteer Opportunities

    Youth volunteers may fill the position of dog nuzzler, cat snuggler, or kennel aide, if there are openings. Please call our volunteer information hotline at 1-800-290-5992 to hear a recording of the positions available.

    Dog Nuzzlers

    Dogs need to exchange information with human and exercise to stay healthy and feel comfortable around people. Dog nuzzlers must be knowledgeable about dogs and able to deal with medium-sized to large-sized dogs. Youth volunteer dog nuzzlers must be able to work at least two hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on either Saturdays or Sundays.

    Cat Snugglers

    Look after our cats, giving them lots of attention. Cat snugglers must be knowledgeable about cats and their needs. Youth volunteer cat snugglers must be able to work at least two hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on either Saturdays or Sundays.

    Kennel Aides

    Providing food and water for the animals at the shelter is a demanding job. Kennel aides assist the Animal Shelter staff in feeding the animals in our care. Kennel aides must be able to work at least two hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on either Saturdays or Sundays.

    Bad news sells. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news. Those are the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers. But now that information is being spread and monitored in different ways, researchers are discovering new rules. By tracking people's e-mails and online posts, scientists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.

    "The 'if it bleeds' rule works for mass media," says Jonah Berger, a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. They want your eyeballs and don't care how you're feeling. But when you share a story with your friends, you care a lot more how they react. You don't want them to think of you as a Debbie Downer."

    Researchers analyzing word-of-mouth communication—e-mails, Web posts and reviews, face-to-face conversations—found that it tended to be more positive than negative, but that didn't necessarily mean people preferred positive news. Was positive news shared more often simply because people experienced more good things than bad things? To test for that possibility, Dr. Berger looked at how people spread a particular set of news stories: thousands of articles on The New York Times' website. He and a Penn colleague analyzed the "most e-mailed" list for six months. One of his first findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list than non-science articles. He found that science amazed tines' readers and made them want to share this positive feeling with others.

    Readers also tended to share articles that were exciting or funny, or that inspired negative feelings like anger or anxiety, but not articles that left them merely sad. They needed to be aroused one way or the other, and they preferred good news to bad. The more positive an article, the more likely it was to be shared, as Dr. Berger explains in his new book, "Contagious: Why Things Catch on."

Singapore researchers say they have developed a form of electronic skin that can create a sense of touch. They hope their invention will give people with prosthetic hands (假肢手) the ability to identify different objects.

The skin device measures 1 square centimeter. The system contains 100 small sensors that attempt to recreate things like texture (质地), temperature and even pain. The researchers call the device Asynchronous Coded Electronic Skin, or ACES, which can process information faster than humans' nervous system. Machine learning methods trained the device to recognize 20 to 30 different textures. It can even correctly read Braille letters most of the time, the researchers say.

The system does not require the users' movement to work. Humans need to slide to feel texture. But in this case the skin, with just a single touch, is able to detect textures of different roughness.

A demonstration showed that the device could identify the difference between a soft ball and a solid plastic one. "When you lose your sense of touch, you essentially become numb and prosthetic users face that problem, " said Benjamin Tee, leader of the research team. "So by recreating an artificial version of the skin, for their prosthetic devices, they can hold a hand and feel the warmth and feel that it is soft."

Tee said his idea for the device came from the movie Star Wars, when character Luke Skywalker loses his right hand and it is replaced with a robotic one. In the film, the new hand is able to experience touch sensations just like the real one.

The artificial skin technology is still going through experiments and development. But Tee said there had already been a lot of interest in the system, especially from the medical community. Tee said similar inventions that his team has developed include see-through skin that can repair itself when torn and a material for wearable electronic devices that gives off light.

Perhaps you have seen them, those who fall asleep on the subway and then, somehow, wake up exactly at their stop. Perhaps you are one of them. How is this possible? We spoke to two doctors, who offered their insights about it.

It is possible that your body gets used to waking up at a certain point each time during your commute, said Dr. Marc I. Leavey, a primary-care specialist in Maryland. That holds especially true if you commute at the same time every day. This suggests that if you were to get on at a different time, or if the journey were delayed, your internal clock might not wake you up at your stop. It is an interesting theory, but Dr. Ronald Chervin, director of Michigan Medicine's Sleep Disorders Centers, does not fully buy it. He is skeptical that circadian rhythms can also explain why you wake up after a brief nap.

You are also likely to wake up for your particular stop because of an oral cue, such as the conductor stating the name of the subway stop over the public-address system. Such cues alert your brain that you have arrived, explained Dr Leavey. According to a study published in the Public Library of Science, during sleep, our brain reacts differently when we hear our own name and other people's names, noted Dr Chervin. This suggests that your brain does not turn off during sleep, which makes it possible to pick up on the announcement of your stop.

Another reasonable possibility: You may wake up at each stop, check if it is yours, and go back to sleep, all without having remembered it, added Dr. Chervin. He sees this in cases where patients are suffering from sleep apnea. They may wake up as many as 200 times during a single night, without having remembered a single instance. That's because they fall right back asleep before their brain has time to process their experience into long-term memory. Similarly, you could be waking up every time you hear a new stop called. But you just don't remember such instances even after you fully come awake for your stop—leading you to believe that you have slept the whole way through and miraculously woken up at the right time.