Scientists often see the first ten years of a child's life as the “window of opportunity”.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}And studies show that the following activities can benefit their brain greatly.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Free playtime has always been an important part of “being a kid”, but it is also important to a child's development. “Free play” not only helps kids develop different skills, it also helps them develop into happy healthy adults in the future.

Read with kids

    Reading has long been known to improve children's intelligence.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} For parents who don't have much time, just surrounding your kids with books goes a long way too.

Put kids to bed early

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Preschool children should get at least eleven hours of sleep and kids up to age 12 should try to get at least ten hours of sleep.

Learn a second language

    Early studies in this field have shown that bilingual （双语的）kids can perform better under pressure. Young children can learn new languages with nearly perfect fluency （流利）and pronunciation.

Praise good effort not intelligence

    Your kids may be smart but you should mainly praise the effort they put into tasks. Kids, who are praised on intelligence, often feel it is a fixed quality, and mistakes or failures badly hurt their self-confidence. Kids who are praised on effort often focus more on learning.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. Play some helpful games

B. Give them enough playtime

C. And they are not afraid to fail and try again

D. Kids still need time away from the TV to do homework

E. Kids who read often develop earlier writing and number skills as well

F. Everything at this time is very important to the development of a person's brain

G. Studies show that kids with regular bedtimes are better at languages, math and reading

    One of the most important things in the world is friendship. In order to have friends, you have to be a friend. You have to be with them in both good and bad times. In return, they will be there for you. But how can you be a good friend?

    Listen. Listen when they are talking. Keep eye contact. Don't say anything unless they ask you a question. Sometimes you're not required to have anything to say; they just need someone to talk to about their feelings.

    Help them. If your friends are ever in need of something, be there to help them. You should try to put them first, but make sure you don't become their slave (奴隶). Try to take an extra pencil or pen with you to classes as they may forget to take one. Have a few extra dollars in your pocket in case they forget something they need.

    Be there for them. Try to make something for your friends to help make them feel better in hard times. Making cards and baking things are among the nicest things you can do for a friend when they are in hard times. Marilyn Monroe once said, "I'm selfish, impatient (急躁的) and a little insecure. I make mistakes, and I am out of control and at times hard to deal with. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you surely don't deserve (值得) me at my best. " Always remember this! If you don't want to deal with your friends when they're depressed, then you don't deserve to be with them during those parties where you have a good time!

    Try to make plans with your friends. Go shopping, go for an ice cream, have a party, go to a movie and so on. Make time to know each other even better by doing something you both enjoy. These are the things you'll remember once you're all long graduated when looking back on your life!

    If you frequently travel for business, Stay bridge Suites offer you a range of home comforts. Four recent visitors to Staybridge Suites explain why they booked, what they enjoyed and what made them want to return.

Claire Metcalf

    “The concept is great, but the staff are the ones who really make it. ”she says. “It takes a lot of discipline to always be friendly, but the staff at Staybridge Suites do that. They genuinely care about you.”

Andrew Roberts

    “One of the best things is having my own kitchen. I often end up working late and I don't fancy eating in a restaurant on my own, so cooking for myself is a big drawcard. ”

    “The main thing for me is being able to cook and have my own little flat. The staff are amazing. It is great to be recognized by them, ”he says.

Pauline Robinson

    “What I love about it is the way that you are treated by the staff,” she says. “Some of the staff have been there all that time and they do look after you well. As a woman staying on my own, it is reassuring that they look out for you, and recently when I was poorly they even brought things I needed to my room. ”

Ryan Ruckledge

    “The fully-equipped kitchen is great. I always have a one-bed apartment so I have a separate kitchen and dining room and I'm able to relax and cook some meals. Eating out can feel a bit much when you do it day in and day out—it makes you hate what you do—and I don't want that.

    It's just been three months after the first bike-sharing company arrived in Singapore, but reports of abuse and vandalism（故意破坏）of shared bikes in the city keep appearing on social media.

    The majority of these shared bikes are stationless, which means they don't need to be stopped at a designated（指定的）spot. They lock themselves after your ride is over, and you're meant to just leave the bike at the side of a road.

    But users have been chaining up bicycles outside their apartments, preventing others from using them. Some people bring them up to their apartment floors, so they can't be found easily by other users. Some people have removed the bikes' number plates or codes, and some even have painted over the bikes to claim the bikes for themselves. Most of the abused bikes belong to either Singapore-based oBike, or ofo, a bike-sharing giant based in China.

    ofo has encouraged Singaporean users to report issues. oBike said that the number of bicycles that were damaged made up less than one percent of its fleet. The company said in February that it planned to bring in “tens of thousands” of bikes by mid-2017. The company has yet to ban anyone from its service, but said that it would take appropriate action – including making reports to the police.

    oBike also introduced a shortcoming system, similar to that of its competitor, China-based Mobike. Users start with 100 points, which get taken away for errant（出格的）behaviour such as forgetting to lock the bike, or parking at non-designated areas. Users are banned from using oBike when their scores reach zero. oBike has an eight-man operation team that can remove bicycles parked casually.

    When approached for comment, Mobike said, “In China, just as in Singapore, there are always a tiny minority of people who abuse the bikes, so we designed our system to prevent this type of abuse.”

    By trying to tickle(挠痒痒) rats and recording how their nerve cells respond, Shimpei Ishiyama and his adviser are discovering a mystery that has puzzled thinkers since Aristotle expected that humans, given their thin skin and unique ability to laugh, were the only ticklish animals.

    It turns out that Aristotle was wrong. In their study published on Thursday, Ishiyama and his adviser Michael Brecht found that rats squeaked and jumped with pleasure when tickled on their backs and bellies. These signs of joy changed according to their moods. And for the first time, they discovered a special group of nerve cells. These nerve cells made this feeling so powerful that it causes an individual being tickled to lose control.

    To make sure that he had indeed found a place in the brain where tickling was processed, Ishiyama then stimulated that area with electrical currents. The rats began to jump like rabbits and sing like birds.

    “It's truly ground-breaking,” said Jeffrey Burgdorf, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University who reviewed the paper. “It takes the study of emotion to a new level.”

    Burgdorf has played a central role in our understanding of animal tickling. He was part of a team that first noticed, in the late 1990s, that rats made special noises when they were experiencing social pleasure. Others had already noted that rats repeatedly made short and high sounds during meals. But the lab where Burgdorf worked noticed that they emitted similar sounds while playing. And so one day, the senior scientist in the lab said, “Let's go and tickle some rats.” They quickly found that those cries of pleasure doubled.

    “The authors have been very adventurous,” said Daniel O'Connor, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University who studies touch. To him, that finding was very surprising.

    “Why does the world literally feel different when you are stressed out?” he said. “This is the first step towards answering that question. It gives us a way to approach it with experimental rigor(严谨).”

    According to the Associated Press (AP), a Chinese scientist claims he successfully created the world's first genetically-edited babies.

    Chinese researcher He Jiankui, a research professor at China's Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, said he had edited DNA of twin girls born a few weeks ago. ①

    He's claims were immediately criticized by some scientists as unsafe and unethical. This kind of gene editing is forbidden in the United States and many other countries. ②Such changes to a person's DNA can pass to future generations and risk harming other genes.

    In interviews, He Jiankui defended his work. He said he had performed the gene editing to help protect the babies from future infection of HIV, the virus responsible for the disease AIDS. He said the process had “worked safely” and the twin girls were “as healthy as any other babies.” He told the AP he felt a strong responsibility “not just to make a first, but also to make an example” for future research. “Society will decide what to do next,” he said.

    When He's claims became public, the university made a statement saying his work had “seriously went against academic ethics and standards.” University officials said they had no knowledge of his research and had looked into the case. ③

    China's National Health Commission was “highly concerned” about the claims and ordered local health officials “to immediately look into” He's activity. “We have to be responsible for the people's health and will act on this according to the law,” the commission said.

    Scientists discovered in recent years a new way to edit genes that make up a person's DNA throughout the body. The tool, called CRISPR-cas9, makes it possible to change DNA to supply a needed gene or take one away that is causing problems. So far the tool has only been used on adults to treat deadly diseases, and the changes only affected that person.

    ④Kiran Musunuru, a scientist from University of Pennsylvania, told the AP that if such an experiment had been carried out on human beings, it could not be “morally or ethically reasonable.” Julian Savulescu, a medical ethics expert at Britain's University of Oxford, agreed. “If true, this experiment may cause disasters,” he told Reuters.

    However, one well-known geneticist, Harvard University's George Church, defended the attempt to edit genes to prevent infections of HIV. He told the AP that since HIV is “a major and growing public health threat” he finds such experiments “valuable.”