It was the day after Halloween when my grandmother was admitted to the hospital with the worst headache she'd ever had. While posing in our costumes the night before, we knew something was wrong, just not how wrong.

    Grandma's house was the central gathering place of my family. Sunday lunches, birthday dinners, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas — all were our traditions, with her as hostess. While my parents were busy running their small business, there were many nights when Grandma fed me and put me to bed in her spare room, until they came to get me. I spent my summers at Grandma's and I went everywhere with her. I couldn't imagine a time when she wouldn't be around me.

    Then November 1,1991 began her month-long stay in the hospital—she suffered from a rare infection (感染)called nocardia asteroides. After being born in the year of the Great Depression, living through World War II, raising three kids, and being widowed at the age of 48, Grandma never expected to live into her seventies. The infection in her brain seemed to confirm that she wasn't long for this world. But that's not the end of her story. A team of doctors successfully removed the abscess(脓肿), and Grandma even made it into a local medical journal. Her doctor called her “the brain lady”.

    Grandma celebrated her 85^th birthday in March this year. In the almost 23 years since her recovery, she's seen two of her four grandchildren get married and welcomed three great-grandsons. Although they damage something in her house, she loves it when my two boys come over. And while I know they make her day, seeing her love blossom for another generation makes my day too. Happy Grandparents' Day to my amazing grandmother!

    I travel a lot, and I find out different “styles” of directions every time I ask “How can I get to the post office?”

    Foreign tourists are often confused in Japan because most streets there don't have names; in Japan, people use landmarks（地标）in their directions instead of street names. For example, the Japanese will say to travelers, “Go straight down to the corner. Turn left at the big hotel and go past a fruit market. The post office is across from the bus stop.”

    In the countryside of the American Midwest, there are not usually many landmarks. There are no mountains, so the land is very flat; in many places there are no towns or buildings within miles. Instead of landmarks, people will tell you directions and distances. In Kansas or Iowa, for example, people will say, “Go north two miles. Turn east, and then go another mile.”

    People in Los Angeles, California, have no idea of distance on the map; they measure distance in time, not miles. “How far away is the post office?” you ask. “Oh,” they answer, “it's about five minutes from here.” You say, “Yes, but how many miles away is it?” They don't know.

    It's true that a person doesn't know the answer to your question sometimes. What happens in such a situation? A New Yorker might say, “Sorry, I have no idea.” But in Yucatan, Mexico, no one answers “I don't know.” People in Yucatan believe that “I don't know” is impolite. They usually give an answer, often a wrong one. A tourist can get very, very lost in Yucatan!

    In China, Major Cold (大寒) is the last solar term in winter and also the last solar term in the annual lunar(阴历的) calendar. In this period, snow, rain and icy cold weather have a big influence on people's lives.

    Here are several things you should know about Major Cold.

    Eating "dispelling cold cake" (吃"消寒糕")

    During Major Cold, people in Beijing have a habit of eating "dispelling cold cake", a kind of rice cake. Sticky rice, the cake's main ingredient, contains more sugar than rice, which can make people feel warm all over their bodies. In Chinese the word "rice cake" has the same pronunciation with the word "higher in a new year", which symbolizes good luck and continual promotion.

    Eating fried spring roll（吃春卷）

    In Anqing of Anhui province, people traditionally eat fried spring rolls during Major

    Cold. They use a round, cooked, thin pancake to wrap stuffing（馅料）in a thin roll. Then it is fried in a pan with oil until it turns yellow and floats to the top. The stuffing inside the spring roll contains meat or vegetables and the flavor can be salty or sweet.

    Drinking stewed soup

    People in Nanjing of Jiangsu province like to drink stewed soup during Major Cold, which can make people feel warm from head to foot. They always stew the aged hen soup with ginseng(人参), matrimony vine(枸杞) and black fungus(黑木耳).

    Doing winter sports

    There is a saying that goes, "Dripping water freezes during Minor and Major Cold." In various regions of China, Major Cold is the perfect time for winter sports such as skiing, ice skating and sledding.

    Oxford and Cambridge have now decided to remove the words CAN'T and IMPOSSIBLE from their dictionary. Jessica Cox, 25, a girl born without arms, stands inside an aircraft. The girl from Tucson, Arizona got the Sport Pilot certificate lately and became the first pilot licensed to fly using only her feet. Jessica Cox of Tucson was born without arms, but that has only stopped her from doing one thing: using the word "can't".

    Her latest flight into the seemingly impossible is becoming the first pilot licensed to fly using only her feet.

    With one foot manning the controls and the other delicately guiding the steering column, Cox, 25, soared to achieve a Sport Pilot certificate. Her certificate qualifies her to fly a light-sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet.

    "She's a good pilot. She's rock solid," said Parrish Traweek, 42, the flying instructor at San Manuel's Ray Blair Airport. Parrish Traweek runs PC Aircraft Maintenance and Flight Services and has trained many pilots, some of whom didn't come close to Cox's abilities.

    "When she came up here driving a car," Traweek recalled, "I knew she'd have no problem flying a plane."

    Doctors never learned why she was born without arms, but she figured out early on that she didn't want to use prosthetic devices. So, the next time you are ready to tell yourself, "I can't possibly..." remember this amazing young woman and change your vocabulary.

    The effects of coffee consumption on health have long been a subject of conflict and uncertainty. Since the 1980s, some have spoken out against coffee as harmful to health, while others have welcomed coffee for its supposed benefits to health.

    According to a scientific report, mild coffee consumption, three to five cups per day, can be taken as a healthy dietary pattern, along with other healthful behaviors. The report also says that coffee consumption helps reduce the risk of heart disease and it protects against Parkinson's disease.

    According to Dr. Donald Hensrud of Mayo Clinic, high consumption of coffee has health risks. Dr. Hensrud mentions the dangers of high coffee consumption for people with a certain illness that slows the breakdown of caffeine in the body. Some studies said that drinking two or more cups of coffee daily can actually increase the risk of heart disease in these people.

    According to conclusions from a recent study led by Dr. Gregory Marcus, a doctor from the University of California San Francisco, daily moderate consumption of caffeine, less than 4 cups, is not associated with these issues.

    Until the scientific community reaches a general agreement on the effects of coffee consumption on human health, it will be up to the individual to decide whether the benefits of drinking coffee are greater than the risks.

    When informed of these possible health benefits and harms of drinking coffee, Harwood, a high school student stated, "Even though there might be some negative effects of drinking coffee, for the most part, coffee drinking sounds good for health. Not to mention I need coffee to stay awake."

PhoneSoap: Charge and Clean Your Phone

    You may charge your phone every day, but do you clean your phone as much? Whatever your hands touch, your phones touch. It has been discovered that some phones have 18 times more bacteria and viruses than any surface in a public restroom. So it probably won't surprise you that a 2011 University of London study found that one in six of our phones have bacteria and viruses on them—specifically, the bacteria called E.coli.

    The research on bacteria and viruses led to the invention of PhoneSoap. It is not actually liquid like dishwasher soap. It is a phone charger that uses the electromagnetic radiation used in hospitals to kill 99.9 percent of bacteria and viruses, cleaning your phone while it charges.

    "There are really certain types of bacteria and viruses that we should not be in touch with, and they are really on our phones," says Wes Barnes, the PhoneSoap co-founder. It all started while his cousin and co-founder, Dan LaPorte, was in his cancer research lab at college. "He realized he got the idea of getting rid of bacteria and viruses on the phones," said Barnes. "In the lab they used UV-C light for destroying them. He realized this would be the fastest, most powerful way to kill any bacteria and viruses living on electronic machines."

    PhoneSoap looks like a little metal suitcase. Your phone rests in to charge and get cleaned at the same time. Instead of plugging your phone into the wall, you'd plug it into the PhoneSoap charger box. The process only takes a few minutes but, Barnes says, "The idea is that you can leave it in there overnight if you want to keep charging. Reflective paint keeps the light completely around the phone so it cleans the phone fully."

    The co-founders spent 2013 finding the right companies and they started shipping the product in late November. By last week's International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, PhoneSoap was all grown-up. Both co-founders have left their previous jobs and are selling PhoneSoap nonstop. "We're shipping almost more than we can handle each day," Barnes says. "It's been a great adventure."