When Jeanne Calment entered the world in 1875, telephones and automobiles still lay in the future. Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso were not yet born. The Eiffel Tower was 14 years from being built. As a teenager, she met Vincent Van Gogh, near her home in Arles, in the south of France. He was “very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick—I forgive him, they called him loco (精神失常的)”, she recalled. When she died last week at age 122, she was the world's eldest person. (There are others who claimed to the title, but only Calment had the official documents to prove her age.)

    Each February 21, her birthday, she would share the secrets of long life. Some years it was “a sense of humour”, others it was “keeping busy”. “God must have forgotten me,” she once explained. The truth probably was that her mother reportedly lived to be 86 and her father 94.

    Her life had its sadness: she outlived her husband, her only daughter and her grandson. According to a friend, she was imperturbable. “If you can't do anything about it,” she reportedly said, “don't worry about it.”

    In her last years she was nearly blind and deaf, but her health remained good. She ate a few bars of chocolate each week and continued smoking until a few years ago, when she could no longer light her own cigarettes. She never lost her sense of humour. On her 110^th birthday, she commented, “I've only ever had one wrinkle, and I'm sitting on it. “Her longevity made her famous; her spirit made her eternal (永恒的).

    Tim Richter and his wife, Linda, had taught for over 30 years near Buffalo, New York—he in computers, she in special education. “Teaching means everything to us,” Tim would say. In April 1998, he learned he would need a heart operation. It was the kind of news that leads to some serious thinking about life's purpose.

    Not long after the surgery, Tim saw a brochure describing Imagination Library, a program started by Dolly Parton's foundation (基金会) that mailed a book every month to children from birth to age five in the singer's hometown of Sevier, Tennessee. “I thought, maybe Linda and I could do something like this when we retire,” Tim recalls. He placed the brochure on his desk as a “reminder”.

    Five years later, now retired and with that brochure still on the desk, Tim clicked on imagination library com. The program had been opened up to partners who could take advantage of book and postage discounts.

    The quality of the books was of great concern to the Richters. Rather than sign up online, they went to Dollywood for a look see. “We didn't want to give the children rubbish,” says Linda. The books reviewed each year by teachers, literacy specialists and Dollywood board members included classics such as Ezra Jack Keats's The Snowy Day and newer books like Anna Dewdney's Llama Llama series.

    Satisfied, the couple set up the Richter Family Foundation and got to work. Since 2004, they have shipped more than 12,200 books to preschoolers in their area. Megan Williams, a mother of four, is more than appreciative: “This program introduces us to books I've never heard of.”

    The Richters spend about $400 a month sending books to 200 children. “Some people sit there and wait to die,” says Tim. “Others get as busy as they can in the time they have left.”

    Your weight has been important since the moment you were born. Maybe you even know what your birth weight was. Most newborns weigh between 6 and 9 pounds, but some may weigh more and some less. But very quickly, a baby gains weight and everyone is glad about that because it means the child is growing bigger and stronger.

    As you get older, your weight is still important. It's something your parents and doctor will probably keep an eye on. When you go for a checkup, the doctor often will record your height and weight and compare it with what it was the last time you came in. The doctor wants to check whether you have a healthy weight because weighing too much or too little can be a problem.

    But these days, being overweight is more common than being underweight. In the last 30 years, a growing number of kids and teenagers have developed weight problems. Today, 1 out of 3 kids and teens between the ages of 2 and 19 are overweight. Many grown-ups understand what it's like to have weight problems, since 2 out of every 3 adults(成年人) are overweight.

    For kids and adults, weighing too much can lead to illnesses and health problems. And a kid who is overweight might be made jokes on or find it hard to keep up with friends on the playground. When people talk about being overweight, they mean that someone has more body fat than is healthy. Everyone has some body fat, but extra (多余的) fat can influence someone's health and ability to walk, run, and get around, as well as how the person looks and his or her self-respect.

News Review

    APEC Blue   People in Beijing got the saying after the APEC meeting in Beijing. It refers to(指) the clear blue sky during the meeting. To get such a blue sky, many factories in Beijing and nearby cities stopped work, and the number of cars on the road was cut.

    A Warning Ticket   A 24-year-old woman in Nanjing was given a warning ticket for eating food on the subway. Eating is not allowed on Nanjing subway. Up to now, 2,698 people have been punished (惩罚) because of their eating, smoking or selling goods on the subway.

    A Teacher-free Exam   Recently, students at Ningbo Huamao Foreign Language School in Zhejiang took their mid-term exam –a teacher-free exam. After handing out the exam papers, the teachers left the classroom, leaving the students to take the exam without being watched. They only came back to collect the papers at the end.

    A Tomato Fight   Do you want a tomato shower? Come to the “tomato fight” in Spain! Once every year, people in the town of Bunol throw tomatoes at each other. Don't worry. It's not a real fight. People do this only for fun.

    How was your day today? If it was just sort of OK, with nothing much happening, then Scott Shaffer wants to hear from you. Mr Shaffer is the editor of the Journal of Mundane Behaviour. "We can learn a lot about the way that society works by examining normal patterns of behavior," he says. "All the ordinary decisions we make and ordinary things we do are society in action."

    The idea that social scientists should "study the unmarked", in Mr Shaffer's words, has also spread to historians. Traditionally, most history has been written as the story of greatness. It is all about great ideas, great people and great economic and social forces changing the way that millions of people live for ever. Albert Einstein's theory of relativity changed the way that we look at the universe. But has he been of more benefit to humanity than the unknown person who invented the first really comfortable shoe? Try thinking great thoughts when your feet hurt.

    In recent years, books of micro-history have been a great success with the public. Most micro historians like to relate their subject to wider developments in society. According to historian Catherine Gallagher, the potato was once a matter of great argument. Supporters pointed out that it could grow cheaply and easily and help feed the poor. Opponents said that this would lead to the poor becoming more powerful, since they did not have to spend every hour working to feed themselves. It seems that European socialism started with an argument about vegetables. British historian Colin Jones wants us to look at pictures painted hundreds of years ago. He wants us to notice the fact that nobody smiles in these pictures. Compare that with today, when everyone smiles for the camera and refusing to smile is seen as an unfriendly act. It is all because of dentistry, he says. Once people were able to look after their teeth, they began to smile and the world became a happier place.

    Whether stories like this are true or not, they put ordinary people at the center of history. Most of us are not going to change the world in a big way. But we might be able to do something that makes life a bit easier for other people. And maybe one day a historian will come along and write the story. It is something to get excited about, though perhaps not very excited.

    When I was small and my grandmother died, I couldn't understand why I had no tears. But that night when my dad tried to cheer me up, my laugh turned into crying.

    So it came as no surprise to learn that researchers believe crying and laughing come from the same part of the brain. Just as laughing has many health advantages, scientists are discovering that so, too, does crying.

    Whatever it takes for us to reduce pressure is important to our emotional health, and crying seems to work well. One study found that 85 percent of women and 73 percent of men report feeling better after crying.

    Besides, tears attract help from other people. Researchers agree that when we cry, people around us become kinder and friendlier and they are more ready to provide support and comfort. Tears also enable us to understand our emotions better; sometimes we don't even know we're very sad until we cry. We learn about our emotions through crying, and then we can deal with them.

    Just as crying can be healthy, not crying - holding back tears of anger, pain or suffering - can be bad for physical health, Studies have shown that too much control of emotions can lead to high blood pressure, heart problems and some other illnesses. If you have a health problem, doctors will certainly not ask you to cry. But when you feel like crying, don't fight it. It's a natural –and healthy-emotional response.