When I was a boy my father told me that he could do anything he wanted to. Dad said that he wanted to be the first to develop color prints in our city and so he did．

        When I was 16，Dad looked closely at the violin I played and said that he wanted to make one．He read about violin-making, and then became a violin-maker at the age of 43. He bought the tools and materials, opened a small store and set Mom up as the shopkeeper, while he worked at a local company. He retired from the company 17 years later and continued to make violins and other instruments.

        Dad often guessed why the Stradivarius violins sounded so beautiful. Some experts told him that it was the special varnish(油漆)that gave the instruments their beautiful sound．Dad argued that chemists could analyze the varnish—if that was the answer．

One of Dad's friends asked him which kind of wood was used to make violins．When Dad explained that the top was made of spruce(云杉), his friend said that he had all old piece of spruce which Dad might be interested in.

He worked for the next 12 months making a violin from the wood that his friend had given him. It proved to be an excellent violin and it would become Dad's masterpiece. He believed that the secret of the Stradivarius sound was in the wood itself.

        Later, the instrument was stolen, Dad's spirit was broken and he stopped making instruments. But he kept the music shop until he was 80 years old, selling guitars and violins.

        The violin has been missing for more than 25 years．Somewhere a musician is playing a late-20th-century violin with an excellent tone．The owner today may never understand why this Ordinary-looking violin sounds so much like Stradivarius．

    Humans have launched themselves into the outer space. They've landed on the moon. They've built habitable space stations that orbit the Earth. The next giant leap for mankind is to reach another planet – specifically, Mars.

    The problem is that it's no easy task. The planet is 586 times further away from the Earth than the moon, and it'll take around 180 to 220 days to reach Mars, depending on where each planet is in its orbit. Such long periods in space have suggested many potential health problems, including hormonal changes, skin conditions, and muscle and bone deterioration (损耗).

    Here's where some furry friends come in. A wide range of animals have been in space, from fruit flies and spiders to cats, and dogs. Such experiments began as far back as the late 1940s in first tests to see if living things could withstand the extreme g-force (重力) of a rocket launch.

    Mice continue to play a very important part in space experiments, mainly because the animals make excellent test subjects. They're small, which makes them inexpensive and easy to care for. In addition, their size and short life span make it possible to do the equivalent of several human years of tests in a much shorter time. Finally, because mice are mammals, they share many common characteristics with humans in terms of genetics, biology and behavior.

    Astromice have hit the headlines recently, as a team of scientists led by Betty Nusgens, professor of biology at the University of Liege in Belgium, found that the mice suffered a 15 percent thinning of their skin after 91 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

    This experiment was part of a wider NASA mission (任务) called the Mice Drawer System (MDS). The Italian Space Agency developed the facility, which allows six mice to be housed, monitored, and automatically fed and watered aboard the ISS, among which three survived during the mission.

    The mice have participated in 20 separate experiments, to study such effects as osteoporosis (骨质疏松症), anemia (贫血) and heart health.

    Results for the 20 experiments are coming in gradually. But it's clear that mice continue to play an important role in the ongoing quest to conquer the final frontier.

With around 100 students scheduled to be in that 9:00 am Monday morning lecture, it is no surprise that almost 20 people actually make it to the class and only 10 of them are still awake after the first 15 minutes; it is not even a surprise that most of them are still in their pajama's(睡衣). Obviously, students are terrible at adjusting their sleep cycles to their daily schedule.

    All human beings possess a body clock. Along with other alerting systems, this governs the sleep/wake cycle and is therefore one of the main processes which govern sleep behaviour. Typically, the preferred sleep/wake cycle is delayed in adolescents, which leads to many students not feeling sleepy until much later in the evenings. This typical sleep pattern is usually referred to as the “night owl” schedule of sleep.

This is opposed to the “early bird” schedule, and is a kind of disorder where the individual tends to stay up much past midnight. Such a person has great difficulty in waking up in the mornings. Research suggests that night owls feel most alert and function best in the evenings and at night. Research findings have shown that about 20 percent of people can be classified as “night owls” and only 10 percent can be classified as “early birds” —— the other 70 percent are in the middle. Although this is clearly not true for all students, for the ones who are true night owls, this gives them an excellent excuse for missing their lectures which unfortunately fall before midday.

    When it comes to mental illness, many people often find it tough to get the help they need. This is especially true for young students making the transition(过渡) to college life.

    “Sometimes, students don't realize how hard it is to adjust to college,” said Laura Smith, associate dean of students at the University of Texas at Dallas. “You're not the big fish in your classes anymore; you have all kinds of personal stress; you're away from home. Dealing with these things is not easy.”

    Students who are going through these problems sometimes want to reach out. But if students don't feel comfortable seeking help, many feel that it's the responsibility of their university to help them.

    “I really wish that there was more importance placed on how counseling(咨询) centers help students,” said Comnie Trinh. “Counseling services are just as important as academics and sports.”

    Trinh, 27, graduated from Texas Woman's University in 2015. During college, she hosted various workshops on how to handle mental health conditions. Trinh used her own story to connect with students who might be facing similar problems. High academic pressures, cultural differences as an Asian American and stressful social situations stood out as some of the most common causes of Trinh's anxiety.

    It was only after years of personal problems that she could admit that reaching out isn't a sign of weakness.

    ”If you feel you can't connect with other people around you, you should address the issue without shame,” Trinh said. “You'll find that there are a lot of people out there who sincerely want to help you.”

    Oil Painting Workshop

    Jan. 7, 2019

    For Ages 15 and Up

    Beginners Welcome! Experience Not Required!

    Registration (登记) Deadline —— Dec. 31, 2018

    Class Schedule

    9:30—10:00 am            Welcome and Registration

    10:00—12:00 am          Painting Session

    12:00 am—1:00 pm        Lunch

    1:00—3:00 pm            Painting Session

    3:00pm                    Evaluation and Departure

    Instructor

    Judy Moore Gist, Alexander Certified Instructor and Ross Certified Instructor, is making great efforts to give people of all ages the opportunity to experience Alexander's The Magic of Oil Painting and Bob Ross's The Joy of Painting. Both, William Alexander and Bob Ross, PBS TV hosts, have inspired thousands of first-time painters. The “wet-on-wet” technique have encouraged people of all ages to pick up a brush and put their dreams on canvas (油画布). Judy will do the same, and you are welcome to take a class and see for yourself. At the end of just one session you will be amazed at the beautiful painting that you create in just a few hours. You will become more aware of beautiful cloud shapes and colours you ignored before. There is nothing more inspiring than seeing the beautiful scenery that you paint and others will treasure forever.

    For more information about Judy Moore Gist, click here.

    Cost

    $75.00/a person. Prices include all instructor fees, materials, and lunch.

    If you wish to pay by check, please print the OilPaintJan.pdf printable registration form and mail it in with payment to: Holiday Lake 4H Educational Center, 12674-H Camp Road, Appomattox, VA 24522.

    Refund(退款) Policy

    Full Refund: Dec. 31, 2018

    Nonrefundable: after Dec. 31, 2018

    For more information, contact Heathern Benninghove at 232-268-6777 or heathern@vt.edu.

    A large scale study has found a link between eating a diet based on organic food and having a reduced risk of cancer. If the new results are confirmed, promoting organic food consumption could be a promising preventative strategy against the disease, a team of researchers from several French institutions said.

    Among the environmental risks for cancer, there are growing concerns about exposure to different types of pesticides（杀虫剂） from farming. The impact of such chemicals on the human body is still not well understood but there are some indications that harmful effects can occur even at low concentrations.

    Meanwhile, pushed by environmental and health concerns, the organic food market continues to grow rapidly. Organic food is produced without the use of synthetic（合成的） fertilizers, pesticides, genetically modified organisms, and the use of veterinary（兽医的） medications.

    "Organic foods are less likely to contain pesticide remains than conventional foods, and studies have shown that an organic diet reduces exposure to certain pesticide," Julia Baudry, lead author of the study from the Centre of Research in Epidemiology and Statistics in France, told Newsweek.

    "In the general population, the primary route of exposure is diet, especially intake of conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. However, few studies have examined the association of organic food consumption with cancer risk."

    For the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, a team of researchers examined data on the organic food consumption frequency and dietary intake of 68,946 French adults collected by an ongoing survey which began in 2009. They then followed up on these people at various points in the future.

    Participants reported how often （never, occasionally or most of the time） they consumed 16 types of organic foods including fruits, vegetables, soy﹣based products, dairy products, meat and fish, eggs, grains and legumes, bread and cereals, flour, vegetable oils and condiments, ready﹣to﹣eat meals, coffee, tea, and herbal tea, wine, biscuits, chocolate, sugar and so on.