Visitors to the grounds of New College at England's Oxford University pass under an iron gate with the advice: Manners make the man. Even after an appropriate update to: Manners make the person, it's thought-provoking(引人深思的)—especially to today's Americans.

    When we think about what makes the person—it's more likely the degree, the job, the salary. Since when do we count manners as a measure of success?

    We do know that these would make life nicer, if more tolerable. However, we forget or overlook our manners. So , it seems, does everyone else—including, unluckily, our children.

    As a university president, one of my great joys is to visit our campuses and see our students, though we're separated by different generations, interests, and, of course dressing, each student tells me something within the first few minutes that we meet: whether he or she has been taught manners. I sense this in different ways: through her words or her gestures, in the way she listens or how he refers to friends and faculty, how she greets and says goodbye, how he responds when an elderly person enters the room.

    In the absence of manners, however, I make some allowances. For instance, the many ethnic(种族的)groups that students represent often have different explanations of what makes up good manners. In other cases, some students may reject what they've learned to break from their parents and be accepted by other students. Whether students are being different or openly opposing, a recent experience I had with them tells me that there's some hope for reviving and good manners.

    Good manners don't just guarantee acceptance. Good manners open doors to deeper connections and more meaningful roles in our society. Good manners are gentle signals that show we care about one another and allow us to relate to another person in a thoughtful way but at a respectable distance.

    Life-Changing Science Discoveries

    Here's a look at some discoveries that have changed the world. It's impossible to rank their importance, so they're listed in the order they were discovered

Micro-organism

    Before French chemist Louis Pasteur began experimenting with bacteria in the 1860s, people did not know what caused disease. He not only discovered that disease came from micro-organisms, but also realized that bacteria could be killed by heat and disinfectant(消毒剂). This idea caused doctors to wash their hands and disinfect their instruments, which has saved millions of lives.

Penicillin

    Antibiotics are powerful drugs that kill dangerous bacteria in our bodies that make us sick. In 1928, British Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin, which he grew in his lab. Without antibiotics, infections like strep throat could be deadly

DNA

    On February 28, 1853, James Watson of the United States and Francis Crick of England made one of the greatest scientific discoveries in history. The two scientists found the structure of DNA. Our genes are made of DNA and determine how things like what color hair and eye we'll have. In 1962, they were awarded the Nobel Prize for this work . The discovery has helped doctors understand diseases and may someday prevent some illnesses like heart disease and cancer.

X-rays

    Wilhelm Roentgen, a German physicist, discovered X-rays in 1895. X-rays go right through some substances, like flesh and wood, but are stopped by others, such as bones and lead. This allows them to be used to see broken bones or explosives inside suitcases, which makes them useful for doctors and security officers. For this discovery, Roentgen was awarded the first-ever Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

    STA Travel, the world's largest students and youth travel agency, beats any price! Every day we're working with our partners around the globe to get you (students, teachers and anyone under 26) the cheapest and most comfortable flights and top-rated accommodations. This part of www.statravel.com provides great tips for green travel — how to pack, how to leave your house or apartment, and how to plan for your trips. You'll also find a great selection of green travel adventure trips to all corners of the world.

    Green travel means responsible (负责任的) travel! Leave as little influence as possible on the places you visit and protect the environment both at home and during your trip. Think “Green” when you pack and when you travel. You'll help prevent long-term effects on the communities you leave and visit! Here's some advice on how to do that.

    Before you leave

    Turn your water heater to its lowest setting.

    Turn off your water from the outside.

    While you travel

    Pack suitable clothes in your luggage, none of which is to harm the environment.

    Try products made from recycled materials.

    Don't buy souvenirs produced from endangered species.

    Carry a reusable bottle for water and refill it as you go.

    Use the bathroom in the airport, NOT on the plane. The fuel used for a single flush (冲洗) could run a car for six miles.

    Thank you all for coming to the meeting. I'd like to start by confirming (保证) that we will receive some money from the government for our school trip to Indonesia. We will receive about $1,300 per child, which will reduce the whole cost to you.

    Now that we are sure to get the money, it is time to do some serious planning. We are sure that the trip will be very exciting for the children, especially if they have not traveled abroad before. There are many advantages(优点) of having some experiences to different places and cultures. Your children will be able to learn a lot about other people and cultures on this trip.

    Leanne is with us tonight. Leanne, where are you? Put up your hand so that the people can see who you are. Thank you. Leanne went on a trip there with some other students last year and will be happy to tell you of her experiences and answer any questions you might have. We will hear from her a bit later in the meeting.

    We only have five months to organize the trip. From past experience I can tell you that this time will go very quickly. So we need to start organizing the trip.

    This is the agenda (议程) for this evening's meeting:

    Passports: when and how to apply for one.

    Health matters: what precautions (预防措施) you need to take, plus any special needs that your child may have.

    Studying: what kind of the school and type of lessons your child will attend.

    Money: paying for the trip, plus how much money your child should take.

   Hotel: where we will be staying clothing and personal items that your children should take with them.

    Have you ever run into a careless cell phone user on the street? Perhaps they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new "species" of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name — phubbers（低头族）.

    Recently, a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes selfie（自拍照）in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events eventually leads to the destruction of the world.

    Although the ending sounds overstated, the damage phubbing can bring is real. Your health is the first to bear the effect and result of it. "Constantly bending your head to check your cell phone could damage your neck," Guangming Daily quoted doctors as saying. "the neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching." Also, staring at cell phones for long periods of time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.

    But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. At reunions with family or friends, many people tend to stick to their cell phones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.

    It can also cost you your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.

    Back in 1988, Red Delicious made up 70 to 80 percent of the domestic apple market. Over the years, farmers sold a lot of them because they looked great. But they had a floury texture (质地), and people want an apple that's firm, crisp(脆的)and juicy. I started searching for one. By 1994, threatened by varieties from Japan and New Zealand, the U.S. apple industry and Washington State University agreed that we had to grow our own.

    First, we cross-pollinated(授粉) existing apples: Collect pollen from one flower, put it on the tip of a pencil eraser, and rub it into another. We crossed dozens of crisp, tasty varieties such as Gala, Fuji, and Pink Lady. But the best breed came out of Honey Crisp and Enterprise parents. We grew the cross-bred seeds into 5-foot trees, grafted those to rootstocks(根茎) to make them start producing quickly, and planted them in evaluation gardens. A few years later, they fruited—and we began tasting.

    So I would walk down long rows of hundreds and thousands of trees, and when I found an attractive fruit, I'd bite, chew, spit it out. Most were terrible, but when I found one with good texture and taste, I'd pick 10 or 20 of them. Then I put them in cold storage to see how they would hold up after a few months. After that, three or four researchers sat down and tasted every apple. We checked acidity and sugar levels, which can break down over time, and tested firmness and crispness using instruments that measure pressure and cell breakdown.

    When we found exactly what we wanted, we planted and tested them all over again. Eventually, we ended up with the Cosmic Crisp. It can spend nine to 12 months in storage, and stay crisp, firm, juicy and sweet.