Recently, I learned firsthand why it's a bad idea to judge people prematurely (过早地).

    I'm a nursing supervisor, and my job is to evaluate workers' performances at the hospital.

    Kenny was a new employee. After weeks' probation (试用), I had to admit that he was clean, punctual and efficient.

    But he had this self-assured and energetic presence. He was a large man, both physically and socially — he was independent and strong. I worried that our hospital, which demanded teamwork, was not right for such a personality.

    We had a patient named Mary. At 94 years old, Mary was weak. She had outlived her husband and sisters.

    Mary had an obsessive (强迫性的) belief that someone had taken her purse. She searched for it all the time. Unless tied to her wheelchair, she would go through the door onto the street mindlessly searching and never giving up. She was often sitting in her wheelchair in the hallway, where she stopped everyone who came near.

    “Can you lend me a comb?” she would ask. “I've lost mine. It was in my red purse. Where is my purse?”

    Every day it was the same. We all knew Mary didn't have a purse, but we would answer: “Sure, if I see your purse I'll bring it back.”

    One afternoon, I saw Kenny walking down the hall with a grocery bag. He walked toward Mary in her wheelchair. He pulled out a red purse.

    Mary's old hands flew up to her face in a gesture of wonder and joy, and then flew out hungrily like a starved child taking bread. Mary grabbed the red purse. She held it for a moment, and then pressed it to her breast, rocking it like a baby.

    Kenny leaned over, unzipped the purse open and showed Mary a comb inside. Tears of joy poured down Mary's face.

    Instead of paying lip service like the rest of us, Kenny had made Mary's problem his problem. I had been wrong about Kenny.

    For their nick-of-time acts, Toby, a 2-year-old dog, and Winnie, a cute cat, were named Dog and Cat of the Year by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

    As Amy Paul choked（哽住）on a piece of apple at her home, her dog jumped up, landing hard on her chest and forcing the piece in her throat out. When the Keesling family of Indiana was about to be killed by carbon monoxide, their cat, Winnie, clawed at the wife Cathy's hair until she woke up and called for help.

    No one could explain their timely heroics.

    Both pets were rescued by their owners in infancy—Toby as a 4-week-old thrown into a garbage bin to die, and Winnie as a week-old orphan hiding under a barn, so helpless that Cathy's husband, Eric, had to feed her milk with an eyedropper.

    As the Keeslings recalled it, a gas-driven pump being used broke down, spreading carbon monoxide through the house. By the time Winnie went to rescue, the couple's 14-year-old son was already unconscious. “Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry sound,” Cathy Keesling said. The state police responding to her 911 call said the family was only minutes from death, judging by the amount of poisonous gas in the house.

    Both Toby and Winnie accompanied their owners to the awards luncheon.

    A British friend told me he couldn't understand why Chinese people love eating sunflower seeds as a snack so much. “I've met a lot of older Chinese and many have a crack in their front teeth; I believe that's from cracking the seeds, ” he said.

    I had never noticed the habit, but once he mentioned it, I suddenly became more aware. I realized that whenever I'm watching TV or typing a report, I always start mindlessly cracking sunflower seeds. My friend doesn't like sunflower seeds, and, to him, it seems unnecessary to work so much just to get one small seed.

    When we were young, the whole family would usually get together for Chinese New Year. Then, we all lived close to one another, usually in a small city, and sometimes even neighbors would go door-to-door on Chinese New Year's Eve to check out what every household was making.

    I remember my parents would be in the kitchen cooking. Out in the living room , a large table would already be laid out, complete with fancy tablecloth, ready-made dumpling fillings, and dishes full of candy, fruits and sunflower seeds. Some of the dishes were to be offered to our ancestors later, while others were for neighbors and children to eat before the evening feast. I must have learned how to crack sunflower seeds back then.

    I don't think it's right to criticize one's choice in food or eating habits, no matter how strange they may seem.

    It's not only in China. When I went abroad, I found people had all sorts of strange habits when it came to food. In Denmark, they put salted red fish on bread and eat it for dinner, no matter how much it ruins your breath. They think it's a delicacy, and it's connected to their culture. I think it's a wonderful tradition.

    Experts say there are about 6, 500 languages spoken throughout the world. But the United Nations estimates that about half of these languages are in danger of disappearing.

    One non-profit organization seeking to save world languages is a New York-based group called Wikitongues. Officials from Wikitongues say the organization has a simple goal: to provide the tools and support that people need to save their languages.

    Udell is the co-founder of Wikitongues. He said when a language disappears, many other things can go away as well. For example, parts of a community's culture, knowledge and identity can also be lost. Because of this. Udell believes the process of bringing languages back must be done by community members themselves, “from the ground up,” he said.

    “There is no way an outside organization can save someone's language for them.”

    Wikitongues was launched in 2016 as an open internet collection of world languages. The self-described “community” is operated by volunteers from around the world. The collection is in the form of language videos that people add to the Wikitongues website.

    There are currently more than 400 languages and dialects represented on Wikitongues' YouTube channel. Udell says more than 1,500 people from 70 different countries have added videos to the system.

    “We have people from India who record dozens of languages, which is beyond their own.” he said.

    One of Wikitongues'volunteers is Kolokwe, who lives in Namibia. His native language is Subiya, however, he does not get the chance to speak his native language every day. Like many other educated people from his area, he speaks a lot of English and Afrikaans.

    Kolokwe is hoping his involvement with Wikitongues call help keep Subiya and other African languages from going extinct. He wants the world to know about his language. But his goal goes beyond just sharing his language with others through video. He is also working to create a dictionary and language teaching materials that can be used in schools.

    A person can use all five senses while spending time with dolphins. We can see them play in the waves, hear them call, and feel their skin. Dolphins can sense you, too, but not in all the same ways. They have good eyesight, for example, but no sense of smell. Sensory biologists try to understand connections between animal behaviors and the senses. One team of these scientists recently made an unexpected discovery about certain dolphins.

    The researchers found that Guiana dolphins can detect electric fields, an ability that may help them find fish to eat. The secret to this newly found sense, say the scientists, is hidden in the dolphins' snouts (口鼻部).

    "We were really surprised to find this in the dolphin. Nobody had expected it," said Wolf Hanke, who led the new dolphin study.

    Hanke and his team suspected the dolphin's electro－sense might have something to do with small dimples (酒窝) on the animal's snout. "We thought they must have some functions," Hank said. To find out for certain, his team studied two Guiana dolphins.

    The scientists first studied the dimples of a 29－year－old dolphin that had died of natural causes. Under a microscope, the dimples looked familiar: they were similar to the sensors used by other animals to detect electric fields.

    Next, Hanke and his team tested a live dolphin, a 28－year－old named Paco, to see if he could recognize an electric field. They taught Paco to swim close to a device that could create a weak electric field in the water. Then the team taught Paco to swim away from the device if he detected any changes. When the scientists created an electric field, Paco swam away—showing that he knew something had changed. When there was no electric field, Paco stayed there. When Paco's snout was covered in plastic, he didn't react to the electric field.

    Paco's behavior told the scientists that the dolphin used his snout to detect the tiny electric field. "This is a major breakthrough," Peter Madsen, a sensory biologist, said.

    "Bill, you never miss!" Joe said admiringly. "Unless I'm in a real game," Bill complained. "Then I miss all the time." Joe knew that Bill was right. Bill performed much better when he was having fun with Joe in the school yard than he did when he was playing for the school team in front of a large crowd. "Maybe you just need to practice more," Joe suggested. "But I practice all the time with you!" Bill objected. He shook his head. "I just can't play well when people are watching me." "You play well when I'm watching," Joe pointed out. "That's because I've known you since we were five years old," Bill said with a smile. "I'm just not comfortable playing when other people are around." Joe nodded and understood, but he also had an idea.

    The next day Joe and Bill met in the school yard again to practice. After a few minutes, Joe excused himself. "Practice without me," Joe said to his friend. "I'll be back in a minute. "

    Joe hurried through the school building, gathering together whomever he could find-two students, a math teacher, two secretaries, and a janitor(看门人). When Joe explained why he needed them, everyone was happy to help. Joe reminded the group to stay quiet as they all went toward the school's basketball court. As Joe had hoped, Bill was still practicing basketball. He made five baskets in a row without noticing the silent people standing behind him.

    "Hey, Bill!" Joe called out finally. Bill turned. A look of surprise came over his face. "I just wanted to show you that you could play well with people watching you," Joe said. "Now you'll have nothing to worry about for the next game!"