A family story is like a puzzle. Each family member leaves some clues. Family members come together because they have a common tie with one another, sharing a name and special traditions. Exploring family roots and sharing past memories ensure each tradition lives on.

    Ancestory.com has created customized (订做的) “Our Name is History” books to give your family a look into your history by learning about your last name. By visiting it, you can check if information is available for your last name. Ancestory.com researchers have collected more than 5 billion names from records such as passenger lists, immigration records and from birth, marriage and death records. The collected information is then used for each customized book.

    “Our Name is History” books are available for nearly 200,000 last names, accounting form 85 percent of all the US homes. The collected information is a great start of learning about your family roots. This book will not only surprise your mother, but also become a precious memory to pass down through the generations. It can also be an inspiration for her to talk about all the special women in her life. So instead of just giving her flowers or jewelry, give her a special family name book and share your favorite memories with her.

    After learning the general history of your last name, your might be inspired to continue your exploration. The “Our Name is History” books include a special software product for building, searching and sharing your family history.

    To learn more about “Our Name is History” books, visit www. Ournameinhistory.com. The deadline to order in time for Mother's Day is April 30.

    A new study finds almost one third of the world's population is overweight. Since 1980, obesity rates(肥胖率)in children and adults have doubled in 73 countries, making people more worried. And rates are increasing in many other countries. Obesity is increasing faster in children than adults in many nations, including Algeria, Turkey and Jordan, the report said. But the world's weight problem is growing in both rich and poor countries alike. Researchers say an increasing number of people are dying of related health problems in what they called a "disturbing global public health problem."

    Researchers studied health information from 1980 through 2015. They examined obesity rates, average weight gain in 195 countries. They found that obesity rates are three times greater among youth and young adults in countries like China, Brazil and India. Almost 108 million children and more than 600 million adults were found to be overweight. Egypt had the highest number of overweight adults in 2015. Vietnam had the least. In the same year, the United States had the highest number of overweight children, and Bangladesh had the least.

    Yet hunger remains a problem in many areas. The United Nations said that almost 800 million people, including 300 million children, go to bed hungry each night. Experts said poor diets and lack of physical activity are mainly to blame for the rising numbers of overweight people.

    Growing populations have led to rising obesity rates in poor countries. Often, poor people will eat processed(加工的) foods instead of choosing a diet rich in vegetables.

    The London-based Overseas Development Institute studied the price of food in five countries: Britain, Brazil, China, Mexico and South Korea. It found that the cost of processed foods like ice cream and hamburgers has fallen since 1990. But the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables has gone up.

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    The animal kingdom lost a beloved friend when poachers（偷猎者）in Kenya killed the world famous elephant named Satao solely for his ivory（象牙）, experts say.

    Satao was considered by some to be the largest and oldest elephant left in Africa. His tusks having grown long enough to reach the ground. Wandering around Kenya's Tsavo National Park, he was easily recognizable（可辨认的）by staff and visitors. Sadly, despite conservation efforts, he was killed on May 30, his body identified by park staff on June 2. His head was severely damaged and there were two holes left where his great tusks had

    “There is no doubt that Satao is dead, killed by an ivory poacher's poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly greedy demand for ivory in far off countries,” wrote Richard Moller of The Tsavo Trust. “A great life lost so that someone far away can have a trinket（饰品）.

    Satao isn't the first elephant—and far from the last—to pay the ivory price. Just last month, Mountain Bull, another Kenyan elephant, was killed by poachers.

    Kenya Wildlife Service（KWS）says 97 elephants and 20 rhinos have been killed this year, but others say the real numbers are much higher.

    The national park in which Satao lived is roughly 386 square miles—a massive land for already thinly-stretched resources to cover. Reports indicate that Satao had started to migrate towards the park's border-areas known by conservationists（野生保护人士）to be highly active for poaching.

    In the late 1960s, more than 275,000 elephants lived in Kenya. Now, that number has dropped to around 38,000, and continues to fall fast.

    “If Satao's death can cause the focus on what's actually happening here in terms of poaching, then he won't have died in vain,” said nature documentarian Mark Decble, according to The Dodo.

    From self-driving cars to carebots for elderly people, rapid development in technology has long represented a possible threat to many jobs normally performed by people. But experts now believe that almost 50 percent of occupations existing today will be completely unnecessary by 2025 as artificial intelligence continues to change businesses.

    "The next fifteen years will see a revolution in how we work, and a revolution will necessarily take place in how we plan and think about workplaces," said Peter Andrew, Director of Workplace Strategy for CBRE Asia Pacific.

    A growing number of jobs in the future will require creative intelligence, social skills and the ability to use artificial intelligence.

    The report is based on interviews with 200 experts, business leaders and young people from Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. It shows that in the US technology already destroys more jobs than it creates.

    But the report states: "Losing occupations does not necessarily mean losing jobs — just changing what people do." Growth in new jobs could occur as much, according to the research.

    "The growth of 20 to 40 person companies that have the speed and technological know-how will directly challenge big companies," it states.

    A 2014 report by Pew Research found 52 percent of experts in artificial intelligence and robotics were optimistic about the future and believed there would still be enough jobs in the next few years. The optimists pictured "a future in which robots do not take the place of more jobs than they create," according to Aaron Smith, the report's co-author.

    "Technology will continue to affect jobs, but more jobs seem likely to be created. Although there have always been unemployed people, when we reached a few billion people there were billions of jobs. There is no shortage of things that need to be done and that will not change," Microsoft's Jonathan Grudin told researchers.

    For thousands of years, people thought of glass as something beautiful to look at. Only in large glass windows. Glass bottles and jars that hold food and drink allow us to see the contents. Glass is used to make eyeglasses, microscopes, telescopes, and many other extremely useful and necessary things.

    Until the Second World War, most of the glass used for optical (光学的) instruments was imported from Europe. However, during the war Americans could not get European glass, and they were forced to make their own. Therefore, new kinds of glass were developed that had been previously unknown. These new effects were achieved by mixing other chemical elements with the sand. Some of the new glass is very strong and can resist many kinds of shocks. Legend (传说) has it that a kind of very hard glass was invented by a Roman who showed his discovery to the Emperor. When the Emperor saw the glass he feared that it would become more valuable than gold and sliver, making his treasure worthless. Therefore, he had the glass-maker killed, and the secret was not discovered again for hundreds of years.

    In the present century, safety glass was invented for use in modem cars and planes. Safety glass is made by placing a layer of plastic between two layers of plate glass. When the outside layer of glass is broken, the pieces do not scatter (散开) and injure people. Some glass of the type is strong enough to resist bullets (子弹).

    Although nowadays plastics have replaced glass under conditions where glass might be easily broken, there are new uses being developed, for the greatest advantage of glass is that its component (组成的) parts are inexpensive and can be found all over the world.

    You may not have heard of it before, but solid rain (固体雨)has been helping Mexican farmers fight droughts(干旱) for over ten years. The magic solid rain looks like sugar and it can take in water up to 500 times as its own size and keep it in the ground for up to a year.

    The story of solid rain began in 1970, when American scientists developed a product used to take in water and help keep babies' bottoms dry. However, a Mexican chemical engineer saw this magic product as an opportunity to fight the drought. He developed a different kind of the product, which could be mixed with soil and slowly feed water to crops over a long period of time. His company, Solid Rain, has been quietly selling the product to Mexican farmers for over 10 years.

    Solid rain seems to be working wonders in Mexico. However, it has not come into use around the world. Well, that's mainly because a lot of people still don't know about it. The Mexican company has invested (投资) almost nothing into marketing, relying instead on word of mouth between Mexican farmers. However, recently, they have gotten requests from other dry countries like India and Australia.

    Solid rain has received the Ecology and Environment Award, but it has also received some negative views. Dr. Linda Scott says that the product is hardly new and that there is no scientific evidence that it can hold water for a year or last in the ground for ten years. Besides, solid rain can cause more harm than good in certain conditions.

    However, real-life use seems to show that solid rain is actually of great use to their farms. Frank Torres, a former green bean farmer used to rely on it even though drought wasn't such a big issue. He said that the production had increased by 50%.