Miles was born in Alton, a city on the Mississippi River in Illinois on May 26, 1926. Miles's father was a dentist, while his mother was a music teacher. Miles had a good childhood, catching fish and riding horses with his older sister and younger brother. He was known as a naughty boy in school.

    He recalls his story, “By the age of 12, music had become the most important thing in my life.” His mother, a violinist herself, dearly wanted her son to play the violin. But brass (铜管) was Miles's calling, and he remembers arguments between their parents as his dad overruled her to fight his son's corner. He received his first trumpet (喇叭) in 1935 and began weekly music lessons with his father's friend Mr. Elwood, his life-long teacher.

    Talking about his school days, Miles said that Mr. Buchanan was the biggest influence on his life. He was the person who took Miles all the way into music at that time. He wanted to be a musician that he had dreamed.

    When he was 16, Miles met his girlfriend, Irene Birth. Although she was a beautiful young woman in many ways, it was her easy-going character that attracted Miles. At the weekends, Miles and Irene would take the bus over the Mississippi River to St Louis to watch movies and go dancing. Although Miles was too shy to really enjoy dancing, he always felt confident when he danced with Irene.

    When he turned 17, she persuaded him to ask for a job in his band—Eddie Handle's Blue Devils. It worked. Joining the band was a breakthrough for Miles, and marked the time when he first began to write and arrange music.

    When I was growing up，I was embarrassed to be seen with my father. He was badly crippled (跛脚)，and when we would walk together，his hand on my arm for balance，people would stare，I would be ashamed of the unwanted attention.

    It was difficult to walk together—and because of that，we didn't say much as we went along. But as we started out，he always said，“You set the pace. I will try to follow you.”

    Our usual walk was to or from the subway，which was how he got to work. He went to work sick，and even in bad weather. He almost never missed a day，and would make it to the office even if others could not. It was a matter of pride for him.

    When snow or ice was on the ground，it was impossible for him to walk，even with help. At such times my sister or I would pull him through the streets of Brooklyn，N.Y.，on a child's sleigh to the subway entrance. Once there，he would try to grasp handrail until he reached the lower steps that the warmer tunnel air kept ice free. In Manhattan the subway station was the basement of his office building，and he would not have to go outside again until we met him in Brooklyn on his way home.

    When I think of it now，I am surprised at how much courage it must have taken for a grown man to suffer from shame and disability. And I am also surprised at how he did it—without bitterness or complaint.

    He never talked about himself as an object of pity，nor did he show any envy of the more fortunate or able. What he looked for in others was a “good heart”，and if he found one，the owner was good enough for him.

    Now that I am older，I believe that is a proper standard by which to judge people，even though I still don't know exactly what a “good heart” is. But I know the times I don't have one myself.

    He has been away for many years now，but I think of him often. I wonder if he sensed my reluctance to be seen with him during our walks. If he did，I am sorry I never told him how sorry I was，how unworthy I was，how I regretted it. I think of him when I complain about my troubles，when I am envious of another's good fortune，when I don't have a “good heart”．

    See a cell phone cover that you like on Taobao? Forget about placing an order, paying the bill online and waiting for days for it to be delivered to you. In the near future, you'll be able to get it in minutes just by hitting "print" on your computer. You might find it hard to believe that you could actually "print" an object as you would a picture. But it is not that hard to understand how it would work. Just as a traditional printer sprays (喷) ink onto paper line by line, modem 3-D printers spread material onto a surface layer by layer, from the bottom to the top, gradually building up a shape.

    Instead of ink, the materials the 3-D printer uses are mainly plastic, resin (树脂) and certain metals. The thinner each layer is — from a millimeter to less than the width of a hair —the smoother and finer the object will be. This may sound like a completely new technology, but the truth is that 3-D printing has been around since the late 1980s. Back then, it was barely affordable for most people, so few knew about it.

Last year, though, saw a big change in the 3-D printing industry — printers became much cheaper. For example, 10 years ago a desktop 3-D printer might have cost £20,000, while now they cost only about £ 1,000, according to the BBC. Taken out of the factory and introduced to more diverse and common uses, 3-D printing can create just about anything you can think of — flutes (笛子), bikinis, jewelry, aircraft parts and even human organs. In fact, scientists from Cornell University in New York have just made an artificial ear using a 3-D printer, according to Science Daily. The fake ear looks and acts exactly like a natural one.

    However, as 3-D printing becomes more common, it may bring about certain problems —such as piracy. "Once you can download a coffee maker, or print out a new set of kitchen utensils (餐具) on your personal 3-D printer, who will visit a retail (零售的) store again?", an expert in 3-D printing told Forbes News. Even more frightening, what if anyone in the world could use a 3-D printer to print out a fully functioning gun?

    Corals (珊瑚) are often described as undersea forests, but they are declining far more quickly than the Amazon. The coral reefs (礁) are likely to be among the first ecosystems to be wiped out by climate change.

    A temperature rise of just 1 to 2℃ can lead to the death of the algae (海藻) upon which corals depend, draining them of color and making the structure more fragile. These bleaching (脱色) events can be temporary if waters cool, but the more frequent they are and the longer they last, the greater the risk of damage is. But that's exactly what is happening. Bleaching was first observed in 1983. It was seen on a global level in 1998, then 2010, and then from 2015 to 2017. Most available scientific evidence tells us that unless we do something to limit warming to 1.5℃, we will lose 99% of the world's coral reefs in coming decades.

    But there are other threats beyond warming. Off the Philippine island of Palawan, its old reefs have been badly damaged by dirty water from the tourist holiday center, pollution from boats and overfishing. The area ought to be a shelter because it's one of the ocean regions most bearable to climate change. "Even here, we are losing our corals," said David Obura, chair of the Global Specialist Group in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. "We need to reduce stress from overfishing, coastal development, pollution and tourism."

    "I'm a generation of scientists watching them disappear. It's very depressing," Obura said. "Above 1.5℃, in about 50 years, they will be a treasure of historic movies and pictures, but very little to see in real life. Children born today may be the last generation to see coral reefs in all their glory."

With more recognition than Halloween and less than Christmas, Valentine's Day as an imported festival faces a dangerous situation in China, where it's caught between forces of tradition and fashion. Valentine's Day has a natural enemy in China. And it is not the Chinese equivalent, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month on the lunar calendar, usually around half a year away from Feb. 14. It is the Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese New Year, that will influence the Feast of Saint Valentine.

The real disagreement between East and West probably took place over a century ago, when China's door was forced open by Western powers and Chinese scholars supported westernization as a means to strengthen our nation's ability to compete.

The introduction of the solar calendar and Western measurements was both an acknowledgment of their influence and an effort to be accepted by the world order.

For a full century, we have had two systems running in parallel. When it comes to the eventual outcome, practicality usually beats all other concerns. Laws can help, such as the three traditional festivals of Tomb Sweeping, Dragon Boat and Mid­Autumn gaining legal status in 2008 and giving every Chinese citizen a day off, but laws cannot push what people have no feelings for. So, the celebration or boycott of imported holidays or homegrown ones should be no cause for worry. If they are irrelevant, no social media will change the public's mind; and if they are accepted, there must be a need which they happen to satisfy.

Since we have no global Qin Shihuang to force one system on every country, we can always rely on a dual (双重的) approach by which we share with the outside world on the one hand but preserve our own ways of life on the other.

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit hard, fishermen watched their markets dry up. Restaurants-normally major fish buyers-closed or cut back orders significantly. Fishermen weren't sure if they were going to get paid for what they fished.

Meanwhile as people lost jobs, food banks started to see a great demand for services. Things were getting desperate, with long lines for food assistance in many states.

Out of these dual crises, a new idea was born. Food assistance programs across the country have started connecting with local fishermen to stock up on local seafood, many for the first time. And the arrangement seems to be helping the fishermen, the economy and those in need of healthy food.

According to Catherine D' Amato, CEO of the Greater Boston Food Bank, the network usually keeps four or five weeks of food on hand in case of emergencies. The pandemic hit, and "we found ourselves below one week of stock and going down rapidly," she says. That's because the food bank normally distributes about I million pounds of food a week, and that became 2.5 million pounds of food a week, D' Amato says. While Congress and the states have increased funding and donations for food banks during the pandemic, it hasn't been enough.

"For many years, we have been wanting to be able to work with organizations in the fishing industry," D' Amato says. But it's complicated. Fishermen catch a lot of big fish, and food banks who might take it need the products to be cut small and easy to use for customers. It also has to be fish they know and recognize. The barriers have been too high in many places to make it work. But this spring, the state department of agriculture connected the food bank with some grant makers. They talked to some local fishermen about developing a traditional New England fish soup.

The grants paid fishermen for their catch and provided money for a local manufacturer to process, freeze and deliver the soup to food banks in family-size servings. The soup is helping to feed families and keep fishermen fishing. The fishermen hope to sell it in stores soon, and Damato hopes to purchase more soup and expand into new seafood products for her customers.