There exist cruel wars, fighting and sadness in the world today, so it's not only necessary, but also essential to have a good sense of humor just to help us go through difficult times in out lives. Putting a smile on someone's face when you know they are feeling depressed, as the saying goes, makes me feel good and warms my heart.

    How would you feel if you could not joke around with wife, husband, child, co-worker, neighbor, close friend, or even just someone that you are standing in line with at your corner store? I am always saying things that make others smile or laugh, even if I don't know the person I'm joking around with. My Grandma always found humor in everything she did, even if it was the hardest job anyone could imagine. This not only relieves stress in any situation, but also is a common manner to speak to others that are around you.

    I know of a few people that don't have a funny bone in their bodies, as they say. Everyone around them could be rolling on the floor after hearing a great joke and they would sit there without the slightest smile on their faces. They don't get the joke that makes others laugh. I am, busting a gut while they just sit there, looking at me as if I were from outer space. How can people not get a really funny joke?

    Laughing is essential to keep your stress levels under control. Without humor, we would find ourselves with a lot of psychological problems, or on a lot of medications to keep us from going crazy. There is too much sadness and bring a little light into our lives.

    Therefore, I believe our best medicine is to get together and tell some jokes and have some fun laughing together.

Model Railroading

    Would you like to know a fun way to learn about math? Well, you can do that with model railroading. Yes, it's true. You can learn about many school topics without using a school book. Besides that, there are many other benefits that model railroading brings us as well. In this article, we will discuss just a few of those benefits of model railroading.

Patience and problem solving skills

    When you build a model railroad, you have to plan your railroad out. You have to decide where the tracks (轨道) will go, where to put buildings, where to put streets and any other things you would like to add to your model railroad. Also, you have to think about any problems you may have with the design you choose. How will you make railroad crossings? How will you design hills, mountains, and rivers? Deciding on what to do with your model railroad takes a lot of thought and patience, but it is not as difficult as you may think.

Building skills

    With model railroading, you learn how to put together plastic models of buildings. Also, you can learn how to build a table for your design, or make scenery for the geography of your design. Your model railroad runs on electricity, so you learn about electronics as well. These are skills that not only help you build a model railroad; these skills will help you all throughout life.

Fun for family and friends

    Different from many video games, model railroading is a social hobby that lets you communicate with family and friends. This is because you have to communicate with family and friends as you build and run your model railroad. By spending time with the people in your life you love and care about, you learn to become closer and care more for each other. This is one of the best parts of model railroading as a hobby. Of course, the best part about model railroading is running the trains. Watching the trains run around the track and make all the sounds and do all the things that real trains do gives people hours of enjoyment. Also, there is great satisfaction in the fact that you, your family, and your friends built the model railroad.

    I hope you can learn to enjoy model railroading and experience all the benefits you just read about and many others. Happy railroading!

    Some people seem to have extraordinary memories. Zheng Aiqiang, a "memory athlete" on TV show Super Brain, can remember 2,660 numbers in just one hour!

    You would think people like this have special brains. But according to a recent study by researchers from the US and the Netherlands, the brain structures of ordinary people and 23 of the world's leading memory athletes show no difference.

    That's because good memories can be trained. New research in the journal Neuron(神经元期刊) suggests that you can become a super memorizer with just six weeks of hard training.

    Researchers found that technique(技巧) called loci, invented by ancient Greeks, can greatly help improve memory. By using loci, you are using your imagination to improve the brain's memory networks. You can link(关联) something you need to remember with a place that you know very well. For example, to remember a list of numbers, imagine yourself walking through your house. Each thing is linked to a number. For example, zero could be handle(把手) on the door and five could be the painting on the wall.

    In one study, some ordinary people were given 20 minutes to remember 72 words. First they could only remember 26 of them. But when they were taught loci, they could remember 62 words.

    "Not everyone can become a memory champion. But everyone using the technique can improve a lot from the level they're at," said Boris Konrad, one of the researchers in the study.

Save the Animals

    Animals are natural resources(资源）that people have wasted all through our history.

    Animals have been killed for their fur and feathers(羽毛), for food, for sport, and simply because they were in the way. Thousands of kinds of animals have disappeared from the earth forever. Hundreds more are on the danger list today. About 170 kinds in the United States alone are considered in danger.

    Why should people care? Because we need animals. And because once they are gone, there will never be any more. Animals are more than just beautiful or interesting. They are more than just a source of food. Every animal has its place in the balance(平衡)of nature. Destroying one kind of animal can create many problems.

    For example, when farmers killed large numbers of hawks(鹰), the farmers stores of com and rain were destroyed by rats and mic. Why? Because of hawks ate rats and mice that multiplied(繁殖)quickly

    Luckily, some people are working to help save the animals. Some groups raise money to let people know about the problem .And they try to get the governments to pass laws protecting animals in danger.

    Quite a few countries have passed laws. These laws forbid(禁止)the killing of any animals or plants on the danger list. Slowly, the number of some animals in danger is growing

    If you walk through the doors of one of the Smithsonian Institution's museums in Washington, D.C., you may be greeted by an unusual guide. A Japanese tech company recently sent 25 humanoid robots to the Smithsonian. All of them are named Pepper.

    Each Pepper stands 4 feet tall and has a computer screen attached to its body. Built by SoftBank Robotics, the robots are programmed to share information about the museum in which they are based.

    "Pepper is basically an experiment," Goslins, director of the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Museum, said. "The idea is to explore and see how a robot performs in this kind of environment."

    Museum visitors communicating with Pepper. The robot can tell stories and answer basic questions. People even take pictures and dance with it.

    "The robot draws big crowds," said Allison Peck, director of marketing at the Hirshhorn. "People just love Pepper."

    According to the Smithsonian Institution's website: "Pepper gives our museum workers a new way to reach and serve visitors." For example, Pepper teaches Swahili words to visitors of the "World on the Horizon" exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art.

    Pepper also has the special ability to draw guests to less-visited areas of the Smithsonian's museum. When Pepper is placed in a spot, crowds are attracted to that place.

    When not educating museum visitors, Pepper stays in the Smithsonian offices, getting charged and programmed. After being charged, Pepper can run for about 8 hours at a time.

    Pepper plays an important role, but the robot "is not meant to take away human jobs at the museum," Goslins explained. "It is meant to give our visitors a more enjoyable experience while they are here with us."

Smart and highly sensitive （灵敏的）, a new soft sensor developed by UBC (University of British Columbia) and Honda researchers opens the door to a wide range of applications in robotics and prosthetics （假肢）.

When applied to the surface of prosthetic or robotic arms, the sensor skin provides touch sensitivity and flexibility, making it possible for difficult tasks to be completed by machines, such as picking up a piece of soft fruit. The sensor is also soft to the touch, like human skin. which helps make human interactions safer and more lifelike.

"Our sensor uses weak electric fields to sense objects, even at a distance, much as touchscreens do. But unlike touchscreens, this sensor is soft and can detect forces into and along its surface," explained Dr. John Madden, senior study author and a professor of electrical and computer engineering who leads the Advanced Materials and Process Engineering Laboratory at UBC.

The UBC team developed the technology in cooperation with Frontier Robotics, Honda's research institute. Honda has been innovating in humanoid robotics since the 1980s, and developed the well-known ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) robot. It has also developed devices to assist walking and the emerging Honda Avatar Robot.

"Dr. Madden's lab has significant expertise in flexible sensors and we're happy to cooperate with this team in developing touch sensors that can be applied to robots," said Mr. Ishizaki Ryusuke, one of the study's lead authors and chief engineer at Frontier Robotics.

Dr. Madden said, "Human skin has a hundred times more sensing points on a fingertip than our technology does, making it easier to light a match or sew. As sensors continue to develop to be more skin-like, and can also detect temperature and even damage, there is a need for robots to be smarter about which sensors to pay attention to and how to respond. Developments in sensors and artificial intelligence will need to go hand in hand."