Boys'schools are the perfect place to teach young men to express their emotions and involve them in activities such as art, dance and music．

    Far from the traditional image of a culture of aggressive masculinity(男子气概)，the absence of girls gives boys the chance to develop without pressure to be consistent to a stereotype(传统观念),a US study says．

    Boys at single-sex schools were said to be more likely to get involved in cultural and artistic activities that helped develop their abilities to express their emotions,rather than feeling they had to obey the “boy code” of hiding their emotions to be a “real man”.

    The findings of the study are against the received wisdom that boys do better when taught alongside girls．

    Tony Little，headmaster of Eton，warned that boys were being ignored by the British education system because it had become too focused on girls．He criticized teachers for failing to recognize that boys are actually more emotional than girls．

    The research argued that boys often perform badly in mixed schools because they become discouraged when their female peers do better earlier in speaking and reading skills．

    But in single-sex schools teachers can adjust lessons to boys' learning style，letting them move around the classroom and getting them to compete in teams to prevent boredom, wrote the study's author, Abigail James of the University of Virginia．

    Teachers could encourage boys to enjoy reading and writing with “boy-focused” approaches such as themes and characters that appeal to them．Because boys generally have sharper vision，learn best through touch, and are physically more active, they need to be given “hands-on” lessons where they are allowed to walk around.” Boys in mixed schools view classical music as feminine(女性的)and prefer the modern type in which violence and sexism are major themes.” James wrote.

    Single-sex education also made it less likely that boys would feel they had to give in to a stereotype that men should be “masterful and in charge” in relationships.“In mixed schools boys feel pressed to act like men before they understand themselves well enough to know what that means.” the study reported.

The Future of Technology

    William, a businessman, arrives in a foreign airport. He doesn't show his passport. Instead, a machine in the wall reads the computer chip（芯片）in his arm. This contains information about him: his name, age, and I.D number. He exits the airport, and a car door opens when it “sees” him. The car takes him to his hotel. His room “knows” he has entered the building and it “reads” his body. He is cold, so the room becomes warmer. William then watches a business presentation on a video wall. When he takes a bath, the presentation “follows him and continues ”on the bathroom wall. Finally, the room plays music to help him sleep. It turns off the music when it “sees” him sleeping.

    William doesn't exist, and none of this is real. But it might be soon. “In five to ten years, computing and communications are going to be free and everywhere, in your walls, in your car, on your body,” says Victor Zue, leader of Project Oxygen.

    Project Oxygen has one big idea: to create better relationships between machines and people. The dream is that computer will learn to understand what people want.

    So, what changes will there be at work? Firstly, the building will know where everyone is, all the time. You want to talk to someone? Type the person's name on the nearest computer. It will show you a map of the building and exactly where this person is. You then call this person, who picks up the nearest telephone, also shown on the computer. If he or she is busy with a client（客户）or in a meeting, the computer will tell you.

    Is all this really possible? Visit the Siebel Center, Illinois and see for yourself: computers in the doors and walls, cameras everywhere, the technology of the future, but here today.

    Last week, my granddaughter started kindergarten, and I wished her every success. But part of me didn't. I actually wanted her to fail in some ways because I believe that failure can be good for our learning process. Success is proving that you can do something that you already know you can do, or doing something correctly the first time, which can often be a problematic victory. First-time success is usually a luck. First-time failure, however, is supposed to be the natural order of things. Failure is how we learn.

    In Africa they describe a good cook as “she who has broken many pots”. If you've spent enough time in the kitchen to have broken a lot of pots, probably you know a fair amount about cooking. I once had dinner with a group of cooks, and they spent time comparing knife wounds and bum scars. They knew how much their failures gave them.

    I earn my living by writing a daily newspaper column. Each week I know that one column I write is going to be the worst column. I try my best every day. I have learned to love that column. A successful column usually means that I am discussing my familiar topic, writing in a style I am used to or saying the same things as anyone else but in a better way.

    My younger daughter is a trapeze artist（荡秋千演员）. She spent three years practicing a show, and she did it successfully for years. There was no reason for her to change it but she did anyway. She said she was no longer learning anything new and she was bored. She risked failure and great public embarrassment in order to feed her soul.

    My granddaughter is a perfectionist. She will feel her failures, and I will want to comfort her. But I will also, I hope, remind her of what she learned, and how she can do better next time.

    We're often reminded of the importance of preserving the planet as we see it for future generations—and children at St Oswald's Primary School in Chester certainly agree.

    Nine-year-old Isobel Kelleher from the school's Hummingbirds class thinks adults need to take note. “Sometimes they can be busy and I don't think they think they can make a difference，but if everyone does a little bit it all adds up，” she tells HuffPost UK.“ We started looking at plastic pollution in our oceans and the things like plastic bags and broken down pieces of plastic that are polluting them.” she says.“ Fish can eat the plastic and they can die，or we might even eat the fish ourselves.”

    Mr Timms，Isobel's teacher，has been spearheading a new project at the school which lets children loose creatively to raise awareness of the need to be more environmentally friendly. The entire Hummingbirds class，which is made up of 9 and 10-year-old pupils，has been busy writing poems and creating online video adverts to warn adults about the serious situation of our oceans and wildlife.

    Mr Timms thinks children have an important role to play in teaching us how to take care of the things around us. We sometimes overlook how much we can really learn from children.” he says.“ It has been really hard to believe having parents come in saying that their children have been asking them to stop using plastic，and to recycle more，and even stopping them using plastic straws.”

    Mr Timms is proud of his Hummingbirds class.“ The message that they would like to send to the world is simple stopping this isn't someone else's job，and it won't be OK if we just leave it.”

A 15-year-old Colorado high school student and young scientist who has used artificial intelligence (AI) and created apps to address polluted drinking water, drug addiction and other social problems has been named Time Magazine's first-ever "Kid of the Year". 

Rao told The Associated Press in an interview from her home that the prize is nothing that I could have ever imagined. And I'm so grateful and just so excited that we're really taking a look at the upcoming generation and our generation, since the future is in our hands. 

Time said Rao stood out for creating a global community of young innovators and inspiring them to pursue their goals. Rao insisted that starting out small doesn't matter, as long as you're passionate about it. 

She told Time contributing editor Angelina Jolie in an interview that her science pursuits started early as a way to improve social conditions. The drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, inspired her work to develop a way to detect pollutants and send those results to a mobile phone, she said. 

"I was like 10 when I told my parents that I wanted to research carbon nanotube sensor technology at the Denver Water quality research lab, and my mum was like, A what?" Rao told Jolie. She said that work is going to be in our generation's hands pretty soon. "So if no one else is gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. "

In a world where science is increasingly questioned or challenged, Rao insisted that its pursuit is an act of kindness, the best way that a younger generation can better the world. 

"We have science in everything we're involved in, and I think that's the biggest thing to put out there, that science is cool, innovating is cool, and anybody can be an innovator. " Rao said, "Anybody can do science. "

Road trips were part of my childhood, but it is hard to say they are entirely fond memories. As someone who easily got carsick, I spent most of the long drives with my head against the window or leaning awkwardly to the side. More often, however, I would have to sleep through the CDs in our beaten car.

There was one CD that we often played, one that became the symbolic Road Trip CD in my mind. It was an album in Mandarin (普通话) by my mom's favorite music artist, Leon Lai, who I understood was a major Cantopop legend in his day. We seemingly only played the unidentified Leon Lai CD during our hour-long road trips. I didn't know what it was called until I was in high school and successfully uncovered it by searching through Leon Lai's albums on Spotify until I found the one like the CD cover art.

向往，or Longing, a 1998 Mandarin release, didn't seem to be one of Leon Lai's most famous works. My mom didn't seem to remember why she had it either. The fact that it was in Mandarin, however, made my parents even more willing to play it on repeat. To make up for me and my brother's embarrassing unfamiliarity with the Chinese language, throughout our childhood they were keen on having us watch shows and listen to music in Chinese as a way for us to immerse ourselves and make up for the ground we lost. They were usually in Mandarin, because that was what our formal Chinese schooling taught us, even though Cantonese was the dialect our family actually spoke. This at least meant I could use what I learned in class to understand the lyrics in this album, though I found the singing harder to understand.

Due to the endless exposure to the songs on the road the genuinely memorable mix of upbeat and ballad-like tunes, as well as how well it shows my complicated connection to the Chinese language, this random album holds a special place in my heart.