For families on vacation, a playground provides a welcome break. It can also provide a glimpse into the local culture，from the setup of the park to the ways families interact．Here are the designs that live up to that challenge．

Fruit and Scent Playground, Stockholm

    Is there a picky eater on a steady diet of chicken fingers and cheese? Perhaps a trip to Sweden's Fruit and Scent Playground will change his or her culinary(烹饪的)tune. This playground features a banana slide，an orange seesaw，pear huts，a watermelon jungle gym and a pair of cherry swings，all designed by public artist Johan Ferner Strom. Now, who can say you can't play with your food?

Nishi Rokugo Park, Tokyo

    Located between central Tokyo and the city of Kawasaki, Nishi Rokugo combines recycled rubber tires(橡胶轮胎)with traditional playground equipment. In total, more than 3,000 tires of different sizes are used to create tunnels, bridges, tall sculptures for climbing and, of course, tire swings. There's little shade, so you can visit here in the early morning or late afternoon for the most comfortable weather, and be sure to wear your play clothes.

    Bicentennial Children's Park, Santiago, Chile

    Bicentennial Children's playground in Metropolitan Park was built to celebrate 200 years of Chilean independence and improve the lives of Santiago citizens. Dozens of slides are built into the slope, creating a design completely complementary(互为补充的)of the surrounding landscape. Fountains offer some relief from the sun, and ample seating gives parents a place to relax.

    It was one of those terribly hot days in Baltimore. Needless to say, it was too hot to do anything outside. But it was also scorching in our apartment. This was 1962, and I would not live in a place with an air conditioner for another ten years. So my brother and I decided to leave the apartment to find someplace indoors. He suggested we could see a movie. It was a brilliant plan.

    Movie theaters were one of the few places you could sit all day and—most important —sit in air conditioning. In those days, you could buy one ticket and sit through two movies. Then, the theater would show the same two movies again. If you wanted to, you could sit through them twice. Most people did not do that, but the manager at our theater. Mr. Bellow did not mind if you did.

    That particular day, my brother and I sat through both movies twice, trying to escape the heat. We bought three bags of popcorn and three sodas each. Then, we sat and watched The Music Man followed by The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. We'd already seen the second movie once before. It had been at the theater since January, because Mr. Bellow loved anything with John Wayne in it.

    We left the theater around 8, just before the evening shows began. But we returned the next day and saw the same two movies again, twice more. And we did it the next day too. Finally, on the fourth day, the heat wave broke.

    Still, to this day I can sing half the songs in The Music Man and recite half of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart's dialogue from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance! Those memories are some of the few I have of the heat wave of 1962. They're really memories of the screen, not memories of my life.

When I lived in Spain, some Spanish friends of mine decided to visit England by car. Before they left, they asked me for advice about how to find accommodation. I suggested that they should stay at "bed and breakfast" houses, because this kind of accommodation gives a foreign visitor a good chance to speak English with the family. My friends listened to my advice, but they came back with some funny stories.

"We didn't stay at bed and breakfast houses," they said, "because we found that most families were on holiday." I thought this was strange. Finally I understood what had happened. My friends spoke little English, and they thought "VACANCIES" meant "holidays", because the Spanish word for "holidays" is said "vacaciones". So they did not go to the house where the sign outside said "VACANCIES", which in English means there are free rooms. Then my friends went to the houses where the sign said "NO VACANCIES", because they thought this meant people who owned the house were not away on holiday. But they found that these houses were all full. As a result, they stayed at hotels.

We laughed about this and about mistakes my friends made in reading other signs. In Spanish, the word "DIVERSION" means "fun". In English, it means that workmen are repairing the road, and that you must take a different road. When my friends saw the word "DIVERSION" on a road sign, they thought they were going to have fun. Instead, the road ended in a large hole.

English people have problems too when they learn foreign languages. Once in Paris when someone offered me some more coffee, I said "Thank you" in French, I meant that I would like some more, however to my surprise the coffee pot was taken away! Later I found out that "Thank you" in French means "No, Thank you".

Don't Drop the Ball

    Drop prevention risk assessment is really important. Everyone knows objects get dropped on work sites – there's nothing radical about that. In Australia, mining has the third highest fatality rate of any industry (4.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2015), and in less well-documented areas like India the fatality rate is even higher. A lot of these fatalities come from dropped objects. It's worth trying to address this and work out just how big the risk is and where it comes from. At the end of the day, safety should be a priority in any industry and it should come as no surprise that addressing safety issues early can actually save money, long-term, for companies. It doesn't look good for a mining company if people are getting injured and equipment damaged from falling objects.

    The risks from dropped objects come from all sorts of areas; it's not just a matter of dropped tools. We're talking about sites characterized by a lot of activities, where all sorts of things can come loose or fall, whether its light fittings or objects like rocks falling off transporting belts. The risks are largely personal but are also financial: if a piece of equipment gets damaged it will need replacing. That's a pretty strong inspiration for companies to address these risks. In terms of frequency, here in Australia we're looking at around 18% of compensation claims coming from workers being hit by moving objects, but those are just the claims – the frequency is likely higher. Around 28% of deaths and injuries come from such incidents, too. As I said earlier, that's just Australia; some industries don't keep statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised to find other countries report comparable rates. That's a lot of accidents that could be prevented with adequate safety measures.

    It's important to take an active approach. It's a lot easier and cheaper to address these risks during the installation or maintenance phases by adding barriers to the inside of guard railings on walkways and transporting systems and adding nets to fixed devices. There are safety mechanisms available, but it's up to the companies to install them. It is a lot more efficient to add barriers right from the start rather than waiting for an accident and then thinking, "Should we be safer?", when they should have reduced these risks from the start.

    Through your childhood and, let's be honest, most of your adult life, you may have wondered—how do you get to Sesame Street? After 50 years, the answer has finally been revealed.

    New York City's Official Sesame Street

    In the past, there was guessing about the true location of the street, like Harlem or Alphabet City since both neighborhoods resembled Sesame Street in appearance and population makeup. Recently, in honor of the children's television show's 50th anniversary, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared that West 63rd Street between Central Park West and Broadway will now officially be known as Sesame Street, close to the Sesame Workshop office.

    A Year-long Celebration for the 50^th Anniversary

    Since 1969, the children's television show Sesame Street has been a pioneering force in media and education, dealing with issues like racism, loss, poverty and living with a disability. With a mission to help kids everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder, Sesame Street has brought the life-changing benefits of early learning to children across the globe for 50 years. Today, we reach kids in 150 countries and 70 languages and we're celebrating our landmark anniversary with fans and families all year long!

    Events and Activities Throughout 2019

    Fans and families around the world can join their favorite furry friends in celebrating Sesame Street's past, present, and future, with:

    A 50th television season which focuses on the power of possibilities, empowering kids to take safe risks and learn from their mistakes.

    A nationwide road trip where Sesame Street characters and friends host community events in ten cities around the country.

    A research report that will explore an important issue facing kids and families today.

    Celebrity and fan-fueled social media campaigns showcasing favorite Sesame Street memories.

    New corporations across fashion, lifestyle, and themed entertainment for fans of all ages.

    A November star-studded prime-time special, whose contents include new takes on classic scenes and visits from Sesame Street icons.

When adult humans meet a baby, many can't help speaking in a higher-pitched (更高音的) and sing-song y voice. This shift, known as parentese, is not unique to humans. It has also been observed in animals like monkeys and gorillas. Now, scientists are adding one more species to that list: bottle-nose dolphins.

Dolphins are intelligent animals that live and hunt in groups. They communicate in a unique way: Every individual produces its own signature sound that acts much like an ID card, usually by its first birthday. But how does each come up with its distinctive whistle? For babies, it might have something to do with listening to Mum. To solve this mystery, researchers examined the sounds mother dolphins make.

Scientists studied 34 years' worth of recordings of sounds made by 19 female bottle-nose dolphins. When the mother dolphins were near their young, they continued to make their signature sounds, but at a higher frequency. They also used a wider range of frequencies than they did when their babies were not nearby.

This discovery suggests that using these modifications, mother dolphins assist their young in learning how to produce these calls themselves. Since baby dolphins often spend some years with their mothers before living on their own, it makes sense that this adaptation would help them learn to communicate. At the very least, the higher-pitched whistle likely gets the babies' attention. "It's important for a baby to know, ‘Oh, Mum's talking to me now,'" says marine biologist Janet Mann.

This kind of research could help us understand how language developed in humans. "It is absolutely essential to have basic knowledge about other species and how they communicate," says Mann. "I would be really interested to see whether dolphins also change their sounds when interacting with babies of others, which is what happens in humans."