One second-grade student wanted to help erase school lunch debt for her fellow students, so she decided to create lemonade stands to raise funds（资金）.

    Amiah Van Hill was inspired to raise funds to help pay off her classmates' lunch debt back in May after reading about Jeffery Lew. The father of three crowd-funded to cover the cost of unpaid lunches in the Seattle School District, where his 8-year-old son took part. “She's a really strong reader, so she read the story and said, 'Wow, this is great! I wonder if there's any kids at my school that need help paying their lunches,'” said her mother, Rachel Van Hill.

    Amiah, 6, and Aria, 4, discovered that at Hayden Meadows Elementary School in Idaho, the unpaid lunch debt was $40.55. They set up a lemonade stand last month to raise the money, with a sign reading, “Lemonade 4 Lunch.” During their first set-up, the two met their goal within an hour.

    The school was very much appreciative. Principal Lisa Pica said “Our school believes in giving back to the community and we are excited that Amiah has got that value at such a young age and we are so proud that she has found a way to help those in need. She is a very special little lady.”

    After discovering it was “easy” to pay off one school's debt, they set up another lemonade stand a week later to raise money for two more local schools. The girls then decided to set their sights higher and raise funds for the entire Coeur d'Alene Public School district. In 22 days, they've raised more than $2,700. The school district is excited to recognize her for her good deed.

    Linda Eveans was my best friend—like the sister I never had. We did everything together: piano lesson, movies, swimming, and horseback riding.

    When I was 13, my family moved away, Linda and I kept in touch through letters， and we saw each other on special times, like my wedding and Linda's. Soon we were busy with children and moving to new homes, and we wrote less often. One day a card that I sent came back, stamped "Address Unknown". I had no idea about how to find Linda.

    Over the years, I missed Linda very much, I wanted to share happiness of my children and then grandchildren, And I needed to share my sadness when my brother and then mother died, There was an empty place in my heart that only a friend like Linda could fill.

    One day, I was reading a newspaper when I noticed a photo of a young woman who looked very much like Linda and whose last name was Wagman—Linda's married name. "There must be thousands of Wagmans." I thought, but I still wrote to her.

    She called as soon as she got my letter, "Mrs, Tobin!" she said excitedly, "Linda Evans Wagman is my mother." Minutes later I heard a voice that I recognized at once, even after 40 years. We laughed and cried and caught up on each other's lives. Now the empty place in my heart is filled. And there's one thing that Linda and I know for sure: we won't lose each other again!

    Are some people born clever, and others born stupid? Or is intelligence developed by our environment and our experiences? Strangely enough, the answer to both these questions is yes. To some extent our intelligence is given to us at birth, and no amount of special education can make a genius out of a child born with low intelligence. On the other hand, a child who lives in a boring environment will develop his intelligence less than one who lives in rich and varied surroundings. Thus the limits of a person's intelligence are fixed at birth, but whether or not he reaches those limits will depend on his environment. This view, now held by most experts, can be supported in a number of ways.

    It is easy to show that intelligence is to some extent something we are born with. The closer the blood relationship between two people, the closer they are likely to be in intelligence. Thus if we take two unrelated people at random (随机地) from the population, it is likely that their degrees of intelligence will be completely different. I f on the other hand we take two identical (完全相同的) twins they will very likely be as intelligent as each other. Relations like brothers and sisters, parents and children, usually have similar intelligence, and this clearly suggests that intelligence depends on birth.

    Imagine now that we take two identical twins and put them in different environments. We might send one, for example, to a university and the other to a factory where the work is boring. We would soon find differences in intelligence developing, and this indicates that environment as well as birth plays a part. This conclusion is also suggested by the fact that people who live in close contact with each other, but who are not related at all, are likely to have similar degrees of intelligence.

    If we want to find out what kind of technology people used in the past, we normally have to rely on archaeologists to find ruined buildings and parts of tools or instruments or machines. Archaeologists then try to reconstruct, sometimes with the help of computer technology, what these ancient buildings and objects must have looked like, and how they might have been made. Sometimes historians are lucky and find an ancient document with a written description of these ancient buildings and objects.

    We can understand, then, why Chinese historians were so excited when they found cave paintings which show ancient science. They found these paintings in the world-renowned Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang City, in Northwest China's Gansu Province. There are 500 man-made caves and they have survived for at least 1,600 years. Almost all of these caves have paintings on their ceilings or walls and they date from the 4th to 14th centuries. Wang Jinyu is an expert on these cave paintings (also called frescoes) and he says: "We discovered frescoes containing scientific and technological content in almost all of the caves which have frescoes." What is remarkable about these cave paintings according to the Xinhua News Agency is that they provide evidence of "scientific and technological inventions by ancient Chinese in maths, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography, agronomy, architecture, textiles, traffic and transportation, arms and military equipment and medical sciences".

    Among the discoveries experts have made are cave paintings showing ancient techniques of pottery making and wine production and paintings showing ancient weaving machines and then toothbrushes! The paintings also give some evidence of the lifestyle at the time with, for example, pictures of people boiling milk over 1,000 years ago. Experts believe that there is more evidence to be found, but even now the caves are a wonderful natural museum. If the walls and ceilings of the caves were all put together they would form a tapestry 20 kilometers long and 2 meters high!

    It won't be possible to travel back in time-that only happens in films-but visiting these caves would be the nearest experience you could get to travelling back in time.

Video calls are a common occurrence, but have you imagined being able to touch the person on the other end of the line? Scientists are making this a reality.

Researchers at the University of new South Wales, Australia have invented a soft skin stretch device (SSD). A haptic device that can recreate the sense of touch. Haptic technology mimics the experience of touch by stimulating localized areas of the skin in ways that are similar to what is felt in the real world, through force, vibration or motion.

Vibration is the most common haptic technology today and has been built into many electronic devices such as one attached to the back of the trackpad (触摸板) in laptops, which simulates a button clicking. However, haptic feedback with vibration becomes less sensitive when used continuously. The existing technology also has great difficulty recreating the sense of touch with objects in virtual environments or located remotely. According to Mai Thanh Thai, lead author of the study.

The new technology overcomes issues with existing haptic devices. The research team introduced a novel method to recreate the sense of touch through a soft artificial "muscles".

"Our three-way directional skin stretch device, built into the fingertips of the wearable glove we also created is like wearing a second skin-- its soft stretchable and mimics the sense of touch-- and will enable new forms of haptic communication to enhance everyday activities" said Thanh Nho Do, senior author of the study.

Imagine you are at home and you call your friend who is in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs, and your friends also wears a glove with integrated 3D force sensors. If your friend picks up an object, it will physically press against your friend's fingers. And their glove with 3D force sensors will measure with interactions. The force signals can be sent to your glove so your device will generate the same 3D forces. Making you experience the same sense of touch as your friend.

The haptic devices could be applied in various situations, allowing users to feel objects inside a virtual world or at a distance. It could also be used in medical practices. Doctors can feel a patient's organ tissues. With surgical tools without touching them.

Families differ from each other. Some are traditional and seem to be perfect; some are dysfunctional, but tend to still be strong; some are so calm, but controlled and some seem to be rich and have everything, but lack love.{#blank#}1{#/blank#} I've come up with some qualities that would make a great family.

Give credit and appreciate. One of my best memories as a child is when my report card came out with good grades. I then showed it to my parents and they would give me treats, new toys or even money. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Appreciation for small and large things alike is important to boost one's self-esteem and express the love you have for each other.

Talk to each other.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} They tend to choose family members (and not friends or neighbors) as their first resort to express their emotions, talk about their fears or desires and help solve their problems. Their meal times are always full of positive conversation and exchange of ideas. And more importantly, they lay out specific ground rules, know their limitations and know a lot about the members of their family.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#} No matter how perfect you think your family is, there will come a time that it will be tested, and problems will hit you right in your face. Strong families should learn how to combine all the above qualities and use it to survive every difficulty.

Spiritual wellness. Some might disagree that spiritual wellness is important to a family, but truly, a great family has strong faith and belief no matter what their religion is. When a family has a strong spiritual foundation, they are just more loving and understanding, thus making them stronger.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}.

A. So do you feel the same way?

B. Never conflict with family members.

C. The ability to deal with stress, conflict and crisis.

D. So the old question is, what makes a great family?

E. Strong families have an effective communication environment.

F. Simple showing of appreciation is one of the qualities of a great family.

G. So invest in your family's spiritual wellness and learn to be optimistic.