Next time you're planning to go out for a relaxing walk with your MP3 player, be sure to check the weather forecast first. Summer is the prime time for lightning strikes, a fact that Jason Bunch, a teen from Castle Rock, Colo, learned in a hard way. A couple of summers ago, he was mowing (割草) grass while listening to some Metallica on his iPod. Although there wasn't any rain falling on Bunch, he did hear distant thunder. Bunch was then struck by lightning, which seemed to travel through his music player, blowing out his eardrums and leaving him with burns where the device and its power lines were close to his body.

    Devices such as MP3 players don't attract lightning, says Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, an emergency room physician at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago. However, they may change the pathway that lightning's energy follows in the human body. Lightning that might have passed rather harmlessly over the skin may react differently to the metal of these devices and cause damage.

    Rather than leaving your tunes at home, your best bet is watching out for lightning before it hits. Though people have been injured while using MP3 players in storms, Cooper says, “The devices' main task is keeping you from paying attention to thunder and the sky.” If you're caught in a storm, seek shelter.

    Behind most of the bad things we do to our bodies as adults, eating more than we should is the idea we carry with us from childhood. On one hand, we assume that we are indestructible. On the other hand, we think that any damage we impose on ourselves can be undone when wβfinally clean up our act.

    If the evidence for how wrong the first idea is isn't apparent when you stand naked in front of the mirror, just wait. But what if you eat right and drop all your bad habits? Is there still time to repair the damage?

    To a surprising degree, the answer is yes. Over the past five years, scientists have collected a wealth of data about what happens when aging people with bad habits decide to turn their lives around.

    The heartening conclusion: the body has an amazing ability to heal itself, provided the damage is not too great.

    The effects of some bad habits-smoking, in particular-can haunt you for decades. But the damage from other habits can be largely healed.

    “Any time you improve your behavior and make lifestyle changes, they make a difference from that point on.” says Dr. Jeffey Koplan. “Maybe not right away. It's like slamming on the brakes. You do need a certain distance.”

But the distance can be remarkably short. Consider the recent announcements from the front lines of medical research: —A study concluded that women who consume as little as two servings of fish a week cut their risk of suffering a stroke to half that of women who eat less than one serving of fish a month. —The day you quit smoking, the carbon monoxide levels in your body drop dramatically. Within weeks, your blood becomes less sticky and your risk of dying from a heart attack starts to decline ... Adopting healthy habits won't cure all that bothers you, of course. But doctors believe that many chronic diseases-from high blood pressure to heart disease and even some cancers-can be warded off with a few sensible changes in lifestyle.

    Not sure where to start? Surprisingly, it doesn't matter, since one positive change usually leads to another. Make enough changes, and you'll discover you've adopted a new way of life.

    The summer I turned 16, my father gave me his car — a gift wasted on me at that age. The important thing was that Hannah and I could drive around.

    Hannah was my best friend, a year younger but much taller, almost five foot ten. "Hannah's a knockout, "my mother always said. And that summer she signed with a modeling agency. She was already doing runway work.

    A month after my birthday, Hannah and I went to the movies. On the way home, we stopped at the McDonald's drive-through, putting the fries on the seat between us to share. "Let's ride around a while, "I said. It was a clear night, full moon slung(悬挂)low over the desert. Taking a turning too fast, I plowed (撞)through a neighbor's wall and drove into a full-grown tree.

    We were taken in separate ambulances. I'd cracked(使裂开)my cheek bone; Hannah's forehead had split wide open. End of her modeling career. What would I say to her?

    When her mother, Sharon, came into my hospital room, I started to cry. She sat beside me and took my hand. "I rear-ended(追尾) my best friend when I was your age, "she said. "I totaled her car and mine."

    "I'm so sorry," I said.

    "You're both alive," she said." The rest is window dressing. I forgive you. Hannah will too."

    Sharon's forgiveness allowed Hannah and me to stay friends throughout high school and college, to be at each other's weddings … The scars are so faded no one else would notice, but in the sunlight I can still see it just below her hairline — for me, a mark of grace(优雅).

October 15th is Global Handwashing Day. Activities are planned in more than twenty countries to get millions of people in the developing world to wash their hands with soap.

Experts say people around the world wash their hands but very few use soap at so-called extremely important moments. These include after using the toilet, after cleaning a baby and before touching food.

Global Handwashing Day is the idea of the Public Private Partnership for handwashing with soap. The goal, they say, is to create a culture of handwashing with soap. The organizers say all soaps are equally effective at removing disease-causing germs. They say the correct way to wash is to wet your hands with a small amount of water and cover them with soap. Rub it into all areas, including under the fingernails.  Then, wash well under running water. Finally, dry your hands with a clean cloth.

The Partnership says soap is important because it increases the time that people spend washing. Soap also helps to break up the dirt that holds most of the germs.  And it usually leaves a pleasant smell, which increases the chances that people will wash again.

It also says that washing hands with soap before eating and after using the toilet could save more lives than any medicine. It could help reduce cases of diarrhea, which is the second leading cause of child deaths, killing more than one and a half million children a year, by almost half.

Below is a web page from http: //www.parents.com/.

Kid of the Year Photo Contest

Enter your kid's photo today and win! We're giving away 52 weekly $250 prizes from Readers' Choice votes. PLUS our editor s will select one entry(参赛作品) to win our grand prize of S7,

000.

Official Contest Rules

No purchase necessary to enter or win. The Kid of the Year Photo Contest entry period begins at 12:00 a. m. March 23, 2023, and ends on January 21, 2024 (the "Entry Period"). Entries must be received by 9:00 p. m. on January 21, 2024 ("Entry Deadline"). Entries will not be acknowledged or returned.

SPONSOR: Meredith Corporation, 1716 Locust Street, Des Moines, Iowa.

ENTRY: There will be two methods of entry.

Share My Entry:

Visit http: //www. parents. com/photos/photo-contests-1/kid-of-the-year/ and click the button to enter. Then complete the registration form and follow the instructions to upload one album of up to six photos of your child aged three months to eight years. Photos must be taken by entrant(参赛者). non-professional, unpublished and may not have won any prize or award. Photos must be . jpeg or . bmp image formats and cannot exceed 3 MB.

Faccbook Entry:

Visit Facebook. com/ParentsMagazine and click the Kid of 2019 tab. Fill out the registration form and upload one album of up to six photos of your child aged three months to eight years. You may provide one description and one album title that will be applied to all photos. Photos must be taken by entrant, non-professional, unpublished and may not have won any prize or award. Photos must be jpeg or.bmp image formats and cannot exceed 3 MB.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, supported or run by, or associated with Faccbook. You are providing your information to Parents Magazine and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used to run the promotion and register for Parents. com .

Photos must not contain material that infringesthe rights of another, including but not limited to privacy. publicity or intellectual property rights, or that constitutes copyright violation. Photos must not contain brand names or trademarks.

LIMIT:

One entry per household, per cligible(有资格的) child, per week. One weekly prize per child. For entries of more than one cligible child in the household, the entry process must be completed separately for each child. No group entries.

On a daily basis, the digital expanse witnesses an exchange of over two billion pictorial representations. Although imagery offers an entertaining and articulate avenue for online interaction, the process of digesting and generating such content presents formidable obstacles for individuals who are devoid of sight or are enduring profound visual impairments. Given the reality that there are more than 39 million individuals who are sightless, and an excess of 246 million who are grappling with severe visual limitations, a significant cohort may perceive themselves as alienated from the discourse that revolves around photographic content on the Internet. Scholars hailing from Harvard University are endeavoring to construct technological solutions that would enable the visually impaired populace to partake in the appreciation of photographic imagery with the same zest as their sighted counterparts.

The advent of automated descriptive text represents a groundbreaking innovation that engenders a narrative depiction of a photograph by leveraging the latest advancements in the field of object recognition technology. Individuals who rely on auditory output devices on their digital gadgets will now be presented with an enumeration of elements that a photograph might encapsulate as they navigate through online images. Previously, those utilizing auditory output devices were limited to hearing solely the nomenclature of the individual who disseminated the photograph, succeeded by the designation "photo" upon encountering a pictorial piece. However, the introduction of automated descriptive text now allows for a more elaborate portrayal of the contents of a photograph. For example, an individual might now perceive an auditory description such as "a visual scene comprising three individuals, exhibiting expressions of joy, in an outdoor setting."

This capability is made possible through the object recognition technology developed by Harvard University, which is predicated on a computational framework that encompasses billions of variables and has been refined through exposure to millions of exemplars. Each stride in object recognition technology signifies the potential for researchers to render technological interfaces increasingly inclusive and accessible to a broader demographic. When individuals are interlinked, they are positioned to accomplish remarkable feats, both in isolation and as a collective entity, and such interconnection benefits all participants within the network.

The rollout of the automated descriptive text is initially targeting auditory output devices on mobile communication devices configured to English, with plans to extend this functionality to additional linguistic variants and technological platforms in the near term. Although this technology is still in its infancy, harnessing its current competencies to articulate the essence of photographs marks a pivotal advancement in the quest to furnish our community with visual impediments with the identical advantages and gratifications that the broader population derives from photographic imagery.