It was a Saturday morning and we looked around to see the breakfast club full of happy, smiling children. Each of them was talking and laughing, completely forgetting the fact that they were disadvantaged. How wonderful it is to see them smile! We are so thankful for your donations that have helped make it happen. Your contribution has helped so much, but the need is still great. Each year, we help thousands of children by giving them a proper breakfast and somewhere safe to play after school. Without donations like yours, however, our center would not have enough funds to keep operating. Together we are transforming lives and building brighter futures, but without you, it wouldn't be possible.

Gabriella rechecked her own calculation and murmured, That should be sixteen over pi. She thought she had said it quietly, but apparently not quietly enough. Mrs. Baker turned around. Yes, Gabriella? Oh, I'm sorry. I was just ... Shouldn't the second equation read sixteen over pi? she said, embarrassed. Sixteen over pi? the teacher said in surprise. She took out a calculator and started punching in numbers, saying That's quite impossible! There was a brief pause. Mrs. Baker said to the class, She's right. She turned back to the blackboard to revise her work. Then she looked over her shoulder, smiled warmly at Gabriella, and added, How brilliant! She blushed, impressed by her teacher's remark.

The U.S. space agency NASA is currently on the Hundred Years Starship, a project of exploring new habitable planets and helping people settle down there. If settlers succeed in making another planet their home, it will become one of the most revolutionary events in history. Assumed to have a substantial amount of water, Mars is probably most habitable out of all the planets in our solar system. However, this project would take time since the cost will make a return flight to Earth almost impossible. Although the living supplies for the settlers would be sent from Earth, taking the risk of exchanging life for dreams is tough.

There are lots of myths about taking care of bad breath. Here are two things you may have heard about bad breath that are not true. One of them is that mouthwash will make bad breath go away. Mouthwash only gets rid of it temporarily. If you do use mouthwash, look for an antiseptic and plaque-reducing one. Secondly, as long as you brush your teeth, you are said not to have bad breath. The truth is that most people only brush their teeth for 30 to 45 seconds, which just doesn't solve the problem. To sufficiently clean your teeth, you should brush for at least 2 minutes at least twice a day. Remember to brush your tongue, too.

A boom in car sales has caused traffic jams in many of China's major cities. One company wants to improve the situation ― by putting even more people on the road. But rather than adding more cars, Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment is developing a massive straddling bus. The bus will span two lanes and carry up to 1,200 people in a carriage raised 7 feet above the roadway. Thus, it will allow cars to pass underneath, and passengers on the new bus should expect to feel above it all. If the company can get government approval for a trial project, test runs could begin by the end of 2011.

We often look to a few leaders to improve our communities, and unfortunately, we also blame those same people for anything that needs to be changed. It's easy to blame the principal or teachers if there are problems at your school. Many people blame the mayor for anything that goes wrong in a city or town. But a community needs everyone's involvement to become great. It's important to take ownership of your community and put the YOU in community. How can you do that? Volunteer. Give feedback. Talk to others in your community. Work to bring about change. Ask how you can help.

To the majority of people, Einstein's theory is a complete mystery. Their attitude towards Einstein is like that of Mark Twain towards the writer of a work on mathematics: Here was a man who had written an entire book of which Mark could not understand a single sentence. Einstein, therefore, is great in the public eye partly because he has made revolutionary discoveries which cannot be translated into the common tongue. We stand in proper awe of a man whose thoughts move on heights far beyond our range, whose achievements can be measured only by the few who are able to follow his reasoning and challenge his conclusions.

We all cherish certain memories of our childhoods, like birthday parties and bike rides. But can you remember being born? In fact, can you remember much before the age of two? No, in fact nobody can. So why does this occur? One of the most recent explanations has been a lack of language skills. Newborn babies cannot express experiences or emotions in the form of words or symbols that others can understand. Indeed, we have to have a word to explain something in order to remember it. Therefore, as babies don't have words to describe being born, there is no way they can accurately remember that experience later.

From a present perspective, we tend to believe that artists' individuality is a universal thought. Thus we fail to imagine a place and period in which things were different. But there was a time when priority was given to an observance of tradition rather than to an artist's personality. In medieval Europe, for example, the standardized backgrounds of religious images acted as a device to exclude the individuality of the artists. Those images contrast the modern self-portraits, which are considered to show the obvious individuality of the artists in brush marks. Medieval artists were little more than wage-earning artisans who didn't have a chance to show their artistic originality.

Each insurance plan is different when it comes to what's covered and what's not. Figuring out which one is right for you is a bit of a balancing act: You want to get the most benefits at the least cost. Start by looking at all the elements of the plan and not just the price tag. For example, a plan with a low monthly premium isn't necessarily the cheapest. Your hospital bill might be very high or you might pay much more for your prescriptions depending on your insurance. So if you see a doctor often or take prescription medications regularly, a more expensive plan that covers a higher percentage of the cost may actually turn out to be cheaper.

The attitude that nothing is easier than to love has continued to be the prevalent idea about love in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love. If this were the case with any other activity, people would be eager to know why they had failed in it and to learn how one could do better, or they would abandon the activity. Since the latter is impossible in the case of love, there seems to be only one adequate way to overcome the failure of love - to examine the reasons for this failure and to proceed to study the meaning of love.

There are many factors necessary to enjoy a happy life. Factors such as good health, consumer goods, friends, and so on. If you investigate these things closely, you'll find that all of these depend on other people. To maintain good health, you rely on medicines made by others and health care provided by others. If you examine all of the facilities that you use for the enjoyment of life, you'll find that there are hardly any of these material objects that have had no connection to other people. If you think carefully, you'll see that all of these goods come into being as a result of the efforts of many people, either directly or indirectly.

One spring night I was sitting alone very late in the university library. Looking up from my work, I suddenly realized that someone had left a book I had never seen before on a shelf above my desk. Wondering what the book was about, I took it down and looked through it. Across two pages I saw a single word in Gothic lettering: DRAKULYA. I flipped through the rest of the pages but they were completely blank. After gazing at the word for a few more minutes, it suddenly started to scatter and reshape. All in a tremble, I dropped the book; it was the face of the devil.

Can vitamin pills be dangerous to your health? Yes, if you take too many. With certain vitamins, the body uses as much as it needs and passes the rest out. Other vitamins, especially Vitamins A and D, accumulate in the body and can cause damage if taken in extremely high amounts over a period of time. Extremely high amounts of Vitamin A, for example, can eventually lead to liver damage and blurred vision . On the other hand, it is safe to take a multiple˗vitamin pill regularly, and some vitamins are even prescribed for medical purposes. For instance, niacin is used in very large dosages, under strict medical supervision, to lower cholesterol levels.

It's well-known that many students use caffeine to stay up late to study, or to stay focused with little sleep. In fact, some experts report that caffeine dependency among high school students has steadily increased over the past five years. Most teens are unaware of how caffeine affects their bodies, even though it may seem like a quick solution for helping students study late into the night. Caffeine is a mild stimulant that causes increased heart rate. Most people who are sensitive to caffeine experience a temporary increase in energy and elevation in mood. Yet, this energized feeling quickly evaporates and leaves students feeling tired and irritable.

As Africa's exploding human populations compete with wildlife for land and resources, the number of lions speared, shot, and poisoned has soared, endangering the species. In response, Living With Lions, founded by the NGO Panthera, has hired Masai men to protect lions. The tribesmen, who used to spear lions as a rite of passage for young Masai men, now track lions to save them in this area. They also educate Masai communities on the lions' value because although each lion is reported to kill livestock worth $290 a year, it brings in $17,000 in tourist revenue. Nevertheless, some experts warn that within 25 years there may be no lions left outside the biggest, best run parks.

Errold Reid of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and his colleagues studied piano players who had been playing for at least 10 years. Eleven of the players experienced varying degrees of piano-related discomfort; 21 were pain-free. The researchers found that no postural differences were evident in the two groups, but the players who were pain˗free relied heavily on their back and neck muscles. Conversely, players who experienced pain used smaller muscles in their forearms more. According to the study, not using the strong back muscles shifts the work to the smaller, more delicate muscles in the fingers and arms, which is too hard on those little muscles.

Fast-food chains are tempting children towards their products by sending direct mail to children under 12 years of age and offering them free meals for their birthdays. The marketing campaigns targeting pre-teens by fast-food restaurants have been revealed thanks to a report in the government's inquiry into privacy laws. Civil organizations have asked the federal government to ban direct mail marketing to children without the consent of their parents. The report says that children's susceptibility to commercial influence means that the use of their personal information for direct marketing unfairly manipulates them, and is likely to harm them in other ways. It also adds that such promotional activities could influence children to have unhealthy diets.

Wat Xieng Thong is regarded not only as the most beautiful monastery in Luang Prabang, but one of the most delicate in all of Laos. The name Wat Xieng Thong means Temple of the Golden City. This temple is located close to the tip of the Luang Prabang peninsula, where the Nam Khan flows into the Mekong River. It was built by King Setthathirath in 1560, during the golden years of the Lan Xang Kingdom. Its gracefully sloping roof and glass paintings on the walls represent the classical Luang Prabang style of temple architecture. It had been supported by the kings right up to 1975, when the monarchy ended. It was here that the kings were crowned and granted their power.

Ben Schneider was the son of an anthropology professor and a sociology professor. To the surprise of his bookish parents, his favorite childhood possession was a workbench. Thanks in part to that, he developed an early passion for carpentry and an ability to do impressive things with wood. During his 20s, when he worked as an actor, Mr. Schneider could make ends meet by making furniture and doing carpentry. In 2002, he bought a very old house that was ready to collapse for $435,000. With his own hands, he reassembled, repaired, and restored the tumbledown house to create a spacious dwelling.

Trekking has been recently trendy. With more people becoming attracted to the activity, the demand for trails with convenient facilities is increasing. To benefit from this boom, provincial governments are jumping on the trail development bandwagon to the point of raising concerns of overheating. Experts raise several issues that stem from this sudden fever. More than anything else, analysts cite the environmental damage that too many human visitors can cause. The environmental health of several trails has been severely damaged ― visitors often leave trash and pick flowers or plants. Local governments have also paved some of the courses with cement.

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston used magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) scans to measure the amygdalas of 58 people aged 19 to 83. As part of the study, each of the volunteers completed a questionnaire asking them the number of people they met on a regular basis. They also commented on the complexity of each relationship. The researchers found that participants with larger amygdalas typically had more people in their social lives and maintained more complex relationships. Those with the smallest amygdalas listed fewer than 15 people as regular contacts, while those with the largest amygdalas counted up to 50 acquaintances in their social circles.

During every fall football season in the U.S., most parents and coaches focus on the safety of the players. But there's growing evidence that they should turn their attention to the sidelines: cheerleading. It is commonly regarded as a feast to the eye or a wonderful performance. However, the Washington Post offers a report on the many risks associated with cheerleading, which has emerged as one of the riskiest of women's sports, leaving a long trail of sprained wrists, twisted ankles, and damaged knees. Much worse than that, it is also reported that cheerleading accounted for two-thirds of all catastrophic incidents such as death, head injury, or permanent disability among female high school and college athletes.

From the moment you touch down in Japan, if you do not speak Japanese, you will be faced with a world that is difficult to decode. Turn on a TV in a Tokyo hotel room, and you will get a lot of incomprehensible symbols. What can be done in this situation? Science fiction has always solved the problem of language with clever devices which act as universal translators. But in reality, it has been a lot trickier. Because of different fonts, written text can be very difficult to translate. There is already a reading aid on the web ― Google Translate. The problem is that, so far, it is quite literal with its translations and lacks the nuance of someone who speaks the language.

The graph above shows past and projected rates of obese and overweight children aged 3 to 17 in Korea. All categories except for the rate of girls' obesity were at their peak in 2000 and are expected to decrease steadily through 2020. During the entire period, the rate of overweight boys is the highest of all, while that of obese girls is the lowest. The gap between overweight boys and overweight girls will get smaller from 2010 to 2015. The rate of boys' obesity was nearly three times as high as that of girls' obesity in 2000. However, both rates are predicted to be similar by 2020.

Babies are immersed in the language that they are expected to learn. They hear family members conversing, conversations in the grocery store, and people talking to them. Through exposure to various situations such as these, they speak something that is similar to something else, but not exactly the same. For example, when Janie says goo, goo, her mother rushes over with a cookie and says, Oh, here's a cookie. When Jake shouts, I want what ball, his father says, Here's that ball, as he throws it to his son. In this way, parents accept and often celebrate their children's approximations, considering them natural and essential behaviors of language acquisition.

In ages past, the Earth passed through a series of ice ages, in which much of the Northern Hemisphere was covered with glaciers. The mild temperatures we're familiar with occur between ice ages. It is thought that very slight changes in the position of the Earth relative to the sun are behind these shifts in climate. Scientists say that we can expect colder temperatures as the planet moves toward another ice age. But don't build your igloo yet. Not only is the next ice age still thousands of years away, it's possible that it might not arrive at all. Global warming, caused by an increase in carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere, may prevent the next ice age from occurring.

People living in the suburbs of London during World War II experienced an increase of stomach ulcers in response to the stress of being bombed by German warplanes. And yet Londoners, who were bombed more often, didn't experience stomach ulcers that much. The explanation of this paradox requires an understanding of the power of uncertainty. People living in Central London were overwhelmed by nightly bombing raids, whereas those living in the suburbs were raided only irregularly. Objectively speaking, it is worse to be bombed often in the night than to be bombed less often. But in reality, irregular bombing feels worse because people become so unsure about when they will be exposed to the next bombing raid.

A district mayor in the Japanese capital, Tokyo, is going on an unusual leave for the birth of his newborn baby on Saturday. He will be the first local government leader ever to do so. Hironobu Narisawa, the mayor of the central Bunkyo district, said he was aiming to change attitudes. Japanese workers are famously reluctant to take time off after the birth of a child even though Japanese law allows either parent to have up to a year off. Mr. Narisawa's announcement has been front page news in Japan these days. No other local government leader, male or female, has taken time off after the birth of a child. Nationwide, just one in 100 fathers takes any paternity leave. None of the male employees of Bunkyo district has done so. Mr. Narisawa, whose son was born in February, said he hoped his example would help to change attitudes. However, Mr. Narisawa will not be entirely switching off from work during his two-week leave. He is planning to remain in the district in case of emergencies.

Frank was on his way to the Aspen Music School. He had heard wonderful stories about it and he was especially excited to be studying with Mr. Stessin, an esteemed professor from the Juilliard School. After a few lessons with him, Frank knew that he would not be disappointed. The professor noticed every turn of each musical phrase, and added his sense of humor to every lesson. As Frank was preparing Beethoven's Sonata for a master class, Mr. Stessin jokingly warned him, Don't play this too well, Frank, or I'll have nothing to say! The master class went quite well, considering that it was his first performance of the sonata. A few days later, Frank met Mr. Stessin's wife, Nancy who was also on the Aspen faculty. She said to him, That was a very nice Beethoven you played the other day. He was touched by her thoughtful comment. One day, as Frank was sitting down with his friends to have lunch, someone whispered to him, Mrs. Stessin passed out! He naturally assumed that she had fainted from the heart or something. That night, he could not sleep knowing that she was dead. He wondered how Mr. Stessin could possibly cope with the terrible tragedy. Surely he would be heading back to New York as soon as arrangements could be made. Only days later, Mr. Stessin was back in his studio, teaching! Initially shocked by his decision to stay, Frank soon began to understand him. He and his wife had been teaching at the Aspen Music School for many years and had built a strong sense of community with the faculty and students. Furthermore, Frank realized he found comfort through his love of music and students. Leaving Aspen would have meant leaving behind his fondest memories of Nancy.