For years we have been told that encouraging a child’s self-respect is important to his or her success in life. But child expert are now learning that too much praise can lead to the opposite effect. Praise-aholic kids who expect it at every turn may become teens who seek the same kind of approval from their friends when asked if they want to go in the backseat of the car.

      The implication（含义）of saying “You are the prettiest girl in class ,” or talking about the goals she scored but not her overall effort, is that you love her only when she looks the best , scores the highest , achieves the most. And this carries over to the classroom.

     Social psychologist Carol Dweck, PhD, tested the effects of overpraise on 400 fifth graders while she was at Columbia University. She found that kids praised for “trying hard” did better on tests and were more likely to take on difficult assignments than those praised for being “smart”.

      “Praising attributes (品质) or abilities makes a false promise that success will come to you because you have that quality, and it devalues effort, so children are afraid to take on challenges,” says Dweck, now at Stanford University. “They figure they’d better quit while they’re ahead.”

                                                                                          C

    If you’re t ired of the Mediterranean and don’t want to head to Disney again, perhaps it’s time for a summer holiday in space. Russia has declared plans for its first floating hotel, 217 miles above earth, and it is something of an offering with good service.

    Hosting just seven guests in a four cabins, the accommodation will boast huge windows with views back to earth and tasty microwave meals will be served instead of the ones often used by astronauts. 

    Just getting there will be an adventure in itself—it will take two days aboard a Soyuz rocket—and it won’t exactly be a budget holiday: A five-day stay will cost you￡100, 000 to￡500, 000 for your journey. The hotel is due to open by 2016 and, according to those behind it,  will be far more comfortable than the International Space Station (ISS) used by astronauts and cosmonauts.         

    In the weightlessness of space, visitors can choose to have beds that are either vertical(垂直的) or horizontal. Tourists, who will be accompanied by experienced crew, will dine on food prepared on Earth and sent up on the rocket, to be reheated in microwave ovens. Many kinds of delicacies will be available.

    Iced tea, mineral water and fruit juices will be available, but alcohol will be strictly prohibited. Toilets will use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system. Waste water will be recycled.         

    Sergei Kostenko, chief executive of Orbital Technologies which will construct the hotel,  said: “Our planned module inside will not remind you of the International Space Station. A hotel should be comfortable inside, and it will be possible to look at the Earth. The hotel will be aimed at wealthy individuals and people working for private companies who want to do research in space.” The hotel can also be used as an emergency bolthole (避难处) for astronauts aboard the International Space Station if there is a crisis. 

B

A teacher decided to let her class play a game. She told each child to bring along a few potatoes in plastic bags. Each potato would be written a name of a person that the child hated, so the number of potatoes that a child would carry would depend on the number of people the child hated. When the day came, every child brought some potatoes. Some had two; some three and some up to five.

The teacher then told the children to carry the bags wherever they went, even to the toilet, for two weeks. As day after day passed, the children started to complain of the unpleasant smell of the rotten potatoes.

    Those children having five potatoes began to feel the weight of the bags. After two weeks, the children were happy to hear that the game was finally ended. The teacher asked, “How did you feel while carrying the potatoes with you for two weeks?” The children started complaining of the trouble that they had had.

Then the teacher told them the hidden meaning behind the game. She said, “This is exactly the situation when you carry your hatred(憎恨) for somebody inside your heart. The unpleasant smell of hatred will pollute your heart and you will carry an unnecessary burden with you wherever you go. If you can’t tolerate the smell of rotten potatoes for just two weeks, can you imagine what a burden it would be to have the hatred in your heart for your lifetime? So throw away any hatred from your heart. Forgiving others is the best attitude to take.”

  It's that time of year when both high school and college graduates are looking forward to putting constant exams behind them and moving on to a more exciting stage of their lives. But in the digital age, not everything is so easily left behind. Ever since they were young, they have created a digital footprint that's often not easy to change or cover up.

       However, there are various actions that they can take to make that online presence more appealing. Here are a few suggestions that you might want to pass on:

      1 Clean up your Facebook account

      Clean up your Facebook page and get rid of anything that could he considered offensive or held against you. Remember, the test is no longer "Would you want grandma to see it? "but" Would you want a future employer to see it?"

      2 Use a professional looking photo

      A picture is worth a thousand words, so make sure that first impression(印象) is a good one. Again, what worked at school is unlikely to impress the employers. Also, he consistent(一致的)and use the same photo on all your online platforms. Make it easy for people to recognize you and start to build your brand.

      3 Grow your network

       While it's important to make the transition(转变) from school to the workplace, you don't want to leave everything behind. Make a point of keeping in touch with your school friends, teachers, professors, councilors, camp friends, sports coaches, anyone who could be helpful to you as you establish a career. The best way to land a job is still by word of mouth.

      4 Be yourself

       Nobody can be more like you than you. Make sure your online presence is representative of who you really are. Turn your social networking pages into your own personal web site, and start marketing your own individual brand!

D

    When Carson Palmer，hurt his elbow a few years ago，he took a week off from throwing the football．But in his head，Palmer practiced every day．“You stand right behind the center，and you see the coverage unfold as you would if you had the ball in your bands，”he told ESPN．The following weekend，Palmer had the best game of his career．

    For more than a century，scientists have been trying to understand how this mental training works．In the 1930s，researchers demonstrated that when you’re imagining an action，your brain sends signals to your muscles that are too weak  to make the muscles move but might help train the body to perform．Alternatively，mental practice might create a blueprint in your head，like an inner how-to guide for a particular skill．

    Sports psychologists have conducted hundreds of studies comparing imagined and physical practice for actions such as tap dancing．Overall，the research shows that mental training works．A study，for example，compared 32 amateur golfers who tried to hit golf balls into holes with another 32 who just held a golf club in their hands and visualize their swings．Under the same training，both groups improved by getting the ball about 10cm closer to the hole．

    Visualization has advantages over the real thing：You can do it anywhere，even when injured．It’s safe—a major advantage for high-stakes performers such as surgeons．That’s not to say it’s easy．“We’ve had Olympic—level athletes sitting in our lab，visualizing for two hours．”says Tadhg MacIntye，a sports psychologist．“When we’re done，they’re absolutely exhausted．”

    It doesn’t work for everyone，though．“If，you’re not experienced in the activity，the impact can be negative，”warns MacIntyre．“If you’re trying to visualize a free throw，and you don’t

even know the proper way to hold the ball and move，then you’re probably going to mentally rehearse the wrong skill，and you won’t get better．”

You never see him, but they're with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to withstand almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They're known as the black box.

   When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in  the India ocean June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine detected the device's homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.

   In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the device was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.

   Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots' conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments. Placed in an insulated ( 隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can withstand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000 ℉. When submerged, they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they're still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane's black boxes were never recovered.

B

Learning to read and write is a complex process, which can be disrupted in various ways, leading to disorders known as dyslexia and dysgraphia（读写障碍）. Two new studies, published in a recent special issue of Elsevierˈs Cortex provide evidence of this variety, suggesting that effective treatment needs to take it into account.

A group of researchers from the Universities of Bari and Rome in Italy studied the reading and writing abilities of 33 Italian dyslexic children, comparing their performance with that of children with normal reading ability. Italian is an "orthographically transparent" language, meaning that letters tend to correspond to the same sounds, whereas many letters in the English alphabet change their sound from word to word (like the "c" in car and city). However, the new study showed that even in Italian, in which it is relatively straightforward to convert sounds into letters, children still have difficulty in spelling. Younger children with dyslexia generally performed worse than proficient readers; however, the older ones showed a more selective impairment when spelling words, suggesting that knowledge of vocabulary may be more important in spelling than previously thought.

The other study, from Tel Aviv University, Israel, provided the first systematic description of a type of reading disorder called "attention dyslexia" in which children identify letters correctly, but the letters jump between words on the page, e.g., "kind wing" is read as "wind king". Teachers and neuron-psychologists often notice that children substitute letters when reading, but in this type of dyslexia the substitutions are not caused by inability to identify letters or convert them into sounds; they result from migrations of letters between words. The findings showed that letters would mostly migrate to the same position in another word, so the first letter of one word would switch places with the first letter of another word. Awareness to the existence of this type of dyslexia is important, because it suggests a straightforward way to assist these children in reading ——by presenting a ‎single word at a time, e.g., with the help of a word-sized window cut in a piece ofcardboard.

Daydreaming was viewed as a waste of time．Or it was considered an unhealthy escape from real life and its duties．Daydreaming has always had a bad reputation，but now scientific research has showed that daydreaming may actually improve your mental health and creativity．It can even help you achieve your desired goals．

Now some people are taking a fresh look at daydreaming．Some think it may be a very healthy thing to do．Researchers are finding daydreaming，they tell us，is a good means of relaxation．But its benefits go beyond this．A number of psychologists have conducted experiments and have reached some surprising conclusions．   

Dr．Joan T．Freyberg has concluded that daydreaming contributes to intellectual growth．It also improves concentration，attention span，and the ability to get along with others，she says．In an experiment with school children, the same researcher found that daydreaming led the children to pay more attention to details．They had more happy feelings．They worked together better．Another researcher reported that daydreaming seemed to produce improved self-control and creative abilities．

But that’s only part of the story．The most remarkable thing about daydreaming may be its usefulness in shaping our future lives as we want them to be．Industrialist Henry J．Kaiser believed that much of his success was due to the positive use of daydreaming．He maintained that “you can imagine your future．”Florence Nightingale dreamed of becoming a nurse．The young Thomas Edison pictured himself as an inventor. For these famous achievers，it appears that their daydreams came true．

Of course daydreaming is no substitute(代替者)for hard work．You have to work hard to develop skills．Daydreaming alone can’t turn you into your heart’s desire．But in，combination with the more usual methods of self-development，it might make a critical difference．And who knows：You might see your own daydreams come true．

   D

    Here’s a good deed you can do without parting with a single thing. Synthetic (合成的) voices for people who have lost the ability to speak only come in generic (一般的) types ­—think of Stephen Hawking’s voice—but one amazing project wants to build custom voices for each person. To do that they need your help: specifically, recording of your voice.

      VocalID is the brainchild of two speech scientists, who are turning their research into a much larger project. Voice is very personal and, like a prosthetic (假体的) leg or arm, it makes sense it should be customized to each person.

       Here’s how it works—and don’t worry, this does not mean someone will be walking around with the same voice as you out there:

         After recording a couple of hours of audio in, say, a quiet room with an iPhone, you send it to VocalID, where a program called ModelTalker cuts it up into the basic units of speech that can be recombined as new words and sentences. In that same step, characteristics of the patient’s voice—based on what limited sounds they can make—are mixed with the donor’s to create a whole new one.

        VocalID is still in its beginning stages, and they’re looking for help from everyone including voice donors, financial support, and programmers. A priority (优先的事物)  is making voice donation even easier, cutting down recording time, especially for kids. But as it stands already, your voice is just about the easiest thing to donate.