Hannah Taylor is a schoolgirl from Manitoba,Canada.One day, when she was five years old,she was walking with her mother in downtown Winnipeg.They saw a man1out of a garbage can.She asked her mother why he did that and her mother said that the man was homeless and hungry.Hannah was very2.She couldn't understand why some people had to live their lives without shelter or enough food.Hannah started to think about how she could3, but,of course,there is not a lot one five-year-old can do to solve(解决)the problem of homelessness.
Later ,when Hannah attended school, she saw another homeless person. It was a woman,4 an old shopping trolley（购物车）which was piled with5. It seemed that everything the woman owned was in them. This made Hannah very sad, and even more6to do something. She had been talking to her mother about the lives of homeless people7they first saw the homeless man. Her mother told her that if she did something to change the problem that made her sad, she wouldn't8as bad.
Hannah began to speak out about the homelessness in Manitoba and then in other provinces. She hoped to9her message of hope and awareness. She started the Ladybug Foundation, an organization aiming at getting rid of homelessness. She began to 10“Big Bosses” lunches, where she would try to persuade local business Leaders to 11to the cause. She also organized a fundraising(募捐)drive in “Ladybug Jars” to collect everyone's spare change during “Make Change” month. More recently, the foundation began another 12 called National Red Scarf Day——a day when people donate $20 and wear red scarves in support of Canada's 13and homeless.
There is an emergency shelter in Winnipeg called “Hannah's Place”, something that Hannah is very14of. Hannah's Place is divided into several areas, providing shelter for people when it is so cold that15outdoors can mean death. In the more than five years since Hannah began her activities,she has received a lot of 16. For example, she received the 2007 BRICK Award recognizing the17 of young people to change the world. But 18 all this, Hannah still has the 19 life of a Winnipeg schoolgirl, except that she pays regular visits to homeless people.
Hannah is one of many examples of young people who are making a 20 in the world.You can,too!
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Measles(麻疹), which once killed 450 children each year and disabled even more, was nearly wiped out in the United States 14 years ago by the universal use of the MMR vaccine(疫苗). But the disease is making a comeback, caused by a growing anti-vaccine movement and misinformation that is spreading quickly. Already this year, 115 measles cases have been reported in the USA, compared with 189 for all of last year.
The numbers might sound small, but they are the leading edge of a dangerous trend. When vaccination rates are very high, as they still are in the nation as a whole, everyone is protected. This is called “herd immunity”, which protects the people who get hurt easily, including those who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons, babies too young to get vaccinated and people on whom the vaccine doesn't work.
But herd immunity works only when nearly the whole herd joins in. When some refuse vaccination and seek a free ride, immunity breaks down and everyone is in even bigger danger.
That's exactly what is happening in small neighborhoods around the country from Orange County, California, where 22 measles cases were reported this month, to Brooklyn, N.Y., where a 17-year-old caused an outbreak last year.
The resistance to vaccine has continued for decades, and it is driven by a real but very small risk. Those who refuse to take that risk selfishly make others suffer.
Making things worse are state laws that make it too easy to opt out(决定不参加) of what are supposed to be required vaccines for all children entering kindergarten. Seventeen states allow parents to get an exemption（豁免), sometimes just by signing a paper saying they personally object to a vaccine.
Now, several states are moving to tighten laws by adding new regulations for opting out. But no one does enough to limit exemptions.
Parents ought to be able to opt out only for limited medical or religious reasons. But personal opinions? Not good enough. Everyone enjoys the life-saving benefits vaccines provide, but they'll exist only as long as everyone shares in the risks.
Every animal sleeps,but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month.
One idea is that sleep helps us strengthen new memories. We know that, while awake,fresh memories are recorded by reinforcing (加强)connections between brain cells, but the memory processes that take place while we sleep have been unclear.
Support is growing for a theory that sleep evolved so that connections between neurons(神经元)in the brain can be weakened overnight, making room for fresh memories to form the next day.
Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right. The synapses in the mice taken at the end of a period of sleep were 18 per cent smaller than those taken before sleep,showing that the connections between neurons weaken while sleeping.
If Tononi's theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night's, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information —our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.
Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapscs become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size. “You keep what matters,” Tononi says.
A. We should also try to sleep well the night before. B. Ti's as if the brain is preserving its most important memories. C. Similarly, when people go for a few days without sleeping, they get sick. D. The processes take place to stop our brains becoming loaded with memories. E. That's why students do better in tests if they get a chance to sleep after learning. F. “Sleep is the price we pay for learning,” says Giulio Tononi, who developed the idea. G. Tononi's team measured the size of these connections, or synapses, in the brains of 12 mice. |
