Many people discover Roald Dahl through his stories and poems. His books have been translated into several languages. He has also inspired TV and radio shows and movies. With his help, kids all over the world can imagine strange candies, friendly giants, and frightening villains(反派主角). Indeed, Roald Dahl led a life full of adventures (冒险). Yet, we can have a better understanding of him from other things, too.

More than Just Words: The Roald Dahl Foundation

Roald Dahl became interested in helping people who had serious injuries and diseases. As a writer, Roald cared about helping children read more. To carry out these goals, his family set up the Roald Dahl Foundation. The foundation helps people, hospitals, and charities by giving money for medical and educational needs. It continues the spirit of giving that Roald expressed throughout his life.

Stories for All Ages: The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

Roald Dahl’s wife, Felicity Dahl, wanted to set up a central place to protect all of Roald’s writings. She helped create the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Buckinghamshire, England. It holds a collection of Roald’s writings and recordings for the public to visit. His personal letters and postcards can be found there, as well as photographs and many of his awards. As you can see, one can get a pretty complete picture of Roald Dahl’s life by visiting this library. The museum also encourages people to write creatively.

Now, people of all ages are learning about Ronald Dahl through his works. Through his stories, the foundation, and the museum, Roald Dahl will continue to have a great effect on readers around the world for years to come.

Some new comets have been discovered accidentally by amateur(业余的) astronomers. Surprisingly, a few bright comets have been discovered with the naked eye(肉眼) by members of the general public. However, a great number of comets are found by comet hunters carrying out telescope searches of chosen areas of the night sky.

As the movement of all comets is directed around the Sun and because these bodies brighten as they move towards the Sun, there is a greater possibility for the discovery of a new comet in the skies towards the Sun rather than away from the Sun’s direction.This means that searches should be put on the western sky after evening light and on the eastern sky before morning light.

From the astronomical point, there is no time during the year which is the best for the discovery of new comets. A search can be done at any time providing there is no bright Moon.

Studies done on the discovery conditions of comets discovered before show that more comets have been discovered in the morning sky than in the evening sky. Thus the smart comet hunter should make sure that morning activity receives as much if not more attention than any evening effort.

In recent times,the use of advanced CCD technology to discover objects close to the earth will in the future greatly reduce the chances of new comets being found with small telescopes. An example of the new technology is the very successful LINEAR program operating in New Mexico. However, until a similar system is based in the southern half of the earth, there will continue to be chances for the discovery of new comets which come from the south.

Social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook can have a negative influence on people’s moral values and can make them indifferent to human suffering, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC).

New findings suggest that the streams of information provided by the websites are too fast for the brain’s moral sense to digest and could affect young people’s emotional development. Before the brain can fully process and absorb a story of pain and suffering, it is attacked by the next news or the latest Twitter update, according to the USC neuroscience group. Qualities such as admiration and compassion take much longer to process, said one of the study’s authors, Antonio Damasio.

The study results were based on real-life stories that were intended to induce (诱导) admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion (同情) for physical or social suffering in 13 volunteer individuals. At the end it was found that the participants needed six to eight seconds in order to fully react to stories of virtue or social suffering. However, once awakened, the responses lasted far longer than the volunteers’ reactions to stories focused on physical pain.

New findings raise questions about the emotional cost, in particular, for the developing young brain, of heavy dependence on an extremely fast stream of news snippets (片段) obtained by means of TV, the Internet or social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. “If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s mental states, and that would have effects on your morality.” Damasio said.

In general, normal life events will always give people opportunities to experience admiration and compassion. But activities such as reading books and socializing with friends, where individuals can define their morals, are being gradually replaced by alarming and fast-moving social networking, and people may be led away from learning about humanity.