Parents, teachers and caregivers have long believed in the magic of storytelling to calm and comfort kids. Researchers working in pediatric (儿科) have now quantified the physiological and emotional benefits of a well- told tale.

"We know that narrative has the power to transport us to another world," says Brockington, who studies emotions and learning at Brazil's Federal University. He adds, "Earlier research suggested that stories help children process and regulate their emotions- but this was mostly conducted in a lab, with subjects answering questions while lying inside functional MRI machines. There's little research on physiological and psychological effects of storytelling in a more commonplace hospital setting."

So the investigators working in several Brazilian hospitals split a total of 81 patients aged 4 to 11 into two groups, matching them with storytellers who had a decade of hospital experience. In one group, the storyteller led each child in playing a riddle game. In the other, youngsters chose books and listened as the storyteller read them aloud. Before and after these sessions, the researchers took saliva (唾液) samples from each child, then asked them to report their pain levels and conducted a free association word quiz and analyzed samples.

Children in both groups benefited measurably from the interactions.

Those who heard stories also reported pain levels dropping almost twice as much as those in the riddle group, and they used more positive and light words to describe their hospital stay. The study demonstrates that playing games or simply interacting with someone can relax kids and improve their outlook but that hearing stories has an especially dramatic effect. "The researchers really tried to control the social interaction component of the storyteller, which I think was key," says Mar, a psychologist at York University.

Tourism is popular in the area around Taal Lake on Luzon Island in the Philippines, which is known for its natural beauty. Every year, travelers go there to see the scenery that surrounds Taal Volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in the country. It was quiet for years until January 12, 2020 when the volcano erupted. Since then, the cities surrounding the volcano have been covered with ash and many people are forced to leave home.

But the ash didn't stop the residents of Binan, a city that is 35 km south of Manilla, from finding a way to help their neighbors in the towns that suffered the most from Taal. Binan Mayor Walfredo Dimaguila ordered the city residents to collect the ash and to put it in sacks (麻袋) to be sent to the state-owned factory that can produce 5,000 bricks a day to turn it into bricks to use for rebuilding damaged communities.

"What we plan is to turn them into hollow blocks and bricks and sell them to interested companies," Dimaguila said. But he noted, the money would be donated to the people directly affected by the volcano. "When Batangas (the region where Taal is located) is in recovery, the bricks can not only be used to build schools, community halls and livelihood centers but also help deal with ash pollution for the earth," Dimaguila said. "The misfortune of our neighbors in Batangas is there. Let's transform this into opportunity. "

The Philippines, located in the Pacific "Ring of Fire: zone of fire" and part of the typhoon belt, is a country that is known for natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and major storms. But the Filipino people show their strong will and community spirit.

Researchers believe they have found evidence for a hidden ocean on Mimas, one of Saturn's major moons. This makes Mimas a target for learning more about the origins of life in our solar system. 

Saturn has 146 moons orbiting it. The biggest is larger than the planet Mercury; the smallest is roughly the size of a sports field on the Earth. Mimas, which was first discovered in 1789, is one of the major moons and is about 250 miles wide. 

Experts used to think Mimas was mostly made out of solid ice and rock. In 2014, astronomers noticed its orbit around Saturn was moving unsteadily. A shaky orbit can be caused either by a core shaped like a rugby ball or a huge liquid ocean beneath the surface. At first, lots of astronomers argued against the suggestion that Mimas had an ocean because there is no sign of it on the surface. 

To investigate more thoroughly, researchers looked at images taken by Cassini, a NASA spacecraft sent to study Satun. The images showed that the moon's orbit around Saturn drifted by about six miles over 13 years. The team's calculations found that the only way Mimas could move in this way is if it had a hidden ocean under the surface. They think the ocean formed when the moon's core warmed up and melted some of the ice. 

Mimas is just one of many moons that scientists think could have oceans below the surface Ganymede, which orbits Jupiter and is the largest moon in the solar system, has more water in its ocean than all of the oceans on the Earth. Titan, another of Saturn's moons, is believed to have a salty ocean beneath the surface. 

Space agencies want to study these oceans because they might be home to living organisms. However, the ocean on Mimas might not be old enough for life to have emerged there yet. It took hundreds of millions of years for life to develop on the Earth and the ocean on Mimas is relatively young;it is less than 25 million years old.