Whitewater rafting (漂流) is an exciting sport and, despite how it looks, you don't need to be incredibly brave or technically skilled to enjoy it. Here's everything you need to know about whitewater rafting.

River Grading System

The first thing you need to know is about the grading system. In general, beginners and older children will be safest and most comfortable on Grade II and III rapids. Those with more experience or advanced river skills can cope with Grade IV and V rapids.

Key Terms to Know

Your whitewater rafting guide will brief you before you hit the river and will run through the key terms and instructions they'll likely use. Here are some of the most important that you will hear:

Put in: The starting point of a rafting trip.

Take out: The ending point of a rafting trip.

Swimmer: Anyone who falls out of the raft is called a swimmer. Your guide might shout "swimmer!" to get that person's attention when attempting a rescue, as they're unlikely to know every passenger's name.

Safety Tips

The most important safety tip is always to follow your guide's instructions. They are trained to keep you safe during what can be quite a risky activity to the untrained. Avoid taking valuables on a rafting trip, including cameras, unless you have a dry bag.

What to Wear

Tour companies will provide you with the essential equipment, including paddles, life jackets, and helmets. Your clothing is up to you, but you'll be expected to wear suitable shoes. Cotton clothing isn't a great idea because it is cold when wet.

Coming of age is that time in each of our lives when we begin to see the possibilities. The world opens up in ways that mature our vision and give us a sense of responsibility and gratefulness. Connor had just started college and loved being at that stage in his life where he could eat all the pizza he wanted, yet engage in adult conversations with his parents about the responsibility to make life better for others. Connor's optimism was infectious. There was so much he could do, and so much he could become.

But it all ended one night when Connor was distracted while driving on a Colorado high-way. A young man, who gave off so much light, suddenly went dark.

Connor's father, David, took it particularly hard. A father sees more than his own traits (性格) in his son; he sees greater possibilities than he achieved. Taking that hope away left David feeling at a loss. But Connor's optimism was one of those traits passed on to him by his father. So, David got to work.

First, he established the Honor Connor Scholarship Fund to reward students who served in the community. Next, he went to work creating a research-based curriculum that educates University of Colorado Boulder students and their families about the dangers of texting while driving. It includes a very simple three-part promise: Do not text or use social media while driving, speak out if riding with a driver who is distracted and encourage friends and family to drive phone-free.

David now works with lecturers at various colleges and high schools, ensuring young minds understand how statistically at risk they are when they text while driving. He's become a passionate advocate for preparing young people to drive safely and not reach for their phones while they're at the wheel. "I just don't want other parents to go through what I did when I lost Connor, "says David. "It's just so preventable. "

Music is good for the health. And drumming may be best of all. As well as being physically demanding, it requires people to synchronise their limbs and to react to outside stimuli, such as what the rest of the band is up to. It is particularly helpful for children who have emotional and behavioral difficulties.

Researchers at the Clem Burke Drumming Project-an organisations named after Blondie's drummer, who was one of its founders- have shown that teaching such children to drum helps them to control their reactions more generally, to focus more effectively on tasks they are given, and to communicate better with other people.

The project's latest work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a team led by Marie-Stephanie Cahart of King's College, London, goes a step further. It looks at the neurological (神经系统的) changes which accompany these shifts. Ms Cahart and her colleagues recruited 36 autistic (自闭的) teenagers and split them into two groups. One lot had drum lessons twice a week for eight weeks. The others did not. At the beginning and end of the project everyone was asked to stay still for 45 minutes in afunctional magnetic-resonance imaging (fmri) machine, to see how the activity of their brains had changed. Their behaviour, as reported by their guardians, was also recorded.

As expected, most of the drumming group showed positive behavioral changes. And these were indeed reflected in their brains. The fmri scans showed that several clusters of connectivity between parts of those brains had strengthened during the experiment. In particular, two regions involved in attention control, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (背外侧前额叶皮层) and the right inferior frontal gyrus (额下回), formed strong links, respectively, with places associated with reflection and with areas involved in interpreting facial expressions. These changes in the brain's "wetware" thus nicely match the changes in behaviour which learning to drum causes.

Not a surprise, perhaps. But an encouraging confirmation of drumming's power to heal.