It is easier to float in the ocean than it is to float in a swimming pool.Do you know why?

    Ocean water is full of salt--and salt water can hold up more weight than fresh water.See for yourself!

You will Need:

3 cups of warm water

Measuring cup(量杯)

Wide-mouthed jar

Salt

Spoon

Raw(生的)potato

You Will Do:

⒈Pour 1.5cups of warm water into the jar.

⒉Add 1/3 cup of salt.

⒊Stir(搅拌) until the salt is completely dissolved.

⒋Add another 1.5 cups of water.Pour it slowly over the back of the spoon into the jar so that the two liquids will not mix together.

⒌Gently place the potato into the jar.Do not drop it.

    What Will Happen:

    The potato will sink--but only halfway!

    Why?

    Salt water is heavier than fresh water,so it will stay on the bottom.The fresh water will remain on top.

    The potato is heavier than the fresh water,but it is lighter than the salt water.That is why the potato will sink halfway down.

    When I was 12, all I wanted was a signet(图章)ring. They were the “in” thing and it seemed every girl except me had one. On my 13th birthday, my Mum gave me a signet ring with my initials(姓名首字母) carved into it. I was in heaven.

    What made it even more special was that it was about the only thing that wasn't being “replaced”. We'd been burnt out in fires that swept through our area earlier that year and had lost everything—so most of the “new” stuff(东 西)we got was rally just to replace what we'd lost. But not my ring. My ring was new.

    Then, only one month later, I lost it. I took if off before bed and it was missing in the morning. I was sad and searched everywhere for it. But it seemed to have disappeared. Eventually, I gave up and stopped looking for it. And two years later, we sold the house and moved away.

    Years passed, and a couple of moves later, I was visiting my parents' when Mum told me that she had something for me. It wasn't my birthday, nor was it Easter or Christmas or any other gift-giving occasion. Mum noticed my questioning look. “ You'll recognize this one.,” she said smiling.

    Then she handed me a small ring box. I took it from her and opened it to find my beautiful signet ring inside. The family who had bought our house 13 years earlier had recently decided to do some redecorations, which included replacing the carpets. When they pulled the carpet up in my old bedroom, they found the ring. As it had my initials carved into it. They realized who owned the ring. They'd had it professionally cleaned up by a jeweler before sending it to my mother. And it still fits me.

    In 1863, the great novelist Jules Verne wrote a novel called Paris in the Twentieth Century. In the book he used the full power of his great ability to forecast the coming century. Unfortunately, the manuscript (手稿) was lost until his great-grandson happened to discover it lying in a safe where it had been carefully locked away for almost 130 years. Realizing what a treasure he had found, he arranged to have it published in 1994, and it became a bestseller at once.

    Back in 1863, kings still ruled the ancient world in Europe, with so many poor people working in the fields. And steam power was just beginning to change the world. But Verne predicted that Paris in 1960 would have glass skyscrapers, air conditioning, TV, high-speed trains, gas-powered vehicles, and even something similar to the Internet. Verne described life in modem Paris almost without any mistakes.

    Just two years later Verne made another amazing prediction. He wrote From the Earth to the Moon, in which he predicted the details of the task that sent several astronauts to the moon 100 years later in 1969. He correctly predicted the size of the space capsule, the number of astronauts who would carry out the task, the weightlessness that the astronauts would experience, and the final landing in the ocean.

    How was Jules Verne able to predict 100 years into the future successfully? Although he was not a scientist himself, Verne often turned to scientists, asking them questions about their opinions of the future. He collected a vast amount of information about the great scientific discoveries of his time. Verne realized that science would make it possible for many amazing things to appear in the future. The secret of his successful prediction was his belief in the power of science to change society.

    Jane Austen has often been considered a woman who led a narrow, inhibited life and who rarely traveled. These assertions are far from the truth. Jane Austen traveled more than most women of her time and was quite involved in the lives of her brother, so much that it often interfered with her writing. Like most writers, Jane drew on her experiences and her dreams for the future and incorporated them into her writing. Her characters reflect the people around her; the main characters reflect parts of herself. In Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, Elinor Dashwood and Elizabeth Bennet reflect aspects of Jane Austen and dreams she had that were never fulfilled.

    The biographies about Jane Austen describe the facts of her life in a step-by-step manner. They tend to be repetitive since she did not leave behind a rich fabric of day-to-day life. Yet Jane Austen is known not because of the factual details of her life; she is not remembered two hundred years after her death because she had six siblings and was a wonderful aunt to her nieces and nephews. Rather, Jane Austen is remembered because of what she wrote. Only through reading her literature does one get a taste of the real Jane Austen, the Jane Austen who dreamed and made plans for the future that failed to materialize. Only by analyzing June Austen's characters do we get an understanding of the true author.

    Sense and Sensibility's Elinor Dashwood mirrors Jane Austen's strait-laced sense of propriety (礼节) and her concern and care about family members. For example, after her father died, Jane managed to gather herself together and send her father's pocket compass and pair of scissors to her brother Frank as a memento of their father. Elinor in Sense and Sensibility is the sister who holds down the family and discusses the practicality of situations. She too distributes cherished mementos of her father when he dies. Elinor is the sister who is concerned with the welfare of her relations and takes it upon herself to look after their well-being.

    Jane can also be considered the backbone of her family. After she dies, the family is not as close as they were during her lifetime. Jane became very close with two of her nieces, Fanny Austen and Anna Austen. She counseled them on men and marriage when they reached the age of choosing a suitor. She often helped with delivering her sister-in-law's babies. During her thirties, she lived with her brother Frank for several weeks. She cooked the meals for his family and cared for his children while his wife was confined to her bed. Like the character she creates in Elinor, she sticks by her family and helps them when they need her.

    Austen's life closely parallels that of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Austen begins the novel with the line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”. This statement reflects the opinion of the time that a woman had to be married or else she had no social standing. Just as Elizabeth and her sisters feel immense pressure to get married and procure a good match, so too did Jane. Until she was twenty-five she still retained a small spark of hope that she would one day marry and have children.

    The most significant similarity between Jane and Lizzy is their close relationships with their sisters. Jane and her sister Cassandra were extremely close. When they moved into a house in Chawton, they shared a bedroom. They were dependent upon each other and supported each other in all aspects of their lives. They supported each other's decisions and wrote to each other when apart. Lizzy and her older sister Jane were extremely close. They too supported each other's decisions and were always there for the other. They discussed suitors and marriage just as Jane and her sister must have done.

    All of Jane's female characters end up happily married, a state Jane herself never felt. A woman was defined in terms of her husband; if she did not marry, she had nothing. Well into her twenties, Jane still had dreams of getting married. When she was twenty-five, Harris Bigg-Wither, a brother of her good friends, proposed marriage to Jane. At first she accepted: she would become mistress of a large estate, and be able to ensure the comfort of her parents to the end of their days. Most importantly, she would have children and raise a family of her own. The next day, however, Jane reneged the proposal. She did not love him and did not want a marriage based on nothing but money. After this proposal, Jane gave up all hopes of ever having a family of her own. Instead, she fulfilled her dreams through her characters and found “passion” through them. All her characters marry for love (which happens to also be financially advantageous). They make Jane's dreams become a reality within her imagination. _____ . As children reflect upon the parents and often mirror aspects of their parents, so too did many of Jane's characters mirror herself and the people around her.

Dear Sir,

    There is a plan to build a new supermarket on the edge of the Whitefields housing estate(住宅区), on the land where the local library now is. I live at Whitefields, and I would like to express my concern about this plan. It is not that I am completely against the idea of building a supermarket—I just think that as a community we need to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages before committing ourselves.

    It is clear that the library is under-used and in poor condition. It is also clear that there are very few shops near here and a supermarket would be a good thing to have. But the people who want to build the supermarket seem to think that no one wants the library any more, and that it isn't a must because of the Internet and so on. Is this necessarily true, especially for elderly people? What about young people who don't have the Internet at home and need to go to the library to do their homework? Where can they study if they have to share a room with a younger brother or sister?

    On the other hand, there is an argument that a new supermarket would not only bring more choice of shopping and more convenience for local people, but it would also bring some much-needed jobs for younger people in the town—and this is a good point. What we need to do is consider the effect a supermarket will have on our quality of life. Certainly local people, including me, will find shopping a lot easier and more convenient. But there will also be extra traffic. In a few years from now, the roads in and around will be full of cars in the daytime and delivery lorries at night, and not only that—we will have got used to it, too. Are more jobs and more convenience worth such an influence on our daily lives? Perhaps, but this is what we have to ask ourselves.

    I believe that all the people of Whitefields, and the authority, need to discuss this question in an open-minded way—and I hope that by the time a decision is taken, we will have had a full and fair discussion of the issues involved, and that the local authority will have really listened to everyone's view. Is that too much to ask?

Yours faithfully,

Tom Watkins

    Many people have long dreamed of being able to fly around as simply as riding a bicycle.

    Yet the safety and strength of a flying bike was always a big problem. Over the past 10 years' developments in technology have moved the dream of personal flying vehicle closer to reality. Now, two groups of inventors say such vehicles may be available very soon.

    Grant Stapleton from Malloy Aeronautics says the Hoverbike, which is able to get in and out of small spaces very quickly, will be a truly personal flying vehicle." It can be moved across continents very quickly because it can be folded and packed," he adds.

    Mr. Stapleton says safety was the company's main concern when developing the Hoverbike, He says the designers solved the safety issue by using overlapping rotors (折叠旋翼)to power the vehicle. The company is testing both a one-third size model and a full-size prototype (原型))of the Hoverbike.

    Inventors say their Hovebike will most likely be used first by the police and emergency rescue teams.

    In New Zealand, the Martin Aircraft Company is also testing a full-size prototype of its personal flying bike, called Jetpack. It can fly for more than 30 minutes, up to 1,000 meters high and reach a speed of 74 kilometers per hour.

    Peter Coker is the CEO of Martin Aircraft Company. He said Jetpack" is built around safety from the start" In his words, reliability is the most important part of it. We have safety built into the actual structure itself very similar to a Formula One racing car."

    Jetpack uses a gasoline-powered engine that produces two powerful jet streams. Mr. Coker says it also has a parachute (降落伞)that can be used should there be an emergency.

    "It opens at a very low altitude and actually saves both the aircraft and the pilot in an emergency," he adds.