In the world today, all of the people need recreation(消遣). We cannot work all the time if we are going to keep healthy and enjoy life.

    Everyone has his own way of relaxing. Perhaps the most popular form is to take part in sports. There are team sports, such as basketball and football. There are also individual(个人的) sports, such as swimming and running. Skating and mountain climbing are the most popular recreation for people who like to be outdoor. Not everyone who enjoys sports likes to take part in them. Many people like watching them on TV or listening to them on the radio. So many people like some forms of recreation, such as watching TV, singing and dancing. It doesn't matter whether we like indoor recreation or take part in outdoor sports. It is important for everyone to relax from time to time and enjoy some forms of recreation.

    Samuel Osmond is a 19-year-old law student from Cornwall, England. He never studied the piano. However, he can play very difficult musical pieces by musicians such as Chopin and Beethoven just a few minutes after he hears them. He learns a piece of music by listening to it in parts. Then he thinks about the notes(音符) in his head. Two years ago, he played his first piece Moonlight Sonata（奏鸣曲）by Beethoven. He surprised everyone around him.

    Amazed that he remembered this long and difficult piece of music and played it perfectly, his teachers say Samuel is unbelievable. They say his ability is very rare, but Samuel doesn't even realize that what he can do is special. Samuel wanted to become a lawyer as it was the wish of his parents, but music teachers told him he should study music instead. Now, he studies law and music.

Samuel can't understand why everyone is so surprised. "I grew up with music. My mother played the piano and my father played the guitar. About two years ago, I suddenly decided to start playing the piano, without being able to read music and without having any lessons. It comes easily to me —I hear the notes and can bear them in mind—each and every note," says Samuel.

Recently, Samuel performed a piece during a special event at his college. The piece had more than a thousand notes. The audience was impressed by his amazing performance. He is now learning a piece that is so difficult that many professional(专业的) pianists can't play it. Samuel says confidently, "It's all about super memory—I guess I have that gift."

    However, Samuel's ability to remember things doesn't stop with music. His family says that even when he was a young boy, Samuel heard someone read a story, and then he could retell the story word for word.

    Samuel is still only a teenager. He doesn't know what he wants to do in the future. For now, he is just happy to play beautiful music and continue his studies.

    The National Storytelling Youth Olympics is an event where thousands of kids from grades 6 to 12 compete against each other by telling stories. It is sponsored by the Master's Degree Program in Reading and Storytelling at East Tennessee State University. The sole purpose of this event is to promote and encourage both the art and science of storytelling among middle school and high school students. Although this event is competitive, its underlying intent and goal is to provide students across the nation with a reason to practice numerous noncompetitive skills.

    Those skills include skillful sportsmanship , responsible behavior, and an attitude of respect for others and the storytelling genre. The eventual goal of the National Storytelling Youth Olympics is to encourage every classroom in America to discover (or rediscover) the beauty of storytelling and story performance.

    The National Storytelling Youth Olympics takes place usually around the first weekend in March. Students from all over the country arrive by bus, plane, or automobile in Johnson City, Tennessee. They usually arrive on Thursday or Friday. Those that arrive on Thursday take advantage of their early arrival by telling stories at local schools. On Friday, an evening meal is prepared for all contestants, coaches, and parents. Games are played, stories are told, and lifetime friendships begin. Saturday is the day of the big event. A luncheon(午餐会) is held in the afternoon so contestants can familiarize themselves with the surroundings and do a sound check.

    The event is divided into three categories separated by grades. Contestants are judged not only by their storytelling performance, but also by the attitude and behavior they display during the entire weekend. A winner is picked from each of the three categories; however, there is an overall winner who is granted the name of Grand Torch Bearer. This person is selected not only by the judges, but also by the contestants. After the winners have been announced, the contestants retreat back to their hotel where a celebratory ice cream party is held; and believe it or not, they tell more stories! This is what the National Storytelling Youth Olympics is all about: developing a love for the art of storytelling.

    Chinese scientists recently have produced two monkeys with the same gene, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, using the same technique that gave us Dolly the sheep. These monkeys are not actually the first primates(灵长类)to be cloned. Another one named Tetra was produced in the late 1990s by embryo(胚胎)splitting, the division of an early-stage embryo into two or four separate cells to make clones. By contrast, they were each made by replacing an egg cell nucleus(原子核)with DNA from a differentiated body cell. This Dolly method, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer(SCNT), can create more clones and allows researchers greater control over the edits they make to the DNA.

    Success came from adopting several new techniques. These included a new type of microscopy to better view the cells during handling or using several materials that encourage cell reprogramming, which hadn't been tried before on primates. Still, the research process proved difficult, and many attempts by the team failed. Just two healthy baby monkeys born from more than 60 tested mothers. This leads to many researchers' pouring water on the idea that the team's results bring scientists closer to cloning humans. They thought this work is not a stepping stone to establishing methods for obtaining live born human clones. Instead, this clearly remains a very foolish thing to attempt, it would be far too inefficient, far too unsafe, and it is also pointless.

    But the scientists involved emphasize that this is not their goal. There is now no barrier for cloning primate species, thus cloning humans is closer to reality. However, their research purpose is entirely for producing non-human primate models for human diseases; they absolutely have no intention, and society will not permit this work to be extended to humans. Despite limitations, they treat this breakthrough a novel model system for scientists studying human biology and disease.

    Losing a wallet is one of those careless acts most of us have come across, at some point or the other in our lives. While most of us tend to move on after mourning over the lost necessities, there are a few lucky ones who get them back, with the help of the police or the generosity of the person who finds it.

    And then there is Hunter Shamatt, who not only got back his wallet but with some added happiness that was tagged along!

    Hunter was on his way to attend his sister's wedding on a Las Vegas-bound flight when he realized that he has misplaced his wallet, sometime during the journey. Hunter's family reached out to the Frontier flight to enquire if someone had handed it over to them. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the missing wallet.

    But wait. The story was far from over. Just a week after Hunter's sister's wedding, he received a package in his mail. And guess what? There was his wallet! Surprisingly, the wallet was not the only thing that was inside the package. It also had a handwritten note for Hunter which turned out to be a bonus! The piece of paper read,

    "Hunter, Found this on a Frontier flight from Omaha to Denver — row 12, seat F wedged between the seat and wall. Thought you might want it back. All the best.

    P.S. I rounded your cash up to an even $100, so you could celebrate getting your wallet back. HAVE FUN!!!"

    Moved by the touching gesture, Hunter's mom, Jeannie Shamatt, decided to write a post on Facebook giving a detailed description of the incident. She also urged everyone to share the post as she would like to meet and greet the person behind the act of kindness, personally.

    Now, thanks to the astonishing power of social media, the post finally reached the man behind the note. The man was identified as Todd Brown and it was one of his co-workers who made sure Jeannie Shamatt's post reaches his colleague. Jeannie turned to Facebook again to thank Brown and his family for restoring her faith in humanity.

    "I try to teach my children to do the right things in life, help people when you can regardless of the outcome. This story is more about restoring faith in people than anything. We hear a lot of bad news but not enough good news. I personally want to thank Todd Brown and his wife for restoring faith that there are amazing people out there."

The Boy Made it!

    One Sunday, Nicholas, a teenager, went skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. In the early afternoon, when he was planning to go home, a fierce snowstorm swept into the area. Unable to see far, he accidentally turned off the path. Before he knew it, Nicholas was lost, all alone! He didn't have food, water, a phone, or other supplies. He was getting colder by the minute.

    Nicholas had no idea where he was. He tried not to panic. He thought about all of the survival shows he had watched on TV. It was time to put the tips he had learned to use.
    He decided to stop skiing. There was a better chance of someone finding him if he stayed put. The first thing he did was to find shelter from the freezing wind and snow. If he didn't, his body temperature would get very low, which could quickly kill him.
    Using his skis, Nicholas built a snow cave. He gathered a huge mass of snow and dug out a hole in the middle. Then he piled branches on top of himself, like a blanket, to stay as warm as he could.
    By that evening, Nicholas was really hungry. He ate snow and drank water from a nearby stream so that his body wouldn't lose too much water. Not knowing how much longer he could last, Nicholas did the only thing he could—he huddled(蜷缩) in his cave and slept.
    The next day, Nicholas went out to look for help, but he couldn't find anyone. He followed his tracks and returned to the snow cave, because without shelter, he could die that night. On Tuesday, Nicholas went out again to find help. He had walked for about a mile when a volunteer searcher found him. After two days stuck in the snow, Nicholas was saved.
    Nicholas might not have survived this snowstorm had it not been for TV. He had often watched Grylls' survival show Man vs. Wild. That's where he learned the tips that saved his life. In each episode(一期节目) of Man vs. Wild. Grylls is abandoned in a wild area and has to find his way out.
    When Grylls heard about Nicholas' amazing deeds, he was super impressed that Nicholas had made it since he knew better than anyone how hard Nicholas had to work to stay alive.