On October 31st, 2009, Chinese famous scientist Qian Xuesen, died in Beijing when he was 98 years old. He is famous as “the country's father of space technology and king of rocketry”.

    Qian was born in 1911 in Hangzhou. He left for the United States after winning a scholarship to graduate school in 1936. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later at the California Institute of Technology.

    Qian began his career in the US and was regarded as one of the brightest minds in the new field of aeronautics（航空学) before returning to China in 1955.

    After he returned, Qian set up the first missile（导弹）and rocket research institute（学院) of China. The institute later helped start Chinese space program. He led the development of China's first nuclear-armed ballistic missile (弹道导弹) and worked on its first satellite.

    He retired in the year before Chinese manned space program was launched in 1992. But his research formed the basis（形成基础）for the Long March CZ -2F rocket that carried astronaut Yang Liwei into orbit in 2003.

    In August, 2009, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Qian and praised him for devoting his life to Chinese defense technologies. Qian told him, “I'm trying to live to be 100 years old”.

    More than a hundred years ago, two boys were fishing in a small river. They sat in a heavy-bottomed boat, each holding a long, bent pole in his hands and eagerly waiting for "a bite". When they wanted to move the boat from one place to another they had to push against a long pole into the bottom of the stream.

    "This is slow work, Robert," said the older of the boys. "Yes, Christopher, and it's hard work, too." answered Robert. "I think there's some better way of moving a boat."

    Christopher advised rowing it and Robert promised to make some paddles (桨). The next day Robert's aunt heard a great noise in her house. The two boys were there, busily working. "What are you making, Robert?" she asked. He told his plan. His aunt laughed and said, "Well done! I hope you'll succeed."

    After much work, they succeeded in making two paddle wheels. They were very rough, but strong and usable. They fixed each of these wheels to the end of an iron rod (长杆) which they passed through the boat from side to side. The rod was bent in the middle. When the work was finished, the old fishing boat looked rather strange, with a paddle wheel on each side. The boys lost no time in trying it. One of the boys could guide the boat while the other turned the paddle wheels.

    That night when Christopher went home, he told his father a wonderful story. "Robert Fulton planned the whole thing," he said, "and I helped him make the paddles and put them on the boat." When Robert Fulton became a man, he didn't forget his experiment with the old fishing boat. He kept on thinking and working, until at last he succeeded in making a boat with paddle wheels that could be run by steam. He's now honored as the inventor of the steamboat.

    When you think back to the blackboard from your school days, what color is it? Chances are that it's green. So what's up with the name? Originally, blackboards were really black. Before wall-sized blackboards existed, late 18th-century students used their own mini boards made of slate (石板) or painted wood, according to Concordia University, Those first boards were, in fact, black, and they paved the way for the larger ones.

    In 1800 when a Scottish headmaster named James Pillans wanted his students to draw maps, the students couldn't draw the maps their teacher wanted on their tiny boards, so Pillans put several slates together to create a large board. Problem solved! From there, the idea spread quickly as teachers could finally show a concept to the whole class at one time. By 1815, the massive writing spaces were common enough to earn their own name: blackboard.

    The color change came in the 1960s when companies sold, steel plates, coated with green enamel (漆) instead of the traditional dark slate. The new material was lighter and less fragile than the first blackboards, so they were cheaper to ship and more likely to survive the journey. Teachers weren't complaining either. After all, the new "greenboards" made the chalk powder easier to erase. Plus, the enamel left less of a glare and the color was nicer to look at. At that point, people started using the word "chalkboard "as a more accurate descriptor, but "blackboard" still stuck around.

    Imagine yourself on a boat looking out at the horizon and all you can see is the water meeting the sky with no land in sight and you are sailing straight ahead to meet the world. Jesse Martin does not have to imagine: he is living in it.

    On Dec. 7, 1998, at 17 years old, Jesse set sail from Melbourne, Australia on his boat, attempting to become the youngest person to sail alone and nonstop around the world. He sailed south of New Zealand, through the South Pacific, around South America, north on the Atlantic, back south past Africa, through the Indian Ocean and back to Melbourne. Even as a young child, Jesse had been an adventurer who traveled all over Europe and Asia with his parents. Born in Munich, Germany in 1981, he moved to Australia with his family when he was only two years old. They moved close to a rainforest in Cow Bay, about 3, 500kms north of Melbourne, where they built a small house with no electricity or running water. Jesse grew up at the beach enjoying the outdoors to its fullest. At 14, he sailed for the first time with his father and brother, Beau. It was after this trip that he began to dream about sailing around the world.

    Jesse's family played an important role. "I was made to believe I could do anything, although there were others that were not so encouraging or supportive" he says. "People that I looked up to, respected and trusted told me I couldn't. Thankfully, I trusted myself. There were people that said that the boat couldn't be ready by the time I had to leave." However, through perseverance (坚持不懈) and belief in himself, he was able to do what many told him was impossible.

    On Oct.31, 1999, more than 10 months after he set sail, Jesse Martin went down in history as the youngest person to sail around the world alone, nonstop and unassisted.

    Alice Robb is an American science journalist who has written for the Washington Post and the New Republic. Her new book, Why We Dream, encourages us to rethink the importance of dreams and to become dream interpreters ourselves.

    Reporter: Recently there's been a massive interest in the science of sleep. Sleep plays a role in maintaining our mental health. Are dreams part of that process?

    Alice Robb: Dreams play a big role in helping us cope with stress, grief and psychological problems. Dreams are an opportunity to work through things that frighten us in real life, to play out worst-case situations in an environment where they have no consequences.

    Reporter: Has anyone explained why dreams contain such surreal (超现实的) elements, strange pictures of time, people, geography and so on?

    Alice Robb：When we dream, the logic centres of our brain—the frontal lobes (大脑额叶) —go dark, and chemicals associated with self-control, like serotonin (血清素) and norepinephrine (去甲肾 上腺素) , drop. At the same time, the emotion centres light up：we have a perfect chemical canvas for dramatic, psychologically intense visions.

    Reporter：You say neglecting to consider our dreams is like "throwing away a gift from our brains without bothering to open it. " What is the gift?

    Alice Robb: When we're dreaming, we're thinking in a state we never have access to by day. Dreams offer the opportunity to think in a different way and show new answers to problems. They show us blind spots on things we might be neglecting in our personal lives.

    Do's and Don'ts in Whale(鲸)Watching The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has developed guidelines for whale watching in Johnstone Strait, where killer whales are found on a daily basis each summer. It is strongly recommended that vessel (船只) operators follow these guidelines for all kinds of whales.

    Approach whales from the side, not from the front or the back.

    Approach no closer than 100 metres, then stop the boat but keep the engine on.

    Keep noise levels down-no horns. whistles or racing of engines.

    Start your boat only after the whales are more than 100 metres from your vessel.

    Leave the area slowly, gradually moving faster when you are more than 300 metres from the whales.

    Approach and leave slowly, avoiding sudden changes in speed or direction.

    Avoid disturbing groups of resting whales.

    Keep at low speeds and remain in the same direction if travelling side by side with whales.

    When whales are travelling close to shore, avoid crowding them near the shore or coming between the whales and the shore.

    Limit the time spent with any group of whales to less than 30 minutes at a time when within 100 to 200 metres of whales.

    lf there is more than one vessel at the same observation spot, be sure to avoid any boat position that would result in surrounding the whales.

    Work together by communicating with other vessels, and make sure that all operators are aware of the whale watching guidelines.