Many of us feel uneasy when someone stands too close to us, talks to us too loudly or makes eye contact(接触) with us for too long. But have you ever wondered why those things make you uncomfortable?
      It's all about personal peace, which means not only an imaginary space around the body, but also the space around all the senses. People feel that their space is being violated(侵犯) when they meet with an unwelcome sound, smell or look. This is probably why a man on a crowded bus shouting into his mobile phone or a woman next to you putting on strong perfume(香水) makes you feel angry.

    Whether people have had a stronger wish to protect their personal space in recent times is hard to say. Yet studies of airlines show that people have a strong desire to have space to themselves. In a survey by Trip Advisor, a travel website, people said that if they had to pay more for some extra service, they would rather have larger seats than extra food.

    Although people may need their personal space, some hardly realize it. For example, people on a bus who hold newspapers in front of their faces to read in fact keep a distance from strangers.

    Go and watch a library table. You will notice that one of the corner seats will usually be taken first, because they are the farthest way. What if someone sits opposite to you? Maybe you will pile up books as if to make a wall.

    Preference for personal space is different from culture to culture. Scientists have found that Americans generally prefer more personal space than people from other cultures. In Latin cultures, however, people are more comfortable standing close to each other.

    A Swiss airplane powered only by energy from the sun left from Abu Dhabi early on March 9. Its creators hope the plane will make the first around-the-world journey without any fuel. The plane is called Solar Impulse 2. It has one seat and is made from carbon fiber. The plane weighs only as much as a car but its wings are wider than a Boeing 747. The plane's wings stretch 72 meters across. Those wings include 17,000 solar units, or cells, which capture the sun's energy. The energy allows the plane to fly day and night.

    Two Swiss scientists built the plane. Bertrand Piccard is also an explorer who made the first non-stop flight around the world in a balloon. Andre Borschberg is an engineer and trained fighter pilot. The scientists say they are not trying to alter the airplane industry. Instead, they want to show that new energy sources and technologies can achieve what some say is impossible. “We want to show we can fly day and night in an aircraft without a drop of fuel.” Mr. Piccard said.

    Some parts of the trip will require the pilots to be in the tiny plane for five to six days and nights in a row. So it is good that the pilot's seat is also a toilet.

    The plane's route begins in the United Arab Emirates. The pilots also plan stops in Oman, India, and China. They will cross the Pacific Ocean, stop in the United States, and continue over southern Europe or North Africa. They plan to arrive back in the United Arab Emirates in late July or early August.

    Internet viewers can go to the Solar Impulse website to see the plane's location and listen to broadcasts from the pilots.

    Outside, it's a cold winter's day. Inside a large shopping center, people are hanging around. But then, without warning, a pop song starts to play loudly. A teenager boy walks lazily to the center of the open space, and dances crazily to the music. He's joined by two of his friends, then some of the old people. Within the space of a few seconds, more than sixty people are dancing to the music - all in time and all in step. At first, onlookers are baffled, then they start smiling and clapping. They now know what they're seeing: a flash mob （快闪）.

    According to Wikipedia, the term "flash mob" was created by Bill Wasik, an editor at Harper's Magazine, in 2003. Within a year, the phrase had entered the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Since then, hundreds - possibly thousands - of flash mobs have been carried out around the world, in almost every kind of public space imaginable!

    Each flash mob has its own style, but most flash mobs follow a similar formula （方案）. Often, the organizers search for willing participants using social media. Instructions and dance moves are given through email or video download. There are usually several rehearsals （排练） before the big day.

    While it's happening, a few lucky passers-by watch it live. Most people who watch it, however, will see it later online. Some of the most popular flash mobs on YouTube have been watched more than 10million times. A famous example is MP3Experiment Eight, a flash mob that took place in New York City in July 2011 with over 3,500 participants. This event differed from normal flash mobs in that much of it was completely silent - and there were no rehearsals.

    Flash mobs provide the participants, onlookers and online viewers with a lot of enjoyment and pleasure. For this reason alone, they're a modern, popular art form that should be celebrated.

    On one of her trips to New York several years ago, Eudora Welty decided to take a couple of New York friends out to dinner. They settled in at a comfortable East Side cafe and within minutes, another customer was approaching their table.

    "Hey, aren't you from Mississippi?" the elegant, white-haired writer remembered being asked by a stranger. "I'm from Mississippi too."

    Without a second thought, the woman joined the Welty's table. When her dinner partner showed up, she also pulled up a chair.

    "They began telling me all the news of Mississippi," Welty said. "I didn't know what my New York friends were thinking."

    Taxis on a rainy New York night are rarer than sunshine. By the time the group got up to leave, it was pouring outside. Welty's new friends immediately sent a waiter to find a cab. Heading back downtown toward her hotel, her big-city friends were amazed at the turn of events that had changed their Big Apple dinner into a Mississippi.

    "My friends said: ‘Now we believe your stories,'" Welty added. "And I said: ‘Now you know. These are the people that make me write them.

    Beauticians, bartenders, piano players and people with purple hats, Welty's people come from afternoons spent visiting with old friends, from walks through the streets beside her house, from conversations overheard on a bus.

    It annoys Welty that, at 78, her left ear has now given out. However, she continues to walk into life and notes the vivid life. Sometimes, sitting on a bus or a train, she hears only a fragment(片段) of a particularly interesting story, yet she quickly takes out a notebook and write something fantastic under her point of pen.

    A six-wheeled robot travels underground in Hefei to discover warning signs of faults inside the pipeline network, "It looks like a toy car at first, but it's much more complicated than that," said Xu Mao, the robot's operator.

    The pipeline robot, developed by Wuhan Easy-Sight Technology, is made up of four parts — crawler, camera, cable reel, and controller. A full charge can enable the robot to work for four to five hours, covering a distance between 800 and 1,000 meters in the underground p ipeline.

    The robot made its appearance last month in Shushan District. It will carry out inspections of the underground pipeline network stretching 150 kilometers." Whether the pipe is leaking, damaged or blocked, we can clearly see its situation through high-definition(高清晰度的)cameras fixed into the robot, " said Qi Chuanshuai from the provincial construction engineering and testing institute.

    The real-time data including video images of the pipe will be up loaded and displayed on a computer. "If we find any problems, we stop the robot and record the flaws," Xu said. "We report the faults to local government, who will arrange the repair as soon as possible."

    With the rapid develop merit of cities, it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage underground pipelines. Among all the difficulties, discovering faults in the sewage (污水)and rainwater pipelines comes first. Many other cities such as Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai are using the robots to inspect their pipelines, the robot's developer said.

    Equipped with environmental detection sensors, the robots can monitor temperature and damp, poisonous gases, oxygen levels and smoke density, while providing color diagram in real time. "Compared with human workers, robots are able to enter smaller pipes and are immune (有免疫力的)to poisonous gases in sewage pipes," said Ge Shengli from Shushan District' s city management company." No digging is required and there is no need to interrupt traffic," Ge added.

    Chinese cuisine is widely known and enjoyed all around the world. Who doesn't long for a favorite Chinese dish? But there is one interesting concept concerning Chinese food which is almost unheard of in the West, and which is becoming increasingly ignored by the youth of the East-- the ancient custom of "tonic food".

    Tonic food is food which is consumed to improve one's well-being or avoid sickness. For instance, it was once the custom for new mothers to eat a sesame oil (麻油) hot pot every day for the first month after giving birth. It was believed that this dish would benefit the muscles, reduce pain, improve circulation, stimulate sweating, and warm the body. Some foods, such as goat meat and spinach, are seen as "hot", while others, such as Chinese cabbage and radishes, are seen as "cold". One should be careful not to eat too much of either "hot" or "cold" food. However, how much "hot" or "cold" food one should eat depends on the time of the year, how the food is prepared and what it is prepared with, and the individual's health.

    The custom of employing tonic food for a healthier life also influences the catering industry. Chinese herbal medicines, such as wolfberry (枸杞), can be found on many a restaurant menu, either added to fruit tea or as a beneficial addition to a dish. These herbs attract customers, such as overworked office staff, in need of a modest pick-me-up.

    So, whether you need to boost your strength with a large helping of chicken soup, or increase your mental powers with a serving of fish soup, you may find that this ancient Chinese custom could be just the tonic you were looking for.