There are some very good inventions which， for one reason or another， don't become popular. These inventions should be better known， even though I think that some of them are crazy. Let's have a look at some of these inventions and see if you agree that they should be more successful.

    The Australians had a great idea to stop people from drinking and driving. The idea was that if a driver wanted to start the car， she or he would have to blow into a bag first. If there was too much alcohol(酒精) in their breath， the car wouldn't start. It sounded like a great idea to me， but people said that they might need to drive the car in an emergency even if they had drunk too much alcohol. Another idea I liked was an invention by a scientist who thought his children watched too much TV. He linked the TV to an exercise bike so that the electricity to power the TV was generated(产出) by the bike. If the children wanted to watch a lot of TV， they had to pedal(踩踏板) very hard. I found another invention on the Internet which was intended (倾向于) to encourage good habits. Believe it or not， this invention was an ashtray(烟灰缸) which spoke to you when you lit a cigarette! The “voice” of the ashtray was activated (启动) by the heat from the cigarette and reminded you how dangerous it is to smoke.

    One of the strangest inventions I have come across is a bicycle which can cross rivers! The idea was that when you came to a river， you could inflate a huge plastic ball all around the bike. You would then get into the ball which would float on the river while you pedaled the bike inside the ball! Why not use a bridge instead? A friend of mine at school once bought a strange pair of football shoes. On the bottom of the shoes there was a rotating pad of studs (转动钉垫). The idea was that you would change direction more quickly if the studs rotated with you. The problem was that every time you stopped you changed direction whether you wanted to or not! I think he wore those shoes twice! One thing I would like is a baseball cap with a built-in radio so you can listen to sport all day with your hands free. While we are on the subject of sport， the Americans invented a kind of robot for sports fans. If you were watching your team on TV on your own， you could press a button and the robot would do “high fives” with you! Fantastic! I wonder if you have any good ideas for inventions like these.

    Why do plants grow in some places and not in the others? Why does some land have so much growing on it, while other land has almost no plants growing on it at all?

    To grow, plants need several things. One is warmth. In very cold places almost nothing grows. Plants also need water. In very dry parts of the Earth only a few unusual plants can grow. That's why dry deserts everywhere are almost not covered by trees or grass.

    Plants must also have a place in which to put down their roots and grow. They find it difficult to grow on hard land. The town is built on hard land. The plants here have only the soil found between the cracks of the stones to grow in.

    Another thing plants must have before they can grow is food.

What will happen if we try to make things grow on the sandy beach? A few plants, such as beach grass, will grow in sand, but most plants won't. Even if the weather is warm enough and we water the plants each day, many of them will die because the sand on this beach has almost no food for plants.

    There are millions of stars and planets in space. What's the difference between stars and planets? Stars can give out heat and light, but planets cannot.

    The sun is one of the stars. Some planets are balls of rock and some are balls of gas. We live on the planet earth. The earth spins around once every day to give us day and night. The earth goes around the sun once every year to give us different seasons.

    There are eight planets moving around the sun. We call the family of the sun and its planets the solar system. Mercury is the nearest to the sun, so it is very hot. It is the smallest planet. Venus is very bright and hot. It is the nearest to the earth. Mars is covered with orange-red desi and rocks, so it looks like a red star in the sky. It has seasons like the earth. Jupiter has more than 16 moons （卫星）and it is the biggest and heaviest planet. Saturn has more than 22 moons. The other planets, such as Uranus and Neptune, are all very far from the sun and very cold. We need a telescope（望远镜）to see them.

    When a computer runs a group of programs, it can get very Cooling the computer can cost a lot. So some scientist's wonder what will happen if the heat from the computer can be used.

    Large Internet companies (公司) such as Google and Microsoft have thousands of computers. As these computers deal with information, they produce lots of heat, so they need huge cooling systems(系统). These systems send the heat into the air.

    A company in Holland (荷兰) thinks paying to make the computers work and then paying again to cool them are a waste of energy. So the company developed a special device—the e-radiator.

    Boaz Loupe, the head of the company, says the e-radiator works as a heating system and saves money. He explains that the energy is used twice—once to heat the home and once to cool the computer. So the users don't have to pay to cool their computers.

    Five homeowners in Holland are testing the heating system in their homes.

    "We pay for the computer using, so, in that way, homeowners get heating for free," Boaz says.

    Jan Visor is one of the homeowners. "If you use the computer more the e-radiator produces more heat," he says. "It cannot provide enough heat if you don't use your computer often. "But he is ready to try it. It's a great help for his family.

    The company says e-radiators can produce heat at a temperature of 55℃. It says the system can save its users about S 440 a year.

    Mobile Apps are part of our daily life. Here are some of the most popular Apps.