An artist in Oakland, California is using his skills to help the homeless. Greg Kloehn builds very small shelters that make life on the streets a little more comfortable. The structures offer the homeless some safety and protection from bad weather. Each little house also has wheels on the bottom so it can go wherever its owner goes.

    Greg Kloehn has given away at least 20 tiny houses. Several are on the roadside near an active railroad. On a recent day, Mr. Kloehn stops at one to visit Oscar Young. The two men hug. Inside his little shelter Mr. Young gets relief from cold nights on the streets. Mr. Kloehn also visits Sweet-Pea, another friend who also lives in one of the little homes the artist built. She says it keeps her safe and protects her belongings.

    In the mornings, Mr. Kloehn searches the streets for building materials. He gathers what he can and takes it to his studio. There, he puts the houses together. Empty coffee bags become roof material. A washing machine door and refrigerator part become windows. Nails, screws and the sticky glue hold all the pieces together. The artist also attaches a small electrical device to the house. The device is powered by the sun.

    Some of the people living on the streets once had normal houses of their own. But some of the people say they have learned to live with less and they are thankful to that man.

    Mr. Kloehn says his work is not a social project. He says he is just someone using his skills to help his homeless neighbors.

    A cellphone is one of the few things that we hold close to our faces all the time, and yet it could possibly explode - this is what made the recent Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 smart-phone accidents so shocking.

   According to technology news website The Verge, flawed（有瑕疵的）phone batteries might be to blame.

    Even if you are not a science student, you probably know that it is common sense that the anode (the negative（负的）end of the battery) and the cathode (the positive end) should never touch. If they do, the battery will short-circuit（短路）, causing a powerful electrical reaction that can destroy the battery and cause a fire.

    This is why all lithium-ion（锂离子）batteries - the kind that can be found in many of our devices like tablets and cameras - have a separator layer inside to stop the two ends from touching one another.

    But somehow, the separators in some of the Samsung phones broke, causing explosions.

    Overcharging is another problem that can make batteries heat up quickly. Fortunately, most batteries are designed to be able to automatically stop charging once they are fully charged. But again, this somehow failed to happen in some of the Samsung phones.

    The two “somehows” may sound random（随机的）and hard to explain. But they actually both come from the fact that phone producers have been pushing the limits of batteries to meet customers' demand for a longer battery life.

    According to Lynden Archer, a materials scientist at Cornell University, US, we have already achieved 90 percent of the battery life possible from a lithium-ion battery. Customers' demand that their devices get thinner has also given producers little choice but to try to put more power into thinner batteries.

     “The more energy you put into a box, the more dangerous it's going to be,” Billy Wu, a lecturer at Imperial College London, told The Guardian.

    A thinner battery also means producers have to use thinner material for separators, and thinner material has more chance of breaking.

    E-mail systems at thousands of companies and government offices around the world were attacked by a virus(病毒)called “Melissa” that disguises(伪装)itself as an “important message from a friend. In spite of a weekend of warnings，more than 50 000 computers at about 100 places around the world have been attacked by the virus，computer security experts said on Monday.

    The virus began to show up last Friday and spread rapidly on Monday by making computers fire off dozens of infected(被传染的)e-mails. Although the virus causes no serious damage to a computer，its effect was far reaching.

    To make matters worse，a similar virus called “Papa” was discovered on Monday. Papa is programmed to send out even more infected e-mails than Melissa.

    The Melissa virus comes in the form of an e-mail，usually containing the subject line“Important Message”. It appears to be from a friend. The body of the e-mail message says，“Here is that document you asked for...,don't show it to anyone else.” Attached(附)to the message is a document file.

    Once the user opens that file，the virus digs into the user's address book and sends infected documents to the first 50 addresses. E-mails from the Papa virus include an attached spreadsheet(电子数据文件)file. When the user opens that file，the virus sends 60 infected e-mails.

    The reason why this is spreading so fast is that you are getting it from people you know. You should never open documents or attachments from people you don't know. People who get an unexpected e-mail with the “important message” subject line should delete it immediately and not open the message.

    Seventeen-year-old Sariah Estrada didn't expect to receive anything in return when she saved a drowning man on Marianne Beach in Blanchisseuse earlier this year.

    However, for her random act of kindness, Estrada was awarded the Hummingbird Medal-Bronze for her bravery, loyalty and devotion to Trinidad and Tobago on Monday, September 24, when the country celebrated its 42nd year as a republic. President Paula-Mae Weekes presented the national award to her.

    In July of this year, Estrada along with two friends went to the Marianne Beach to relax. Upon leaving the beach, Estrada and her friends noticed a man struggling in the water. Immediately, she and her friends sprang into action. The teens borrowed a body board from some people on the beach and swam to the man's rescue.

    She said when they reached the man, he was already unconscious and they dragged him out of the water on the body board. Estrada remembered what she learned during a life-saving course the week before and quickly started pumping the man's chest. After several attempts，she was successful and the young man's life was saved.

    In an interview with LoopTT, the teenager said while she is grateful for the award, she wasn't expecting anything in return.

    "This award was never expected because I thought of helping someone as an act of humanity and never looked for anything in return, but the award is well appreciated. As I reflect on the action I took, I felt as though I could help this person as I have the proper training. The week before the incident I participated in a basic life support-training course offered by the North Central Regional Health Authority." Estrada explained. She said she intends to continue assisting people.

    The national award receiver also had this message for the youths of Trinidad and Tobago.

    I would like to encourage the young people of Trinidad and Tobago to strive for excellence, never sell yourself short by believing that you cannot do what you desire, all things are possible and hard work surely brings success."

    From quiet paths by a stream in a forest to busy roads running through a city, people have created various forms of routes in different places. These now exist all around us, and their use is imperative for societies. These routes have enabled people to move, transport things, and send information from one place to another quickly and safely. Throughout history, they have been important in our daily lives.

    Early routes were often formed naturally on land. They gradually developed over long periods of time while people traveled them on foot or horseback. A significant turning point in their history arrived when the first wheeled carts appeared in ancient times. Once this happened, people recognized the importance of well-maintained routes. Therefore, towns, cities, and entire countries improved them. As a result, life became more convenient, communities grew, economies evolved, and cultures expanded.

    People have established routes on water, too. Rivers and canals have served as effective routes for people to move around and carry things. For instance, in the old, Japanese city of Edo, water routes were used for the transportation of agricultural products, seafood, and wood. People have also opened routes across the sea. The seaways were critical for the navigation of ships, particularly in the days when they moved mainly by wind power. Using these sea routes, people could travel great distances, and go to places they had not previously been able to reach.

    People have gone on to open routes in the sky as well. Since the invention of the airplane, they have made it possible to travel long distances easily. Eventually, people became able to travel safely and comfortably high in the sky, and going vast distances only took a small amount of time.

    Today, we have a new type of route, the Internet. By using this worldwide route, people can easily obtain information that once was available mainly from books and face-to-face communication. They can also instantly send messages to large numbers of people all at once.

    As long as there have been people, there have been routes to connect them. Currently unknown routes will surely take us even further in the future.