A few years ago, a company called Space Marketing came up with a plan to send a mile–long advertisement into space. To advertising agencies (机构), it would have been “a dream come true”. However, advertising standards agencies finally decided not to allow Space Marketing to go ahead with their plans and they were forced to give them up.

    Space may indeed be the final place for advertisers, because on Earth we are already surrounded by advertising wherever we are and whatever we are doing. Apart from the obvious adverts that we see every day on TV, and in newspapers and magazines, there is a whole 'other world' of advertising messages for our attention. There are ads that we see on the side of the bus we catch to work, for example. And what about the logos (商标) we see on the clothing of the people we walk past in the streets?

    Most of the time, we are probably not even aware of (意识到的) these less obvious advertising methods, but that doesn't mean that they don't work. Take 'product placement', for example. You are in a cinema, watching the latest Hollywood movie. Look carefully at the make of car your favorite actor is driving. And what about his watch? Can you see what brand it is? Chances are, you can, and the company that owns the brand is likely to have paid thousands for it to appear in the film.

    So, whether Space Marketing finally succeeds in sending ads into space or not is perhaps less important than it might seem. This would not change a thing. Our everyday lives are already strongly influenced by advertising whether we realize it or not.

    There are lots of insects that farmers hate. But there also are some they like. They protect crops against damage from other insects. A good example is the lady beetle, which is also known as the ladybug(瓢虫)．

    Lady beetles are a natural control for aphids(蚜虫). Lady beetles are red, orange or black. They often have black spots, though some have light colored spots. Different kinds of lady beetles have different numbers of spots. There are lady beetles with four, five, seven and fourteen spots.

    Many of the well-known kinds of lady beetles come from Asia or Europe. They now are common throughout the United States.

    American scientists imported one kind of lady beetle, the multicolored Asian lady beetle, as early as 1916. They released them as an attempt to control some kinds of insects. Over the years, the beetle has become established, possibly helped by some that arrived with imported plants on ships.

    Experts say over 450 kinds of lady beetles are found in North America. Some are native to the area. Others have been brought from other places. Almost all are helpful to farmers.

    The Asian lady beetles now in the United States probably came from Japan. The Asian lady beetle eats aphids that damage crops like soybeans, fruits and berries.

    In the southern United States, Asian lady beetles have reduced the need for farmers to use reskilling poisons on pecan trees. This popular tree nut suffers from aphids and other pests that the lady beetles eat.

    But some people say the Asian lady beetle has itself become a pest. They worry that the lady beetles may eat their late autumn fruit crops.

    Experts say Asian lady beetles may appear in large numbers in some years. But they say the insects are too helpful to be considered as pests.

    Water is very important to living things. Without water there can be no life on the earth. All animals and plants need water. Man also needs water. We need water to drink, to cook our food and to clean ourselves. Water is needed in offices, factories and schools. Water is needed everywhere.

    There is water in seas, rivers and lakes. Water is found almost everywhere. Even in the desert part of the world, there is some water in the air. You can't see or feel it when it is a part of the air. The water in the seas, rivers and lakes is a liquid, the water in the air is a gas, and we call it water vapor (蒸汽).

    Clouds are made of water. They may be made of very small drops of water. They may also be made of snow crystals(结晶体). Snow crystals are very small crystals of ice. Ice is frozen water. It is a solid. There can be snow and ice everywhere in winter.

    Water may be a solid or a liquid or a gas. When it is a solid, it may be as hard as a stone. When it is a liquid, you can drink it. When it is a gas, you can not see or feel it.

    People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions — and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.

    Rachael Jack from University of Glasgow, said that rather than scanning evenly across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.

    "We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions," Jack said. "Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, while Easterners favor the eyes and ignore the mouth."

    According to Jack and his colleagues, the discovery shows that communication of human emotions is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used reliably to convey emotions in cross­cultural situations.

    The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the facial movements of 13 Western people and 13 Eastern people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, or angry. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.

    It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than Westerners did. "The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions," Jack said. "Our data suggests that while Westerners use the whole face to convey emotions, Easterners use the eyes more and the mouth less."

    In short, the data shows that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotions. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotions. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.

    If you're short on cash, you don't have to pay for an expensive gym membership to get in shape. Below are some choices for you! And the best is that they don't cost a penny!

    Nike+Running club and Nike+Training Club

    Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, various locations Nike's free run club of coaches and pacers open to anyone who wants to learn how to run like the professionals. Besides, there's the Nike Training Club for all health levels, covering boxing and other exercise. It's not one for men, though - the classes have a women-only policy. Call up in advance for participation!

    Our Parks

    Monday, Wednesday and Friday

    This brilliant program works with local communities to bring free health group classes across the city. They're led by qualified instructors and you can join anything from the body-building club at the Olympic Park to yoga in Victoria Park - just remember to register online and book ahead.

    Sweaty Betty's in-store classes

    Daily, various locations and times

    With over 70 classes to pick each week, it's no wonder mums crowd into Sweaty Betty to keep their health. But to sign up for a class, it's fastest fingers first -- places can be booked up to a week in advance so simply register online and watch out for a free spot.

    Sweat Shop running community

    Sundays to Thursdays, various locations and times Running can be a lonely old task. Sweat Shop's run clubs, held at branches across London, aim to make it a little more social. We'd recommend this for more experienced runners - the entry level distance is 5 kilometers - but a pace keeper at the back means you won't be left behind. Ready to work up a good sweat? Just go to the events listed on their Facebook page!

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With the completion of the Human Genome（基因组）Project more than 20 years ago, and the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA enjoying its 70th birthday last year, you might assume that we know how life works. Think again!

Evolution has a 4bn-year head start on us. However, several aspects of the standard picture of how life works-the idea of the genome as a blueprint, of genes as instructions for building an organism, of proteins as precisely tailored molecular（分子）machines and more-have wildly reduced the complexity of life. 

In the excellent book How Life Works, Philip Ball explorers the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more delicate affair than we have understood. Ball explains that life is a system of many levels-genes, proteins, cells, tissues, and body modules-each with its own rules and principles, so there is no unique place to look for an answer to it. 

Also, How Life Works is a much more appealing title than the overused question of "What is life?". We should be less concerned with what a thing is, and rather more focused on what a thing does. Defining a living thing implies an unchangeable ideal type, but this will run counter to the Darwinian principle that living things are four-dimensional, ever changing in time as well as space.

But it's an idea that is deeply rooted within our culture. Ball points out that we rely on metaphors（比喻）to explain and explore the complexities of life, but none suffice. We are taught that cells are machines, though no machine we have invented behaves like the simplest cell; that DNA is a code or a blueprint, though it is neither; that the brain is a computer, though no computer behaves like a brain at all.

Ball is a terrific writer, pumping out books on incredibly diverse subjects. There's a wealth of well-researched information in here, and some details that are a bit chewy for the lay reader. But the book serves as an essential introduction on our never-ending quest to understand life.