Close your eyes for a minute and imagine what life would be like if you had a hundred dollars less.Also imagine what it would be like spending the rest of your life with your eyes closed.Imagine having to read this page,not with your eyes but with your finger­tips.

     With existing medical knowledge and skills，two­thirds of the world's 42 million blind should not have to suffer.Unfortunately，rich countries possess most of this knowledge,while developing countries do not.

     ORBIS is an international non­profit organization which operates the world's only flying teaching eye hospital.ORBIS intends to help fight blindness worldwide.Inside a DC­8 aircraft，there is a fully­equipped teaching hospital with television studio and classroom.Doctors are taught the latest techniques of bringing sight back to people here.Project ORBIS also aims at promoting peaceful cooperation(合作) among countries.

     ORBIS tries to help developing countries by providing training during three­week medical programs.ORBIS has taught sight­saving techniques to over 35,000 doctors and nurses，who continue to cure tens of thousands of blind people every year.ORBIS has conducted 17 plane programs in China so far.For the seven to ten million blind in China，ORBIS is planning to do more for them.At the moment an ORBIS team is working on a long­term plan to develop a training center and to provide eye care services to Shanxi Province.ORBIS needs your help to continue their work and free people from blindness.

     For just US $38,you can help one person see;for $380 you can bring sight to 10 people;$1,300 helps teach a doctor new skills; and for $13,000 you can provide a training program for a group of doctors who can make thousands of blind people see again.Your money can open their eyes to the world.Please help ORBIS improve the quality of life for so many people less fortunate than ourselves.

A Book Review—The Snake-Stone by Berlie Doherty

    The setting: Urban England (the cities), but also rural England (the countryside) including remote English villages.

    The theme: The main theme is a teenage search of self-discovery, in this case the search for a mother from whom the hero was separated at an early age. Its other concerns are love, getting on with others, being persistent and courageous and trying to deal with doubts, troubles and worries. As the book moves to a close, James' swimming coach says to him: “You are not like a kid obeying instructions any more. You are diving like a young man who knows where he is going.”

    The characters: James is the hero of the story. He is a championship diver, and has a comfortable life with his foster parents (养父母). Yet he also has the qualities to take him on a long journey to find his birth mother. The other characters in The Snake-Stone, James' parents, his diving instructor, best friend, the villagers, people he meets on his journey, are pictured realistically.

    The turning point: The turning point in the story comes while James' foster parents are away in London, and he wonders about the identity of his birth mother. The only clue he has is a fossil, “the snake stone” which she left behind along with a note on which she had written: “Take good care of Sammie. It was written on a torn envelope with parts of an address still there.

    The journey: Instead of going to London, James decides to find his birth mother. With help from his geography teacher, James sets out for the remote country village where his mother might be found. James has painful, challenging, but also humorous and happy travels. The mother he finally meets, Anne, has a minor yet powerful voice in the novel. He comes to understand why she left him at a stranger's door fifteen years before. Although the meeting is not long, it leaves him with a feeling of completeness. As a journey of self-discovery The Snake-Stone also provides its readers with a happy ending. Its hero says, on returning to his foster parents, “I was home.”

    Once, Buddha was walking from one town to another with some of his followers. This was in the initial days. While they were traveling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and Buddha told one of his followers, “I am thirsty. Please get me some water from that lake there”.

The follower walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the water and, right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing the lake right at the edge of it. As a result, the water became very muddy, very dirty. The follower thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink?!” So he came back and told the Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy. I don't think it is fit to drink”.

    So, the Buddha said, let us take a little rest here by the tree. After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same follower to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The follower obediently (顺从地) went back to the lake. This time he found that the lake had absolutely clear water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to the Buddha.

The Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the follower and said, “See, you let the water be and the mud settled down on its own. You got clear water. It didn't require any effort”.

Our mind is also like that. When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time and it will settle down on its own. You don't have to put in any effort to calm it down. We can judge and best decisions of our life when we stay calm.

    Flying insects are polluting new environments by eating microplastics in polluted waters and carrying them through the air, a new study has found.

    UK researchers found that microplastics -- pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters in size -- remain in the bodies of mosquitoes and other waterborne insects even after they become flying adults.

    The findings mean that pollution from plastics being dumped into our oceans is being carried into the air, and raises concerns that birds and other creatures that eat the insects are also being polluted.

    The team from the University of Reading in England and Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, inserted two minuscule pieces of polystyrene, each weighing just over one gram per cubic centimeter, into young mosquitoes and observed the insects throughout their life cycles. They found that the particles did not disappear from the mosquitoes' systems after the insects moved between life stages and started to fly, and were present inside the fully formed insects. “When the microplastics become the adults, it represents a potential aerial pathway to pollution of new environments,” the authors wrote in the study.

    “Thus, any organism that feeds on terrestrial life phases of freshwater insects could be affected by MPs found in aquatic ecosystems ( 水生态系统),” they added, using an abbreviation for microplastics. Freshwater insects such as mosquitoes are eaten by birds, amphibians, insects and fish, according to the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. More than 150 million tons of plastic are floating in the world's oceans, with an additional eight million tons entering every year, according to the World Economic Forum. Plastic can be eaten by fish, birds and marine mammals, and can damage marine ecosystems such as coral reefs.

    “This disturbing study raises real concerns about the spread of plastic pollution: it really is present everywhere, not just the marine environment,” said plastic pollution campaigner Emma Priestland from the charity Friends of the Earth.

    “Knowing that plastic can be moved from the larval stage to the adult mosquito, which then serves as food to a multitude of larger animals, highlights the urgency with which we need to.”

    A study from 2015 estimated that the total amount of floating plastic in the oceans could triple by 2025.

    Societies all over the world name places in similar ways. Quite often there is no official naming ceremony but places tend to be called names as points of reference by people. Then an organized body steps in and gives the place a name. Frequently it happens that a place has two names: One is named by the people and the other by the government. As in many areas, old habits died hard, and the place continues to be called by its unofficial name long after the meaning is lost.

Many roads and places in Singapore(新加坡) are named in order that the pioneers will be remembered by future generations. Thus we have names such as Stamford Road and Raffles Place. This is in keeping with traditions in many countries — in both the West and the East.

Another way of naming places is naming them after other places. Perhaps they were named to promote friendships between the two places or it could be that the people who used to live there were originally from the places that the roads were named after. The mystery is clearer when we see some of the roads named in former British bases. If you step into Selector Airbase you will see Piccadilly Circus — obviously named by some homesick Royal Air Force personnel.

    Some places were named after the activities that used to go on at those places. Bras Basah Road is an interesting example, "Base Basah" means "wet rice" in Malay(马来语). Now why would anyone want to name a road "Wet Rice Road"? The reason is simple. During the pioneering days, wet rice was laid out to dry along this road.

    A few roads in Singapore are named by their shapes. There is "Circular Road" for one. Other roads may have part of their names to describe their shapes, like "Paya Lebar Crescent". This road is called a crescent (月牙) because it begins on the main road, makes a crescent and comes back to join the main road again.

    “Who made your T-shirt?” A Harvard University student raised that question. Piertra Rivoli, a professor of business, wanted to find the answer. A few weeks later, she bought a T-shirt and began to follow its path form Texas cotton, to Chinese factory and to charity bin (慈善捐赠箱). The result is an interesting new book, The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy.

    Following a T-shirt around the world in a way to make her point more interesting, but it also frees Rivoli from the usual arguments over global trade. She goes wherever the T-shirt goes, and there are surprises around every corner. In China, Rivoli shows why a clothing factory, even with its poor conditions, means a step towards a better care for the people who work there. In the colorful used-clothing markets of Tanzania, she realizes that, “it is only in this final stage of life that the T-shirt will meet a real market,” where the price of a shirt changes by the hour and is different by its size and even color. Rivoli's book is full of memorable people and scenes, like the noise, the bad air and the “muddy sweet smell of the cotton,” she says. “Here in the factory, Shanghai smells like shallow water Texas.”

    Rivoli is at her best when making those sorts of unexpected connections. She even finds one between the free traders and those who are against globalization. The chances opened up by trade are vast, she argues, but free markets need the correcting force of politics to keep them in check. True economic progress needs them both.