Some people like to collect stamps. Others prefer posters or coins. But Pinky Bhutia is different. She collects children. In her mountain village, in Sikkim, she is known as the wonderful young woman who adopts(领养) all the children she can.

    Pinky was 14 when she adopted her first child, a Nepali baby girl, whose patents passed away. Pinky's parents did not mind. Pinky left school and started working full time because she had a baby to feed. Today , she has twelve adopted children, and two sons from her marriage.

    Pinky is about 30 years old and she comes from a common family. If you passed her on the street, you wouldn't give her a second look. She lives in a brown mud-washed(泥刷的) house. There is a vegetable garden outside. Red hens with noisy chicks run all over the garden looking for food.

    If you ask her why she provides a home for so many kids, she smiles shyly. But her eyes are serious. "I know what it is to be poor and hungry." As a child, her only dream was to eat a full meal, and her favorite amusement was watching people with shoes and imagining what it felt like. By adopting poor and homeless children she is making sure that they never feel that hopeless.

    Pinky feels very proud when she sees her children happy and bright, her oldest baby, Aarita Rai, is now 20 years old, Then, there is 19-year-old Nimbe who came to Pinky because her mother was unable to look after her. She started to work in a government office two years ago. Ten-year-old Bhim and 14-year-old Kumar came to Pinky five years ago, after their father's death. They started living on a patch of land given by Pinky and grew vegetables for sale.

    "I like children. It's not one more mouth to feed but one more soul saved," Pinky says.

    Martin is a fifteen-year-old boy. He used to be a "problem child", but a recent 1 with his mother changed his life. He didn't use to give his mother many problems. 2 , after his father's death a few years ago, Martin's life became 3 more difficult. His mother couldn't afford to pay for her child's education. To do this, she 4 work, and so she was often not at home. His mother looked after him as 5 as she could. Unfortunately, Martin still caused problems. He was not 6 in studying and he often got into trouble. Luckily, his mother was very 7 and didn't give up trying to help him. In the end, she 8 a difficult decision: to send him to a boys' boarding school. Martin hated it and used to cause a lot of trouble. One day, he told his teacher he wanted to leave the school. The teacher said it was necessary for Martin to 9 with his mother. Martin called his mother, but to his 10 , this phone call changed his life. "It was exactly 11 I needed," he said. "My mother helped me to understand how much she had given me. She also told me that even though my father was no longer with us, he was 12 me and would always take pride in everything good I do. That's when I decided to change. I realize that 13 my father died, I have been afraid of being alone, and have tried to make my mother pay more attention to me." Now Martin has 14 changed. He has been working hard and is now one of the best students in his class. How was he able to change? His mother's 15 helped him to feel good about himself.

    Rachel Carson(1907-1964) was a pioneer of the world's environmental movement through her writing about the protection of the natural world. Her 1962 book Silent Spring made her well known by many people. It describes the harmful changes in the environment of using toxic chemicals (有毒化学物质) on farmland.

    Carson first worked as a biologist in the US Bureau of Fisheries. In 1951, her first book The Sea Around Us came out. It became a bestseller. It made her rich enough to leave her job and spend all her life in writing. She was a talented writer. Her next two books were also about the oceans and both on the top of the book sales lists.

    Carson's book Silent Spring completely changed the way Americans thought about nature. It painted a bleak(荒凉的) future for the whole natural world. It led to a nationwide ban(禁止) on the use of a deadly chemical called DDT, and other toxic pesticides(农药) that farmers used for their crops. Many people say the book led to the creation of America's Environmental Protection Agency.

    Since her death, Carson's name has continued to be connected with protecting the environment. There is now a yearly Rachel Carson Book Prize. Norway gives the Rachel Carson Prize to women who have done a lot on environmental protection. In 1980, 16 years after her death, she was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in America.

    An American boy has made a cheap machine that can help blind people read.

    The blind can read by using Braille-a system of small bumps (隆起物) that the blind touch to read the letters. The machine that makes these small bumps usually costs at least $2,000. It is called Braille typewriter. The American schoolboy, Shu ham Banerjee, made a new Braille typewriter from a Lego tool that lets people create robots. Banerjee has called his new machine the Braigo-a combination(组合) of the words Braille and Lego. It costs just $350. It works by changing electronic texts into Braille and then printing it using a computer or a mobile machine.

    Banerjee designed (设计) his Braigo for a school science project. Since then, he has caught the interest of Silicon Valley in the USA. The big technology company Intel spent money on Banerjee's machine in November, but they did not say how much money they put in. Banerjee also got $ 35,000 from his father to help him start the project. His father works as a computer engineer (工程师) at Intel. He spoke about why he gave so much money to his son, saying, started to be interested more, thinking that he's on to something and this invention has to continue, dream would probably be having most of the blind people use my Braigo.