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April Fool's party

On Friday, April 1, Inner Affair goes back to the days of funk! Classic Tunes from the 70's and 80's by DJs Den & Sion, 9pm till late.

Tickets: Free entrance for those in costume, otherwise 50 yuan (US$6)

Time/Date: 9 pm, April 1

Place: Inner Affair, 1/F Qiankun Dasha, 6 Sanlitun Xiliujie, Chaoyang District

Tel: 8454-0321

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The "worst" party

Organized by ozone productions, the party is set to be "the worst ever", with the lamest music from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Special prizes will be awarded to the worst dressed or for bad fashion sense.

Tickets: Free entrance

Time/Date: 9 pm, April 1

Place: Pula Pula, Tianze Lu, Oriental Seven Colours Plaza, Chaoyang District

Tel: 6466-8575

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La Nuit Francaise

Again on the 2nd Thursday of the month La Nuit Francaise will be held at Le Rendezvous. The monthly event is an opportunity for all French people and everyone interested in France or speaking French to gather together.

The evening features three glasses of wine for participants and a special exhibition.

Time/Date: 7 to 10 pm, April 14

Place: Le Rendezvous, 3 Gongti Beilu, across from the Pacific Century Plaza, Chaoyang District

Tel: 6462-9110

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Marco V

Dutch DJ Marco V drops by Banana for a gig which is supported by Hong Kong's DJ Spark.

Marco V has been around for many years, as an inventive, style blending deejay and a successful and devoted producer. His spinning is energetic, crowd pleasing and never sees an empty dance floor. He was ranked No. 15 in this year's international DJ MAG DJ Top100.

Tickets: 40 yuan (US$4.80) in advance, 50 yuan (US$6) at the door, both including a free drink

Time/Date: 10 pm to 4 am, March 31, April 1

Place: Banana, in the lobby of the Scitech Hotel, 22 Jianwai Dajie, Chaoyang District

Tel: 6528-3636

    In every British town, large and small, you will find shops that sell second-hand goods. Sometimes such shops deal mostly in furniture, sometimes in books, sometimes in ornaments（装饰） and household goods, sometimes even in clothes.

    The furniture may often be “antique”, and it may well have changed hands many times. It may also be very valuable, although the most valuable piece will usually go to the London salerooms, where one piece might well be sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds. As you look around these shops and see the polished wood of chests and tables, you cannot help thinking of those long-dead hands which polished that wood, of those now-closed eyes which once looked at these pieces with love.

    The books, too, may be antique and very precious; some may be rare first printings. Often when someone dies or has to move house, his books may all be sold, so that sometimes you may find whole libraries in one shop. One the border between England and Wales, there is a town which has become a huge bookshop as well. Even the cinema and castle have been taken over, and now books have replaced sheep as the town's main trade.

    There are also much more humble shops, sometimes simply called “junk shops”, where you can buy small household pieces very cheaply. Sometimes the profits（利润）from these shops go to charity（慈善事业）. Even these pieces, though, can make you feel sad; you think of those people who once treasured them, but who have moved on to another country or to death.

    Although the British do not worship（崇拜）their ancestors, they do treasure the past and the things of the past. This is true of houses as well. These days no one knocks them down; they are rebuilt until they are often better than new. In Britain, people do not buy something just because it is new. Old things are treasured for their proven worth; new things have to prove themselves before they are accepted.

    Three boys were enjoying themselves in their hometown of Bovina, Mississippi .However, their lives were turned upside down when they discovered the jawbone of a Mastodon (齿乳象).

    Brothers Shawn and Caid Sellers and cousin Michael Mahalitc found the prehistoric bone in a piece of earth that was recently plowed (犁、耕)."I thought it was a log," Caid said. "I tried to pick it up and it was really heavy and I saw teeth on it." The bone weighed about 50 pounds. They eventually got the bone to their home and fitted it in their tub (浴盆), but it took their collective strength, might and a golf cart, to carry the large Mastodon bone.

    "They didn't expect to find that," Michael's mom said. "Now that they have, I believe that they will be more aware of their surroundings and what they're digging up when they are digging and playing."

    "We've gotten a lot of petrified (石化的) wood and Civil War relics from the area and that's what I thought it was," the brothers' mother said. "This is our first set of teeth we've found. So we thought it was their imagination. We were quite surprised to see that it was not their imagination."

    They were exploring near the brothers' home. Lo and behold (真想不到), they saw what they thought resembled a fossil. It was the curator of paleontology (古生物负责人) of the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, George Phillips, who first identified the bone as a "very mature individual."

    The Mastodon was a mammal who lived during the prehistoric times. They had long tusks and trunks, like elephants. They were clearly different from their modern-day counterparts, as well as woolly mammoths (猛犸).

    Being able to land safely is a critically important skill for all flying animals. Whereas terrestrial animals face no particular challenge when they need to stop running or crawling, flying animals move at much higher speeds, and they must be careful about how they land. Hitting the ground, or even water, at full flight speed would be quite dangerous. Before touching down, they must decrease their speed in order to land safely. Both bats and birds have mastered the skill of landing, but these two types of flyers go about it quite differently.

    In the past it was believed that, in terms of flying mechanics, there was little difference between bats and birds. This belief was based only on assumption, however, because for years nobody had actually studied in detail how bats move their wings. In recent years, though, researchers have discovered a number of interesting facts about bat flight. Bats are built differently from birds, and their wings incorporate(结合) both their front and hind limbs (后肢). This makes their limbs working together more difficult for bats and, as a result, they are not very good at flying over longer distances. However, a bat can quickly change its direction of flight or completely reverse it, something a bird cannot easily do.

    Another interesting characteristic of bat flight is the way in which bats land—upside down! Unlike birds, which touch down on the ground or on tree branches, bats can be observed flying around and then suddenly hanging upside down from an object overhead. How do they do it? A group of researchers recently used video cameras to film bats landing on nets suspended from the ceiling of their laboratory and studied the recordings in slow motion. They painted spots on the bats' wings to see in detail what happens to the wings in flight and during touchdown. It turns out that the bats flew in a straight line up to the net and then quickly flipped over and attached themselves to it upside down. One disadvantage to this landing routine is that the bats often slam into their landing spot with some force, which probably causes pain. However, not all bats hit their landing spots with the same speed and force; these will vary depending on the area where a bat species makes its home. For example, a cave bat, which regularly rests on a hard stone ceiling, is more careful about its landing preparation than a bat more accustomed to landing in leafy treetops.

    February has long been a month of romance. With the sweet smell of roses in the air, romantic films hit cinemas and love stories fill newspapers and magazines.

    On the 14th day, it is customary for a boy to take his girlfriend out to dinner, buy her flowers and chocolates, write poems, sing to her or even spell out her name with rose petals!

    This is the scene that greets you on Valentine's Day, named after Valentine who was a priest in third century Rome. When the emperor decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives, he banned marriage.

    But Valentine continued to perform marriage ceremonies for young lovers in secret. When his actions were discovered, the emperor had him put to death.

    While in prison, it is said that Valentine fell in love with the daughter of his prison guard. Before his death, he wrote her a letter, which he signed "From your Valentine", an expression that is still in use today.

    Valentine died for what he believed in and so was made a Saint, as well as becoming one of history's most romantic figures.

    Nowadays, Valentine's Day wins the same popularity among Chinese young people. It is a time when students "don't want to be alone" according to Gao Shunjie, a student reporter for 21st Century Teens in Jinling High School, Nanjing. Some of her classmates are planning to make Valentine's cards for parents, teachers and friends. Others want to hold parties at which they will exchange small gifts and eat heart shaped cakes. The idea is to have fun and encourage people to share in the spirit of St Valentine.