China Daily—Last week, the Beijing municipal government released a list of 192 areas in the capital where spring blooms, including peach, magnolia, apricot and winter jasmine, can be enjoyed from March to May. The recommended spots cover an area of 22 square kilometers. Apart from admiring blooms, folklore performances, botany exhibitions and other activities will be put on. 20 travel routes for tourists looking to appreciate floral beauty in the countryside are issued in Hubei, too.

    South Korean drama Descendants of the Sun《太阳的后裔》 has collected more than 200 million views on iQiyi, the Chinese streaming website said Tuesday.

    "Descendants of the Sun", the first Korean show to premiere simultaneously in South Korea and China (中韩同步首播), is a love story between an Army captain (Song Joong-ki) and a doctor (Song Hye-kyo) who find themselves in a fictional war-torn country called Uruk, where both try to save lives.

    "The show has become the talk of the town everywhere. Some shows even had live phone conversations with viewers to discuss its popularity," a Chinese entertainment official said.

    To put things into perspective, a f ifth of South Korea's population is 10 million people. Just a little over that number tuned in to watch Descendants of the Sun.

    Enthusiastic customers snapped up(抢光) the first batch of tickets in just five minutes on Monday for the opening day of the Shanghai Disneyland park on June 16, temporarily crashing the official website.

"Within half an hour, clicks on the website (www.shanghaidisneyresort.com) reached more than 5 million. The massive volume resulted in our ticketing system temporarily malfunctioning."

    Most people know precious gemstones (宝石) by their appearances. An emerald flashes deep green, a ruby seems to hold a red fire inside, and a diamond shines like a star. It's more difficult to tell where the gem was mined, since a diamond from Australia or Arkansas may appear the same to one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, recently, a team of scientists has found a way to identify a gemstone's origin.

    Beneath the surface of a gemstone, on the tiny level of atoms and molecules（分子）, lie clues (线索) to its origin. At this year's meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis, Catherine McManus reported on a technique that uses lasers (激光) to clarify these clues and identify a stone's homeland. McManus directs scientific research at Materialytics, in Killeen, Texas. The company is developing the technique. “With enough data, we could identify which country, which mining place, even the individual mine a gemstone comes from,” McManus told Science News.

    Some gemstones, including many diamonds, come from war-torn countries. Sales of those “blood minerals” may encourage violent civil wars where innocent people are injured or killed. In an effort to reduce the trade in blood minerals, the U.S. government passed law in July 2010 that requires companies that sell gemstones to determine the origins of their stones.

    To figure out where gemstones come from, McManus and her team focus a powerful laser on a small sample of the gemstone. The technique is called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. Just as heat can turn ice into water or water into steam, energy from the laser changes the state of matter of the stone. The laser changes a miniscule part of the gemstone into plasma, a gas state of matter in which tiny particles（微粒）called electrons separate from atoms.

    The plasma, which is superhot, produces a light pattern. (The science of analyzing this kind of light pattern is called spectroscopy.) Different elements produce different patterns, but McManus and her team say that gemstones from the same area produce similar patterns. Materialytics has already collected patterns from thousands of gemstones, including more than 200 from diamonds. They can compare the light pattern from an unknown gemstone to patterns they do know and look for a match. The light pattern acts like a signature, telling the researchers the origin of the gemstone.

    In a small test, the laser technique correctly identified the origins of 95 out of every 100 diamonds. For gemstones like emeralds and rubies, the technique proved successful for 98 out of every 100 stones. The scientists need to collect and analyze more samples, including those from war-torn countries, before the tool is ready for commercial use.

    Scientists like Barbara Dutrow, a mineralogist from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, find the technique exciting. “This is a basic new tool that could provide a better fingerprint of a material from a particular locality,” she told Science News.

    Writer Liu fang's first novel, about the life of a teacher at a rural school in the mountainous province of Guizhou in the 1990s , is greatly similar to her own early years-before she lost her sight and struggled to find a full life in the darkness.

    Liu, 44 , was a Chinese language teacher at No 3 Middle School in the Baiyun district of Guiyang until 2006 , when she could no longer see the characters printed in the textbooks .

    Diagnosed with incurable eye disease , in 1996 , Liu was told she would gradually lose her eyesight over 10 years.That it took her 20 years to walk into darkness makes her have the ability to tell you the difference between the two worlds .She spent the first 10 years gradually accepting the reality , and the second facing it with smiles.

    Fortunately , Liu had many people on her side.Her family and friends helped her overcome the most difficult period of her life. And her own kindness served her well . Liu praised the school's headmaster , who gave her a new post as a psychological consultant(心理咨询师) for students, and planned for professional training for her new role.

    Liu's office is a comfortable place decorated with hand-drawn student pictures , one where children can thoughtfully talk about their problems . Liu takes her job seriously.She donated 5,000 yuan (＄760) from her income to five poor students.After she became famous, all she wanted to do was help for the “left-behind”children.

    Yang Hui , a student who often quarrelled with her parents , said Liu feels like a mother to the student. Yang said She would listen to me patiently , and Liu helped her find the reason she couldn't get along well with her parents .

Liu said , her blindness is an asset . “I guess they trust me because I cannot see them , and they feel I am more concentrated and careful than others while listening to them.”

    When asked to point out one or two things that are most important to themselves, many put friends ahead of homes, jobs, clothes and cars.

    A true friendship carries a long history of experience that determines who we are and keeps us connected. It is a treasure we should protect. Unfortunately, the better friends you are, the more probably you'll have disagreements. And the result can be what you don't want — an end to the relationship.

    The good news is that most troubled friendships can be mended. First, don't let your pride get in your way. Most of us can forgive each other when differences are brought out in the open. Second, apologize when you're wrong — even if you've been wronged. Over the course of a friendship, even the best people make mistakes. Sometimes, it may be best if the wronged person takes the lead and apologizes. When you apologize, give your friend a chance to admit(承认) that he has been wrong. Third, see things from your friend's point of view. And finally, accept that friendships change as our needs and lifestyle change. Making friends can sometimes seem easy. The hard part is keeping the connections strong during the natural ups and downs that have an effect on all relationships. My suggestion: consider friendship as an honor and a gift, and worth the effort to treasure and nurture(培养).

    Forty-three years seems like a long time to remember the name of a mere acquaintance. I have forgotten the name of an old lady who was a customer on my paper route. Yet it seems like just yesterday that she taught me a lesson in forgiveness.

    On a Saturday afternoon, a friend and I were throwing rocks onto the roof of the old lady's house. The object of our play was to observe how the rocks changed to missiles （导弹）as they rolled to the roof's edge and shot out into the yard like comets （彗星）falling from the sky. I found myself a perfectly smooth rock and sent it for a ride. However, it slipped from my hand as I let it go and headed straight for a small window. At the sound of crashed glass, we knew we were in trouble and ran away.

    A few days later, when I was sure that I hadn't been discovered, I started to feel guilty for her misfortune. She still greeted me with a smile each day when I gave her the paper, but I was no longer able to act comfortably in her presence. I made up my mind to save my paper delivery money, and in three weeks I had the seven dollars that I calculated would cover the cost of her window. I put the money in an envelope with a note, and put the envelope through the letter slot in her door.

    The next day, I handed the old lady her paper and was able to return the warm smile that I was receiving from her. She thanked me for the paper and said, “Here, I have something for you.” It was a bag of cookies. I thanked her and began to eat the cookies as I continued my route.

    After several cookies, I felt an envelope and pulled it out of the bag. When I opened the envelope, I was surprised. Inside were the seven dollars and a short note that said, “I'm proud of you.”

    If you're DIY-minded, you can build your own solar power system. In some cases, you can even build your own solar panels (电池板), although the amount that you can effectively DIY home solar depends on how much you want to power. Making your own solar panel is a time-consuming process and requires some electrical skills. However, it can also be very rewarding-learning to build your own panel is a great way to understand how solarelectricity is generated.

    Before you can build your own solar panels, you first need to understand how solar cells generate electricity. Once you've bought individual solar cells (they can be purchased online), the basic process for building your own solar panel goes like this: Prepare the backing for your panel. Many DIY solar panel builders prefer to use a wooden board as the base for their solar cell. You'll need to drill holes in the board so that the wires for each cell can pass through. Wire your solar cells together. This requires some experience with electrical work. Use a soldering iron (烙铁) to attach wire to the solar cells and then link each of the cells together. Attach cells to your backing. If possible, attach each solar cell to the backing individually. This makes it easier to replace a single cell in the event that becomes damaged or is not operating properly.

    At this point you have a functional solar panel that can produce electricity when the sun shines. However, a solar panel by itself is not useful. If you are trying to generate electricity to power devices in your home, you need to pair your panel with an inverter (换流器) that will turn direct current (DC) power from the sun into the alternating current (AC) power used in most modern electronic devices.