In the movie Alice in Wonderland, Alice comes across a Cheshire cat and asks the cat which road she should take. The cat responds, “Well, that depends on where you're trying to get to.” Alice replies, “I don't know.” The cat responds, “Then any road will do.”

    You see, knowing where you're going increases your chances dramatically of getting there, and there is no better way of “GETTING THERE” than setting your goals for the upcoming year. Think of your goals as destinations and the action steps as your GPS guiding and directing you. If you are like many other people, for years you have resisted the need to set goals and even laughed at the thought that setting goals and，even more importantly, committing them to writing have positive effects on your life. However, a closer look might convince you that setting goals is a sensible thing to do.

    In 1979, a class of Harvard MBA students was asked: Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made an action plan to accomplish them? The following will astonish you. Only 3 percent of the class had written goals and a plan in place, 13% just had goals, and an amazing 84% had no specific goals at all.

    Ten years later the numbers of the class were interviewed once again and the following results will no doubt give the reason for our setting goals. The findings were that the 13% who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who had no goals at all. And the 3 percent who had clear, written goals with a plan to achieve them were achieving ten times as much as the entire 97% combined.

    Goal setting will increase your chances of arriving successfully at your destination. Remember, always set SMART goals. Goals should be: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound!

    We all think plants were expected to get larger with increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but changes in temperature, humidity(湿度)and nutrient availability seem to have trumped the benefits of increased carbon dioxide" said researchers from the National University of Singapore.

    45 percent of the species studied now reach smaller adult sizes than they did in the past. The researchers pointed out that warmer temperatures and changing habitats, caused by climate change, are possible reasons for shrinking creatures.

    " We do not yet know the mechanisms(机制)involved, or why some organism are getting smaller while others are unaffected," the researchers said. "Until we understand more, we could be risking negative consequences that we can't yet quantify."

    The change is big in cold-blooded animals. Only two decades of warmer temperatures are enough to make retiles (爬行动物)smaller. An increase of only 1 degree centigrade caused nearly a 10 percent increase in metabolism(新陈代谢). Greater use of energy resulted in tiny tortoises and little lizards. Fish are smaller now too. Though overfishing has played a part in reducing numbers, experiments show that warmer temperatures also stop fish growing.

    Warm-blooded animals aren't immune(免除)from the size change caused by climate change. Many birds are now smaller. Soay sheep are thinner. Red deer are weaken And polar bears are smaller, compared with historical records.

    This is not the first time this has happened in Earth's history. 55 million years ago, a warming event similar to the current climate change caused bees, spiders and ants to shrink by 50 to 75 percent over several thousand years. That event happened over a longer time than the current climate change.

    The speed of modem climate change could mean organisms may not respond or adapt quickly enough, especially those with long generation times climate change will be shown in the future.

    Earthquake rescue robots have experienced their final tests in Beijing. Their designers say that with these robots, rescue workers will be able to have more time to save more lives during an earthquake.

    This robot looking like a helicopter（直升机）, is called the detector-bot . It's about 4 meters long, and it took about 4 years to develop the model. Its main functions（作用）are to collect information from the air, and send goods of up to 30kilos, to people stuck in an earthquake.

    This robot has a high quality 360 degree panoramic camera. It can work day and night and will also be able to send the latest pictures from the quake area. Dr. Qi Juntong, Chinese Academy of Science, said, "Unlike other automatic machines, the most important feature of this robot is that it doesn't need a distant control. We just set the information of the earthquake-struck area on it, and then it takes off, and lands by itself. It flies as high as 3,000 meters, and as fast as 100 kilometers per hour. "

This robot has a different function — it can change as the environment changes. Its main job is to search for any signs of life in places where human rescuers are unable to go.

    As well as a detector（探测器）that finds victims（遇难者）and detects poisonous gas, a camera is placed in the 40 centimeter long robot, which can work in the dark.

    Another use for the rescuers is the supply bot, with its 10-meter-long pipe. People who are caught in the ruins will be able to get supplies including oxygen and liquids.

    Experts have said that the robots will enter production, and serve as part of the national earth- quake rescue team as soon as next year.

    One afternoon I toured an art museum while waiting for my husband to finish a business meeting. I was looking forward to a quiet view of the art works.

    A young couple viewing the paintings ahead of me chatted nonstop between themselves. I watched them a moment and decided the wife was doing all the talking. I admired his patience for putting up with her continuous talk. Distracted by their noise, I moved on.

    I met with them several times as I moved through the different rooms of art. Each time I heard her constant burst of words, I moved away quickly.

    I was standing at the counter of the museum gift shop making a purchase when the couple came near to the exit. Before they left, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white object. He extended it into a long stick and then tapped his way into the coatroom to get his wife's jacket.

    "He's a brave man.," the clerk at the counter said, "Most of us would give up if we were blinded at such a young age. During his recovery, he made a promise that his life wouldn't change. So, as before, he and his wife come in whenever there's a new art show."

    "But what does he get out of the art?" I asked. "He can't see."

    "Can't see? You're wrong. He sees a lot. More than you or I do," the clerk said. "His wife describes each painting so he can see it in his head."

    I learned something about patience, courage and love that day. I saw the patience of a young wife describing paintings to a person without sight and the courage of a husband who would not allow blindness to change his life. And I saw the love shared by two people as I watched this couple walk away.

    I must have always known reading was very important because the first memories I have as a child deal with books. There was not one night that I don't remember mom reading me a storybook by my bedside. I was extremely inspired by the elegant way the words sounded.

    I always wanted to know what my mom was reading. Hearing mom say," I can't believe what's printed in the newspaper this morning," made me want to grab it out of her hands and read it myself. I wanted to be like my mom and know all of the things she knew. So I carried around a book, and each night, just to be like her, I would pretend to be reading.

    This is how everyone learned to read. We would start off with sentences, then paragraphs, and then stories. It seemed an unending journey, but even as a six-year-old girl I realized that knowing how to read could open many doors. When mom said," The C-A-N-D-Y is hidden on the top shelf," I knew where the candy was. My progress in reading raised my curiosity, and I wanted to know everything. I often found myself telling my mom to drive more slowly, so that I could read all of the road signs we passed.

    Most of my reading through primary, middle and high school was factual reading. I read for knowledge, and to make A's on my tests. Occasionally, I would read a novel that was assigned, but I didn't enjoy this type of reading. I liked facts, things that are concrete. I thought anything abstract(抽象的) left too much room for argument.

    Yet, now that I'm growing and the world I once knew as being so simple is becoming more complex, I find myself needing a way to escape. By opening a novel, I can leave behind my burdens and enter into a wonderful and mysterious world where I am now a new character. In these worlds I can become anyone. I don't have to write down what happened or what technique the author was using when he or she wrote this. I just read to relax.

    We're taught to read because it's necessary for much of human understanding. Reading is a vital part of my life. Reading satisfies my desire to keep learning. And I've found that the possibilities that lie within books are limitless.