Space is where our future is — trips to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Most people would think that aside from comets(彗星) and stars, there is little else out there. But, since our space journey started we have left so much trash(垃圾) there that scientists are now concerned that if we don't clean it up, we may all be in mortal(致命的) danger.

    The first piece of space junk was created in 1964, when the American satellite Vanguard Ⅰ stopped operating and lost its connection with the ground center. However, since it kept orbiting around the Earth without any consequences, scientists became increasingly comfortable abandoning(抛弃) things that no longer served any useful purpose in space.

    It is estimated(估计) that there are now over 500,000 pieces of man-made trash orbiting the Earth at speeds of up to 17,500 miles per hour. The junk varies from tiny pieces of paint chipped off rockets to cameras, huge fuel tanks, and even odd items like the million-dollar tool kit that astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn Piper lost during a spacewalk.

    The major problem with the space trash is that it may hit working satellites and damage traveling spacecraft(飞船). Moreover, pieces of junk may collide(碰撞) with each other and break into pieces which fall back to the Earth. To avoid this, scientists have invented several ways for clearing the sky. Ground stations have been built to monitor larger pieces of space trash to prevent them from crashing into working satellites or space shuttles. Future plans include a cooperative effort among many nations to stop littering in space and to clean up the trash already there.

    Do you want to get home from work knowing you have made a real difference in someone's life?

    If yes, don't care about sex(性别) or age! Come and join us, then you'll make it!

Position: Volunteer Social Care Assistant (No Pay with Free Meals)

Place: Manchester

Hours: Part Time

    We are now looking for volunteers to help people with learning disabilities(障碍) to live active lives! Only 4 days left. Don't miss the chance of lending your warm hands to help others!

Role:

    You will provide people with learning disabilities with all aspects(方面) of their daily lives. You will help them to develop new skills. You will help them to protect their rights and their safety. But your primary concern is to let them know they are valued.

Skills and Experience Required:

    You will have the right values and great listening skills. You will be honest and patient. You will have the ability to drive a car and to communicate in fluent(流利的) written and spoken English since you'll have to help those people with different learning disabilities. Previous(之前的) care-related experience will be a great advantage for you.

    Emily and her boyfriend had just had a fight. She felt alone and hopeless. Then she went into the kitchen and grabbed what she needed before going back up to her room quietly. She switched on the TV and started eating…and eating…for hours, until it was all gone.

     What Emily didn't know at the time was that she was suffering from an illness called binge-eating disorder(BED)(暴饮暴食).

    For years, Emily didn't tell anyone what she was doing. She felt ashamed, alone, and out of control. Why don't famous people confess (承认) to BED, as they do to anorexia? It's simple: There's a stigma（污名）involved. “Overeating is seen as very bad, but dieting to be skinny is seen as positive and even associated with determination," says Charles Sophy, a doctor in Beverly Hills , California.

    "Some parents or friends may look at a teen with BED and think, 'Oh, a good diet and some will-power will do the trick.' But that's not true," says Dr.Ovidio Bermudez , a baby doctor at the Eating Recovery Center in Denver. "Eating disorders are real physical and mental health issues; it's not about willpower." The focus in treating BED shouldn't be on weight, because as with all eating disorders, the behaviors with food are a symptom of something deeper.

    Like most other diseases, genetics may play a big part in who gets BED and who doesn't. If you have a close relative with an eating disorder, that means you're more likely to develop an eating disorder of your own.

    Besides, many people with BED have tried at some point or another to control it by going on a diet, but paying more attention to food doesn't help. And it might even make things worse, like it did for Carla, who's 15 now and is recovering from BED. "My parents would always tease me about my weight, so when I was 14, I went on a very restrictive diet," she says. When you can't have something, you only want it more, so every time Carla would have a bite of something that wasn't allowed on her strict diet. She would quickly lose control and binge (狂欢).

    It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference. The two waiters inside the cafe knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.

     “Last week he tried to commit suicide,” one waiter said. “Why?” “He was in despair.” “What about?” “Nothing.” “How do you know it was nothing?” “He has plenty of money.”

    They sat together at a table that was close against the wall near the door of the cafe and looked at the terrace where the tables were all empty except where the old man sat in the shadow of the leaves of the tree that moved slightly in the wind. A girl and a soldier went by in the street. The street light shone on the brass number on his collar. The girl wore no head covering and hurried beside him.

     “The guard will pick him up,” one waiter said. “What does it matter if he gets what he's after?” “He had better get off the street now. The guard will get him. They went by five minutes ago.”

    The old man sitting in the shadow rapped on his saucer with his glass. The younger waiter went over to him.

     “What do you want?” The old man looked at him. “Another brandy,” he said.

     “You'll be drunk,” the waiter said. The old man looked at him. The waiter went away.

     “He'll stay all night,” he said to his colleague. “I'm sleepy now. I never get into bed before three o'clock. He should have killed himself last week.”

    The waiter took the brandy bottle and another saucer from the counter inside the cafe and marched out to the old man's table. He put down the saucer and poured the glass full of brandy.

     “You should have killed yourself last week,” he said to the deaf man. The old man motioned with his finger. “A little more,” he said. The waiter poured on into the glass so that the brandy slopped over and ran down the stem into the top saucer of the pile. “Thank you,” the old man said. The waiter took the bottle back inside the cafe.He sat down at the table with his colleague again.

     “He's drunk now,” he said. “He's drunk every night.” “What did he want to kill himself for?” “How should I know.” “How did he do it?” “He hung himself with a rope.” “Who cut him down?” “His niece.” “Why did they do it?” “Fear for his soul.” “How much money has he got?” “He's got plenty.” “He must be eighty years old.” “Anyway I should say he was eighty.” “I wish he would go home.I never get to bed before three o'clock. What kind of hour is that to go to bed?” “He stays up because he likes it.” “He's lonely. I'm not lonely. I have a wife waiting in bed for me.” “He had a wife once too.” “A wife would be no good to him now.” “You can't tell. He might be better with a wife.” “His niece looks after him.You said she cut him down.” “I know.” “I wouldn't want to be that old.An old man is a nasty thing.” “Not always.This old man is clean.He drinks without spilling.Even now, drunk.Look at him.” “I don't want to look at him.I wish he would go home.He has no regard for those who must work.”

    The old man looked from his glass across the square, then over at the waiters.

     “Another brandy,” he said, pointing to his glass.The waiter who was in a hurry came over.

     “Finished,” he said, speaking with that omission of syntax stupid people employ when talking to drunken people or foreigners. “No more tonight. Close now.”

     “Another,” said the old man.

     “No. Finished.” The waiter wiped the edge of the table with a towel and shook his head.

    The old man stood up, slowly counted the saucers, took a leather coin purse from his pocket and paid for the drinks, leaving half a peseta tip. The waiter watched him go down the street, a very old man walking unsteadily but with dignity.

     “Why didn't you let him stay and drink?” the unhurried waiter asked. They were putting up the shutters. “It is not half past two.” “I want to go home to bed.” “What is an hour?” “More to me than to him.” “An hour is the same.” “You talk like an old man yourself.He can buy a bottle and drink at home.” “It's not the same.” “No, it is not,” agreed the waiter with a wife. He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry. “And you? You have no fear of going home before your usual hour?” “Are you trying to insult me?” “No, hombre, only to make a joke.”

     “No,” the waiter who was in a hurry said, rising from pulling down the metal shutters.“I have confidence.I am all confidence.” “You have youth, confidence, and a job,” the older waiter said.“You have everything.” “And what do you lack?” “Everything but work.” “You have everything I have.” “No.I have never had confidence and I am not young.” “Come on. Stop talking nonsense and lock up.” “I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe,” the older waiter said.“With all those who do not want to go to bed.With all those who need a light for the night.” “I want to go home and into bed.” “We are of two different kinds,” the older waiter said.He was now dressed to go home.“It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night I am reluctant to close up because there may be someone who needs the cafe.” “Hombre, there are bodegas open all night long.” “You do not understand.This is a clean and pleasant cafe.It is well lighted. The light is very good and also, now, there are shadows of the leaves.”

“Good night,” said the younger waiter.

     “Good night,” the other said. Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It was the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music.Certainly you do not want music.Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not a fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada.

    He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.

     “What's yours?” asked the barman.

     “Nada.” “Otro loco mas,” said the barman and turned away.

     “A little cup,” said the waiter.

    The barman poured it for him.

     “The light is very bright and pleasant but the bar is unpolished,” the waiter said.

    The barman looked at him but did not answer.It was too late at night for conversation.

     “You want another copita?” the barman asked.

     “No, thank you,” said the waiter and went out.He disliked bars and bodegas.A clean, well-lighted cafe was a very different thing.Now, without thinking further, he would go home to his room.He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep.After all, he said to himself, it's probably only insomnia. Many must have it.

    Christa Marie Eastburn has added a new name to the list of people she sends Father's Day cards to—a father she grew up never knowing. In North Kansas City, the 57-year-old woman thought her father died 54 years ago, but this summer she learned he is alive. "I have a real father to send a card to this time, "she told the newspaper last week. “But I still don't have everything that goes with it—like the memories.” Her parents, Karl Beinfohr and Ingeborg Mueller, got married in Germany in the 1940s when World War II was on and a year later Marie was born—a daughter who grew up thinking her father, a German soldier, died in the war.

    This year, Eastburn found and got in touch with relatives in Germany, hoping they could tell her about her father. One day, a letter arrived in her mailbox.

    "All these years of quietness, "Beinfohr wrote, "I don't know what you have lived through. The news that she had a father who lived an ocean away brought tears to Eastburn's eyes.

    Eastburn and her father began writing to each other. In his letters, Beinfohr tried to explain the years lost. Finally, last month, Eastburn went to Germany to meet her father. They looked through old photos. Beinfohr showed his daughter one of her old toys he had kept.

    While many Chinese watched movies at cinemas during the weeklong Spring Festival holiday, Zheng Wei explained the film The Spring Festival to an audience of visually impaired(受损伤的) people at cinema in Northern China's Tianjin.

    "Fireworks light up the dark on New Year's Eve, and children are playing in an open place covered with white snow, said Zheng to the audience, describing the visual elements of the movie while holding a micro-phone and a script.

    As the founder of "cinema for the blind" in Tianjin, the 55-year--old has insisted on brightening the dark world of the visually impaired in his own way for 11 years.

    Shao Yuxiang and her husband, who are both blind, are regular visitors of the cinema. She wore an elegant yellow sweater to attend the couple's significant "movie day".

    Since October 2007, the free movies, which are described through audio, start at 9: 30 am on the third Saturday of each month. More than 150 movies have been screened to more than 20,000 visually impaired.

    "The theater is equipped with lights a sound system, projector, and a big screen to give the blind a people so far complete and equal movie experience," Zheng said.

    In 2007, after having learned that a "cinema for the blind" established by Wang Weili had benefited many visually impaired people in Beijing, Zheng rushed to Wang's establishment for advice. Under Wang's guidance, Zheng built a new cinema in Tianjin and screened The Dream Factory by Chinese director Feng Xi-aogang. It attracted more than 50 visually impaired people from different districts and even suburban areas in Tianjin.

    Zheng always treats movie selections with seriousness He usually chooses Mandarin language movies with positive themes that reflect modern society. Special movies for certain Chinese festivals are also part of Zheng's selection criteria. "For example, The Founding of Republic is specially for National Day. Now, films for Spring Festival are on my agenda," Zheng said.