NEW YORK－Australian mining enterprise Clive Palmer on Tuesday unveiled(公布)blueprints for TitanicⅡ, a modern copy of the doomed ocean liner, although he didn't call the ship unsinkable any more.

    The ship will largely recreate the design and decoration of the fabled original, with some modifications to keep it in line with current safety rules and shipbuilding practices, and the addition of some modern comforts such as air conditioning, Palmer said at a press conference in New York.

    The three passenger classes, however, will be prevented from mingling(混杂), as in 1912, Palmer said. “I'm not too superstitious(迷信的).”Palmer said when asked whether recreating a ship best­known for sinking was tempting fate.

    White Star Line, the operator of the original ship, had said the Titanic was designed to be unsinkable. About 1, 500 people died on Titanic's maiden voyage in 1912 from Southampton to New York after the ship collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

    Palmer, who created the company Blue Star Line last year, refused to make a similar boast.

    “Anything will sink if you put a hole in it, ” Palmer said. “I think it would be very cavalier to say it.”

    Unlike the original, TitanicⅡwill have more than enough space in its lifeboats for every person on board and will have additional escape staircases. Markku Kanerva, sales director at Deltamarin, the Finnish company designing the ship, said it would be the “safest cruise ship in the world”．

    Palmer refused to answer questions about the project's cost. Although the Titanic was the world's largest ship in her time, she would be smaller than many of today's modern cruise ships.

    “It's not about the money，” Palmer said. “I've got enough money for it. I think that's all that matters.”

    Forbes estimated Palmer's net worth to be $795 million in 2012.He describes himself as a billionaire.

    TitanicⅡwill be built by Chinese state­-owned CSC Jinling Shipyard, which has already built four ore carriers for Palmer's mining business, he said. The contract to build TitanicⅡhas not yet been signed, Palmer said.

    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.

    Songs that make our hearts happy can make them stronger too, US researchers reported on Tuesday.

    They found that when people listened to their favorite music, their blood vessels (血管) dilated in much the same way as when they are laughing, or taking blood medications.

    “We have a pretty impressive effect,” said Dr Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology (心脏病学) at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

    “Blood vessel diameter improved,” he said.“The vessel opened up pretty significantly. You can see the vessels opening up with other activities such as exercise.” A similar effect is seen with drugs such as statins.

    When blood vessels open up more, blood flows more smoothly and is less likely to form the clots (凝块) that cause heart attacks and strokes. “We are not saying to stop your statins or not to exercise but rather to add this to an overall program of heart health,” said Miller, who presented his findings to a meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.

    Miller's team tested 10 healthy, non-smoking men and women, who were told to bring their favorite music.They spent half an hour listening to the recordings and half an hour listening to music they said made them feel anxious while the researchers did ultrasound tests designed to show blood vessel function.

    Compared to their normal baseline measurements, blood vessel diameter increased 26 percent on average when the volunteers heard their joyful music.Listening to music they disliked — in most cases in this group — blood vessels narrowed by six percent, Miller said.

    Miller said he came up with the idea after discovering that laughter caused blood to literally flow more smoothly. “I asked myself what other things make us feel really good, besides calories from dark chocolate of course.Music came to mind. It makes me feel really good,” he said.

    Most of the volunteers chose country music but Miller said the style is not so important rather than what pleases each individual.

    Last April, on a Sunday, we took one of our “nowhere” drives. My husband was quietly driving along a back road. I was occupied in the front passenger seat watching the scenery.

    I noticed out of the corner of my eye that my husband was struggling to look out of my window. This frightened me, since his eyes should be on the road in front of him. I asked him what he was looking at out of the windows, and he quietly replied, “Nothing.”

    After a few minutes, I looked over at my husband and noticed a tear running down his cheek. I asked him what was wrong. This time he told me, “I was just thinking about Pop and a story he had once told.” It had something to do with Pop, his friend from childhood, and I wanted to know the story, so I asked him to share it with me.

    He said, “When I was about 8 years old, Pop and I were out fishing and he told me that the pine trees know when it is Easter.”

    I had no idea what he meant by that, so I pressed him for more information.

    He continued on… “The pine trees start their new growth in the weeks before Easter because spring is drawing near. If you look at the tops of the pine trees, you will see the yellow shoots(嫩芽). As the days get closer to Easter Sunday, the tallest shoot will branch off and form a cross. By the time Easter Sunday comes around, you will see that most of the pine trees will have small yellow crosses on all of the tallest shoots.”

    I turned to look out of the window and I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a week before Easter, and you could see all of the trees with the tall yellow shoots stretching to the sky.

    The tallest ones shone in the sunlight like rows of tiny golden crosses. May you find your Easter season filled with beautiful golden crosses!

    Losing a wallet is one of those careless acts most of us have come across, at some point or the other in our lives. While most of us tend to move on after mourning over the lost necessities, there are a few lucky ones who get them back, with the help of the police or the generosity of the person who finds it.

    And then there is Hunter Shamatt, who not only got back his wallet but with some added happiness that was tagged along!

    Hunter was on his way to attend his sister's wedding on a Las Vegas-bound flight when he realized that he has misplaced his wallet, sometime during the journey. Hunter's family reached out to the Frontier flight to enquire if someone had handed it over to them. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the missing wallet.

    But wait. The story was far from over. Just a week after Hunter's sister's wedding, he received a package in his mail. And guess what? There was his wallet! Surprisingly, the wallet was not the only thing that was inside the package. It also had a handwritten note for Hunter which turned out to be a bonus! The piece of paper read,

"Hunter, Found this on a Frontier flight from Omaha to Denver — row 12, seat F wedged between the seat and wall. Thought you might want it back. All the best.

P.S. I rounded your cash up to an even $100, so you could celebrate getting your wallet back. HAVE FUN!!!"

    Moved by the touching gesture, Hunter's mom, Jeannie Shamatt, decided to write a post on Facebook giving a detailed description of the incident. She also urged everyone to share the post as she would like to meet and greet the person behind the act of kindness, personally.

    Now, thanks to the astonishing power of social media, the post finally reached the man behind the note. The man was identified as Todd Brown and it was one of his co-workers who made sure Jeannie Shamatt's post reaches his colleague. Jeannie turned to Facebook again to thank Brown and his family for restoring her faith in humanity.

    "I try to teach my children to do the right things in life, help people when you can regardless of the outcome. This story is more about restoring faith in people than anything. We hear a lot of bad news but not enough good news. I personally want to thank Todd Brown and his wife for restoring faith that there are amazing people out there."

    A society that lives by the plastic fork may very well die from it. That's how things are looking. Anyway, for a world so used to disposable(一次性的) habits, any hope for a solution(解决方案) also increasingly seems to be buried.

    Sure, there have been some hopeful ideas. Boyan Slat, the Dutch inventor developed a plan for Covering the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Not long after it started, Slat's system experienced "material fatigue(疲劳)"-likely the result of being strained(使受到压力) by all that trash-and the task was delayed.

    All the while, the plastic increases. Its growth is very fast, according to Linda Wang, a professor of chemical engineering at Purdue University. She says, "We'll have more plastic than fish by 2050." Yet Wang, along with other researchers at Purdue, may have a solution not only to this plastic problem, but also to the growing need for clean energy.  Her team has developed a system that turns waste, a durable, lightweight material that accounts for about a quarter of all plastic waste, into a highly pure form of gasoline.

    Publishing their findings in the journal Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, the scientists' state that instead of making plastic go away, they can break it down and reuse it, using chemistry to destroy what chemistry brought to the world when plastic was developed back in 1907.

    The process uses "supercritical" water-heated to around 450 degrees Celsius (842 degrees Fahrenheit),beyond the key point at which distinct liquid and vapor phases(气液态) exist-to boil plastic waste into an oil, the researchers explain. It takes a couple of hours for the supercritical water to complete the transformation, but the result is a kind of oil that can be used as gasoline or fuel. It can also be turned into other products.

    The researchers have only made the transformation in a laboratory setting so far, but they suggest turning the process to a commercial scale(规模) may not be far off. And considering the 300 million tons of plastic into the environment every year, that day can't come soon enough. But it will come in time.