Barbara McClintock was one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century. She made important discoveries about genes（基因）and chromosomes（染色体）.

    Barbara McClintock was born in 1902 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her family moved to the Brooklyn area of New York City in 1908. Barbara was an active child with interests in sports and music. She also developed an interest in science.

    She studied science at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Barbara was among a small number of undergraduate students to receive training in genetics in 1921. Years later, she noted that few college students wanted to study genetics.

    Barbara McClintock decided to study botany, the scientific study of plants, at Cornell University. She completed her undergraduate studies in 1923. McClintock decided to continue her education at Cornell. She completed a master's degree in 1925. Two years later, she finished all her requirements for a doctorate degree.

    McClintock stayed at Cornell after she completed her education. She taught students botany. The 1930s was not a good time to be a young scientist in the United States. The country was in the middle of the great economic Depression. Millions of Americans were unemployed. Male scientists were offered jobs. But female geneticists were not much in demand.

    An old friend from Cornell, Marcus Rhoades, invited McClintock to spend the summer of 1941 working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It is a research center on Long Island, near New York City. McClintock started a temporary（临时的）job with the genetics department. A short time later, she accepted a permanent（永久的）position in the laboratory. This gave her the freedom to continue her research without having to teach or repeatedly ask for financial aid.

    By the 1970s, her discoveries had had an effect on everything from genetic engineering to cancer research. McClintock won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1983 for her discovery of the ability of genes to change positions on chromosomes. She was the first American woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize.

    "Jenny" Lang Ping, was born in 1960, Tianjin. She is a former Chinese volleyball player and the former head coach of the US Women's National Volleyball Team. Her nickname is the "Tron Hammer".

    In 1987, Lang Ping moved to Los Angeles to study and serve as an assistant volleyball coach at the University of New Mexico. She keeps Chinese nationality although she has lived in the USA for more than 15 years.

    Because of her central role in the success of the Chinese Women's Volleyball Team in the 1980s, Lang was seen as a cultural icon and is one of the most respected people in modern Chinese sports history. The Chinese Women's Volleyball Team with Lang was the first team to win the World Championship several times, including the1984 Olympics. She will always be remembered as one of the very first world champions for China. In 1989, she took over Modena, one of the top teams in the Italian League, and enjoyed great success there.

    In 1995, Lang became the head coach of the Chinese National Team and eventually guided the team to the silver medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, and the second place at the 1998 World Volleyball Championships in Japan.

    She became the coach of the US National Team in2005. Lang guided the team to the 2008 Olympics, where the US team faced off with China in her home country. The US team won the victory against China 3:2. The US team went on to win the silver medal, losing to Brazil in the final 1:3.

    She was the head coach of the Chinese Women's National Volleyball Team in the World Volleyball Championships in Japan in 1998. In 2014, she was the only female head coach among the 24 teams' coaches in the World Volleyball Championships. On August 21, 2016, Lang Ping guided the Chinese Women's National Team to the gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. With the victory, Lang Ping became the first person in volleyball history, male or female, to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games as a player in 1984(Los Angeles) and as a head coach in 2016(Rio).

    Once upon a time, a hippo (河马) lived in a river next to a big tree.

One day, a bird came and nested (筑巢) in the tree. The songs of the bird filled the hippo with so much envy (羡慕) that he couldn't think of anything else. Every day he would think why he wasn't born to be a bird even though the bird told him many times he was so lucky to be so big and such a good swimmer.

    Finally, the hippo made up his mind that he would come out of the river, climb the tree, and start singing. However, when he tried to climb the tree, it was very clear that the hippo didn't have wings, nor claws to climb with.

    Realizing that he would never climb up the tree, he angrily hit the tree until it came down to the ground. Then he stepped onto the leaves of the fallen tree, and began singing.

    Unfortunately, hippo can't sing, either. All that came from his mouth were terrible noise, and when the other animals heard this, they all came around to make fun of the hippo.

    He was so ashamed (羞愧的) by this. He also felt bad about having knocked the tree over. He used all his strength to raise the tree back up again, and look after it until it completely recovered. (康复)