Samuel Osmond is a 19-year-old law student from Cornwall, England. He never studied the piano. However, he can play very difficult musical pieces by musicians such as Chopin and Beethoven just a few minutes after he hears them. He learns a piece of music by listening to it in parts. Then he thinks about the notes in his head. Two years ago, he played his first piece Moonlight Sonata (奏鸣曲) by Beethoven. He surprised everyone around him.

    Amazed that he remembered this long and difficult piece of music and played it perfectly, his teachers say Samuel is unbelievable. They say his ability is very rare, but Samuel doesn't even realize that what he can do is special. Samuel wanted to become a lawyer as it was the wish of his parents, but music teachers told him he should study music instead. Now, he studies law and music.

    Samuel can't understand why everyone is so surprised. “I grew up with music. My mother played the piano and my father played the guitar. About two years ago, I suddenly decided to sun playing the piano, without being able to read music and without having any lessons. It comes easily to me — I hear the notes and can bear them in mind — each and every note,” says Samuel.

    Recently, Samuel performed a piece during a special event at his college. The piece had more than a thousand notes. The audience was impressed by his amazing performance. He is now learning a piece that is so difficult that many professional pianists can't play it. Samuel says confidently,” It's all about super memory — I guess I have that gift.”

    However, Samuel's ability to remember things doesn't slop with music. His family says that even when he was a young boy, Samuel heard someone read a story, and then he could retell the story word for word.

    Samuel is still only a teenager. He doesn't know what he wants to do in the future. For now, he is just happy to play beautiful music and continue his studies.

    One of the newest words on the coffee stage is “shade grown coffee”. Shade grown coffee isn't new. In fact, until only a few years ago, shade grown coffee represented the major coffee beans sold on the world coffee market. The coffee plant is a natural shade lover, growing best in the shade afforded by an overgrowing canopy (树冠) of rain forest plants. That canopy protects the coffee plant from sunlight that reduces its production and kills it.

    Shade grown coffee is, however, more expensive to grow, at least in the short run. Growing coffee in the shade means that coffee growers also have to spend time working on the protectors. It means that less land is left to produce coffee beans. The arrival of technically engineered coffee plants that grow well in the sun represented a major development in coffee industry. Because there was no need to grow shade trees to protect the coffee trees, farmers could use more and more land to grow coffee trees, increasing their productivity and leading to more money for the coffee plantations (种植园) and farmers.

    However, it was not a good idea to move away from shade grown coffee. The sheltering canopy provided more than just shade for the coffee trees. Those plants provided shelter for birds and other animals who feed on pests.

    They help to fix nitrogen in the soil, and nitrogen is a natural fertilizer which makes plants grow more successfully. The increase in land used to grow sun loving coffee trees also had an unexpected effect on the law of supply and demand. The increased production resulted in a huge amount of coffee beans coming to the market, which brought down prices.

Moreover, most experts agree that shade grown coffee is better in taste than coffee grown in full sun. Plants grown in shade take longer to develop. The slower growing time helps to improve the coffee's taste. You can buy a can of shade grown coffee to replace your usual sun coffee. One cup of coffee a day—it's a small price to pay for a better world.

Seeds on Ice

    Close to the North Pole, remote and rocky Plateau Mountain in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard seems an unlikely spot for any global effort to safeguard agriculture. In this cold and deserted environment, no grains, no gardens, no trees can grow. Yet at the end of a 130-meter-long tunnel cut out of solid stone is a room filled with humanity's most precious treasure, the largest and most diverse seed collection—more than a half-billion seeds.

    A quiet rescue mission is under way. With growing evidence that unchecked climate change-will seriously affect food production and threaten the diversity （多样性） of crops around the world, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault （地窖） represents a major step towards ensuring the preservation （贮藏） of hundreds of thousands of crop varieties. This is a seed collection, but more importantly, it is a collection of the traits found within the seeds: the genes that give one variety resistance to a particular pest and another variety tolerance for hot, dry weather.

    Few people will ever see or come into contact with the contents of this vault. In sealed boxes, behind multiple locked doors, monitored by electronic security systems, enveloped in below—zero temperatures, and surrounded by tons of rock, hundreds of millions of seeds are protected in their mountain fortress. Frozen in such conditions inside the mountain, seeds of most major crops will remain viable for hundreds of years, or longer. Seeds of some are capable of retaining （保留） their ability to grow for thousands of years.

    Everyone can look back now and say that the Seed Vault was a good and obvious idea, and that of course the Norwegian government should have approved and funded it. But back in 2004, when the Seed Vault was proposed, it was viewed as a crazy, impractical, and expensive idea.

    We knew that nothing would provide a definite guarantee. But we were tired, fed up, and frankly scared of the steady, greater losses of crop diversity. The Seed Vault was built by optimists who wanted to do something to preserve options so that humanity and its crops might be better prepared for change. If it simply resupplied seed gene banks with samples those gene banks had lost, this would repay our efforts.

    The Seed Vault is about hope and commitment-about what can be done if countries come together and work cooperatively to accomplish something significant, long-lasting, and worthy of who we are and wish to be.

    British children generally learn how to ride a bike at a young age. I am an exception to that rule. It's not my dad's fault—he tried to teach me. I remember cycling around the neighborhood. To be honest, though, I never saw the appeal. One of my earliest memories is falling from my bike and into some spiny(多刺的) plants. I definitely didn't want to repeat that.

    So I stopped learning. My dad wasn't going to waste his time teaching someone who didn't want to be taught. Time passed and I accepted that I couldn't ride a bike. It never affected my life in high school because I lived close enough to walk.

    I never felt like I was missing out until I couldn't go on a bike ride with friends in Byron Bay because I was only confident that I could go on a flat surface in a generally straight line. So when the opportunity came up to bike the wall of Xi'an, I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and make up for missed time. So, with a friend who is very patient, I got on the bike. Instantly nothing came flooding back to me, I had absolutely no idea how to start! "Push off with one foot hard" was my instruction. It sounded simple enough but it just would not happen. Until something clicked and suddenly I was off, going in a straight line on a flat surface and managing to avoid the Chinese tourists who obviously found exaltation on my face.

    At 22 years old, I finally learnt how to ride a bike, and nothing can hold me back.

It takes just four minutes for brain cells to be permanently damaged due to a severe lack of oxygen in cases of sudden cardiac arrest (心搏停止). If medical workers do not arrive at the scene of such emergencies within 10 minutes, the chances of a victim surviving are minimal.

In September, a 45-year-old man fell unconscious at Huoying station on Line 13 of the Beijing Subway. He died later in the hospital, despite attempts by two passengers to revive him by using cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR. However, if an automated external defibrillator, or AED, had been a vailable at the scene, the man's chances of survival would have been greatly improved.

An AED can recognize an abnormal lheart rhythm and quickly correct it through an electric shock. The devices are viewed in medical circles as a more efficient and effective method of saving lives in emergencies than using CPR. After a brief training period, people with no medical knowledge can master the basic skills needed to use an AED.

In May last year, a student at Tsinghua University in Beijing fainted in a dormitory after experiencing head sweats. Several students began to perform CPR and also used a newly installed AED to help the stricken freshman. After two electric shocks were administered, the student's heart beat was restored and he was sent to the hospital for further treatment. An emergency doctor from the hospital who attended the scene said it was highly likely the student would have died, had not a series of the correct first aid measures been applied, along with the AED.  

PeiZheng, a staff member from Tsinghua University's Policy Research Office, said it was "really cool" that AEDs were available at the institution. "It's so good that we have these life-saving machines on campus, otherwise we would have heard tragic news," she said. The devices have been installed around the campus in stages.

How to Apply China Visa (签证)

How to apply China visa is the most concerned question for international tourists who plan to travel to China. Here you will find the useful information about China visa requirements and instructions.

China Visa Requirements

▶The valid (有效的) passport

Original passport valid for at least 6 months with blank visa pages, and a photocopy of data page (with your photo on it)

▶China visa application form and photo

The applicants must fill in a complete visa application form and attach it with a recent-taken colour passport photo.

So what is the requirement of the photo? The photo you submit must be passport-type (bare-head, full face) and standard with the correct dimension and background colour.

▶Effective proof of legal stay or resident status (it applies to those who do not apply for China visa in their countries of citizenship).

Supporting Application Documents

For C-Visa, a letter of guarantee issued by a foreign transport company or an invitation letter issued by a relevant authority from China side shall be provided.

For D-Visa, the original and a photocopy of foreign permanent residence identification form issued by China's Ministry of Public Security shall be provided.

For F-Visa, an invitation letter issued by relevant authorities or individuals from China side shall be provided.

For G-Visa, an onward air (train, bus, ship) ticket with confirmed date and seat to the third country or region shall be provided.

For L-Visa, the tour itinerary (行程) and documents with round trip flight tickets and accommodation reservations, or an invitation letter issued by relevant authorities or individuals from Chinese side shall be provided.

For M-Visa, documents of business activity, trade fair invitation letter or other invitation letter issued by trade partners in China shall be provided.

Further reading: click the link China visa knowledge and types.