When I was 12, all I wanted was a signet (图章) ring. They were the "in" thing and it seemed every girl except me had one. On my 13th birthday, my Mum gave me a signet ring with my initials(姓名首字母) carved into it. I was in heaven.

    What made it even more special was that it was about the only thing that wasn't being "replaced". We'd been burnt out in fires that swept through our area earlier that year and had lost everything—so most of the " new" stuff (东西) we got was really just to replace what we'd lost. But not my ring. My ring was new.

    Then, only one month later, I lost it. I took it off before bed and it was missing in the morning. I was sad and searched everywhere for it. But it seemed to have disappeared. Eventually, I gave up and stopped looking for it. And two years later, we sold the house and moved away.

    Years passed, and a couple of moves later, I was visiting my parents' when Mum told me that she had something for me. It wasn't my birthday, nor was it Easter or Christmas or any other gift-giving occasion. Mum noticed my questioning look. " You'll recognize this one," she said, smiling.

    Then she handed me a small ring box. I took it from her and opened it to find my beautiful signet ring inside. The family who had bought our house 13 years earlier had recently decided to do some redecorations, which included replacing the carpets. When they pulled the carpet up in my old bedroom, they found the ring. As it had my initials carved into it, they realized who owned the ring. They'd had it professionally cleaned up by a jeweler before sending it to my mother. And it still fits me.

How to Be a Winner

    Sir Steven Redgrave

    Winner of 5 Olympic Gold Medals

    "In 1997 I was found to have developed diabetes(糖尿病). Believing my career was over, I felt extremely low. Then one of the specialists said there was no reason why I should stop training and competing. That was it -- the encouragement I needed. I could still be a winner if I believed in myself. I am not saying that it isn't difficult sometimes. But I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't finished yet. Nothing is to stand in my way."

    Karen Pickering

    Swimming World Champion

"I swim 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. I manage that sort of workload by putting it on top of my diary. This is the key to success—you can't follow a career in any field without being well-organized. List what you believe you can achieve. Trust yourself, write down your goals for the day, however small they are, and you'll be a step closer to achieving them."

    Kirsten Best

    Poet & Writer

    "When things are getting hard, a voice inside my head tells me that I can't achieve something. Then, there are other distractions, such as family or hobbies. The key is to concentrate. When I feel tense, it helps a lot to repeat words such as 'calm', 'peace' or 'focus', either out loud or silently in my mind. It makes me feel more in control and increases my confidence. This is a habit that can become second nature quite easily and is a powerful psychological tool"

    Those accustomed to browsing (浏览) through thousands of books in large bookstores may find Japan's Morioka Shoten a little strange. That's because this tiny bookstore that is located in Ginza, Tokyo sells only a single book at a time.

    Opened in May 2015, Morioka Shoten is the brainchild (脑力劳动成果；发明；主意) of Yoshiyuki Morioka. He began his career as a bookstore clerk in Tokyo's Kanda district before branching out into opening his own store. It was here while organizing book reading and signing that he realized that customers usually came into the store with one title in mind. Morioka began to wonder if a store could exist by selling multiple copies of just one single book. In November 2014, he partnered Masamichi Toyama to establish a unique bookstore with the philosophy of "a single room with a single book".

    The selections that are picked by Morioka change weekly and vary widely to attract customers with different interests. Recent choices include The True Deceiver, an award-winning Swedish novel by Tove Jansson, Hans Andersen's fairy tales, and a collection of Karl Blossfeldt's photography of plants. Morioka has also selected books written by a famous Japanese author Mimei Ogawa.

    To highlight his only offering, Morioka often uses clever tricks. For example, when selling a book about flowers, the storekeeper decorates his shop with the ones that have been mentioned in the book. He also encourages authors to hold talks and discussions so they can connect with customers. Morioka says his goal is to let customers experience being inside a book, not just a bookstore.

    Risky as the idea might seem, things appear to be going well. The storekeeper says he has sold over 2,100 books. Things can get better given that his bookstore is becoming increasingly popular not just among the locals but also visitors from other countries.

    It happened to me recently. I was telling someone how much I had enjoyed reading Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father and how it had changed my views (观点）of our President. A friend I was talking to agreed with me that it was, in his words, "a brilliantly (精彩地) written book". However, he then went on to talk about Mr. Obama in a way which suggested he had no idea of his background at all. I sensed that I was talking to a book liar.

    And it seems that my friend is not the only one. Approximately two thirds of people have lied about reading a book which they haven't. In the World Book Day's “Report on Guilty Secrets”. Dreams From My Father is at number 9. The report lists ten books, and various author: which people have lied about reading, and as I'm not one to lie too often (I'd hate to be caught out), I'll admit (承认) here and now that I haven't read the entire (全部的) top ten. But I am pleased to say that, unlike 42 percent of people, I have read the book at number one, George Orwell's 1984.I think it's really brilliant.

    The World Book Day report also has some other interesting information in it. It says that many people lie about having read Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky (I haven't read him, but haven't lied about it either) and Herman Melville.

    Asked why they lied, the most common reason was to "impress"（使留下深刻印象) someone they were speaking to. This could be tricky if the conversation became more in-depth!

    But when asked which authors they actually enjoy, people named J. K. Rowling, John Grisham, Sophie Kinsella (ah, the big sellers, in other words). Forty-two percent of people asked admitted they turned to the back of the book to read the end before finishing the story (I'll come clean: I do this and am astonished that 58 percent said they had never done so).

    Runners never forget crossing the finishing line at their first marathon, and that will be especially true for Mike Kohler. When Kohler crossed the starting line in Fargo last Saturday, he thought he was going to run 13.1 miles, his first half marathon. Six hours later, he had "mistakenly” completed his first full marathon, 26.2 miles.

    Kohler, a 26-year-old plumber (水管工) who now lives in West Fargo, had lined up for the half marathon that he hoped to complete in 150 minutes. He didn't realize he was in a starting fence with the full marathoners. Several miles later, Kohler began to realize he was on the course for the full marathon. "The 8-mile mark was when I figured out that I had made a mistake," he said. "Between then and 13.1, I debated with myself about what I should do."

    At some point — he doesn't remember when — he doubled down on the distance. "After I decided I was going to keep going, the thought of quitting didn't come back. Run, walk, or crawl, I wanted to finish," he said.

    Until Saturday, Kohler's longest race was a 10-kilometer run, just over 6 miles. Even the most casual marathoners do a training run of 18 miles before the race. From his experience, he said he learned one thing: sometimes people can do more than they think they can.

    After his long race, he went right back to work, put in a 10-hour day and then boarded a flight to Scotland for a vacation. "I was pretty sore, but I found the more I kept moving, the less sore I was, so I tried my best to go about life normally — minus running,” Kohler said from Glasgow. "I needed a break from that for a bit."

    Not for too long, though. He's already considering the Bemidji Blue Ox Marathon in October.

On paper, hydrogen (H2) looks like a dream fuel. Coal, oil, and natural gas produce carbon dioxide, which warms the earth when burned, Hydrogen produces pure water. Hydrogen packs more energy into less space than a battery (but certainly less than petrol) . Also, empty tanks (燃料箱) can be refilled with hydrogen much faster than refilling empty batteries with electricity.

While in practice, things are trickier. Storing a meaningful amount of hydrogen gas requires pressing it several hundred-fold. Changing it into the liquid form is another option, but it should be cooled to-253C. Both processes require a heavy and strong tank. While a 700 bar tank is acceptable for a city bus or a truck, adapting it for use in small vehicles is very difficult because the pressure during refilling would be too great.

The solution? Powerpaste.

A German team of researchers, led by Marcus Vogt, have come up with an interesting "powerpaste", which can store hydrogen energy at atmospheric pressure, ready for release when needed. It is so named because it comes in tubes and looks like toothpaste (牙膏) , not in its traditional form of gas.

The main ingredient (原料) of the paste is magnesium hydride, a substance that reacts with water to form hydrogen. The escaped hydrogen can then be directed into a fuel cell, where it reacts with oxygen from the air to produce electric power.

Refueling is very simple, as instead of going to a filling station, drivers and riders can simply replace an empty tube with a new one and refill the water tank.

Given that powerpaste only begins to break down at temperatures of around 250℃ it remains safe even when a vehicle stands in the baking sun for hours.

However, we will have to be patient. Just because researchers have succeeded in developing a new fueling way does not mean that we can expect to see such vehicles on the road anytime soon. It will indeed be several years before this concept is turned into reality.