The universe looks like a pretty quiet place to live. But the universe is filled with dangerous things, all struggling to be the one to wipe us off the planet. Happily for us, they're all pretty unlikely, but if you wait long enough, one of them is certain to get us. But which one?

1). Death by Asteroid (小行星)

    Of all the ways we might meet our untimely death, getting wiped out by an asteroid is the most likely. Why? Because we sit in a universal shooting gallery, with 100 tons of material hitting us every day. The problem, though, occurs every few centuries when something big this way comes. If you could ask a dinosaur, I'd imagine they would tell you to take this seriously.

2). Death by Exploding Star

    When a huge star ends its life, it does so with a bang, which sends death spreading across space in the form of high-energy radiation. Many studies show that the bang would have to be closer than about 75 light years to do us any harm. The good news: no stars so close are able to do the deed.

3). Death by Dying Sun

    The sun is important to us; without it, we'd freeze. But the sun is also middle-aged, already halfway to running out of fuel, expanding into a red giant, and cooking us to a fine crisp. Even long before then, it'll warm up enough to raise our average temperature and cause a runaway greenhouse effect, boiling our oceans. Happily, that's a long time from now.

4). Death by Black Hole

    Black holes are misunderstood. They don't wander the galaxy looking for tasty snacks in the form of planets and stars; they turn around the Milky Way just like the hundreds of billions of other stars do. But it's possible that one could wander too close to us. If it did, planetary paths would be disturbed, causing the Earth to drop into the sun or be thrown out into deep space.

    Given that it could be trillions of years or more before even that happens, we don't have to worry too much about black holes.

    My advice? Go outside, look up, enjoy the sun, the moon, and the stars. They may be there forever as far as any one of us is concerned...and forever is a long, long time.

    An artist in Oakland, California is using his skills to help the homeless. Greg Kloehn builds very small shelters that make life on the streets a little more comfortable. The structures offer the homeless some safety and protection from bad weather. Each little house also has wheels on the bottom so it can go wherever its owner goes.

    Greg Kloehn has given away at least 20 tiny houses. Several are on the roadside near an active railroad. On a recent day, Mr. Kloehn stops at one to visit Oscar Young. The two men hug. Inside his little shelter Mr. Young gets relief from cold nights on the streets. Mr. Kloehn also visits Sweet-Pea, another friend who also lives in one of the little homes the artist built. She says it keeps her safe and protects her belongings.

    In the mornings, Mr. Kloehn searches the streets for building materials. He gathers what he can and takes it to his studio. There, he puts the houses together. Empty coffee bags become roof material. A washing machine door and refrigerator part become windows. Nails, screws and the sticky glue hold all the pieces together. The artist also attaches a small electrical device to the house. The device is powered by the sun.

    Some of the people living on the streets once had normal houses of their own. But some of the people say they have learned to live with less and they are thankful to that man.

    Mr. Kloehn says his work is not a social project. He says he is just someone using his skills to help his homeless neighbors.

    Big Brothers Big Sisters is based on the simplicity and power of friendship．It is a program which provides friendship and fun by matching vulnerable young people (ages 7-17) with a volunteer adult who can be both a role model and a supportive friend.

    Volunteer tutors come from all walks of life—married, single, with or without children. Big Brothers and Big Sisters are not replacement parents or social workers. They are tutors: someone to trust, to have fun with, to talk and go to when needed.

    A Big Sister and Little Sister will generally spend between one and four hours together three or four times each month for at least twelve months. They enjoy simple activities such as a picnic at a park, cooking, playing sport or going to a football match. These activities improve the friendship and help the young person develop positive self-respect, confidence and life direction.

    Big Brothers Big Sisters organizations exist throughout the world. It is the largest and most well-known provider of tutor services internationally and has been operating for 25 years.

    Emily and Sarah have been matched since 2008. Emily is a 10-year-old girl who has experienced some difficulties being accepted by her schoolmates at school. “ I was pretty sure there was something wrong with me.”

    Emily's mum came across Big Brothers Big Sisters and thought it would be of benefit to Emily by “providing different feedback (反馈) about herself other than just relying on schoolmates to measure her self-worth.

    Sarah wanted to get involved in a volunteer program. “I googled it and found out how to be a part of it. I thought it would be fun for me to get involved in making time to do something because sometimes it is all work and no play.”

    Big Brothers Big Sisters has been of great benefit and enjoyment to both Emily and Sarah. They love and look forward to their time together and the partnership has certainly helped Emily be more comfortable in being the wonderful, happy and unique girl she is!

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    We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices (装置) well after they go out of style. That's bad news for the environment – and our wallets – as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

    To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life – from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

    As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones."The Living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kid's room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices-we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TV's with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions(排放) more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

    So what's the solution(解决方案)?The team's data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tables instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

    One night, the first floor of the house suddenly caught fire. The fire was big, and soon became a sea of fire. On the second floor lived a little girl and her grandmother; the little girl's parents had died, and she lived together with her grandma. In order to rescue the little girl, the grandmother was burned to death, leaving the little girl crying for help loudly.

    How could people enter the house? At the very moment, a man carrying a ladder rushed to the flames and got into the window. When he appeared again in the eyes of the people, the little girl was in his arms. He gave the child to the crowd, and then disappeared into the night.

    This little girl had no family. Two months later a meeting was held to find a person to adopt (收养) the girl. A teacher was willing to adopt this child, and said she could give her the best education; a farmer wanted to adopt this child, saying that village life would let the child grow up healthily and happily; a rich man said, “I can give the child everything that others can do.”

    A lot of people who wanted to adopt this child said about many benefits of their adopting the child. But the little girl's face had no expression. At this time, a man, through the crowd, walked straight in front of the little girl, and opened his arms for the little girl. People were puzzled, and they found that the man had terrible scars on his arms. The little girl let out a cry, “This is the man who saved me!” She suddenly jumped up, and buried her face in his arms and sobbed. Naturally the man adopted the girl.

    When John was growing up, other kids felt sorry for him. His parents always had him weeding the garden, carrying out the garbage and delivering newspapers. But when John reached adulthood, he was better off than his childhood playmates. He had more job satisfaction, a better marriage and was healthier. Most of all, he was happier. Far happier.

    These are the findings of a 40-year study that followed the lives of 456 teenage boys from Boston. The study showed that those who had worked as boys enjoyed happier and more productive lives than those who had not. "Boys who worked in the home or community gained competence（能力）and came to feel they were worthwhile members of society, " said George Vaillant, the psychologist（心理学家）who made the discovery. "And because they felt good about themselves, others felt good about them."

    Vaillant's study followed these males in great detail. Interviews were repeated at ages 25, 31and 47. Under Vaillant, the researchers compared the men's mental-health scores with their boyhood-activity scores. Points were awarded for part-time jobs, housework, effort in school, and ability to deal with problems.

    The link between what the men had done as boys and how they turned out as adults was surprisingly sharp. Those who had done the most boyhood activities were twice as likely to have warm relations with a wide variety of people, five times as likely to be well paid and 16 times less likely to have been unemployed. The researchers also found that IQ and family social and economic class made no real difference in how the boys turned out.

    Working—at any age—is important. Childhood activities help a child develop responsibility, independence, confidence and competence—the underpinnings（基础）of emotional health. They also help him understand that people must cooperate and work toward common goals. The most competent adults are those who know how to do this. Yet work isn't everything. As Tolstoy once said, "One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one's work."