It is quite reasonable to blame traffic jams, the cost of gas and the great speed of modern life, but manners on the road are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men would become fierce tigers behind the wheel. It is all right to have a tiger in a cage, but to have one in the driver's seat is another matter.

    Road politeness is not only good manners, but good sense too. It takes the most cool-headed drivers great patience to give up the desire to beat back when forced to face rude driving. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of quarrelling and fighting. A friendly nod or a wave of thanks in answer to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of good will and becomes so necessary in modern traffic conditions. But such behaviors of politeness are by no means enough. Many drivers nowadays don't even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.

    However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. Typical examples are the driver who waves a child crossing the street at a wrong place into the path of oncoming cars that may not be able to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they want to.  It always amazes me that the highways are not covered with the dead bodies of these grannies (奶奶).

    An experienced driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if drivers learnt to correctly join in traffic stream without causing total blockages that give rise to unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately, modern drivers can't even learn to drive. Years ago, experts warned us that the fast increase of the car ownership would demand more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.

    Her Fearful Symmetry

    By Audrey Niffenegger

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    Julia and Valentine Poole are normal American teenagers. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn't know has died and left them her flat in London.

    Published: 05 July 2010

    Format: Paperback 496 pages

    Sales rank: 114

    The Book Thief

    By Markus Zusak

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    Liesel, a nine-year-old girl is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the people of her street when the bombs begin to fall.

    Published: 01January 2008

    Format: paperback 560 pages

    Sales rank: 188,505

    The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

    By John Boyne

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    The book tells the story of a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. And sooner or later the reader arrives with Bruno at a “fence”, which is not meant to be crossed.

    Published: 11 September 2008

    Format: paperback 224 pages

    Sales rank: 113

    The Help

    By Kathryn Stockett

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    It's Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in search of truth.

    Published: 13 May 2010

    Format: Paperback 464 pages

    Sales rank: 16

    A company in San Francisco, California, has found a way to turn used plastic bottles into women's shoes.

    Every day, millions of Americans drink water and other liquids from plastic bottles. More than 60 million of them are thrown away each day. Many of the plastic bottles end up in landfills or are burned with other waste products.

    A San Francisco start-up company called Rothy's, however, turns this plastic waste into environmentally friendly shoes. Roth Martin is the company's co-founder. He explains how they turn plastic into soft material for women's feet. They take the plastic, clean it, and break it down into small pieces. Then they press them through a device that makes soft fibers. Those fibers arc then combined together. This is done by a 3D machine. It is designed to reduce waste while making the shoes. The knitted stuff and the inner part of the shoe arc then attached to the shoe's outer part, called the sole (鞋底).This outer sole is also made from environmentally friendly material: responsibly responsibly sourced no-carbon rubber.

    Rolhy's shoes are sold online. They are flat shoes, with either a rounded or pointed toe. They come in different colors and designs. They cost either $ 125 or $ 145 per pair, depending on the design. After American actress Gwyneth Paltrow discovered them last year, the demand for the shoes grew. Martin says there is no shortage of material to fill that demand. "We're not going to run out of water bottles any time soon. So we have a limitless supply of material, and I think that is a good sign for our future." When the environmentally friendly shoes wear out, customers can return them at no cost to a company that uses the recycled material to make other products.

    For now, the shoes are only available to be shipped in the United States. However, the company says it will add international shipping in the near future.

    Finding your feet in a new town can be hard, especially if you're covered in fur and don't speak the language. But for pets new to Marlborough, help is at hand.

    Marlborough SPCA and the Railway Café, in Blenheim, have joined forces to help welcome pets and their people to the area with morning teas. They hope the morning teas will get tails and tongues wagging(狗摇摆尾巴）as well as giving advice on how to make the move easier.

    Railway Café owner Leanne Harris came up with the creative plan as a way to help welcome people to the area. Leanne moved to Marlborough from Auckland two years ago and said she first struggled to find friends and feel part of the community. "Coming from Auckland I thought people would open their doors and that there would be neighbors calling round with cake. I expected people to come to me and, of course, it wasn't like that. I did get lonely." "I hope to save newcomers having to wait as long as I did to feel part of it all. I would like to welcome them to the town."

    Free plates of sandwiches, cakes will be offered, for the people, while there will be special yoghurt and banana treats for the dogs. The morning teas will take place in the covered area at the back of the popular café beside the railway station off Grove Rd.

    Leanne said she was happy to devote both her time and effort to giving back to the community and felt the project was a great fit with the SPCA.

    "Volunteering is such an amazing thing to do and it changed things for me completely, and I met some amazing people with similar interests."

    SPCA Op Shop manager Karina Greenall, originally from the United Kingdom, said she also wanted to help. "I can give advice on how to resettle pets, the best parks to go to, where the best walks are and where the Civil Service are in town." There will be volunteering chances too for people where they can help out and hopefully make friends too.

    Vinegar is great. It makes salad, fries and dumplings taste better, and you can even clean your windows with it. And now, according to scientists, it may even help the planet's population to ease hunger.

    Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan found that growing plants in vinegar makes them more resistant to droughts.

    This could mean that in the future, worries about climate change affecting the world's supply of food will be much lower.

    The discovery was made after the researchers studied the Arabidopsis, a plant known for its ability to survive in dry weather. It was found that when the plant was placed in drought-like conditions, it produced a chemical called acetate(醋酸盐) – the main component of vinegar.

    After discovering this, the scientists experimented further by adding acetate to the soil of other plants, before they stopped giving them water completely. After leaving the plants for 14 days, they found that the ones treated with acetate had survived, while the untreated plants had dried up and died. It's hoped that this simple method of survival could soon be used to help farmers in dry countries keep their crops alive.

    Jong Myong Kim, co-author of the study, told Popular Science magazine that he's already been in touch with people all over the world who are interested in trying this simple and cost-effective method out for themselves from flower growing companies to amateur gardeners.

    Although at this point keeping thirsty plants alive isn't as easy as just pouring vinegar over them, Kim said he and his team are working on making the process as simple as possible. "Now we are trying to cooperate with some farmers, and also some companies, to make a method to apply this system." he said.

    And for those of us who always forget to ask our neighbors to water our plants when we go away, hopefully this means the end of returning home from a trip to find our favorite flowers have died.

When you take to the seas on a cruise(游船度假), you usually think you are leaving solid ground behind, but the Celebrity Solstice brings a whole new experience to its passengers. Aboard the 317m-long ship is a half-acre lawn(草坪). The Celebrity Solstice is the first cruise ship ever to house live grass.

Nikolas Asproudas, the ship's environmental officer told New Zealand Neus, It was a crazy idea to start with. For five years now, they have been saying that this lawn is the most walked lawn in the world. It's a symbol of honor, particularly because the lawn on the top deck of the ship has special challenges with growth at sea, including "burns" from the salt water, which must be washed off immediately and clearance checks before the ship can pull in to shore.

The lawn is grown in silica(二氧化硅)sand rather than soil, which not only reduces weight, helping the ship's stability, but also agrees with restrictions and helps control pests that may otherwise stay on the grass.

Asproudas sends the Captain of the ship a weekly report on the status of the lawn. "We know that the Australian and New Zealand, authorities are very strict with the grass, and of course, they have to check before we come if, everything's OK," said the Captain.

The lawn is a source of pride for Asproudas, so. when there are problems with it, he says, "It brings me some sad feelings, but I need to be strong, because I know that it will recover within one week." All of the crew's hard work to maintain the "backyard" is appreciated by its many guests, including some that say the: Celebrity Solstice's lawn is better than theirs at home. Two recent passengers aboard said, "We're having a drought at home so…it was brilliant!"

Though the option of walking barefoot through a grassy field on a moving cruise ship seems terrific, there are many other ships that are trying to outdo one another with even more surprising guest options.