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    Sixty years ago，human beings first reached the top of Mount Qomolangma， known as Mount Everest in the West. But the increase in climbers is turning the world's highest mountain into the “world's highest junkyard(垃圾场)”.

    Every year， more than 700 climbers spend nearly two months on Mount Qomolangma. They have left human waste and all kinds of rubbish， including oxygen bottles， broken tents， and plastic bags， according to Ang Tshering Sherpa， chief of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.

    “The waste has become a health danger to people in the area since they depend on water from rivers fed by the melting glaciers(融化的冰川)，” Sherpa said.

    More and more people have realized the danger that Mount Qomolangma is facing and they are now taking active actions. To deal with the problem， Nepal has supported a special team of explorers and volunteers to clean the mountain since 2008. So far they have brought down 15，000kg of rubbish. Nepal also started to ask each climber to bring down 8 kg of rubbish in 2014.

    On the Chinese side of the mountain， Tibet(西藏) will collect a cleaning fee of $100-200 (620-1240 yuan) per climber starting from this year. A program named “Mount Qomolangma Action at the Third Pole of the Earth” also started in 2004 to clear up the mountain.

    Hopefully， human beings will finally solve the problem， just as they found the way up the mountain successfully.

    China Science and Technology Museum was opened to the public in September 1988. But the second project was completed in May, 2000. Its main task is to spread knowledge of science and technology among the public.

    The activities of China Science and Technology Museum include popular science exhibitions, Astro­vision film shows, training education programmes and experiment exhibition programmes. The museum has an area of 40，000 square metres, of which 16, 000 square metres is for exhibition halls.

    The Astro­vision Theatre is one of the museum's major attractions and also one of the largest Astro­vision theatres in the world. It makes visitors feel they are in actual events rather than see a film. Many great science activities are often held at the museum, and the museum wants to be an important window to the world.

    Fresh green grass, Hundreds of colorful wild flowers. Water running into little pools. Birds making their homes in boxes. The 9, 500-square-metre Augustenborg Botanical Garden may look just like any other well-organized park but there's a difference. It lies on the roofs (屋顶) of industrial and office buildings in the city of Malmo in Sweden.

    Green roofs are not a new invention. And now they are getting popular again. The common roofs of a modern city have endless black surfaces with no life or water. Perhaps that's why a garden on a roof becomes such a perfect choice for more and more people.

    Green roofs are not just pretty. They also help to moderate the city temperature. The high temperatures on common roofs in the summer can make top floor flats uncomfortably hot. What is more, they play a part in making the cities hotter than the countryside around them, causing the "urban heat-island effect". On a green roof, however, with its plants and water, temperatures change only a little, as they do in a park. This can greatly cut the costs of heating and cooling in the building below.

    Also, a green roof takes in rain water, and protects the city drainage (排水) system.   ▲    And small animals and birds can make their homes on it. Thanks to this, the city may become part of nature, rather than something completely separate from it.

    While the cost of building such a roof can still be higher, it can be cheaper in the long term as a result of energy savings. And wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to walk out into a garden high above the city's noise and traffic, whether you're at school or in an office or just at home in a ten-floor block?

There are some very good inventions which, for one reason or another, don't become popular. These inventions should be better known, even though I think that some of them are crazy. Let's have a look at some of these inventions and see if you agree that they should be more successful. 

The Australians had a great idea to stop people from drinking and driving. The idea was that if a driver wanted to start the car, she or he would have to blow into a bag first. If there was too much alcohol(酒精) in their breath, the car wouldn't start. It sounded like a great idea to me, but people said that they might need to drive the car in an emergency even if they had drunk too much alcohol. Another idea I liked was an invention by a scientist who thought his children watched too much TV. He linked the TV to an exercise bike so that the electricity to power the TV was generated(产出) by the bike. If the children wanted to watch a lot of TV, they had to pedal(踩踏板) very hard. I found another invention on the Internet which was intended (倾向于) to encourage good habits. Believe it or not, this invention was an ashtray(烟灰缸) which spoke to you when you lit a cigarette! The "voice" of the ashtray was activated (启动) by the heat from the cigarette and reminded you how dangerous it is to smoke. 

One of the strangest inventions I have come across is a bicycle which can cross rivers! The idea was that when you came to a river, you could inflate a huge plastic ball all around the bike. You would then get into the ball which would float on the river while you pedaled the bike inside the ball! Why not use a bridge instead? A friend of mine at school once bought a strange pair of football shoes. On the bottom of the shoes there was a rotating pad of studs (转动钉垫). The idea was that you would change direction more quickly if the studs rotated with you. The problem was that every time you stopped you changed direction whether you wanted to or not! I think he wore those shoes twice! One thing I would like is a baseball cap with a built-in radio so you can listen to sport all day with your hands free. While we are on the subject of sport, the Americans invented a kind of robot for sports fans. If you were watching your team on TV on your own, you could press a button and the robot would do "high fives" with you! Fantastic! I wonder if you have any good ideas for inventions like these.