Helen Thayer, one of the greatest explorers of the 20th century, loves challenges. She says, “I like to see what's on the other side of the hill.” She has gone almost everywhere to do that.

    In 1988, at the age of 50, she became the first woman to travel alone to the North Pole. She pulled her own sled (雪橇) piled with 160 pounds of supplies, and during her trip no one brought her fresh supplies. Accompanied (陪伴) only by her dog Charlie, she survived cold weather and meetings with polar bears. In fact, Charlie saved her life when one of them attacked her. Near the end of her trip, a forceful wind blew away the majority of her supplies. The last week of the trip, she survived on a handful of nuts and a little water each day.

    Helen goes to challenging places not only for adventure, but also for education. Before her Arctic journey, she started a website called Adventure Classroom. On the site, she shares her adventures in order to motivate (激发) students. She explains, “Although kids often see the world in a negative way, without hope for their future, we work to inspire them to set goals, plan for success and never give up…” Helen grew up in New Zealand. Her parents were athletes and mountain climbers. Following how parents' example, she climbed her first mountain at 9. Later, she climbed the highest mountains in North and South America, the former USSR and New Zealand.

    In 1996, she took on another challenge-the Sahara Desert. She and her husband, Bill, walked 2,400 miles across it! In 2001, she and Bill traveled on foot from west to east through the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. They hope to travel in mainland China into Sichuan and Tibet to study pandas this year.

    Helen plans to continue taking trips. She'll use her colorations, writing, photography and environmental work to create programs for her Adventure Classroom website. She wants to inspire her students never to stop facing challenges!

With the clicking of walking sticks and determined steps, a long line of walking group along the winding road is a fantastic sight. Almost each of the walkers is using some kind of fitness tracker. A few Fitbits, some Xiaomi wrist bands (手环), a couple of phone apps and some other pedometers (计步器) — and all, they say, are counting their steps.

    Fitness trackers are in. Sales figures for 2016 released by Internet Data Center (IDC) indicated 25% market growth compared to the previous year, with Fitbit taking the lion's share, followed by the brand Xiaomi.

    However, the wearables market has had a rollercoaster ride in recent months. Jawbone, once a popular fitness tracker brand, announced that it is leaving the consumer market. Microsoft has removed its Fitness Band on its online store although it is still available on retail (零售) giant Amazon. Fitbit remains a key brand name at the heart of the fitness tracker revolution. But it is recently reported to be cutting down on workers, and its founder James Park said it experienced “softer than expected” sales recently.

    Counting steps is probably the most common use of wearable devices (可穿戴设备), but recently experts have questioned whether the golden goal of walking 10,000 steps a day is actually worthwhile, and a US study concluded that health trackers did not aid weight loss.

Analyst Ben Wood from CCS Insight used to wear a fitness tracker on either wrist. Now, however, his concern is about users'experience — these devices don't tell you anything new after a while. There are also battery problems and many of the older and cheaper varieties aren't waterproof (防水的).

    On June 23, 2010, a Sunny Airlines captain with 32 years of experience stopped his flight from departing. He was deeply concerned about a power part that might run out of all electrical power on his trans-Pacific flight. Regardless of his concerns, Sunny Airlines pressured him to fly the airplane over the ocean at night. When he refused to put the safety of his passengers at risk, Sunny Airlines' Security removed him out of the airport, and threatened to arrest his crew if they did not cooperate.

    Besides that, five more Sunny Airlines pilots also refused to fly the aircraft, expressing their own concerns about the safety of the plane. It turned out the pilots were right: the power part was faulty and the plane was removed from service and finally fixed. Eventually a third crew operated the flight, hours later. In this whole process, Sunny Airlines pressured their highly experienced pilots to ignore their safety concerns and fly passengers over the Pacific Ocean at night in a plane that needed maintenance. Fortunately for all of us, these pilots stood strong and would not be frightened.

    Don't just take our word. Please research this yourself and learn the facts at www.SunnyAirlinePilot.org. Once you review this shocking information, please keep in mind that while their use of Corporate Security to remove a pilot from the airport is a new procedure, flight crews' lacking confidence is becoming common at Sunny Airlines, with recorded events occurring on a weekly basis.

    The flying public deserves the highest levels of safety. No airlines should maximize their gains by pushing their employees to move their airplanes regardless of the potential human cost. Sunny Airlines' pilots are committed to resisting any practices of damaging your safety for profits. We've been trying to deal with these problems behind the scenes for quite some time; now we need your help. Go to www.SunnyAirlinePilot.org to get more information and find out what you can do.

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At thirteen, I was diagnosed (诊断) with a kind of attention disorder. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

    In my first literature class, Mrs Smith asked us to read a story and then write on it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, "Mrs Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it."

 She glanced at me through her glasses, "You are not different from your classmates, young man."

 I tried, but I didn't finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

    In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn't get much education. But Louis didn't give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots (点), which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

    Wasn't I the "blind" in my class, being made to learn like the "sighted" students? My thoughts spilled out (涌出) and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was not different from others; I just needed a quieter place. If Louis could find his way to solve his problems, why should I ever give up?

    I didn't expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day—with an "A" on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: "See what you can do when you keep trying?"