Undersea restaurant Ithaa

    Ithaa is the very first undersea restaurant in the world located 5 meters below sea level in the Republic of Maldives. The 5-by-9-metre restaurant can hold 14 people at a time and has a transparent(透明的) roof offering a 270 panoramic (全景的) underwater view. The restaurant was designed and constructed by M. J. Murphy Ltd., a design consultancy based in New Zealand. It was opened on April 15, 2005. Food served in the restaurant can be described as contemporary （当代的） European with Asian influence.

    Tip: Work on technical designs and drawings for Ithaa started in March 2004. Once constructed, Ithaa would be put into the water. Because of technical challenges, limited resources, and quality control problems in building something underwater, the restaurant can only exist for about 20 years.

Skyline Queenstown Restaurant

    The famous New Zealand restaurant offers delightful fresh seafood, salads, roast meats and delicious desserts, while the panoramic view from the windows will attract you day or night. It' s the ideal place for that special night out and the best place in Queenstown to watch the sun go down! With live music creating a relaxing atmosphere and never ending scenery to admire, you will be entertained as you eat in the restaurant.

    Tip: Unlike other restaurants, the Skyline Queenstown Restaurant has tiered (分层的) seating to guarantee（确保） beautiful lake and mountain views from every table.

Revolving(旋转的) Restaurant Allalin

    Located in the Allalinhom mountain, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Revolving Allalin is the highest revolving restaurant in the world at about 3,500 m. The restaurant offers a rich selection. Valaisian platter, pasta and pizza ... all this and much more is on the menu of the world-famous restaurant. Enjoy the eating delights offered in the world's highest revolving restaurant, while some mountain tops slowly pass by.

    Tip: Known as the ‘Pearl of the Alps', Saas-Fee offers many sports and activities: The popular holiday village features the Metro Alpine, the highest underground railway in the world up to the skiing area and the highest revolving restaurant at 3,500 m.

    Photos of eight-year-old Wang Fuman, nicknamed by “Snowflake Boy” in Yun Nan, shared by his principal on Tuesday, showed the boy has a red face from the low temperatures and apparently did not wear enough clothes to keep warm. He also suffered from frostbite. He stood alone with his white hair and eyebrows while other classmates behind were clearly amused and laughing. The picture drew widespread attention around the whole world. Many netizens were sympathetic to the boy's difficulties, with many Mircoblog users giving comments under the report.

    Just after the report, a donation of 100,000 yuan was sent to his Primary School. Constantly, help still pours in for the Chinese boy. But the local authorities call on others to pay attention to other similar rural areas and give them timely aid. In China, there are still so many children just like Fuman living by himself with parents migrating to cities for lively hood.

    Boy's hair is completely FROZEN after he walked an hour to school on a harsh winter morning in rural (and there was no heating when he got there)

    The third-grade pupil in Yunnan, China, walks 2.8 miles to school every day. He braved minus nine degree weather yesterday morning to sit an exam. His hair and eyebrows had turned into icicles when he aimed at the school.

—Abstracted from Daily Post

    I have tears in my eyes reading this… Poor little soul doesn't even have a hat or gloves, and I can't imagine how cold he must have felt. But he did it! Wish the little boy all good things in life. Hope he become a brilliant adult and success in life and happiness.

—Mng.PL, Mauntius, 19 hours ago

    This kid is amazing. If I were him, I probably would have frozen to death. And this is why China will rule the world soon! He'll fight a war tomorrow for his motherland!!! Take note you poor snowflake students of the UK. If this happened in the UK, they would arrive to find the school closed. Our kids are too soft!!!

—Honest John, Birmingham, 18 hours ago

    He walked an hour in that weather and still got 99% for the math exam. Wow. With such an attitude and perseverance, I hope that he succeeds in life and gets all the good things that he deserves. Now he is not a snowflake.

—Lucial Cathey, Liverpool, 15 hours ago

    There once lived in China a very foolish king and queen. One day the queen had a baby daughter. When they saw their baby, they both cried out, “My goodness! How small it is! It's hairless and toothless! It's a monster!” they sent for all the doctors in the country and ordered them to prepare some medicine for her.

    “When she drinks your medicine, she must grow to the right size and have hair and teeth,” the king said, “If you don't do this, you'll have a beating.”

    The doctors thought it impossible, but they dared not say anything against the king's order. Just then and old doctor stepped forward. “Oh, we shall certainly obey your order,” he said, but it takes time. We have to dig a mineral from the KunLun Mountains when the snow melts for the second time. The snow melts on those mountains only once in six years. So we need twelve years.”

    At last the king agreed and the doctors took away the little princess. On her twelfth birthday, they brought her back to her parents with long black hair and beautiful teeth. The king and queen were very happy and gave the doctors expensive presents.

    George Aldrich, whose official title is chemical specialist, works at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. He uses his nose to protect astronauts from unpleasant or harmful odors (气味). His near four-decade career has involved smelling objects from technical handbooks to astronauts' personal things.

    It's crucial that all items taken aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are odorless. Since astronauts are allowed to bring personal items aboard, all their objects must be smell-checked before leaving Earth. In a video provided by Science Channel, Aldrich relates one specific occasion when an astronaut wanted to build a ship in a bottle in space. Everything in the ship-building process had to be sniffed—right down to the glue.

    Aldrich and his team are responsible for making sure that objects are not only odorless but also harmless to astronauts. When the ISS heats up, a process called off-gassing occurs, which means chemicals flow out from certain substances (物质). Objects that would be safe on Earth could give off unpleasant odors or become dangerous when exposed to high temperatures in the ISS's unique environment.

    Of course, humans aren't the only testers or the first to be exposed to potentially dangerous objects. Before Aldrich sticks his nose into a substance, it has been examined by machines. Even though machines can detect unsafe substances, computers cannot tell exactly how things smell to humans. While something could be technically fine, it could be smelly to an astronaut.

Aldrich's nose is not alone there. He is the head of a hard-sniffing team of smell testers. Together they smell each object and rate it on a scale (等级) of 1 to 4. According to NASA, 1 cannot be detected, and 4 is considered not bearable. After the scientists conclude their tests, the scores are averaged. If an item is rated more than 2.4 on the scale, it fails the test and is not allowed on the flight.

The Handshake

    I don't remember the exact date I met Marty for the first time. Like a lot of people who want to get through a checkout line, I found my thoughts on speed, nothing more. The line I was standing in wasn't moving as quickly as I wanted, and I glanced toward the cashier, who was receiving money from customers.

    He was an old man in his sixties. I thought, well, it probably took him a little longer to get the jobs done. For the next few minutes I watched him. He greeted every customer before he began scanning the goods they were purchasing. Sure, his words were the usual, “How's it going?” But he did something different—he actually listened to people. Then he would respond to what they had said and talk with them briefly.

    I thought it was strange, but I guessed I had grown accustomed to people asking me how I was doing simply out of a conversation without thinking. Usually, after a while, you don't give any thought to the question and just say something back quietly.

    This old cashier seemed sincere about wanting to know how people were feeling. Meanwhile, the high-tech cash register rang up their purchases and he announced what they owed. When customers handed money to him, he pushed the appropriate keys, the cash drawer popped open, and he counted out their change.

    Then magic happened.

    He placed the change in his left hand, walked around the counter to the customers, and extended his right hand in an act of friendship. As their hands met, the old cashier looked the customers in the eyes. “I want to thank you for shopping here today,” he told them. “You have a great day. Bye-bye.” The looks on the faces of the customers were priceless.

    Now it was my turn. I glanced down at the name tag on his red waistcoat, the kind experienced Wal-Mart cashier wore. It read, “Marty.”

    Marty told me how much I owed and I handed him some money. The next thing I knew he was standing beside me, offering his right hand and holding my change in his left hand. His kind eyes locked onto mine. Smiling, and with a firm handshake…

    When we talk about famous UK writer Agatha Christie, it seems that her famous detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are must-reads. So, of course, are her best-selling novels Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and Death on the Nile (1937).

But when the readers around the world were asked to name their favorite Christie novel to mark her 125th birthday on Sept 15, And Then There Were None (1939) topped the list, reported The Guardian.

    It may surprise you to learn that it is a crime novel without a detective. What it does have is suspense (n.悬念) and a very sinister (adj.邪恶的) atmosphere. It is “on a knife edge”, as Mathew Prichard, Christie's grandson, told the newspaper.

    Ten people get an invitation to come to a house on a small island near Devon in South West England. Nobody refuses these invitations since each one promises something the person wants: a job, a holiday, a chance to meet up again with an old friend.

    These people are all responsible for deaths. Some are directly responsible, others are responsible because of what they did not do. Anthony James Marston, for instance, killed two children while driving dangerously. He did not feel guilty and actually complained when he was banned from driving. Another, Emily Caroline Brent, is a harsh person who threw out a young servant for becoming pregnant while unmarried. The servant later killed herself.

    When they arrive at the house they are played a recording. The voice gives details of the wrongdoing of each of the guests. Starting with Marston, each is killed in a way that fits their crime. The series of deaths is completed with a hanging, “and then there were none”, as the title suggests.

    Christie can be quite a predictable writer. Some of her stories are a little unoriginal. But this book is full of clever writing. Look it up to find out what this hugely successful mystery writer, the “Queen of Crime” as she was called, could do at her best.