“Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy – they're given after all. Choices can be hard.” –– Jeff Bezos.

    I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I'd never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I'd been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most start-ups don't, and I wasn't sure what to expect. MacKenzie told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I'd been a garage inventor. I'd always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

    I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all.

    After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice. For all of us, in the end, we are our choices.

    Amazing Kids!Wild Jungle Writing Contest

    Amazing Kids!Magazine is proud to announce that we will be hosting a Wild Jungle Writing Contest this fall! Send us your best jungle-themed stories.This contest is open to grades K-12,with three groups of K-3,4-8,and 9-12.

    Three winners from each age group will be chosen to win Amazing Kids!prizes,along with an official certificate verifying their winning entry.All participants will receive a certificate of participation in the contest.

    Submit（提交）all entries by NOVEMBER 30 to be considered!Please look below for rules—if your entry does not comply with（与一致）our rules,it will not be considered in the contest!Email editor@amazing-kids.org or more questions about rules.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Q:What are the age limits?

    A:This contest is limited to grades K-12,with a K-3,4-8,and 9-12 age group.

    Q:How should I format my entry?

    A:Stories should be written in English,with submissions of up to 1,200 words.Stories exceeding（超出）this length will not be considered.Please submit your entry as a Microsoft Word document.Also be sure to include all essential information,including your name,grade,address,phone number(s) and e-mail address in the body of the e-mail.

    Q:How do I submit my entry?

    A:E-mail your submission to editor@amazing-kids.org.Each e-mail submission will receive a return message saying that the essay is received.

    Q:Is there just one prize?

    A:No.Nine separate prizes will be given out,with a cash value of $ 20 for first place,$15 for second place,and $10 for third place in each age group.Certificates of participation will also be awarded to each participant in the contest.

    Where can you find a nice place to relax on holiday for both you and your children? Well, I suggest you try the beautiful and green Isle of Wight (IOW). The Isle of Wight is one of the main tourist attractions. Here is some information on a few of the attractions on the IOW.

Dinosaur Isle

    It is located in Sandown, a seaside town on the southeast coast. It's a large, lovely museum, both fun and educational. Here you can see a large fossil collection of all kinds of dinosaurs, as well as a gift shop. You can walk into the past and then the future, learning about the history and the development of the civilization of dinosaurs that lived 120 million years ago.

Robin Hill Country Park

    The park is in the beautiful countryside, and is suitable for children's parties and games. It has five new gardens, and offers great opportunities to see and take pictures of the rare red squirrels.

The West of the Wight

    Here we have the Marine Aquarium, the Archaeology Exhibition and the Model Railway. They offer another opportunity to combine fun with learning. This is a great place to see ancient boats crossing the narrow strait between the island and the mainland.

The Wight Bus Museum

    This museum is run completely by unpaid volunteers. It has a bus collection stored in what was once a warehouse（仓库）. Most of the buses in the museum date back to around the 1910's.

    With all of these choices, what are you waiting for? IOW Tourism welcomes you!

    For centuries, medical pioneers have refined a variety of methods and medicines to treat sickness, injury, and disability, enabling people to live longer and healthier lives.

    “A salamander (a small lizard-like animal) can grow back its leg. Why can't a human do the same?” asked Peruvian-born surgeon Dr. Anthony Atala in a recent interview. The question, a reference to work aiming to grow new limbs for wounded soldiers, captures the inventive spirit of regenerative medicine. This innovative field seeks to provide patients with replacement body parts.

These parts are not made of steel; they are the real things — living cells, tissue, and even organs.

    Regenerative medicine is still mostly experimental, with clinical applications limited to procedures such as growing sheets of skin on burns and wounds. One of its most significant advances took place in 1999，when a research group at North Carolina's Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine conducted a successful organ replacement with a laboratory-grown bladder. Since then, the team, led by Dr. Atala, has continued to generate a variety of other tissues and organs—from kidneys to ears.

    The field of regenerative medicine builds on work conducted in the early twentieth century with the first successful transplants of donated human soft tissue and bone. However, donor organs are not always the best option. First of all, they are in short supply, and many people die while waiting for an available organ; in the United States alone, more than 100,000 people are waiting for organ transplants. Secondly, a patient's body may ultimately reject the transplanted donor organ. An advantage of regenerative medicine is that the tissues are grown from a patient's own cells and will not be rejected by the body's immune system.

    Today, several labs are working to create bioartificial body parts. Scientists at Columbia and Yale Universities have grown a jawbone and a lung. At the University of Minnesota, Doris Taylor has created a beating bioartificial rat heart. Dr. Atala's medical team has reported long-term success with bioengineered bladders implanted into young patients with spina bifida (a birth defect that involves the incomplete development of the spinal cord). And at the University of Michigan, H. David Humes has created an artificial kidney.

    So far, the kidney procedure has only been used successfully with sheep, but there is hope that one day similar kidney will be implantable in a human patient. The continuing research of scientists such as these may eventually make donor organs unnecessary and, as a result, significantly increase individuals' chances of survival.

    Cli-Fi refers to "climate fiction"; it is a term invented by journalist Dan Bloom. These are fictional books that somehow or someway bring real climate change science to the reader. What is really interesting is that Cli-Fi books often present real science in a believable way. They become fun teaching tools. There are some really well known authors such as Paolo Bacigalupi and Margaret Atwood. A list of other candidate Cli-Fi novels was provided by Sarah Holding in the Guardian.

    What makes a Cli-Fi novel good? In my opinion, it has to have some real science in it. And it has to get the science right. Second, it has to be fun to read. When done correctly, Cli-Fi can connect people to their world; it can help us understand what future climate may be like, or what current climate effects are.

    One thing that is hard to imagine is the future. What will the world be like decades from now when Earth temperatures have continued to rise? What will agriculture be like? What will coastal communities be like? It is also hard to imagine what living a subsistence agriculture life is like, today. What happens to lives and communities when the rains change, or don't come at all? What would that world look like?

    One recent example of Cli-Fi literature is South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby. In this book we follow Cooper Gosling, who is traveling to a research location on Antarctica to create paintings. Yes, an artist is sent to live with researchers and crew ­ with funding from the National Science Foundation. After arriving at the South Pole, Cooper has to become acquainted with the strange social system that exists there. Ashley writes the book in such a way that you actually feel you are huddled(拥挤) in the cold with her and her co-workers.

When David Carter started to study art at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin in 1971, he had big dreams of becoming an artist or a writer. But his study came to a stop at 23 after he hurt his hand in an unpleasant event. He developed schizophrenia(精神分裂症) later and spent many years without a home.

Carter liked to spend time around UT, because he dreamt of being able to continue his study in the university and becoming a writer. After running into Carter many times, UT student Ryan Chandler decided to interview him for a project for the Daily Texan, the student newspaper of UT.

"I interviewed him on Austin's homeless problems. After I heard his story, we kept in touch and really became friends. I learned he wanted to get back to UT, so I decided to help him," said Chandler. "He had got 87 hours, very close to a degree. Now, with changing degree requirements, he only has 64 hours to go."

With the help of Chandler, who worked with the university office, Carter was assigned an adviser by UT's College of Fine Arts. "It' s the greatest gift I've ever received," Carter said. "He did what had to be done to get me back to school, and I couldn't have done it without him"

After seeing a magazine article about Carter, a UT schoolmate decided to pay his tuition fees (学费)without telling Chandler his name.

Doug Dempster, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said in a statement, "David Carter's decision to complete his degree is a testament (证明) to finishing well what was started, and stopped, even many years earlier. We welcome him back as we do many students each year whose education could not be completed easily. We're going to help him through his remaining course work."