Eight-year-old Owen Howkins suffers from growth delays(迟缓) and poor eyesight. This means that Owen needs a wheelchair to get around. Not surprisingly, he felt people were staring (盯着看) at him, and that made him very uncomfortable, so he became lonely and even stopped going outside of his house. That, however, was all before Haatchi came into his life!

    Haatchi had a very unlucky start to life too. Tied to a railway track when he was just five months old, the dog was hit by a train. The hit unjured his tail and a leg so badly that both had to be cut off. Taken to a rescue shelter(救助站), the dog would have probably been killed if his story posted on Facebook had not been seen by Owen's dad Will. He fell in love with Haatchi and decided to keep him, thinking that they were helping him. It turns out that it was Haatchi who helped them. By always staying at young Owen's side, he became the boy's best friend. Slowly Owen liked to go outside. Wherever he goes, the dog follows and protects him. Owen now proudly walks around the neighborhood, showing off his dog and telling anyone willing to listen, Haatchi's story.

    Haatch's positive influence on the young boy has not gone unnoticed. In October 2012, the International Fund of Animal Welfare presented him with a special award(奖). The amazing friendship between the two has also been shown in a touching short film called “A Boy and His Dog” by students from the filmmaking class at the University of Hertfordshire. It has won several awards and had almost 2 million views. British best-selling author Wendy Holden has also writtern about this touching friendship in a aheartwarming children's book, which was released on February 13th and had made Owen and Haatchi better known!

    City Life in Thailand is much like city life in the United States. People live in tall buildings or in houses close together. But outside the cities, life is different. People usually live on farms far apart from one another. They grow their own food or buy fresh food almost every day at the market. But the market is not in a building. It is a floating market located on a river.

    Lamai and her family live on a farm. They grow fruits and vegetables and sell them at the market each day. Long before the sun comes up, Lamai and her brother help their parents. They pick out fruits and vegetables and clean them. Then they load everything into a long boat.

    Their boat is ready by about 6:00 a.m. Lamai and her mother row to the closest floating market. On the way the water is still and peaceful. Lamai sees the bright sun beginning to shine.

    Soon Lamai hears laughing and yelling in the distance. Her mother rows the boat around a corner. Suddenly they are at the floating market. Hundreds of boats are gathered at a wide place in the river. Lamai's mother is selling bananas and ripe tomatoes today. For Lamai a trip to the market is more than just a chance to sell or buy something. It is a chance for her to talk to her friends.

    Today Lamai sees her friend Suki. He is helping his mother prepare meals in their boat. Lamai loves the smell of the fried bananas Suki's mother is making. Lamai's mother rows over to buy a late breakfast. As Lamai eats, she and Suki talk about their summer plans.

    At around 11:00 a.m. people begin to go home. She is sleepy from waking up so early. Her mother has sold most of what they brought to the market. The will leave the market with less food in their boat but with more money for Lamai's family.

    FOREIGN TEACHERS ARE NEEDED ALL OVER CHINA

    Ad No.90374

    Posted Oct 12, 2016 13:27 by Amanda

    Date due: Dec 12,2016

    Beijing Language Teaching Part Time

    We are looking for Teachers, whose Native Language is English, willing to teach in China.

    Mostly schools are in South of China.

    The Benefit package for ESL Teachers includes:

    Period: 1st Mar.2017 to 1st Jul.2017

    Salary: 4,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan /Month

    Teaching load&schedule:20 teaching hours per week

    A rent-free, fully furnished apartment for living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom

    Kitchen equipment provided. Other electric appliances will be supplied: water heater, microwave etc.

    If you are interested, please read the information above and kindly send your application to attach the following documents(doc or JPEG format). The subject to be mentioned, as "Teach in China".

    ⒈Resume(简历)

    ⒉A copy of academic degree/diploma/certificate

    ⒊A copy of your valid passport

    ⒋A recent color photo

    ⒌A letter of recommendation/or release letter from your previous Chinese school(Only if you worked in China previously)

    ⒍Any other relevant information that you think might help your application

    Walk through the Amazon rainforest today and you will find it is steamy, warm, damp and thick. But if you had been around 15,000 years ago, during the last ice age, would it have been the same? For more than 30 years, scientists have been arguing about how rainforests like the Amazon might have reacted to the cold, dry climates of the ice ages, but until now, no one has reached a satisfying answer.

    Rainforests like the Amazon are important for mopping up CO₂ from the atmosphere and helping to slow global warming. Currently the trees in the Amazon take in around 500 million tons of CO₂ each year: equal to the total amount of CO₂ giving off in the UK each year. But how will the Amazon react to future climate change? If it gets drier, will it still survive and continue to draw down CO₂?

    Scientists hope that they will be able to learn in advance how the rainforest will manage in the future by understanding how rainforests reacted to climate change in the past. Unfortunately, getting into the Amazon rainforest and collecting information are very difficult. To study past climate, scientists need to look at fossilized pollen, kept in lake mud. Going back to the last ice age means drilling deep down into lake sediments （沉淀物）which requires specialized equipment and heavy machinery. There are very few roads and paths, or places to land helicopters and aeroplanes. Rivers tend to be the easiest way to enter the forest, but this still leaves vast areas between the rivers completely unsampled（未取样）.So far, only a handful of cores have been drilled that go back to the last ice age and none of them provide enough information to prove how the Amazon rainforest reacts to climate change.

    Wood has many great characteristics that make it the perfect building material. It is cheap, durable, easily available, and most importantly, environmentally sustainable. The one thing it is not, is transparent! Now thanks to a team of scientists at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology the material may even be able to add that feature to its already impressive list.

    Lead researcher Dr, Lars Berglund said he was inspired to create the transparent wood after learning how Japanese researchers had developed a see-through paper for use in flexible display screens for electronic devices. The team began by pulling out the wood's lignin(木质素). The lignin-free wood was then dipped into a polymer(聚合物)and baked at a temperature of 158°F for four hours. The result was a hybrid product that was not only stronger and lighter than the original wood but also, almost transparent. The researchers were able to adjust the level of transparency by varying the amount of the polymer injected and also by changing the thickness of the wood.

    While scientists have previously created a see-through wood for small-scale applications like computer chips, the transparent wood is the first one being considered for large scale applications. The researchers, who revealed their findings in Biomacromolecules on April 11, picture using the transparent wood in buildings to allow for more natural light, or to create windows that let in the desired amount of light without sacrificing privacy.

    Wood that allows light to pass through could lead to a brighter future for homes and buildings. Berglund also thinks the wood could play a significant role in the design of solar panels. The semitransparent material would be able to keep light longer and give it more time to interact with the conductor, thus resulting in better solar efficiency. Additionally, substituting the currently used glass with this new product would help solar energy manufacturers improve their carbon footprint and lower the cost. They are now experimenting with ways to scale up the manufacturing process so that the transparent material is cost-effective to make and easy to use.

    No one knows how much money Dr. Lyle Tullis gave away to students. I was his colleague for nearly a decade and I never stopped being amazed at his generosity. Our college has a program of providing cross-cultural experiences for students. Lots of students take advantage of summer experiences oversea. I discovered that no group left for overseas without some of its members receiving financial help from Dr. Tullis.

    It wasn't that he made a lot of money. For one thing, he taught in a church-run school. There, his salary (薪水) was half of what those people earned in a tax-supported school.

    Other colleagues occasionally complained about the low pay. Not Lyle Tullis. Occasionally some professors would leave our campus for a better-paid position. They told me they did so because, with better pay, they could provide for their families.

    The size of Lyle Tullis' paycheck never seemed to be the most important thing to him. I realized that one day when I was thanking him for helping a student, his eyes shone as he said to me, "I've got so much money that I don't know what to do with it. So, I just give it away."

    Most people wouldn't have thought that way. Dr. Tullis drove one of the oldest cars on campus. It was even older than almost any of the students' cars. His home, while comfortable, was not fancy at all. But Lyle Tullis lived with the feeling that he had so much money that he needed to give it away.

    He was one of the favorite on campus. Cynics (愤世嫉俗) might say he bought fame. But they would misunderstand. Lyle wanted to devote his life, all of it, to helping others.