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    Scientists around the world are striving for effective detection of cancer in the early stages,which is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body,and a Chinese scientist may have found a quick way of knowing whether malignant tumors（恶性肿瘤）exist in a patient's body,with just one drop of blood.

    Malignant tumors in early phases can be cured.However,it's extremely difficult to be aware of cancer in its early stages,as patients don't show obvious symptoms and thus it can only be found in its later stages,which is already too late,so to detect cancer early remains a global challenge for scientists.

    Back in 1989,scientists have found a kind of heat shock proteins (HSP),named Hsp90α,which existed in human bodies and can be used as a cancer biomarker detection kit.Scientists around the globe have been working on it since then,and more than 10,000 journals have been published on accredited magazines,yet no one has actually turned their research results into medical products.

    However,Luo Yongzhang and his team in Tsinghua University's School of Life Sciences in Beijing seemed to have cracked the code,after working on the problem since 2009.The team has produced an artificial Hsp90α protein for clinical use that gains structural stability by regrouping proteins.The test kit can diagnose multiple kinds of cancer by analyzing a drop of human blood.This means they are able to "create" the protein,in any quantity,and at any time they wish to.

    The kit has since been used in clinical trials involving 2,347 patients at eight hospitals in China.It was the first clinical trial in the world to test if the protein could be a useful tumor biomarker for lung cancer,and it succeeded. Now,the kit has been approved to enter the Chinese and European markets,24 years after Hsp90α was discovered.

    I'd planned to spend my weekend in the sun, potting flowers outdoors. But that was before the pair of crows (乌鸦). Out of nowhere, they had set up their base camp in our backyard.

    We first discovered our feathered enemies on Friday morning. It was early, and the sound the birds made traveled through our neighborhood. I figured they'd go away soon. But, no. They were getting louder and probably annoying my neighbors nearly as much as us with the noise. I admit I got a little desperate.

    Then, on Sunday afternoon, I looked out the kitchen window to see our dog Quatchi staring at something on the ground. I went to explore and found a small coal-black bird in the grass. Its eyes were milky, and it stayed perfectly still as my dog inched towards it. Only when Quatchi touched his nose to its head did it walk away. I took hold of the dog and locked him inside and came back with my camera.

    It never occurred to me that the young would be hanging out on the ground, growing and gaining strength as its parents guarded it from above. The second I saw this little creature I forgave the crows.

    To be honest, I've never been much of a bird person. I also have a healthy respect for birds, and by healthy I mean slightly fear-based. They're basically living dinosaurs.

    I wish they'd chosen another backyard. There are only so many sunny days in Seattle, and I still can't do any gardening out there. But I'm also grateful that I got to see this little bit of nature unfold up close. It's pretty amazing.

    The experience has also strengthened my desire to create a beautiful backyard garden that attracts lots of bees, butterflies, and yes, birds. They are welcome here.

    One day. One lifetime. You can do it! From the museum of modem art to the museum of ancient articles, visit our picks for the world's best museums.

    National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa)

    This museum has a great collection of art spanning the Middle Ages to the present day, including American, Indian, European, Inuit and Canadian works. It offers a unique, near-complete overview of Canadian art—from early Quebec religious work, through Inuit work from the 1950s, to the contemporaries.

    Tokugawa Art Museum (Japan)

    The Tokugawa family reigned over Japan from 1600 to 1868. Under them, the country enjoyed the longest period of peace in its history. This time span is also known as the Edo period, during which the arts flowered in Japan. Artists of this period directly influenced Western masters such as Monet, Gauguin and Whistler and have since gone on to become household names. Other exhibits effectively present, through accurately reproduced environments, aspects of Japanese life at the time.

    Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)

    Highlights of this museum's collection include a 4th-century Christian marble bust (半身像) of St. Paul at prayer, and a painting that questions life and our very existence, Gauguin's "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" It's a must—go in the US.

    The Egyptian Museum (Cairo)

    As well as gathering together some of the finest archaeological finds from all Egypt, this museum also provides a rare opportunity to simply pop in and within minutes be standing face-to-face with one of the greatest works of mankind, Tutankhamun's golden mask. A portrait of unbelievable quality, craftsmanship and beauty, the highly polished gold face—at once a god, a king and a teenager—shines like water: delicate, yet untouchable all at the same time.

    Like infectious diseases, ideas in the academic world are epidemic (传染的). But why some travel far and wide while equally good ones has been a mystery? Now a team of computer scientists has used an epidemiological model to simulate (模仿) how ideas move from one academic institution to another. The model showed that ideas originating at famous institutions caused bigger "epidemics" than equally good ideas from less famous places, explains Allison Morgan, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder.

    "This implies that where an idea is born shapes how far it spreads," says senior author Aaron Clauset.

    Not only is this unfair— "it reveals a big weakness in how we're doing science," says Simon DeDeo, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon university, who was not involved in the study. "There are many highly trained people with good ideas who do not end up at top institutions. They are producing good ideas, and we know those ideas are getting lost," DeDeo says. "Our science, our scholarships, is not as good because of this."

    The Colorado researchers first looked at how five big ideas in computer science spread to new institutions. They found that hiring a new faculty member accounted for this movement a little more than a third of the time--and in 81 percent of those cases, transmissions took place from higher – to lower-prestige (声望) universities. Then the team simulated the spread of ideas using an infectious disease model and found that the size of an idea "epidemic" depended on the prestige of the originating institution.

    The researchers' model suggests that there "may be a number of quite good ideas that originate in the middle of the pack, in terms of universities." Clauset says. There is a lot of good work coming out of less famous places, he says: "You can learn a huge amount from it, and you can learn things that other people don't know because they're not even paying attention."

    It was the final climb on his search to reach the highest top on all seven continents. When Christopher Kulish finally reached Mount Everest's 29,035-foot peak, he joined an elite group known as the "Seven Summits Club"(七峰俱乐部). But the 62-year-old Colorado attorney died suddenly Monday after returning to the first camp below the mountain's summit. He's the second American to die in the past week after reaching Everest's highest point. His family believes the cause was a heart attack, according to theDenver Post. "He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth," his brother, Mark Kulish, said in a statement to the Denver Post. "We are heartbroken at this news."

    Last week, 55-year-old Donald Lynn Cash of Utah collapsed and died just after reaching the Everest peak. He too had reached the highest point on all seven continents. Including Christopher and Cash, at least 11 people have died on Mount Everest this year.

    The deaths come among reports of overcrowding on the popular mountain. The Nepali government granted a total of 381 permits to climb Everest this year, a number that doesn't include guides who are on the mountain as well. For some climbers, that traffic has meant longer wait times — some told the Himalayan Times the wait has been over two hours between the last camp and the peak. Mountaineer Vanessa O'Brien, who has also climbed the seven summits, said when there's a crowd, being a more experienced climber won't help you. "It doesn't matter if you're the best racecar driver in the world. If you're stuck in traffic, you're stuck in traffic," she said in an interview.

    And when a climber is stuck in that traffic, "their body is starting to deteriorate(恶化)." O'Brien, who set a record as the fastest woman to reach the highest peak on every continent, also said the descent(下降) is often harder than the climb.

    Climbing expert Alan Arnette said there's no simple explanation for the string of deaths. He said weather that has led to a shorter climbing season is one factor causing overcrowding. He also said the cost to climb Mount Everest has decreased, which means more people are making the journey. He urged the governments in charge of granting(同意)permits to limit how many people can be on the mountain at once.

    Still, Christopher was no beginner. His family said he'd been mountain climbing for five decades. He arrived at the base camp nearly two months before his climb so he could give himself time to adapt to the conditions. When he made his journey, his family said he was climbing with a small group in almost ideal conditions after some of the overcrowding had cleared.

    His brother described being a lawyer as a "day job" for Christopher. Climbing was his love. "He was an inveterate climber of peaks in Colorado, the West and the world over," Mark Kulish said. "He passed away doing what he loved."

I'm a standup comic. One day, a woman from The Daily News called and said she wanted to do an article on me. When she had finished interviewing me for the article, she asked, "What are you planning to do next?" Well, at the time, there was absolutely nothing I was planning on doing next, so I asked her what she meant, pausing for a moment. She told me she was interested in me! So I thought I'd better tell her something. What came out was, "I'm thinking about breaking the Guinness Book of World Records for Fastest-Talking Female."

The newspaper article came out the next day, and the writer had included my parting remarks about trying to break the world's Fastest-Talking Female record. At about 5: 00 p.m. that afternoon I got a call from Larry King Live, which I had never heard of, asking me to go on the show. They wanted me to try to break the record, and they told me they would pick me up at 8: 00—because they wanted me to do it that night!

Then I sat down to figure out what on earth I was going to do on the show. I called Guinness to find out how to break a fast-talking record. They told me I would have to recite something either Shakespeare or the Bible. Shakespeare and I had never really gotten along, so 1 figured the Bible was my only hope. I began practicing and practicing, over and over again. I was both nervous and excited at the same time.

Then I decided just to give it my best shot, and I did. I broke the record, becoming the World's Fastest-talking Female by speaking 585 words in one minute in front of a national television audience. I broke it again two years later, with 603 words in a minute. My career took off.

People often ask me how I did that. I tell them I live my life by this simple philosophy: I always say yes first; then I ask, "Now, what do I have to do to accomplish that?" Then I ask myself, "What is the worst thing that can happen if I don't succeed? The answer is, I simply don't succeed! And what's the best thing that can happen? I succeed!

What more can life ask of you? Be yourself, and have a good time!