The idea of being able to walk on water has long interested humans greatly. Sadly, biological facts prevent us ever accomplishing such a thing without artificial aid—we simply weigh too much, and all our mass pushes down through our relatively small feet, resulting in a lot of pressure that makes us sink.

    However, several types of animals can walk on water. One of the most interesting is the common basilisk Basilicus basilicus, a lizard (蜥蜴)native to Central and South America. It can run across water for a distance of several meters, avoiding getting wet by rapidly hitting the water's surface with its feet. The lizard will take as many as 20 steps per second to keep moving forward. For humans to do this, we，d need huge feet that we could bring up to our ears in order to create adequate w hitting.

    But fortunately there is an alternative : cornflour. By adding enough of this common thickening agent to water (and it does take a lot), you can create a “non-Newtonian” liquid that doesn't behave like normal water. Now, if the surface of the water is hit hard enough, particles(粒子）in the water group together for a moment to make the surface hard. Move quickly enough and put enough force into each step, and you really can walk across the surface of an adequately thick Liquid of cornflour.

    Fun though all this may sound, it's still rather messy and better read about in theory than carried out in practice. If you must do it, then keep the water wings handy in case you start to sink--and take a shower afterward!

    A cancer-stricken British teenager said on Thursday she had been moved by messages of support from around the world after writing an online “Bucket List” of things she wanted to do before dying.

    Alice Pyne, 15, created an Internet blog in which she described her fight against a cancer of the white blood cells. “I've been fighting cancer for almost four years and now I know that the cancer is gaining on me and it doesn't look like I'm going to win this one,” she wrote.

    For her list, at the site www. alicepyne. blogspot. com, she has included making everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor (骨髓捐赠者), swimming with sharks, meeting boy band Take That and getting a purple iPad computer.

Messages of support and offers of help quickly flooded her webpage and it became one of the most talked about subjects on Twitter.

     “Oh dear! And I thought that I was just doing a little blog for a few friends!” she wrote after her site attracted huge attention. “Thank you so much for all your lovely messages to me.”

    Alice, who lives with her family in the northwest English town of Ulverston, said the manager of Take That had arranged for her to see the band after reading her blog. A group of local lawmakers have also made efforts with the Anthony blood cancer charity to encourage people to join its stem cell (干细胞) projects.

    How many girls in this world fall behind? The answer is hard—too many to count. This is why the phrase “Go Get It Girl” popped up in my head one day. This would be my project. Thus begins the journey of my Cold Award project, the largest and most important step of Girl Scouts (女童子军).

    “Go Get It Girl” is a girl's self-empowerment (自我授权) project centered on a website called gogetitgirl.org. It focuses on areas including education, health, and financial literacy. The education section includes information on applying to college and, maintaining good grades. The health section contains information on basic health and self-respect. Lastly, the financial literacy section has all the information a girl needs to manage her money properly.

    As part of my project, I was able to work one-on-one with girls in elementary, middle, and high school. I gave a speech at a local high school's College Night. I spoke to Hispanic girls and their parents about applying to college. In addition, I worked with an organization called Cool Girls, Inc. Cool Girls is an organization focused on the advancement of girls in all aspects of their development. I worked at the afterschool program, Cool Girls Club. The girls I worked with were primarily minorities, and Cool Girls truly helps them to rise above any current difficulties in their lives.

    To provide inspiration for the girls who visit gogetitgirl.org, I interviewed successful women in my community, including a doctor and business owner.

The project has been a lot of work, arid it's not over yet. It will never be over, hopefully, because I will always look for ways to help girls.

    What makes a gift special？Is it the price you see on the gift receipt？Or is it the look on the recipient's face when they receive it that determines the true value? What gift is worth the most?

    This Christmas I was debating what to give my father. My dad is a hard person to buy for because he never wants anything. I pulled out my phone to read a text message from my mom saying that we were leaving for Christmas shopping for him when I came across a message on my phone that I had locked. The message was from my father. My eyes fell on a photo of a flower taken in Wyoming, and underneath a poem by William Blake. The flower, a lone dandelion standing against the bright blue sky, inspired me. My dad had been reciting those words to me since I was a kid. That may even be the reason why I love writing. I decided that those words would be my gift to my father.

    I called back. I told my mom to go without me and that I already created my gift. I sent the photo of the cream-colored flower to my computer and typed the poem on top of it. As I was arranging the details another poem came to mind. The poem was written by Edgar Allan Poe； my dad recited it as much as he did the other. I typed that out as well and searched online for a background to the words of it. The poem was focused around dreaming, and after searching I found the perfect picture. The image was painted with blues and greens and purples, twisting together to create the theme and wonder of a dream. As I watched both poems passing through the printer, the white paper coloring with words that shaped my childhood. I felt that this was a gift that my father would truly appreciate.

    Christmas soon arrived. The minute I saw the look on my dad's face as he unwrapped those swirling black letters carefully placed in a cheap frame, I knew I had given the perfect gift.

    These days, it seems like everyone wants to go out into space and live on new planets. Rather than depend on another pre-existing planet, could we make a new, proper planet ourselves?

    To start with, if we do want to be living on it, we should find a good place in space to put the new planet. We'd want it to be in a habitable zone, meaning the planet should be at the right distance from its star to make sure there would be perfect temperatures and most importantly, liquid (液态的) water.

    We'd also need the right materials to make the planet. Our Earth is made up of many different elements (元素). If we made our own new planet we'd probably want it to have similar elements and a similar structure (结构). We'd also want enough water to form some oceans.

    But even if we get all of the materials creating a new planet like Earth could have many troubles. It might be something more like a huge space station. It would be pretty expensive if we wanted it to be super big.

    We would probably also need a lot of food since there's going to be many scientists and astronauts out in space working on this project!

    According to NASA, each astronaut uses about 0. 83 kilograms of food per meal, including 0.12 kilograms of packaging (包装) material. Without the weight of the packaging material, we'd need about 780 kilograms of food just to feed one astronaut for a year.

    Putting all these together could make it possible to make our own planet one day! In reality, creating a new planet would probably require a very modern technology and there would be tons of other things to think about. And if this is even possible, it likely won't happen for a very long time.

    Two of the hardest things to accomplish in this world are to acquire wealth by honest effort and, having gained it, to learn how to use it properly. Recently I walked into the locker room of a rather well­known golf club after finishing a round. It was in the late afternoon and most of the members had left for their homes. But a half­dozen or so men past middle age were still seated at tables talking aimlessly and drinking more than was good for them. These same men can be found there day after day, and, strangely enough, each one of these men had been a man of affairs and wealth, successful in business and respected in the community. If material prosperity were the chief necessity for happiness, then each one should have been happy. Yet, it seemed to me, something very important was missing, else­there would not have been the constant effort to escape the realities of life through scotch and soda. They knew, each one of them, that their productivity had ceased (停止). When a fruit tree ceases to bear its fruit, it is dying. And it is even so with man.

    What is the answer to a long and happy existence in this world of ours? I think I found it long ago in a passage from the book of Genesis which caught my eye while I was looking through my Bible. The words were few, but they became memorably impressed on my mind. "In the sweat of the face shall you eat the bread."

    To me, that has been a challenge from my earliest recollections (memories). In fact, the battle of life, of existence, is a challenge to everyone. The immortal words of St. Paul, too, have been and always will be a great inspiration to me. At the end of the road I want to be able to feel that I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.