Thinking about the future isn't special skill. Actually, everyone does it all the time. We schedule future activities and appointments on our calendars. We make to-do lists, a promise to ourselves of how we will spend our future time and energy. We look up the weekend's weather. We make predictions about the results of sporting events. We practice, study and train for upcoming events that matter to us. We daydream about events we're eagerly looking forward to. We worry about others.

    Most of this common future thinking is about the near future: the next few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or maybe even the next few years of our lives. Little time is spent thinking about what our lives will be like or what actions we should prepare to take in the far future: ten years, twenty years, or even fifty years from now. This kind of far-future thinking is the domain of professional futurists.

    Futurists are trained to imagine distant realities that seem impossible to others: technologies that don't exist yet, great changes to laws, strange diseases most likely to infect us in the year 2031. Why indeed think about such distant futures? Are there psychological and social benefits to imagining the world, and our lives, decades in advance? And if so, what does it take to become good at imagining the far future?

    These were the fascinating questions that we recently explored with other futurists. I was personally inspired by the discussions, and learned a lot about how futurists imagine the future of life. They specifically wanted to use their imaginations to make the world a better place. Another big benefit for me was that this way of thinking is a skill that can be taught. Society would benefit greatly if we all learned the valuable skills that enable us to think about what things would be like in the future.

    A total of 34 Chinese cities with a combined population of nearly 300 million took park in a pet adoption day at the weekend, promoting the adoption of rescued stray (流浪的)animals.

    The live broadcast of China Pet Adoption Day events in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjin, Qingdao, Tianjin and Xi'an was watched by 562,000 people.

    From Urumqi in the far northwest to Fuzhou on the southeast coast, people gathered to raise awareness of animal care and to help stray find loving homes.

    Sun Quanhui, manager and senior adviser of World Animal Protection, said, “Planet Earth is not only home to humanity but also a home that we share with other animals. It is mankind's duty and important to treat animals kindly in a civilized society.”

    As China's population becomes richer, pet ownership has increased rapidly, but problems, such as pet abandonment and cruelty, are also growing.

    In recent years, more and more adoption events have taken place all over the country, which indicates an awakening of the Chinese public consciousness to animal protection.

    “Adopting a pet instead of buying one has been gaining a wider acceptance.”

    American Edward Dumpe, who has been working on designs for stray animal shelters in Beijing, said, “It surely sounds super sweet and I have no doubt that it must have been the result of great efforts.”

    “I think it is a good step in the right direction, and should be taken as evidence that Chinese society is becoming more aware of stray animals who should be taken care of and treated with respect.”

    In real life, “Rabbit-eating Carrot” is fashion designer who has created clothes embroidered(刺绣)with slogans(口号)such has “Please adopt a pet” and images of her cats, with all earnings going to the Qiming Small Animal Protection Center in Sichuan Province.

    “I didn't know that there were events like this in China. This is fantastic. Impressive.” Said George Philippe, a french living in Beijing and father of two, at an event in the capital.

    Shellharbour City Library provides a range of Library Special Needs Services for people who are unable to access our library service in the usual way. As long as you live in Shellharbour City, we'll provide a full range of library services and resources including:

    Large printed and ordinary printed books

    Talking books on tape and CD

    DVDs and music CDs

    Magazines

    Reference and information requests

    You will be asked to complete a “Statement of Need” application form which must be signed by a medical professional.

    Home delivery service

    Let us know what you like to read and we will choose the resources for you. Our staff will deliver the resources to your home for free. We also provide a service where we can choose the resources for you or someone instead of you choosing the things from the library. You can also choose the resources you need personally.

    Talking books and captioned videos

    The library can provide talking books for people who are unable to use printed books because of eye diseases. You don't have to miss out on reading any more when you can borrow talking books from the library. If you have limited hearing which prevents you from enjoying movies, we can provide captioned videos for you at no charge.

    Language besides English

    We can provide books in a range of languages besides English. If possible, we will request these items from the State Library of NSW. Australia.

    How to join

    Contact the Library Special Needs Coordinator to register or discuss if you are eligible (合适的) for any of the services we provide—9 am to 5 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Call 4297-2522 for more information.

Seeds on Ice

    Close to the North Pole, remote and rocky Plateau Mountain in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard seems an unlikely spot for any global effort to safeguard agriculture. In this cold and deserted environment, no grains, no gardens, no trees can grow. Yet at the end of a 130-meter-long tunnel cut out of solid stone is a room filled with humanity's most precious treasure, the largest and most diverse seed collection—more than a half-billion seeds.

    A quiet rescue mission is under way. With growing evidence that unchecked climate change-will seriously affect food production and threaten the diversity （多样性） of crops around the world, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault （地窖） represents a major step towards ensuring the preservation （贮藏） of hundreds of thousands of crop varieties. This is a seed collection, but more importantly, it is a collection of the traits found within the seeds: the genes that give one variety resistance to a particular pest and another variety tolerance for hot, dry weather.

    Few people will ever see or come into contact with the contents of this vault. In sealed boxes, behind multiple locked doors, monitored by electronic security systems, enveloped in below—zero temperatures, and surrounded by tons of rock, hundreds of millions of seeds are protected in their mountain fortress. Frozen in such conditions inside the mountain, seeds of most major crops will remain viable for hundreds of years, or longer. Seeds of some are capable of retaining （保留） their ability to grow for thousands of years.

    Everyone can look back now and say that the Seed Vault was a good and obvious idea, and that of course the Norwegian government should have approved and funded it. But back in 2004, when the Seed Vault was proposed, it was viewed as a crazy, impractical, and expensive idea.

    We knew that nothing would provide a definite guarantee. But we were tired, fed up, and frankly scared of the steady, greater losses of crop diversity. The Seed Vault was built by optimists who wanted to do something to preserve options so that humanity and its crops might be better prepared for change. If it simply resupplied seed gene banks with samples those gene banks had lost, this would repay our efforts.

    The Seed Vault is about hope and commitment-about what can be done if countries come together and work cooperatively to accomplish something significant, long-lasting, and worthy of who we are and wish to be.

    If you want to spark a heated debate at a dinner party, bring up the topic of genetically modified foods. For many people, the concept of genetically altered, high-tech crop production raises all kinds of environmental, healthy, safety and ethical questions. Particularly in countries with long a grain traditions—and vocal green lobbies—the idea seems against nature.

    In fact, genetically modified foods are already very much apart of our lives. A third of corn and more than half the soybeans and cotton grown in the U. S. last year were the product of biotechnology, according to the Department of Agriculture. More than 65 million acres of genetically modified crops will be planted in the U. S. this year. The genetic genie(鬼怪) is out of the bottle.

    Yet there are clearly some very real issues that need to be resolved. Like any new product entering the food chain, genetically modified foods must be subjected to rigorous testing. In wealthy countries, the debate about biotech is tempered by the fact that we have a rich array of foods to choose from and a supply that far exceeds our needs. In developing countries desperate to feed fast-growing and underfed populations, the issue is simpler and much more urgent: Do the benefits of biotech outweigh the risks？

    The statistics on population growth and hunger are disturbing. Last year the world's population reached 6 billion. The U. N. estimates that nearly 800 million people around the world are undernourished. The effects are devastating. About 400 million women of child-bearing age are iron deficient, which means their babies are exposed to various birth defects. As many as 100 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, a leading cause of blindness.

    How can biotech help? Biotechnologists have developed genetically modified rice that is fortified with beta-carotene—which the body converts into vitamin A—and additional iron, and they are working on other kinds of nutritionally improved crops. Biotech can also improve farming productivity in places where food shortages are caused by crop damage attributable to pests, drought, poor soil and crop viruses, bacteria or fungi.

    Did you know that if you attach a weighed stick to the back of a chicken, it walks like a dinosaur?

    No, you did not know(or care to know) such things, but now you do! Thanks to this year's winners of the 12 Noel Prize! Now in is 251h year, the lg Nobel is the goofy younger cousin of the honored Nobel Prize. It applauds achievements in the fields of medicine, biology, physics, economies.literature.etc. Every September at Harvard University, awards are presented in 10 categories that change year to year, depending on - according to the organization - what makes the judges "laugh, then think".

    The ceremony officially begins when audience members launch paper airplanes at an assigned human target on the stage, then speakers only have 60 seconds to present their research. In previous year, the one-minute rule was imposed by a young girl - nicknamed Miss Sweetie Poo -who would go up to the platform and repeat the words: "Please stop, I'm bored." in a sharp tone until the speaker left the stage.

    Fortunately for candidates though, the Ig Informal Lectures are held afterwards on Saturday to give presenters more time to explain the crazy things they're working on.

    The research can seem more like the brainchildren of teenage boys than of respectable adults. Justin Schmidt won the physiology Ig for creating the "Sting(蛰) Pain Index," which rates the pain people fell after getting stung by insects. Smith pressed bees against 25 different parts of his body until they stung him. Five stings a day for 38 days, Smith concluded that the most painful sting locations were the nose and the upper lip. Ouch.

    As silly as they sound, not all of the Ig awards lack scientific applicability, A group of scientists from 12 different counties won in the medicine category for accurately diagnosing patients with appendicitis (阑尾炎) based on an unusual measurement: speed bumps(减速带) . They found that patients are more likely to have appendicitis if they report pain during bumpy car rides.

    All these weird experiments have just one thing in common. They're improbable. It can be tempting to assume that "improbable" implies more than that--implies bad or good, worthless or valuable, trivial or important. Something improbable can be any of those, or none of them, or all of them, in different ways. And what you don't expect can be a powerful force for not only entertaining science, but also for the boundary-pushing science we call innovation.