Trapped under six stories of ruins after the Haiti earthquake leveled his hotel, Dan Woolley believed he was going to die. But rather than give in to despair, the film-maker spent 65 hours beneath the earth looking up ways t treat his injuries on his iPhone. He also wrote a moving diary for his family, thinking they would only read his last message of love and comfort after his death. Instead, he was pulled from the disaster after a week-and will soon be reunited with his family.

    Mr. Woolley had travelled from America to Haiti with his colleague David Hames. Both had been working for charity. He was in the entrance-hall when the earthquake struck and just had time to dive into a comer before the building fell. Buried under tons of ruins, the film-maker downloaded a first aid application to his iPhone. He used the light from the iPhone to show him his injuries and diagnosed it properly as a broken leg. Then, he used the instructions from the app to treat the serious bleeding. The app advised him not to go to sleep if he felt he was going into shock. The resourceful Mr. Woolley set his phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes to keep him awake. New technology has played a huge part.

Mr. Woolley used a small black notebook to write messages to his family. He had thought his relatives would read them after he was dead. “I was in a big accident. Don't be upset at God,” he wrote, “I'm still praying that God will get me out, but He may not. But He will always take care of you.”

    Mr. Woolley was eventually located by a French rescue team and removed to the U.S. where he was reunited with his wife. Speaking after being flown to Miami for surgery, he said, “Boy, I cried. I wanted to use that time to do everything I could for my family. If it could be just to leave some notes that would help them in life, I would do that.”

He is now looking forward to seeing his family.

    Have you ever wondered why birds sing? Maybe you thought that they were just happy. After all, you probably sing or whistle when you are happy.

    Some scientists believe that birds do sing some of the time just because they are happy. However, they sing most of the time for a very different reason. Their singing is actually a warning to other birds to stay out of their territory.

    Do you know what a “territory” is? A territory is an area that an animal, usually the male, claims（声称）as its own. Only he and his family are welcome there. No other families of the same species are welcome. Your yard and house are your territory where only your family and friends are welcome. If a stranger should enter your territory and threaten you, you might shout. Probably this would be enough to frighten him away.

    If so, you have actually scared the stranger away without having to fight him. A bird does the same thing. But he expects an outsider almost any time, especially at nesting（筑巢）season. So he is screaming all the time, whether he can see an outsider or not. This screaming is what we call a bird's song, and it is usually enough to keep an outsider away.

    Birds sing loudest in the spring when they are trying to attract a mate and warn others not to enter the territory of theirs.

    You can see that birds have a language of their own. Most of it has to do with attracting mates and setting up territories.

    John Michael Thomas, 14, Florida

When John Michael Thomas decided to honor his friend and classmate Elizabeth Buckley, who died from cancer, he remembered how much she loved peacocks(孔雀).

He wanted to build a lifesized peacock fountain(喷泉) in Elizabeth's favorite park in the city. He thought it could be a place for people to relax and be inspired.

    John Michael raised $52,000 to build the fountain.

    Barrett England, 13, Utah

    The wheels began to turn for Barrett England when he heard about Karma Bike Shop, a place where young people can earn a free bike by reading and performing community(社区) service.

    Barrett visited Karma's owner with his idea: He would collect and repair used bikes and donate(捐赠) them to the shop.

    He expected to get about 10 donated bikes. In the end, Barrett received 39.

Zachary Blohm, 15, Wisconsin

    The 25­year­old playground at an elementary school near Milwaukee, Wis., was so small that only 70 of its 575 students could play on it at a time.

    That's when Zachary Blohm saved the day: He and some volunteers built a huge playground. To raise money, Zac planned T-­shirt and bake sales, sold tickets and more. He held monthly money­raising events for more than a year. Overall, he collected $130,000—enough to finish his project.

    Jack Zimmerman, 16, New Jersey

    For some people, finding a meal is as simple as opening the refrigerator. For more than 366,000 hungry kids in New Jersey, it's not that easy.

    That fact didn't sit well with Jack Zimmerman, who organized a drive to lessen childhood hunger in his state. His goal: create 40,000 packaged meals that could be donated to those in need. On game day, Jack and his volunteers started their work. After the final count, the team had packaged 47,124 meals—well above Jack's goal.

    Nurses are required in all areas of the medical field from hospitals and nursing homes to schools and the armed forces, leading to a great need of certified nurses. Here are some best universities for a degree in nursing.

    Simmons College

    Simmons College is a private women's college founded in Boston in 1899. Nursing is the top-ranked major at the school as well as the most popular. The nursing graduates from Simmons make about $58,000 every year.

    Villanova University

    Villanova University is a research university located in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania. Named after Saint Thomas of Villanova, the school is the oldest Catholic university in Pennsylvania. Nursing is a popular major and is offered as an online degree as well. The nursing graduates from Villanova make about $63,000 every year.

    University of California, Los Angeles

    The UCLA School of Nursing is known for its excellent education provided by a group of leaders in the medical field. The four-year program allows students to be qualified nurses through classroom learning and clinical training. A nursing degree from UCLA leads to positions in many hospitals and clinics, with a yearly income of about $84,000.

    New York University

    New York University attaches great importance to real-world experience. Along with taking classes in school, students mainly work in the health care environment receiving technical training Additionally, NYU College of Nursing students have the chance to study in Abu Dhabi, China and other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. The education from NYU will prepare students to help doctors treat patients, earning a yearly income of about $86,000.

    “Who made your T-shirt?” A Harvard University student raised that question. Piertra Rivoli, a professor of business, wanted to find the answer. A few weeks later, she bought a T-shirt and began to follow its path form Texas cotton, to Chinese factory and to charity bin (慈善捐赠箱). The result is an interesting new book, The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy.

    Following a T-shirt around the world in a way to make her point more interesting, but it also frees Rivoli from the usual arguments over global trade. She goes wherever the T-shirt goes, and there are surprises around every corner. In China, Rivoli shows why a clothing factory, even with its poor conditions, means a step towards a better care for the people who work there. In the colorful used-clothing markets of Tanzania, she realizes that, “it is only in this final stage of life that the T-shirt will meet a real market,” where the price of a shirt changes by the hour and is different by its size and even color. Rivoli's book is full of memorable people and scenes, like the noise, the bad air and the “muddy sweet smell of the cotton,” she says. “Here in the factory, Shanghai smells like shallow water Texas.”

    Rivoli is at her best when making those sorts of unexpected connections. She even finds one between the free traders and those who are against globalization. The chances opened up by trade are vast, she argues, but free markets need the correcting force of politics to keep them in check. True economic progress needs them both.

    I had an experience some years ago, which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to hold two funerals for two elderly women in my community. Both had died "full of years", as the Bible would say. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence(吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.

    At the first home, the son of the deceased(过世的)woman said to me, "If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It's my fault that she died." At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, "If only I hadn't insisted on my mother's going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the sudden change of climate, was more than she could take. It's my fault that she's dead."

    You see that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out bad, they believe that the opposite course—keeping Mother at home, putting off the operation—would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?

    There seem to be two elements involved in our willingness to feel guilty. The first is our need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.

    The second element is the view that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood.

    A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to his tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that childish view that our wishes cause things to happen.