It was a quiet village in which there was a military camp(军营). It was far from the towns and cities and there were some high mountains around. Of course it was a good place for training the new soldiers. But it was difficult for the young men to go outside. Mr. White, an officer of forty, was strict with them and he hardly let them leave the camp.

    Once Mr. White was ill in bed. He couldn't work and a young officer, Mr. Hunt, began to train the new soldiers instead of him. He knew the young men well and let nine soldiers go to the nearest town to have a holiday. But night fell and none came back to the camp. He was worried about it and stood at the gate. It was five to twelve when Mr. Hunt decided to go to the town and see what was happening with the young men. He started the car quickly and set off. At that moment the nine soldiers came back. It seemed they were all drunk. Of course they found the officer was angry.

    "I'm sorry, sir," said the first soldier. "I left the town on time. But something was wrong with my bus on my way here. I had to buy a horse and made it run fast. Bad luck! It died and I had to run back."

    And the other seven soldiers said they were late for the same reasons. It was the last soldier's turn. He said, "I'm sorry, sir. I got on a bus on time, but…"

    Having heard this, the officer became even angrier and stopped him at once. He called out, "If you say something was wrong with your bus, I'll punish you at once!"

    "No, no, sir," said the young man. "My bus was all right, but the dead horse were in its way!"

    I was on my school campus the other day, and there was an ice cream truck parked right in front of the main common areas of the school. I had never thought an ice cream truck would circle our campus and come for us, overgrown kids. I was intrigued and wanted to investigate（调查）further.

    I was quite surprised when the man in the truck called out,“ Free ice cream!”

    I questioned him just to make sure of his words, saying," I' m sorry, what did you say?"

    “Free ice cream. You have your choice of these four frozen treats: the rocket pop, the chocolate Eclair, the strawberry shortcake, or the drumstick.”

    After I was certain that the man was just giving away free ice cream, I talked with him for a while. He told me that his dream had always been to travel around giving away ice cream, and that's exactly what he did. And his passion was expressed through using up all his credit cards, sleeping in his truck, and living with his mother in a small flat, so he could continue to follow his dream during hard times .Now, he has sponsorships（赞助）from large companies such as Levi's to do what he loves, and he's gifted 125,000 of his truckload of ice cream treats!

    The man said he wanted to encourage people to do exactly what their hearts tell them to do with their lives. I kept asking him with respect," So your dream was just to drive around and give away ice cream? It seems like a very unusual goal."

    "Yes ,just meeting people and making them smile," he replied.

    A woman lost the sight in one eye after going swimming in a pool at a hotel wearing contact lenses（隐形眼镜）. Jennie Hurst, from Southampton, suffered from a rare and painful infection caused by amoeba（变形虫）in water. The infection causes people to be sensitive to light and the 28-year-old said she had to stay in a dark room for three months. She is now warning of the dangers of swimming or showering wearing contacts.

    Ms Hurst experienced four operations and a treatment in which she had eye drops every half hour. "During that time I stayed in my bedroom with black curtains at the window. The only thing I could do was to listen to the radio. One evening, I was so eager to look out of window to get a look of the outside world that I opened my curtains in the middle of the night. As soon as I did this the moon shone in my eyes and it really hurt. I didn't do that again. I have been left with no sight in my left eye and the damage to my right eye could be lasting," she said.

    Ms Hurst had been wearing contact lenses for five years. "I don't even like swimming,"she said. "My friends were quite surprised that I had gone swimming and probably thought that I had been a bit lazy. I wasn't aware of the problem at all — it didn't even enter my brain to take them out. I felt responsible that I had let it happen when actually I could have just taken my contacts out."

    Donna Strickland is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Professor Strickland is one of the recipients(受领者) of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 with Gérard Mourou, her PhD supervisor at the time. They published this Nobel-winning research in 1985 when Strickland was a PhD student at the University of Rochester in New York state. Together they paved the way toward the most intense laser pulses ever created.

    Professor Donna Strickland is only the third woman ever to have won a Nobel Prize in physics. She and her fellow winners were honored for what the Nobel Committee called ground-breaking inventions in laser physics. Professor Strickland devised a way to use lasers as very precise drilling or cutting tools. Millions of eye operations are performed every year with these sharpest of laser beams.

    "How surprising do you think it is that you're the third woman to win this prize?"

"Well, that is surprising, isn't it? I think that's the story of Maria that people want to talk about — that why should it take 60 years? There are so many women out there doing fantastic research, so why does it take so long to get recognized?"

    Physics still has one of the largest gender gaps in science. One recent study concluded that at the current rates it would be more than two centuries until there were equal numbers of senior male and female researchers in the field.

    The last woman to win a physics Nobel was German-born Maria Goeppert-Mayer for her discoveries about the nuclei of atoms. Before that it was Marie Curie, who shared the 1903 prize with her husband, Pierre. This year's winners hope that breaking this half century hiatus will mean the focus in future will be on the research, rather than the gender of the researcher.

    Over the past century, an alarming number of animals have become endangered or even extinct. Below are some animals whose numbers have been rapidly dropping in recent years.

    Panda Bear

    One of the biggest reasons contributing to the decline in the panda species is the destruction of its natural habitat. Farmers in China have gradually been claiming more and more of the land. As a result, pandas are forced to move away to places where it is hard to find bamboo for food.

    Green Turtle

    The green sea turtle species has survived for several millions of years, so you might wonder why it's only becoming endangered now. A major cause is the change in climate and temperature, which both affect the hatching rates of turtle eggs. Climate changes also cause violent weather and rising water levels to flood areas where turtles usually go to lay their eggs. Apart from this, oil spills and other poisonous pollution, as well as increased fishing activities can cause sickness, or even death to the green turtles.

    Cheetah

    Cheetahs are famous for being the fastest animal on land but even they can't run from some of the larger threats that have harmed them. Like the panda bears, cheetahs have gradually been losing their natural homes due to humans claiming land and developing in those areas. To make matters even worse, smaller animals move away when these areas are occupied, which means that the cheetah has less food! Don't forget that other large animals, such as lions, are also fighting for any food that they can find, so occasionally young cheetahs end up as prey too.

    Indian Elephant

    Elephants are extremely intelligent animals and also the largest mammals that live on land. Sadly, in Asia many elephants were killed so that people could remove their tusks to use as decorative objects. While this practice has been banned now, some people still illegally continue. Forests in India have also been steadily destroyed and elephants are sometimes killed when they end up on human territory.

Known as the fastest Chinese man, Su Bingtian made history. Now, Su's feat was on a par with the 12 fastest human sprinters of all time and he is really a flying man of China, of Asia.

On August 1st of 2021, Su set a new record of 9. 83 seconds in the Tokyo Olympics Men's 100 m semifinals (半决赛). He was the first Chinese runner to enter the final in the event and brought an unforgettable moment for the world in the summer of that year.

For a long time, it was believed that Asian people couldn't get great achievements in such kinds of competitions. For decades, it has been impossible for Asian athletes to break the 10-second barrier in the 100m race. But as Su progressed steadily (稳定地) in international competitions, this idea came under fire. After May 30th, 2015, the day Su became the first Chinese man to break the 10-second barrier for the 100 m, running exactly 9.99, he has become a legend who kept breaking Chinese records or even Asian records since then.

He became well known and many people wanted to be as famous as him, but the way to success was never easy for Su. Once he was badly hurt in a training course. Su had to stop running. after the accident. He even planned to give up running in 2017. But the spirit to do something for our country brought Su back to the running team. He realized that finishing the semifinal in less than 10 seconds would win the chance to enter the final competition. It was difficult to get the goal.

Su trained much harder than before to improve the speed. To encourage himself, he set a personal goal-9. 89 seconds. He even made the number as his personal password (密码) for his phone and computer. Finally he succeeded! His spirit encourages many people to try to achieve their dreams.