John and Jack met at the old bench every afternoon. Then they played football. But they didn't have enough money to buy a real football. So Jack made a ball out of old socks covered with a piece of plastic. Every time, the two friends didn't stop kicking and running until very late.

    On Monday afternoon, John and Jack met again at the old bench. Soon the home-made ball was running across the grass. The boys laughed and shouted happily. The ball was stopped by a boy wearing a nice pair of sports shoes. John was upset when he saw it was Steven.

    The next morning, John's mother gave him a bill. “Your uncle sent you a birthday present.”She smiled. John's eyes grew big when he saw the ＄100 bill. Later that day, his mother bought a pair of new sports shoes and a real football.

    That afternoon Steven invited John to play football. Steven did not want Jack to join them only because Jack's sports shoes were dirty. When the game was over, John and Steven walked past the old bench where Jack was sitting. Steven picked up a stone and threw it at him. John, holding his new football in his hands, walked on and did not look back.

    Several days later, as John walked past the old bench, he saw something lying under it. He looked closer and saw it was the home-made ball. John was full of sadness when he saw the ball. As his sadness turned to anger, he picked up his new football and kicked it into the air. Then he walked to the beach, sat down and waited.

    Color is everywhere in lives. But what does color mean? Why are people more relaxed in green rooms? Why do people do their best in blue gyms? That's the magic of color!

    Scientists from the US did an experiment. They asked two people to go into two different rooms. One went into a room painted in pink, and the other went into a blue room. They had to stay in the rooms for one hour. But they had to guess the time, because they didn't have a watch or any other thing to see the time. In the end, the person in the pink room came out in about 40 to 50 minutes. The person in the blue room came out after 70 to 80 minutes.

    The results show that color can change people's feelings about time. Warm colors make people feel that time is going faster than cool colors.

    We live in the world full of colours. Does a colour have weight? If you say “no”, you are wrong. If you don't believe, you may do an experiment.

    First, put two objects with the same weight into two boxes. Then cover the boxes. Third, wrap one box with a red piece of paper, the other woth a white piece of paper. Now hold the boxes with your hand one by one. It is certain that you think the red one is a little heavier.

    Why? A scientist found that different colours have different weight in a man's mind. So he did many tests and at last he found that every colour has its own weight in our mind and their order is the same. The heaviest colour is red, then blue, green, orange, yellow and white.

    The scientist told us that colours also have smell. Can you smell the colour? Of course not. Then why did the scientist say so? That is because every colour stands for a kind of light with a certain wavelength, and it reaches our brain through sense organs.

    According to this discovery, scientists say that people accept the colours they like, and refuse the colours they hate. So your body and mind will be healthy by using the colours you like. Or you'll be nervous or even get ill. For example, if you stay in a room with red windows, wallpapers and furniture for two hours, you'll feel you have been there for four hours. But if the room is blue, you'll feel you have been there for only an hour. Another example, if a person walks out of a red room and into a blue room, his temperature will fall. That means our body temperature will change with different colours.

    How do you light up the night sky? The answer is by using electricity. But did you know that nature can glow (发光), too?

    Scientists have found many glowing living things. Most of them live in the ocean. Some use their lights to talk to each other. Others use them to hunt, to mate (交配) or to protect themselves. The vampire squid (幽灵蛸), for example, uses a cloud of light to scare enemies.

    Scientists around the world are looking at this kind of light for new ideas. In 2013, the US company Gleaux said it has created the world's first light-producing plant, the Daily Mail reported. It is a genetically-modified (转基因的) plant. It can glow like a firefly.

    Alexander Krichevsky, the company's founder (创始人), and other scientists hope that in the future, glowing plants could replace lamps and glowing trees could light up highways. Krichevsky also hopes the technology could be used in farming. Farmers could know when their crops need water or are ready to be picked if they glow.

    While Gleaux is working on glowing plants, the French company Glowee is trying to use glowing bacteria (细菌) to light up shop windows and street signs. It's the same type of bacteria that cause a type of squid to light up, New Scientist Online reported.

    "Our goal is to change the way we produce and use light," said Glowee founder Sandra Rey. "We want to help reduce the 19 percent of electricity consumption (消耗量) that is used to produce light.