Life is full of surprises and you never know how things will turn out.

Sir John Gurdon is a good example of this. As a boy, he was told he was hopeless at science and finished bottom of his class. Now, aged 79, the very same Gurdon shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Japanese stem cell(干细胞) researcher Shinya Yamanaka.

Like so many scientists, Gurdon shows us where the power of curiosity and perseverance(坚持不懈) can lead.

At the age of 15 in 1948, Gurdon ranked last out of the 250 boys at his high school in biology and every other science subject. Gurdon's high school science teacher even said that his dream of becoming a scientist was "quite ridiculous".

In spite of his teacher's criticisms, Gurdon followed his curiosity and kept working hard. He went to the lab early and left later than anyone else. He experienced thousands of failures.

    "My own belief is that we will, in the end, understand everything about how cells actually work." Gurdon said.

    In 1962, Gurdon took a cell from an adult frog and moved its genetic(基因的) information into an egg cell. The egg cell then grew into a clone(克隆) of the adult frog. This technique later helped to create Dolly the sheep in 1996, the first cloned mammal(哺乳动物) in the world.

    In 2006, Gurdon's work was developed by Yamanaka to show that a sample(样本) of a person's skin can be used to create stem cells. Using this technique, doctors can repair a patient's heart after a heart attack.

    "Luck favors the prepared mind, "Gurdon told the Nobel Prize Organization." Ninety percent of the time things don't work, but when they do, you have to seize(抓住) the chance. "

      Life is full of miracles. They surround us every day. One of these miracles happened to me recently. I was filling my car's tank at a local gas station. It was only 10 A.M. but I already felt tired. It was a cloudy, gloomy and rainy day and I hadn't slept well the night before. After I paid for the gas I turned my car towards the main road. I looked right and left then my brain sent the signal for my foot to push on the gas pedal but nothing happened. Shocked, I shook my head to clear it and gazed down at my foot.

      Just as I did, though, a truck rushed past my car doing 60 mph. My weary eyes hadn't seen it when I had looked just 2 seconds earlier. If I had been pulling out when I should have been, my little green car would have been smashed and I would have most likely been killed. I sat there for a long time quietly thanking God for sparing my life before pulling out on the road and heading home. This time both my brain and foot worked perfectly.

      As I looked back on that moment later I still couldn't understand it. Did God prevent my brain's signal from reaching my foot? Did an angel hold my toes to keep them from pressing on the gas? One question kept coming back into my mind as well: why? Why did I get this miracle? Why did God spare my life this day? Finally, I felt the answer forming deep within my heart and mind. I heard the words coming from my soul saying: “You still have more to do. Your work is not done yet!”

      Richard Bach wrote: “Here is the test to find if your mission on Earth is finished: if you are alive it isn't.” Wake up each day then knowing that your mission isn't done yet. You have more love to share, more people to help, more kindness to give. You have one more day to be the miracle God meant for you to be.

    A lot of teenagers are good at art at school, but how would you feel if people called you “the new Picasso(毕加索)” or if presidents and other famous people collected your paintings?

    Alexandra Nechita was ten when her paintings became famous all over the world. She visited Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and her family's native place (祖籍) Romania where 5,000 fans came to see her at the airport. Alexandra said, “When it all started, I was moved. It was very exciting and I loved the traveling, but I got very tired. And I missed home.”

    Alexandra is a good student. Her studies always come first. She only starts painting after she's done her homework. She works on two or three paintings at a time. The paintings sell for thousands and Alexandra's parents have given up their jobs to work for their daughter. Life for the Nechita family is very different from what it was like a few years ago. Alexandra's father Nike left Romania for political (政治的)reasons in 1985. At first he tried his best to learn English and had different kinds of low-paid jobs. In 1987, he brought his wife and Alexandra, who was then 18 months old, to America. The family was very poor. Alexandra began to draw at the age of three.

    She was drawing for four or five hours a day. Soon people offered(提出) to buy her paintings and she had her first art show at the age of eight. Stories about this child appeared(出现) in the newspapers and television. They now live in a large house with a swimming pool. Her mother said, “We started without anything, but thanks to Alexandra, we have everything we ever dreamed of.”

    After a serious earthquake happened, a father left his wife safely at home and rushed to his son's school, only to find that the building where his son studied had collapsed and looked like a pancake.

    He was shocked. He didn't know what he should do for a while, and then he remembered the words he had said to his son, "No matter what happens, I'll always be there for you!" And tears began to fill his eyes. He started digging through the ruins (废墟).

    As he was digging, other helpless parents and the firemen arrived and tried to pull him off the ruins, saying, "It's dangerous here! There's nothing you can do!" To them he replied with one line, "Are you going to help me now?" And then he kept on digging.

    He went on because he needed to know for himself, "Is my boy alive or is he dead?" He dug for eight hours… 12 hours… 24 hours… 36 hours… Then, in the 39th hour, he pulled back a rock and heard his son's words. He shouted his son's name. "Armand!" He heard back, "Dad?! It's me, Dad! I told the other kids not to worry. I told them that if you were alive, you'd save me, and when you saved me, they'd be saved. You promised, 'No matter what happens. I'll always be there for you!' You did it, Dad!"

    "What's going on there? How is it?" the father asked. "There are 14 of us left out of 33, Dad. We're frightened, hungry, thirsty and thankful you're here. When the building fell down, it made a triangle (三角形) and it saved us."

    "Come out, boy!"

    "No, Dad! Let the other kids out first, because I know you'll get me! No matter what happens, I know you'll always be there for me."

    Helen Keller was born in 1880 in the USA. When she was about 19 months old, she got very ill. After many weeks, the doctor told her parents, "Your daughter is better, but now she can't see and she can't hear." Her mother and her father were very sad. After a few years, things got worse. There was no way for Helen to speak to other people. She heard nothing. She didn't understand anything.

    Then one day a teacher came. Her name was Anne Sullivan She lived with Helen and her family. The teacher helped Helen learn words. Helen was a very clever child and soon she learned to spell her first word. When she was older, she went to college.

    Helen was a very famous woman when she died. The world remembers her today as a brave and wonderful person. She was blind and deaf, but she found a way to see and hear. It helped many people in the world.

    Tony, a nine-year-old kid, is sitting at his desk when suddenly he wets(尿湿) his pants. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he can't possibly know how this has happened. It has never happened before. He knows the after-effect (后果)—When the boys find out, he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

    Tony puts his head down and say to himself, "Oh, no. What can I do? I need help now!"

    He looks up and notices the teacher coming, with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

    As the teacher is walking to him, a classmate named Emily is carrying a glass that is full of water. Emily falls down in front of the teacher and drops the glass of water in Tony's pants. Tony seems to be angry, but all the while he is saying to himself, "Thank you, dear! Thank you, dear!"

    Now all of a sudden, instead of being the person that everyone laughs at, Tony is the person of sympathy (同情). The person that everyone laughs at should be him, but now it is Emily.

    She tries to help, but they tell her, "You've done enough, you stupid!"

    At the end of the day, as they were waiting for the bus, Tony walks over to Emily and says in a low voice," You did that on purpose, didn't you ?"

    Emily says back in a quiet voice, "I wet my pants, too."