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. "

    My two little daughters and I usually go out and help others on Thankful Thursday. Last Thursday we were going to buy lunch for the beggars（乞丐） in the street. Then we went to the nearest McDonald's. I ordered 15 lunches from it and drove my car to hand them out.

We gave the lunches to the beggars. They were excited. We were happy to see that.

    Then we noticed a small, old woman, asking for pocket money. We gave her our last lunch bag. Before we got into the car, she started to speak to us, "No one has ever done anything like this for me before, "she said with a smile. "Well, I'm glad that we were the first, "I answered. "So, when will you eat your lunch," I asked.

    She just looked at me with her big, tired brown eyes and said, "OH, dear, I'm not going to eat this lunch. You see, I have a little daughter. I usually can't buy her favorite food, but today she will be so happy!"

    I don't know if the kids noticed the tears in my eyes. I have asked many times whether our actions of kindness were too small to change anything. Yet at that moment, I realized the truth of words: "We cannot do great things —only small things with great love."

    After breakfast Mrs. Beckman started packing（打包）the bags. She bought the tickets to London. Her husband works there. She and her children are going to fly there to see him. Thomas and Katy can't help her and she told them to play outside.

    "It often rains in London in autumn," the woman said to herself, " I'd better take the umbrellas. So I won't buy any when it rains there."

Suddenly(突然), she heard Thomas crying and ran out at once. She asked, " What's the matter?"

    "Katy pulled(揪)my hair," the boy said in tears(眼泪汪汪地).

    "Don't be angry," said the woman. "She's too young. She doesn't know pulling hair hurts(疼痛)"

    And then she went to the house again. After a short time there was more crying. She had to come out to see what the matter was.

This time Thomas said, "Now she knows."

Gemma Burford

    Gemma was born in 1978 in a quiet village in England. Her mother worked in a library and her father worked in a hospital. When she was a student at Oxford University, she traveled (旅行) to Tanzania and met her husband (丈夫), Lesikar, for the first time. They got married (结婚) in 2003 and had their daughter, Lucia, two years later. Now Lucia studies in a small primary school, and Gemma and Lesikar also teach her at home.

 Judy Boehmer

    Adam is Judy's first child. She now has four sons, seven daughters and a pet dog, Bosco. Judy and her husband, Larry, live in Atlanta, Georgia, but they also have a motorhome (野营车). The Boehmers are a circus (马戏团) family and all the children are performers at the circus. The children don't go to school, but study at home. The family travels more than 40,000 kilometers a year for their work. The first show of the Boehmers was at a park in Lowa in 1989, and they now perform all over America.

    Uncle Li and Uncle Wang are good friends．They live next to each other and their farms are both at the foot of the mountain．So they can help each other．But neither of them likes to use his head．They're both poor though they work hard．Most villagers have built new houses，but they still live in the low and broken houses．They never find out why．

    Once Uncle Li went to town to buy some medicine for his wife．In the town he heard the apples in a city were expensive．He told Uncle Wang about it as soon as he went back．They decided to carry some apples to the city．They borrowed some money from their friends and bought nearly 1，000kilograms of apples in the villages and carried them to the city on a tractor．Bad luck!A lot of apples has already been carried there when they arrived．A few days later they had to sell them at a low price （价格）．They felt unhappy and returned to their village．

    "I can't understand why we sustained （蒙受） losses in business while others always profit （盈利）"Uncle Li asked one day．

    "The tractor was too small"Uncle Wang said without thinking．"We'll carry more apples on a truck next time!"

    "I agree!"said Uncle Li．"How foolish （傻的） we were!"

    Gabriel Garcia Márquez ,who was awared the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982，passed away at the age of 86 on April 17，2014. The world paused to remember the cultural giant.

    Garcia Márquez was born in Colombia, but he spent most of his adult life in Mexico City. As one of the most famous writers, he was widely regarded as "a giant of 20th-century literature". Garcia Márquez wrote in a style called "magical realism" In such works, people live a daily life in a certain period of time in history. But meanwhile, magical things happen to them.

    Garcia Márquez is best known for his 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, which has sold about 50 million copies. It tells the tale of the small and isolated town of Macondo which was separated from the outside world –of its founding and its troubled history over a hundred years. The story is a metaphor for the development of Colombia since the 19century. As Colombian President Juan Manuel Santons said, Garcia Márquez wrote about "the very essence of the Latin American beings ".