Here are four pieces of news from China Daily:

    SHANGHAI—The Huachen Group, which has put 83 million yuan in the development of the commerce market since its official registration late last year, recently held a meeting in Shanghai to show the use of its newly opened tourism business payment network. The network aims to serve tourists from all over the world, but especially from Europe and the United States where credit cards are popularly used. After opening the www.ehinaeonet.com website, netizens can get information about hotels and tourism services on tourism page. Hotels and services can be reserved and payment made through credit cards. The network opened in February in Beijing.

        SYDNEY—The Sydney Olympic flame will travel underwater on Australia's Great Barrier Reef during the torch relay following a successful test.

        Scuba diver Wendy Craig, a marine biologist, will carry the torch on three-to-four-minute underwater journey at Agincourt Reef on June 27, creating Olympic history, organizers said yesterday.

        Burning at 2,000 degrees, the torch is expected to remain alight three meters underwater because of a special kind of technology which creates a “fierce flame”— too powerful to be drowned out by water. Charles Tegner, managing director of torch creator, said the flame would burn like a flame from oxygen-producing chemicals.

        BEIJING—The election of a new leader in Taiwan cannot change the fact that Taiwan is part of China. “Taiwan Independence” in whatever form will never be allowed, according to a statesman of China's central government.

        “We should listen to what the new leader in Taiwan says and watch what he does. We will observe where he will lead Cross-Straits relations. We are willing to exchange views on Cross-Straits relations and peaceful reunification(统一) with all parties, organizations and people in Taiwan who favor the one-China principle,” says the statesman, from Taiwan Affairs Office of the CPC Central Committee.

        HAIKOU—Customs officers in Haikou, capital of South China's Hainan Province, recently stopped a boat loaded with 781 cases of foreign-brand cigarettes being smuggling into China. The cigarettes are estimated to be worth more than 1.8 million yuan, said a customs officer. They discovered the smuggling boat as they were going around the northern sea area of Yangpu Port.

        The smuggled cigarettes cases, packed into two containers, were disguised to avoid being examined. The boat was registered in the coastal city Xiamen in East China's Fujian Province. All eight suspects aboard the boat were kept by the police in Haikou.

    Mrs Smith trembled(颤抖)with excitement when she was told her fortunes(命运). "Somebody is coming home to you, " Mrs Gray said slowly. "He's carrying a rifle(步枪)on his back and he's almost there."

    Mrs Smith felt as if she could hardly breathe. "And there he is!"Mrs Gray cried, pointing to the road. They all rushed to the door to look.

    A man in a blue coat, with a gun on his back, was walking down the road toward the Smith farm. His face was hidden by a large pack on his back.

    Laughing and crying, Mrs Smith grabbed(抓住)her hat and her children and ran out of Mrs Gray's house. She hurried down the road after him, calling his name and pulling her children along with her. But the soldier was too far away for her voice to reach him.

    When she got back to their farm, she saw the man standing by the fence. He was looking at the little house and the field of yellow wheat. The sun was almost touching the hills in the west. The cowbells rang softly as the animals moved toward the barn(畜棚).

    "How peaceful it all is, "Private Smith thought." How far away from the battles, the hospitals, the wounded and the dead. My little farm in Wisconsin. How could I have left it for those years of killing and suffering?"

    Mrs Smith hurried up to her husband. Her feet made no sound on the grass, but he turned suddenly to face her. For the rest of his life, he would never forget her face at that moment.

    "Emma!" he cried.

    The children stood back watching their mother kissing this strange man. He saw them, and kneeling down, he pulled from his pack three huge red apples. In a moment, all three children were in their father's arms. Together, the family entered the little unpainted farmhouse.

    Later that evening, after supper, Smith and his wife went outside. The moon was bright, above the eastern hills. Sweet, peaceful stars filled the sky as the night birds sang softly.

    His farm needed work. His children needed clothing. He was no longer young and strong. But he began to plan for next year. With the same courage he had faced the war, Private Smith faced his difficult future.

    As an oceanographer（海洋学家）, I've spent many years developing robots to explore the ocean, and now we're putting that technology to use in our JASON Project, a program that's designed to inspire students and get them interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In theaters throughout the country, we bring kids together and send back to them on large screens our live explorations of large areas of the globe. Not only are the kids observers, but they can operate robots moving across the area while broadcasting images back to them. The kids have the sensation（感受） of really being at the site with us.

    I believe advances in robot technology will one day be the key to a new kind of travel. In the next 10 or 15 years, people will have rooms in their houses that will be able to simulate (模拟) other environment. I like to call this rooms “home domes” -- small theaters with screens and advanced equipment that can reproduce the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of a desert, or a forest. Hand in hand with these rooms, I can see a market for travel robots located in countries around the world. You could rent (租)a robot working in a rain forest, then go into your home dome, where you yourself operate the robot's movements. The equipment in the room will receive the sensations in the robot's environment and simulate them for you.

    Today, much of the world's population never travels more than 50 or 60 miles from home. And even a person with enough time can see only a part of the earth's sights. But this new way of travel will cost so much less in both time and money and allow people to see a lot more of the globe. And simulated travel will also help protect our planet. You can't take large groups of tourists to look at Dian Fossey's gorillas（大猩猩）. But a small robot, with no animal smell, can get very close to a gorilla and send the sights, sounds, and smells back to a million people.

    Starting Cycling

    We have two services designed to give people the confidence and knowledge to cycle successfully.

    Lessons

    All our instructors have been trained to National Standards level of “Bike-ability”. This means you will be trained to a standard consistent across the whole country.

    There are three levels of skills to progress through. Children would start levels 1&2, progressing from the playground or park to cycle on less busy local roads. Teenager and adult beginners can also learn levels 1&2 in an off-road and quiet environment.

    Confident teenagers and adults can broaden their skills by learning level 3, using multi-lane roads and larger roundabouts. We provide both complete packages of lessons for the beginner or individual lessons tailors to the client. Whatever the need we can address and practice until perfect!

    Cost is ＆30 per hour.

    Guided Ride

    We know that riding on the roads in London can be scary, and if you have to navigate(确定行车路线)as well it can become a real hard task! The Guided Ride service takes all the stress out of it for you by providing the following:

    Route planned in advance to suit your skill level. Route map provided to you.

    Cycle and equipment checked. We will teach you a simple method to check basic roadworthiness(车辆性能)of your bike that you can perform on a weekly basis.

    Route discussed and focus given to any areas requiring special attention.

    Cycle along with the instructor close behind. Here the traffic can be controlled by the instructor and rider observed.

    We currently cover London Zones1&2. Please contact us if your requirements are outside of these areas.

    Cost＆30 per hour.

    People traveling long distances frequently have to decide whether they would prefer to go by land, sea, or air. Hardly can anyone positively enjoy sitting in a train for more than a few hours. Train carriages soon get crowded. Reading is only a partial solution, for the monotonous(单调的) rhythm of the wheels clicking on the rails soon makes you sleep. During the day, sleep comes in snatches. While at night you rarely manage to sleep. Inevitably you arrive at your destination almost exhausted.

    Long car journey are even less pleasant, for it is quite impossible even to read. On motorways you can, at least, travel fairly safely at high speed, but more often than not, the greater span of the journey is spent on narrow, uneven roads which are crowded with traffic.

    By comparison, trips by sea offer a great variety of civilized comforts. You can stretch your legs on the broad decks, play games, swim, meet interesting people and enjoy good food-always assuming, of course, that the sea is calm. If it is not and you are likely to get seasick, no form of transport could be worse. Even if you travel in ideal weather, sea journeys take a long time. Relatively few people are prepared to sacrifice up to a third of their holidays for the pleasure of traveling on a ship.

    Airplanes have the reputation of being dangerous and a little expensive. But nothing can match them for speed and comfort. Traveling at a height of 30,000 feet and at over 500 miles an hour is a pleasant experience. For a few hours, you settle back in a deep armchair to enjoy the flight. The real relaxation can be a free film show and some other services. An airplane also offers you an unusual and breathtaking view of the world. You really see the shape of the land. If the landscape is hidden from the view, you can enjoy the extraordinary sight of unbroken cloud plains that stretch on for miles before you, while the sun shines brilliantly in a clear sky. The journey is so smooth that there is nothing to prevent you from reading or sleeping. However you decide to spend your time, one thing is certain: you will arrive at your destination fresh and untired.

    People have been wondering why elephants do not develop cancer even though they have lifespans (寿命) that are similar to humans, jiving for around 50 to 70 years.

    Now scientists believe they know why. A team at the University of Chicago, US has found that elephants carry a large number of genes that stop tumors (肿瘤) developing. To be precise, they found 20 copies of an anti-tumor gene called TP53 in elephants. Most other species, including humans, only carry one copy.

    According to the research, the extra copies of the gene improved the animal's sensitivity to DNA damage, which lets the cells quickly kill themselves when damaged before they can go on to form deadly tumors.

    "An increased risk of developing cancer has stood in the way of the evolution of large body sizes in many animals," the study author Dr Vincent Lynch told The Guardian. If every living cell has the same chance of becoming cancerous (癌变的), large creatures with a long lifespan like whales and elephants should have a greater risk of developing cancer than humans and mice. But across species, the risk of cancer does not show a connection with body mass.

    This phenomenon was found by Oxford University scientist Richard Peto in the 1970s and later named "Peto's paradox (悖论)”". Biologists believe it results from larger animals using protection that many smaller animals do not. In the elephant's case, the making of TP53 is nature's way of keeping this species alive.

    The study also found that when the same genes were brought to life in mice, they had the same cancer resistance as elephants. This means researchers could use the discovery to develop new treatments that can help stop cancers spreading or even developing in the first place.

    "Nature has already figured out how to prevent cancer," said Joshua Schiffman, a biologist at the School of Medicine, University of Utah, US. "It's up to us to learn how different animals deal with the problem so that we can use those strategies to prevent cancer in people."