Having learned much about the War of Resistance against Japan, Mao Jingxin didn't like the Japanese when she was a child. “I thought they were cruel and rude,” said the 18-year-old girl from Hebei Province.

But she began to change her mind after she met some Japanese teenagers in a history museum six years ago. These fashionable high school students looked seriously at the history displays and talked to Mao in a friendly way. “I found that they are not bad as I thought,” she said.

Like Mao, many Chinese teenagers' are caught up in this confusion. A survey by 21st Century Teens shows about 51 per cent of Chinese teenagers say they dislike Japan. But most of them still want to have a Japanese friend. Also, Japan lies third on their list of Asian countries that they want to visit, following Singapore and South Korea.

Teens did a survey just before the 60th anniversary of the victory day of the War of Resistance against Japan, which fell on September 3. The survey aimed to encourage understanding and communication between young Chinese and Japanese. Teens also wanted to understand Chinese teenagers' attitudes towards Japan, and how much they actually know about the country.

    As Teens found, more than 60 per cent of Chinese teenagers learn about Japan through the media or books. Only 16 per cent have ever met a Japanese person.

     “Most of my friends hate Japan for what it did to China during World War II. But people should not live in hatred. I think the best way to figure it out is to have contact with the Japanese people myself,” Zhang Yuyua n, a Senior 2 girl, told us in the survey.

“Japan has done wrong to Asian countries including China and it has caused pain to everyone,” said Hikaru, a 17-year-old girl in Kawasaki (川崎市). Having visited China four times and learned much, she understands the importance of communication between the two peoples. She plans to join in an exchange programme with Chinese youth. “Welcome to Japan, my Chinese friends!” She says it with a smile.

    “We are good mothers,” I said to my friend, as we sat on our comfortable beach chairs under our beach umbrella and watched our children playing in the waves.

    Out of nowhere, the children took off running. About fifty yards from us, a man—maybe in his fifties—was fishing. The children stood next to him and watched with their little mouths hanging open as he cast the fishing lines. He smiled at them. They ran back to us—all except my three-year-old daughter, Drew.

    My heart beat fast with horror. “Drew! Come here! Play with your friends!” I shouted, very aware that my speeches about not talking to strangers weren't working. It seemed that many parents heard of horrible stories about children being taken away by strangers. Responsible mothers should teach their children that the world is a dangerous place. So I felt relieved when Drew ran towards me and took hold of a shovel (铲子). Then she looked me in the eye: “I want to be with the person.”

    Again, she approached the middle-aged man, and started digging next to him.

    Several seconds later, she returned, waving something shiny.

    “Look, Mommy! A toy fish!”

    It was, indeed, a toy fish—yellow and rubber. This must have been what he was using to attract the fish. And he'd given it to Drew. The three other children were deeply impressed, and they didn't try to hide how jealous(妒忌的)they were—clearly, they all wanted the fish.

    “My friend gave me that fish!” Drew shouted loudly. The sand in front of the umbrella turned into a preschool cage match with a yellow rubber fish flying through the air. I felt like I might cry myself.

    Unexpectedly, there he was: the man, standing right next to us with three more rubber fish in hand. He handed them to each of the children. By their faces, you would have thought he was actually the really kind big brother.

    “Thank you,” I said, realizing that there is good and kindness in strangers.

    For years I wanted a flower garden. But then we had Matthew. And Marvin. And the twins, Alisa and Alan. And then Helen. I was too busy raising them to grow a garden.

Money was limited, as well as time. Often when my children were little, one of them would want something that cost too much, and I'd have to say, “Do you see a money tree outside? Money doesn't grow on trees, you know.”

Finally, all five got through high school and college and were off on their own. I started thinking again about having a garden. I wasn't sure, though, I mean, gardens do cost money.

Then, one spring morning, on Mother's Day, I was working in my kitchen. Suddenly, I realized that cars were tooting their horns as they drove by. I looked out of the window and there was a new tree, planted right in my yard. I thought it must be a weeping willow, because I saw things blowing around on all its branches.

    There was a money tree in my yard !It was true! There were dollar bills, one hundred of them, taped all over that tree. There was also a note attached: “IOU eight hours of digging time. Love. Marvin.”

    Marvin kept his promise, too. He dug up a nice ten-by-fifteen foot bed for me. And my other children bought me tools, ornaments, a trellis, a sunflower stepping stone and gardening books.

That was three years ago. My garden's now very pretty, just like I wanted. When I go out and weed or tend my flowers, I don't seem to miss my children as much as I once did. It feels like they are right there with me. I think about what my children did for me, and I get tears in my eyes every time.

I'm still not sure that money grows on trees. But I know love does!

    Insects(昆虫) are a very healthy food. They have almost as much protein(蛋白质) as meat from a pig or cow and are low in fat. Eating insects is also very good for the environment since they need less land and water than larger animals.

    Marcel Dicke, who studies insects, explained in a talk how insects also produce more meat from the food they eat. For example, imagine a farmer feeds a cow 10 pounds of food. Those 10 pounds of food produce about 1 pound of meat for people to eat. However, imagine the farmer gives a certain number of insects 10 pounds of food. Those 10 pounds of food produce 9 pounds of meat for people to eat!

    Eating more insects can also help people in poor areas. Many people can raise and sell insects, which can provide jobs and food.

    But insects will not replace animal meat very quickly. First, people in some countries would have to change how they think about eating insects. Many people in North America and Europe eat a lot of meat like beef and pork. But they do not traditionally eat insects. In fact, for many people in the west, eating insects sounds crazy. They believe insects are dirty and dangerous. Insects make them feel uncomfortable.

    Some people are trying to deal with this problem. For example, David George Gordon wrote a book named “The Eat-A-Bug Cookbook”, which tries to show people that insects can be delicious. Other insect experts travel around telling people about the benefits of eating insects. But they will still have a lot work to do.

    Dogs are our best friends. That's especially true after a disaster, such as an earthquake. When buildings fall down, search and rescue dogs help find trapped people. Dogs' amazing noses can pick up the smell of survivors. Now scientists have developed an electronic tool that does the same thing. It's taking smell detection(探测) to a whole new level.

    The new invention is a sort of electronic nose, which can detect extremely low levels of many compounds(化合物) from people's skin. This isn't the first time engineers have developed such an object. Earlier models, however, have been bulky and expensive. They could not detect low levels of target compounds either. The new one is inexpensive and small enough to fit inside hand-held equipment.

    The electronic nose can detect extremely slight smell of more than one compound at the same time. "Being able to do this, in such a small object, is the significant discovery," says Sotiris E. Pratsinis, Professor of Process Engineering&Materials Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His team tested it in special spaces. They were like the small spaces where people might be trapped. Chemicals given off by the volunteers built up inside. The electronic equipment detected those compounds at unbelievably low levels.

The results were good news for the research team. But they may be not for our four-legged friends, who could soon be out of a job. "Ideally, this technology could replace search and rescue dogs," Pratsinis says.

    Stephen Taylor, an electrical engineer, agrees that the new technology has some benefits over dogs. Still, he thinks it may be too soon to have our trusty friends retire. He suspects, "I foresee that such an object could add to the fine work done by the dogs." Taylor also pointed out some potential limitations of the new invention. "E-noses are useful, but can be very likely to be affected by unstable readings and interruption," he says.

    Recently, a 1935 letter in which Ernest Hemingway detailed his catch of a 500lb blue marlin(青枪鱼), an adventure that is believed to have partly inspired his novel The Old Man and the Sea, has been sold for$28, 000 (£22，000).

    The handwritten letter was sent by Hemingway on 8 May to the fishing editor of the Miami Herald，telling in great detail how the author and his friend Henry Strater battled to keep sharks away from the marlin after catching it off the Bahamian island of Bimini.

    Nate D Sanders, the auction(拍卖)company which sold the letter, said it documented for the first time in Hemingway's own words not only the size of the marlin, but also the attack by sharks，reflecting the plot of the novel.

    The company added that Hemingway's account of the marlin catch differed from other anecdotes(轶事)of it, one of which described Hemingway using a machine gun on the sharks, which is said to have attracted more sharks rather than frightened them away.

    The Old Man and the Sea was also inspired by an anecdote told by Hemingway's Cuban friend Carlos Gutierrez. In 1936, Hemingway wrote in a magazine that Carlos had told him about an old fisherman who caught a great marlin alone.

    Three years later, Hemingway told his editor Max Perkins that he was planning a short story about the old commercial fisherman who fought the swordfish all alone in his sailing boat. Instead, he ended up writing For Whom the Bell Tolls, not returning to the story about the old fisherman until January 1951. It won him the Pulitzer in 1953, and was specifically mentioned when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954.