【推荐1】Switzerland(瑞士)is famous for its watches. However, this country didn’t invent the watch. It was the British who did it. Here is a story of how the watch was brought to Switzerland.

Many years ago, an Englishman was traveling to Italy. On his way he stopped in a small town in South Switzerland. This Englishman traveled in a carriage (马车) inside which there was a carriage watch. This was the earliest kind of watch. A native (本地的) shop assistant happened to see the watch. He wondered what it was and asked the Englishman about it, “It is a carriage watch,” said the man. “This machine tells the time but now it isn’t working.”

At once the shop assistant offered to try to repair it. So the traveler handed him the watch. The assistant was a very wise man. So it was not surprising that he managed to repair it. He even remembered how it was made. As soon as the traveler had gone on his journey, he made a watch exactly of the same kind.

Thus the watch-making was started in Switzerland. Today Swiss (瑞士的) watches are sold in stores all over the world.

【推荐3】Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are compounds(化合物;复合物) that are set to solve some tough challenges: producing water in the desert, removing greenhouse gases from the air and storing dangerous gases more safely.

The Arizona desert is really dry. Anyone stuck in it without water would die from dehydration (脱水) within three days unless he had one of Omar Yaghi's next generation water harvesters, who is a chemist at the University of Califormnia, Berkeley. Although daytime wetness is only about 10 percent, this rises to 40 percent at night, which means there's enough water in the atmosphere to support life-if it can be transformed into liquid form.

That's exactly what Yaghi's invention does. It's about the size of a small microwave oven, designed to suck the water from the air at night and turn it into drinking water the next day using only the heat of the sun as its power source. What makes it work is a special material called a MOF, which at normal temperatures attracts water molecules (分子) onto the surface of is internal small holes. Warm-it up and get the water, each harvest producing one-third of a cup of pure drinking water.“A device the size of a washing machine could produce enough water for the basic needs of a household," says Yaghi.

These crystalline (结晶的) groups of metals linked by organic molecules can be made into materials with an extremely high absorption ability, attracting specific molecules to their surfaces.       In this way, MOFs cling to a variety of liquids and gases.

MOFs work thanks to their distinctive structure. In fact, one MOF the size of a sugar cube has so many small holes that they would cover an area as large as six football fields. MOFs are also extremely stable, light and have many different uses: their molecular structure can be varied to attract specific molecules. Adding a small amount of heat or pressure causes the MOF to give what it's holding. More than 70,000 different MOFs have been produced to date for various applications.

【推荐1】I was in Walt Disney World with my son, Daniel, who is autistic (患自闭症的), and at that time he was 7 years old. My wife and our three other sons were with us too. He was having one of his melt down screaming tantrums (发怒), only God knows why. So my wife and I decided I would take the bus back to the hotel, and she would stay in the park with the other three children.

After we got on the bus, the screaming continued. My son looks “normal”. To the many people on the bus, he appeared to just be a kid screaming --- or a spoiled child who did not get his special toy that day. It did not take long --- less than a minute --- before the screaming brought about stares, then glares from the other passengers.

To my shame, I found myself losing my temper at my own son. I was embarrassed, angry, and frustrated, and felt cheated by God for not being able to enjoy a normal vacation with my family because of him. I started to wonder what life would be like without having to deal with this cross (痛苦).

And just as the reactions of the other passengers were becoming most intense, a man seated just in front of me turned around to face me. I cheered myself up for his advice on how to raise a well-behaved child.

He said calmly, “Is he alright?” I said, “He’s autistic.” Then the man said , “It's alright.” And he smiled. That’s all.

And suddenly, all the anger building up inside me was gone. I almost wept for shame at how I had felt a moment before. It no longer mattered what the other people thought. My son was my gift from God.

I will never forget that man, nor his small, simple act of kindness and understanding. I truly believe he was my son’s guardian angel that day maybe mine too.

【推荐2】After a serious disease Raghu Makwana lost his legs. He had to walk with the support of his hands. A long time back, a few friends took a walk on the street with the inspiration to do a small act of kindness. One of his kind behavior is the Tulsi Project. Whenever he learns of a family with some arguments or even violent abuse（辱骂）, Raghu courageously walks in to spread good cheer and gifts them a tulsi plant. Most of these are complete strangers. Sometimes he’ll recite prayer; sometimes he’ll share stories. Meanwhile, Ragbu gave birth to one of his dreams. When he “walked” on the streets, he often felt deeply moved by others on the streets who had even less than him.

He made a promise to himself that he would return to serve them one day, and that day had arrived for him. He put together a team of five （one of whom is blind）, who would make small sacrifices（牺牲） in their own lives to support delivery of hand-cooked meals for some of the absolutely ignored people on the streets. They named it “Tyaag Nu Tiffin（Food of Sacrifice）”.

Every day at 12:30 pm and at 7:30 pm, Raghu starts off on his hand tricycle to deliver the food. It’s the same food he himself eats, but he won’t eat until he has finished his round of offerings.

In a recent feature in The Times of India, Raghu notes, “I’m not doing anything great. I’m not on a mission（使命） to change the world. People around me have been very kind to me in my struggle to survive. Now it is my turn to repay the kindness by helping other needy human beings.”

【推荐3】When I was at university, I studied very hard. But a lot of my friends did very little work. Some did just enough to pass exams. Others didn't do quite enough. Fred Baines was one of them. He spent more time drinking in the Students' Union than working in the library.

Once at the end of the term, we had to take an important test in chemistry. The test had a hundred questions. In my room the night before the test, Fred was watching TV. Fred usually worried a lot the night before a test. But on that night he looked perfectly calm. Then he told me of his plan. "It's very simple. There are a hundred questions and I have to get fifty correct to pass the test. I’ll take a coin into the examination room. I haven't studied a chemistry book for months, so I’ll just toss the coin. That way, I'm sure I'll get half the questions right. "

The next day, Fred came happily into the exam room. As he sat tossing a coin for half an hour he marked down his answers. Then he left, half an hour before the rest of us.

The next day, he saw the chemistry professor in the corridor (走廊). "Oh, good, "he said, "Have you got the result of the test?" The professor looked at him and smiled, "Ah, it's you, Baines. Just a minute. "Then he reached into his pocket and took out a coin. He threw it into the air, caught it in his hand and looked at it.

"I’m terribly sorry, Baines, " he said, "You failed!"