【推荐3】Edinburgh Zoo makes plans to bring a pair of giant pandas from China to Scotland. Representatives from Edinburgh Zoo have recently returned from China, where they signed a letter of intent making a promise to bring giant pandas to the zoo.

It has been suggested that the breeding pair should be rented to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) for 10 years and it is hoped they would give birth to babies during that time. Edinburgh Zoo would be the eighth zoo in the West to care for the species if the project goes ahead.

Zoo chiefs said that looking after the endangered animals could benefit conservation. David Windmill, chief of RZSS, said, “It is an opportunity to work on a global level with other conservationists to gain a better understanding of the giant panda, the threats they face, and what we can do to ensure their survival.”

At present, there are currently only around 1,500 giant pandas in the wild. RZSS has been working on the project for almost a year, and hopes to have giant pandas at Edinburgh Zoo by 2011, the year of the society’s centenary.

Mr. Windmill said that the project has received strong support from the UK and Scottish Governments and that this must continue if the zoo is to reach an agreement with the Chinese. As part of the proposed agreement with the Chinese government, Edinburgh Zoo will cooperate on research projects benefiting conservation in the wild.

RZSS will also provide considerable money to support giant panda conservation projects in the wild. Giant pandas live in a few mountain ranges in central China and feed almost wholly on bamboo, which makes up 99% of the their diet.

【推荐1】There is an English saying that goes, “He who laughs last laughs best.” High School Musical star Zac Efron is laughing a lot these days.

    1     Because he was always the smallest in his class and was laughed at because he had a big space between his teeth. In sixth grade, Efron’s basketball team wanted to win the championship. In overtime, with three seconds left, he grabbed the ball but passed it to the wrong team!     2    

    3     Now at 21, Efron is one of People Magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People, graces (荣登) the cover of Entertainment Weekly, Hollywood’s most influential magazine, and is traveling the world promoting the third High School Musical film. Director Adam Shankman described Efron as “arguably the biggest teen star in America right now”. Simply google “Zac Efron”, and you get more than 14 million responses. Yes, it seems Efron has a lot to smile about these days.

Efron was born and raised in California.     4     According to Efron, “He would flip out (发疯) if he got a B and not an A in school, and he was a class clown.” It was his father who encouraged him to act.     5     He also took singing lessons. He graduated from high school in 2006 and was accepted at the University of Southern California to study film. But he put it off—why not study movies when you can star in them? Efron has risen all the way to the top of the movie business. And he can now laugh all the way to the bank.

【推荐2】Jamie Whitmore, 43, isn’t used to slowing down. The professional athlete who became a gold medalist in the Olympics for the disabled has never met a challenge she couldn’t overcome, whether it was a mountain bike race or cancer.

One morning in 2007, Whitmore found her le g muscles were tight when going for a jog. Thinking she’d pushed herself too hard in the last race, she ignored the pain. Later at a sports camp in Arizona, she realized something was wrong. “Once I got on my bike I was so painful that it was hard to lift my legs. I flew back home to go to hospital.” What doctors found shocked them all: Whitmore had a soft tissue tumour (肿瘤) that started in the bone, and the tumour wrapped around her nerves of waist, touching several vital organs.

After the surgery, Whitmore had to learn to walk again with the help of a physical doctor. She also started radiation treatment, but four months later, doc-tors had worse news: A scan showed the cancer was back. “This time it was more aggressive. Doctors took the rest of my nerves in the waist, and removed some tumours from my tail bone.” Whitmore developed sepsis (败血症) from the surgery and endured a two-month recovery. “My scans were coming back, showing I was clear of cancer, but now I had all of these other complications (并发症).”

Today, Whitmore is a mother and cancer-free. She has won a gold medal in the Paralympics, and has set two world records. Whitmore has some advice for others with limitations: “Never let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do. You have to find out yourself. Some doctors told me I would never ride anything more than a stationary bike. And yet I rode my mountain bike 104 miles climbing from 9,000 feet to 14,000feet. You just can’t give up.”

【推荐3】9 days after he was born, Zig Ziglar stopped breathing. Sadly, the doctor laid the lifeless body on the bed and then his grandmother held his body close and began whispering in his ear. Surprisingly, he came back to life in her arms.

He was 5 when his father died and 2 days later, his baby sister died too. He was raised the 10th out of 12 children by his widowed mother during The Great Depression. At 7 he was already helping to support his family by selling their vegetables and milk. When he was 20, he married a woman called Jean. In order to support his new family, he quit school and sold pots and pans.

Life as a salesman was unpredictable and so for years, the couple struggled financially. Sometimes he could only afford a few gallons of gas, so wherever his car rolled to a stop was where he would start working door-to-door. But he maintained a positive attitude about everything.

Refusing to accept defeat, he began travelling to churches, schools and clubs, sharing lessons about the power of positive thinking. When the company he worked for broke up, he turned to full-time motivational speaking, helping countless people achieve their dreams.

By 1975 he had written See you at the top, a book of his most inspiring thoughts and stories. It was rejected by 30 different publishers before it was finally printed. It has now sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.

Zig Ziglar passed away in 2012, two days after celebrating his 66th wedding anniversary. In his 30 books that have been translated into more than 36 languages, his optimism an enthusiasm have impacted more than 250 million people around the world and continues to inspire more every day.