3 . A one-armed 13-year-old basketball player in a video moves China. He is Zhang Jiacheng, from Guangdong Province. In the video, facing a taller, stronger, and older opponent (对手), he isn't afraid at all.

Attracted by his good skills in the video, many people even fail to know that Zhang Jiacheng has only one arm. Although the young boy lost one of his arms in an accident, he became crazy about playing basketball at 12. "Work hard or just give up," he always says. Thus, he spent all of his free time on it without considering his body condition.

People's attention has encouraged him to work harder towards his goal — to become a top basketball player. "I just keep practising every day to improve myself whether at home or in the playground, he says, "My biggest challenge is to control the ball much better." After only a year of hard practising, Zhang Jiacheng has improved his skills greatly. Through patience, confidence and determination, the young basketball player is getting closer to his life goal.

His effort and courage finally caught the attention of Yi Jianlian, a Chinese professional (MR 业的)basketball player, who shared the video on his own Weibo.

5 . It sounds like something out of Dr. Seuss, but artist Sam Van Aken is developing a tree that blooms(开花)in pink, purple and red in the spring-and that is capable of bearing 40 different kinds of fruit.

No, it's not genetic engineering. Van Aken, an associate professor in Syracuse University's art department, used an age-old technique called grafting(嫁接)to attach branches from 40 different kinds of stone fruit onto a single tree. But during the process of creation, he soon discovered that it was actually pretty hard to find so many distinct varieties of stone fruit in New York. "I realized the extend which we've created these massive monocultures(单种作物)." Most grocery stores and markets only sell a few varieties-and most of them are grown in California.

Van Aken believes our national security is dependent upon our fond security. Now that we have created these monocultures that only grow a few varieties of each crop, if something happens to just one of those varieties, it can have a dramatic impact upon our food supply. And the key to maintaining our food security is preserving our biodiversity.

100 years ago, there were far more varieties of fruit growing in the backyards of the Americans. Today, only a small part of those remain, and what is left is threatened by industrialization of agriculture, disease and climate change. Most of those threatened varieties were introduced to the US by immigrants. They cared for and cultivated them, and valued them so much that they saw them as a connection to their home. "More than just food, embedded in these fruit is our culture…In many ways these fruit is our story. And I was fortunate enough to learn about it through an artwork that I created entitled the "Tree of 40 Fruit'," Van Aken says.

6 . The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth largest lake. Filled with salt water and at least 24 species of fish, the Aral Sea supported a large fishing industry. In the 1960s, water from the Aral Sea started to be used to irrigate dry fields to produce cotton. Three quarters of the water was pumped from the sea over the next two decades, leaving behind a salt-covered desert. The disappearing Aral Sea split into two separate lakes-the small Northern Sea and a much larger body of water to the south.

By that time, most fish in the Aral Sea were gone. Salty irrigation water soon damaged the soil in the cotton fields, so huge amounts of chemical pesticides(杀虫剂)and fertilizers were used trying to keep the fields productive, which could be found in the groundwater and drinking water although must cotton fields disappeared, And the wind picked up salt from the dried-up lake and carried it to farmland far from the Aral. Besides, people who lived in the area experienced many health problems.

Today, however, there is some hope for the region. In the late 1990s, people in Kazakhstan used sand and soil to build a dam that would prevent the Syr Dar'ya river water that fed the lake from flowing, out of the lake. They also decided to take less water from the river for irrigation. The water level began to rise, and places that had been completely dry for decades began to show signs of life. People who lived nearby began to believe that the Aral Sea might return.

A permanent dam, the Kok-aral dam, was completed in August 2005. By April 2006, the water level had already risen three meters, and the water was less salty. The northern part of the Aral Sea may soon be a much healthier place to live for both fish and people.

7 . The best and most-commonly used sources for the pills we have are oily fish like salmon（畦）， mackerel and sardines. Many environmentalists fear that some species are being over fished for this purpose. We may have an endless voracity for fish oil, but we don't have an endless supply of fish.

Menhaden, which is described as “a big-headed, smelly, foot-long fish" , is in great danger. Although prized for dinner in the 18th century, the species has become the unknown victim of the fish oil business ₉ which presents us with potential sea fish. Menhaden filter-feed almost entirely on algae （海藻）and is especially good at changing it into-3 fatty acids, which make them a good target for fish oil companies.

One particular company, Protein of Houston, has been fishing 90 percent of the country' s menhaden. It's become such a big problem that 13 of the 15 Atlantic states have banned the company * s boats from their waters. Yet the company is still allowed to fish in North Carolina and Virginia, as well as federal waters; the company * s efforts result in the removing of half a billion menhaden every year.

Aside from running out a public natural resource for a company，s private profit, the damage to the ecosystem is cause for alarm. The muddy brown color of the Long Island Sound is the direct result of lacking water nitration （过滤）一a job that was once done by menhaden.

Menhaden keep the ocean waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts clean. A menhaden filters four to six gallons of water of algae in a minute, which prevents underwater dead zones.

Measures should be taken to avoid the over fished situation. Plant seeds such as flax seed, chiaseeds, hemp seeds, and sesame seeds — and particularly their oils — are good vegetarian sources of omega-3 fatty acids, although the mix of specific acids is different from which one can get with fish.

8 . People of all cultures have special stories they pass down. Aboriginal (土著的) Australians have a long history of telling stories. They call it “Dreaming”. Many Dreaming stories are thousands of years old.

Europeans came to Australia in 1788. At that time, Aboriginal people had been there for 60,000 years. There were 270 tribes (部落), and each one spoke a different language. Only tribal members were allowed to take part in Dreaming. If they drew symbols during Dreaming, tribal members had to erase them. Most people drew these symbols in the dirt. That way, they could erase them after Dreaming.

When Europeans moved into Australia, they wanted the Aboriginal people to become more like them. In 1959, they built a town called Papunya. They asked Aboriginal tribes to move there. In Papunya, the Europeans hoped the Aboriginal people would become part of European culture. However, Aboriginal people wanted to hold on to their own cultures. That was difficult in Papunya. The tribes were also living with each other for the first time. Slowly, parts of each tribe’s culture began to die out. Today, only 18 of the 270 languages remain strong.

Still, Aboriginal people held on to their Dreaming stories. In 1971, a group of students in Papunya shared their stories with each other during an art class. Their teacher noticed what they were doing. He wanted them to use the symbols in their artwork.

However, they wanted to protect their tradition. To do so, they hid their Dreaming symbols in the dots of each painting. That way, only other people from their tribe could truly understand the message of the painting. Soon, the practice of Aboriginal dot painting (点画) became widespread. Aboriginal dot paintings can’t be fully understood by outsiders. However, many still enjoy the paintings as art. Dot painting became popular in the late 20th century. Today, Aboriginal artists continue to conceal their Dreaming symbols.

9 . What limits you from hiking more often? Many complain that they don't have a suitable partner to go with. Why not take a look at the great hiking clubs across Canada?

• Yukon Outdoors Club

Website: yukonoutdoorsclub.ca

Membership cost: $10 for a single membership; $15 for a family membership

Description: The club arranges day hikes, backpacking trips, canoe trips, mountain biking, cross-country skiing trips, snowshoeing trips and various workshops for members to gain new skills and valuable information.

• UBC Varsity Outdoor Club

Website: ubc-voc.com

Membership cost: Students $40； non-UBC students $60

Description: The UBC Varsity Outdoor Club is a social group that hikes, mountaineers, rock climbs and ice climbs. Travel and outdoor-minded UBC students and non-students are welcome to join. The UBC VOC has also constructed a few backcountry cottages in the Coast Mountains.

• Pender Harbor Hiking Group

Website: penderharbourhiking.weebly. Com

Membership cost: Free.

Description: The Pender Harbor Hiking Group offers hikes scheduled two months in advance, so get on the mailing list or check the website regularly to find a hike that's right for you! Hikes are usually one and a half to two hours long, but some full-day hikes are scheduled, depending on members, interest.

• Vernon Outdoors Club

Website: vernonoutdoorsclub. Org

Membership cost: A single membership is $25, and students pay $10, Children are free.

Description: Boasting a membership of close to 200 people, the Vernon Outdoors Club is an active group that enjoys hiking and cycling. The group organizes a Tuesday Rambles event each week and also hosts multi-day trips.

10 . “Join our exciting wildlife watching tours and experience the holiday of a lifetime!” Eco-wildlife tours like this are becoming more and more popular with tourists. The opportunity to see whales and dolphins swimming in their natural habitat is so much better than seeing these great mammals in zoos and aquariums. As your boat edges out into the blue water, a group of dolphins come to greet you and swim around the boat, jumping playfully around you. In some places, tour companies even encourage tourists to go swimming with the dolphins. These intelligent mammals seem to enjoy our company and interact with us. But is it possible that this kind of human activity putting their survival at risk?

A recent study has shown that the behavior of whales and dolphins changes greatly when they are close to boats. Interpreting the boats as a possible danger, they start to breathe more to breathe more quickly. The boats drive them away from the places where they feed and interrupt their routine of resting and taking care of their young. All of these factors could have a very negative effect on their general health. Another factor that should be taken into account is the effect of human attention on the animals. As they become more used to interacting with humans, they become less afraid of them. There have been several cases of tour boats running into dolphins or whales and causing their deaths. As dolphins live within close communities, events like these cause a lot of stress.

Perhaps the best way to protect these animals is to reduce our interaction with them. We could do by keeping a minimum distance between the animals and the boats, and by limiting the number of boats out on the water at one time. Most importantly, instead of interrupting these animals’ routines, we should try to adapt to them. In this way, we could learn to exist in harmony with these wild animals and ensure our continued co-existence on the planet that we shall share.