I was eating breakfast at home in Hampshire in March this year, scrolling through social media on my phone, when a story caught my eye. It was about a nine-year-old dog, Charlie, dubbed (称为) the loneliest in Britain. He had been in a rescue centre in Somerset for more than 500 days.

For some reason, nobody wanted to adopt him. I clicked on the link and straight away these huge, sad eyes stared back at me. I was emotional. I turned to my husband, Sam, and said: "We’ve got to have him.” He read the article over my shoulder and felt exactly the same way. We wanted to give Charlie a happy home and a new lease of life.

Over the past few years we have tried to adopt a few different dogs, but we haven’ had any luck — we were never top of the list. Sam and I got used to filling in forms and not hearing anything. We’d almost given up hope.

But Charlie is an older dog and we felt we’d be suited — even older dogs have a lot of love left to offer. So we took our time with the application, sent photographs of our house and garden. We explained why Charlie would be happy with us, and then forgot all about it.

A few days later we received an email from Brent Knoll animal centre, saying we’d been shortlisted. We were thrilled. They asked us to visit Charlie to be interviewed and to see if he liked us.

When we arrived we were taken to the staff room. We didn’t know what to expect. We hadn’t been told much about Charlie’s circumstances, but as he had been given up for adoption and hadn’t been placed with a new owner for so long, we thought there might be issues. But the dog that bounded (蹦跳) in was full of joy and charisma.

He came straight over to us.

We feel proud that we’ve given Charlie a new home and a second chance.

4 . Farmers and hunters are calling for an extension (延期) to the Victorian duck hunting season, saying certain species are doing great harm to crops and waterways and need to be controlled. This season runs from 8:00 am today and will end in 20 days, down from the usual 12 weeks, with a bag limit of five listed game ducks per day.

Wayne Shields grows leafy greens on the Mornington Peninsula and he said the decision to reduce the duck hunting season would take its toll on farmers. “The wood ducks are the ones causing all of the damage; the black ducks are no problem around here. The wood ducks come in at night and they just clean me out completely and they’ve done it a number of times over a number of years,” he said.

Mr. Shields and his wife, Natasha, run Peninsula Fresh Organics and he said there was nothing he could do to stop the invasion (入侵). “I nearly went broke a few years ago. Back then I was planting 10,000 lettuce (生菜) a week and they would quite happily eat 10,000 lettuce a week.” Due to the damage caused by the wood ducks, Mr. Shields said there should be a year-round open season on the wood ducks and farmers should be allowed to shoot birds.

Professor Richard Kingsford, Director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at UNSW, said although the wood ducks ate crops, extending the duck season may not achieve what farmers wanted. He is calling on the government to invest more in research to address the threat certain species of waterbirds caused for some farmers, so other nonlethal (非致命的) ways to destroy the birds can be found.

6 . The Oxford dictionary defines the word “success” as “an accomplishment of an aim” and “attaining fame, social status (地位) or wealth”. Is this how we measure success in life? If you are rich, you’ll have people say “you have everything” or “you’re already successful in life” or a similar statement that means you have money and are well settled. There are many people who feel this way, while there are many who feel that success is not just having a lot of money.

The thing is, your concept of success is connected to your beliefs and values, and if your values tell you that success in life means money, then there is nothing that will change your mind. On the other hand, if your value system says that having money, stability, peace, happiness and contentment in your life are equally important, then you have an entirely different idea of success in life. There are a lot of people in this world that are wealthy. However, they are unhappy. There are a lot of people who do not make a lot of money, but are happy with what they have.

There are different kinds of people in the world, and each one has a different view on what being successful really is about. Here are a few common opinions about success.

●Success in life means having money.

●Success in life means winning games or competitions.

●Success in life means achieving your goal.

●Success in life means getting the job you wanted.

●Success in life means owning a nice house, a good car and having all the costly comforts life has to offer.

●Success in life means being famous.

●Success in life means having influence, power and control.

●Success in life means being free from insecurities, fears and wants.

The one thing that is common to the statements above is that they include accomplishment, attainment and fulfillment (履行). Another thing is that it’s something you yearn for or that gives you an unspoken advantage over others.

8 . Electronic timing is older than most people imagine and was used for the first time more than a hundred years ago at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Initially, the well-known company Ericsson was tasked with developing the technology, but it was the Swedish inventor Ragnar Carlstedt who eventually created the final product.

At the same time, Carlstedt introduced another invention: the finish line camera. The 1, 500-meter Olympic final was extremely close with Arnold Jackson from Great Britain winning by only 0.1 seconds. But it was impossible to decide on the silver medal since the two Americans Abel Kiviat and Norman Taber finished side by side. For the first time in history, the outcome of an Olympic event had to be settled based on a photo finish when Kiviat was judged to be “slightly ahead”.

The significance of these two inventions led a major newspaper to write: “Electronic timing at the Olympic Games. Simultaneous (同时发生的) timing and photography of contestants. A brilliant idea!”

The next step in timekeeping was the photo-finish camera with a time stamp imprinted on each picture, which was introduced at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. The 1948 Olympics saw the introduction of another invention with the continuous slit camera (狭缝摄影机), where a film behind a narrow slit rolls (滚动) with the same speed as the runners. Four years later the clocks were connected to the slit camera giving a solution of 1/100 s. But it was not until 1972 that official times were recorded to the 100th of a second.

The next big step in the eighties was to make the camera digital to speed up the feedback (反馈). But the idea behind the slit camera was kept and is still the basis of all timing systems for athletics used today. The only difference is that now there is a very narrow sensor array ( 阵列传感器) instead of the moving film.

After a century technology has reached the point where the whole timing system can be stored in a smartphone. So in a way, the circle was closed when SprintTimer, a sports timer and photo finish app, was developed in the same place and precisely a hundred years after Ragnar Carlstedt.

Mum was in a hurry as usual, but as she rushed them down the street, Magnus and Mina couldn’t resist peeking (偷看) through the window of the pet shop on the corner.

“Mum, are you SURE we can’t have a pet?” Mina asked. “NO! Daddy is allergic to cats and dogs!” said Mum.

Five minutes later, they were outside Magnus and Mina’s grandad’s place — an old repair garage on a road just off the high street. Grandad had retired, but he lived in the flat above and kept the workshop for his hobby: fixing up old cars!

Mum used her key to open the door and they went inside. An old car was in the middle of the floor. Then they heard a sound from somewhere under the car. “Who’s there? Is that you, M and M?” Grandad Eric’s head appeared from behind the car. He smiled when he saw them, and wiped his greasy (沾油污的) face with an old cloth. “Hello kids!”

Mum was moving towards the door of the garage. “Thank you for taking the kids for the weekend, Dad — something came up and I have to go away for work!” Grandad just smiled. “No problem at all, sweetie!”

Once Mum had left, Magnus and Mina had a good look around. Mina was excited. At school she had taken a technology and design course where they had learned how to design and build simple robots, and she wanted to make one of her own. She shouted over to Grandad, “Grandad, can we use some of these spare bits over here? I promise we won’t make a mess!” Grandad replied, “Of course, but be careful!”

“Do you have a plan, sister?” Magnus looked at his sister. “I sure do! Mum said we couldn’t get a pet, but she didn’t say that we couldn’t make one!” Magnus’s eyes widened. “A robot pet?” “Yeah, a dog-cat,” replied Mina. “Brilliant! You build it, and I can program it!” said Magnus.

Before long, Mina finished and Magnus and Mina admired the work.

Grandad Eric came over to see the dog-cat and collected the turned-off robot.