2 . An American cancer survivor has become the first person to swim across the English Channel four times on end.

Sarah Thomas, a 37-year-old woman, completed the great achievement on Tuesday after over54 hours of swimming. Her record-breaking achievement comes just a year after she completed treatment for breast cancer.

In a video on Facebook, a small group of people could be seen cheering on the swimmer from Colorado as she made her final arrival to beach at Dover. Supporters congratulated Ms. Thomas on her non-stop swim, handing her chocolate and other gifts. In the video, Ms. Thomas admitted to feeling “a little sick" but said she had been encouraged to keep going by her husband and her team.

Before the start of her challenge, Ms. Thomas wrote that she was “fearful” and admitted she was "going to need some luck".

In a Facebook post made on Saturday, she dedicated the swim "to all the survivors out there", adding: "This is for those of us who have wondered hopelessly about what comes next, and have overcome the pain bravely."

After her swim, Ms. Thomas said. "I'm really tired and I'm losing my voice from all the salt water." Asked what the worst part of her challenge was, she said, “probably dealing with the salt water over two days, it really hurts your throat, your mouth and your tongue." She praised her support team for helping her stay strong, adding that she was very prepared for the weather, currents and cold water. "I feel just mostly stunned right now. I just can't believe that we did it.”

3 . Jeremy Savage, aged 17, and Ian Marshall, aged 16, went to the Rocky Mountains with their parents for the weekend. On Saturday morning, the two boys decided to climb Cathedral Mountain by themselves while their parents relaxed at the campsite. After three hours, they reached the top with no problems.

However, trouble began when they started the climb down the mountain. On one very dangerous part of the path, Ian fell three metres off the side of the path. Jeremy was able to climb down to where Ian was. Ian was badly injured and could not move. Jeremy had to decide what to do. He needed help, but he did not want to leave his friend. He used water from his own bottle to clean the dirt and blood from Ian’s face and hands. He tried to help Ian stand up, but Ian’s right leg was hurting too much. They had to wait and hope that someone would come and help them.

When the boys did not return to the campsite that evening, their parents became very worried. They got in touch with park workers and began searching for the boys. Soon more than 20 people were looking for the boys.

As night fell, the boys were still missing. While they waited for help to arrive, Jeremy gave Ian his food and water and he let Ian lie on his jacket so he would be more comfortable. As the evening grew darker, Ian told Jeremy to leave him and go back to their parents, but he still did not leave. Jeremy thought it was too dangerous for Ian to be alone. The night was cold and windy, and Jeremy used his jacket and an extra shirt to keep Ian warm.

At sunrise, Jeremy decided that the only way to help his friend was to carry him. So, they started the long climb back to their parents. Sometimes Jeremy carried Ian on his hack. Sometimes he carried him in his arms. Finally, after four hours, they arrived at the campsite where their parents were waiting. “I will always remember what Jeremy did for me,” said Ian. “He saved my life. That is the greatest thing that a person can do for his friend.”

4 . Richard Holmes, a British author and academic, is something of a Romantic, famous for biographies of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In his last book, "The Age of Wonder"， he wrote about science and Romanticism and their common commitment to discovery. In his new book, "Falling Upwards"， he combines the two again to tell the stories of Europe's early balloonists (气球飞行者).

Mr Holmes's love of balloons was aroused at a village festival and his enthusiasm is one of the book's many pleasures. He refers to the cheerful tone used in many first-hand ballooning stories, and applies it in this second-hand account. He describes men and women wrapped up in fur coats under their hydrogen-filled balloons, enjoying cold chicken and champagne and looking back to earth to see mankind "for what it really is."

Mr Holmes makes much of the strange side of ballooning, but the book is at its best when examining its more serious applications. In the American civil war, for example, both North and South put observers in balloons to spy on enemy movements. And during the Prussian attack on Paris in 1870-71， balloonists managed to fly out of the city to communicate with the French government in exile (流亡) in Tours.

"Falling Upwards" contains much of the historian's writing characteristics, such as footnotes and bibliography (文献书目)， but its epilogue (后记) refers modestly to what has gone before as "a series of true balloon stories". It does touch on the more technical aspects of ballooning, and says little about the French Montgolfier brothers who are credited as its inventors. That though seems a small price to pay for such a spirited work. Mr Holmes's tale ends at the start of the 20th century when the business of flight was being handed over to the airship and the airplane.

5 . When a precious baby cow ended up in this family after losing its mom, little Kinley Gray took her in with open arms.

“They are just so cute. My heart cannot even contain in all of that love,” Lacey Gray, Kinley’s mom said.

Lacey is a professional photographer from Michigan City, Mississippi. She had reached out to her husband’s uncle, who owns cows, to see if she could borrow a calf for a photo shoot she was hoping to do.

Initially, her husband’s uncle thought she could just borrow a calf without the mom. She hadn’t thought about that aspect, but understood, and moved on.

But the next morning she got a phone call from him and he was so serious. He said, “Do you really want a calf? The mama fell and she is not going to get up. She will die from this. I'm calling to see if you want this baby, but you have to feed it several times a day.

Without hesitation, Lacey agreed, not having a clue about what she was getting herself into with raising a cow, let alone a 3-day-old calf that had just lost her mom.

“We brought her inside the first night, she slept in the laundry room,” said Lacey. “But Kinley ran in there and was kissing all over her. Kinley read her books and when it was time to walk her, Kinley would walk her all over the yard. Kinley wants to feed her all by herself. It’s really sweet.

Now, just two weeks later, the precious pair is completely inseparable.

“I was almost in tears, shooting the two of them together,” Lacey said. “She just has a connection with her. She just knows that’s her family. This is just so crazy and so sweet. I just hope I can watch them grow all through Kinley’s childhood.”

6 . It was my mother who first thought of sending me to school．Of course I was of the school going age．When my mother expressed it，I thought that she was a heartless woman．

My mind was disturbed at first．Although I had heard about school，I had not visited it earlier．My father took me to school which was an unknown place for me．Teachers and students were strangers to me．It was a big building with a wide yard．As a small child I could not feel frightened at the sight of the building．The atmosphere of the school was calm and quiet．I was not used to such atmosphere earlier．

It was an old and famous school in our district．My father was student there in his childhood and youth．The headmaster was well known to my father and greeted him with a smile．My father introduced me to the headmaster and requested him to admit me to the school．Then I was enrolled as a student．My father left me in the classroom and went away．I was about to cry．

However，the kind behavior of the headmaster and the class teacher calmed me．The class teacher asked my name and where I lived．He patted me on the back．I replied some of his questions quickly．He became pleased．Other students looked at me curiously．At first，I was not able to understand why there were so many teachers．The bell rang．The class teacher left our class and another teacher came．Then the bell rang again．

7 . Living with your parents has its advantages… at least when it comes to raising your kids—their grandkids. Because two new studies add to the evidence that grandmothers can improve the survival of grandchildren. That is, unless Grandma’s too old or lives too far away.

Humans are unusual in that women live long past the age at which they stop having babies. “We don’t really see that in nature. Most of the organisms (生物) will reproduce up to their very last moment,” says Patrick Bergeron, a teacher at Bishop’s University in Quebec. This increase in post-reproductive longevity (寿命) is often explained by the so-called “grandmother effect (效应)”.

To explore the “grandmother effect”, Bergeron and his researchers examined nearly 200 years’ worth of French-Canadian population records from the 17th and 18th centuries. At the time, life was hard. In some years, a third of the kids were not even making it to one year of age. But the researchers found that having a grandmother still alive was an advantage. Families with grandmothers alive were larger by about two and the survival of these grandchildren to age 15 was much improved.

This good effect was only seen when the grandmothers lived nearby, which suggests that grandmothers help by playing an active role in their grandchildren’s lives.

Unluckily, that role is harder for them to achieve as they get older, which brings us to the second study. Researchers at the University of Turku in Finland used church records from the 18th and 19th centuries. They found that the advantages connected with having a grandmother on hand depended on her age. Once grandmothers hit 75, the grandchild survival advantages disappeared. In other words, it was better for grandchildren to have no living grandmother at all than it was to live with an old one or one that was in poor health. So a healthy grandma helps make for a healthy grandchild

8 . Jade Stephenson has always loved her grandmother’s wedding dress (结婚礼服). So much so that once, Stephenson even asked her grandmother to keep hold of it so she could wear it for a special day. And when she realized her 80-year-old grandma wouldn’t be able to travel to attend her graduation at Liverpool Hope University, Stephenson knew the time had come.

“I tried the dress on several years ago, so I knew what it looked like when I put on the dress and her face then lit up,” she said. “So I knew asking her if I could wear it for graduation would make her smile. Also, my grandfather died in 2009 and to me, it felt like part of him was there with me on such a special day.”

Stephenson sported the dress under her cap and her clothes last week, at the ceremony (典礼) to collect her teaching degree at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King.

Nora, her grandmother, lives in Carlisle, more than 130 miles from Liverpool. She was very happy when she saw the pictures of her granddaughter, and praised that she chose that dress for her special day.

“My grandma and I are very close. I speak to her when I can and whenever I’m home I catch up with her. I see a lot of my own characters in her. I think we have quite a lot in common,” Stephenson said. “I’ve always loved my grandma’s dress. Although it’s 32 years old, it’s fit for me.”

Stephenson said several people praised her for her choice for the ceremony. “I think people thought it was quite heart-warming. Considering how old it is, the dress is in really good condition. My grandmother has looked after it very well.”

9 . Friendships can be sources of joy and sources of sorrow. There isn’t exactly a rule book on what to do when things get tense or bad.    1    .

Broken promises

Jan Yager, a specialist in this field often hears from people who’ve been hurt by a friend’s broken promise. Dr. Yager likes to point out we don’t have formal contracts with friends where we’ve agreed to never disappoint each other. Therefore if you bring a fantasy about what the ideal friend will do in any situation to a relationship,     2    .

When things feel unbalanced

Maybe you feel like you’re always sharing about your life, but your friend doesn’t open up about hers. It’s common for relationships to experience periods where things are unbalanced. Maybe one friend is going through a breakup and needs extra support. It’s also possible another friend simply has more to discuss at any given time.     3    .

    4    

It doesn’t feel great when you check Facebook Monday morning to find out that your friends went on a weekend getaway without you. Scott Christnelly, another specialist, says, “I encourage clients to express their feelings about it but also not to jump to conclusions.” Then find someone else to talk to — maybe, a family member, or a close friend (not the one who went on the trip) — to explain how you feel. If you do make conversations,     5    .

10 . Like Indiana Jones (a fictional character), who undertakes daring adventures in his spare time, my father is a businessman by day and a thrill-seeker by night.

His enthusiasm rubbed off on me, and I have been lucky to be his companion on many adventures. We started out by riding America’s fastest, most twisted roller coasters. After that a whitewater rafting trip through the Grand Canyon（峡谷）on the Colorado River started our search for other extreme thrills across the globe.

Amazing thrills awaited us at every corner of the world. Skydiving was especially thrilling when performed from a helicopter over the breathtaking Swiss Alps. We have bungee jumped from the world’s highest platform, Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa. Most recently, in Interlaken, Switzerland, we attempted canyoning（溪降运动）.

Anyone who loves a challenging thrill should try canyoning. Our adventure began with a 90-foot rope down a canyon wall into a rushing ice-cold river. Then we crossed the bone-chilling water toward the mouth of the river, our final destination, where the reward for the journey would be a whole view of the beautiful Interlaken basin. We slid over slippery rocks at one moment, jumped from waterfalls and swam through underwater tunnels the next. Back and forth we alternated, climbing rope ladders before going back into the fresh mountain water. Certainly, danger was waiting for us in each of these activities, but that very danger provided the rush. Canyoning was indeed one thrill after another, from beginning to end.

While canyoning is possible only in certain places, thrills and adventure can be found anywhere. Our beginnings in the U.S. showed us just that. We continue to seek the big thrills, but in doing so, we have learned to seek lesser excitement in daily life as well. After all, we can’t go canyoning every day, and small thrills are better than none for us thrill-seekers.