繽紛前沿

98-year-old First-time Author Who Overcame Illiteracy at 91

勵志老爺爺：91歲開始識字，98歲竟已出書

Captain James Arruda Henry， a 98-year-old retired lobsterman (捕龍蝦的漁夫)， has become a first-time author， having written and published his autobiography after learning to read at the incredible age of 91. And his book \"In a Fisherman's Language\" even has Hollywood calling.

As reported， Mr. Henry spent most of his life without even his closest family members suspecting he was illiterate (文盲). Forced to quit school in the third grade to take odd (不固定的) jobs， he kept the secret close to his chest. After hearing about George Dawson， a son of slaves who learned to read at age 98 and went on to write a book of his own， entitled \"Life Is So Good\" at age 101， Mr. Henry took up reading. \"I said if he can do it， I'm gonna try.\"

這再次印證了一句話：“It's never too late to learn.”

The Real Smurf Village

現實版的藍精靈村

Juzcar is a tiny village that used to be white. Then in June of 2011， folks from Sony Pictures picked this little town as the venue for the movie， Smurfs 3D， and asked to paint the entire town a Smurf Blue!

The villagers agreed on the condition that Sony would turn all the buildings back to their original white in that September. However， while September is long gone， Juzcar still remains blue， and it's not because Sony Corp. reneged (食言) on their promise， but because the villagers are not sure they want to go back to the same boring look. The reluctance is thanks to the fact that its fame as the world's First Smurf Village has turned this once unknown town into a tourist mecca (圣地).

村民們已經親切地稱呼村長為Papa Smurf (藍爸爸)，并用smurfantastic (如藍精靈般奇妙的)來描述目前的生活，看來藍精靈村暫時不會恢復到單調的白色了。真希望有機會能去那里玩。

Banana Peels—The New Water Purifier?

香蕉皮——新型水凈化劑？

While the banana peel has a reputation of just being a slippery hazard， it is actually useful for many things—ranging from use as a fertilizer to curing warts (疣，一種皮膚病) and even， polishing shoes and silver. Now it turns out that it can even help remove heavy metals from water.

The discovery was made by Brazilian environmental scientist and banana lover Gustavo Castro. Not only did the banana peels perform better than existing purifiers like silica and carbon， but they could also be reused 11 times before they stopped working! In addition to that， they are low cost， can easily be found all over the world， and leave behind no chemical residue (殘渣).

據悉，這并不是首次發現植物和果蔬可用來凈化水資源，但香蕉皮卻有一個最大的優勢：真正無任何化學殘留物，而且還能反復利用。下次吃完香蕉可不要再亂扔香蕉皮了哦。