繽紛前沿

Cat Marks 15 Years as Mayor of Alaska Town

市長貓先生當(dāng)政15載

For 15 years—almost his entire life—Stubbs the cat has had a lock on the mayoralty of Talkeetna， Alaska. 15 years ago， the resident Lauri Stec， manager of a general store， saw a box of kittens and decided to adopt one. She named him Stubbs because he didn't have a tail and soon the whole town was in love with him. So smitten (著了迷的) were they with this kitten， in fact， that they wrote him in (在票選上加寫……) for mayor instead of deciding on one of the two lesser candidates. Mayor Stubbs has held his position ever since. \"He doesn't raise our taxes—we have no sales tax. He doesn't interfere with business. He's honest，\" said Stec. Not even the dogs seem to take issue (持異議) with their new boss. \"I've never seen a dog mess with him，\" a local business owner said.

貓先生當(dāng)家不管事，人民才能做主，難怪其深受市民愛戴。在任15載，真是可喜可賀呀！

2-Year-Old Kid Genius

兩歲天才兒童

上知天文下知地理

The South Yorkshire kid genius， Sherwyn Sarabi， is so clever that he can identify every single country in the world and their flags. He loves to learn and was delighted when his parents bought him an encyclopedia. He can also read up to 500 words， describe all major body organs and their functions， count to 200， identify shapes and explain volcanoes and shooting stars (流星). Mrs. Sarabi said， \"He just loves to learn—he recently woke me up at 3 am telling me all about Sir Isaac Newton and how he discovered gravity. We can't go anywhere with him without him asking 'Why? Why? Why?' about things going on around him.\" The gifted youngster has been offered a scholarship to a top school—even though he isn't due to start school for another two years.

天賦異稟我們羨慕不來，但刨根問底的好學(xué)精神卻還是可以學(xué)學(xué)哦。

Britain Ranked Eighth Laziest Countries in the World

最不愛運(yùn)動(dòng)國家，英國位居第八

Scientific journal The Lancet (《柳葉刀》) has carried out a global study， including results from 122 countries， to establish which nations are the laziest. The UK， it found was one of the most inactive countries， with a staggering (令人吃驚的) 63.3% of the population being inactive. It was ranked eighth laziest country in the world. The results of the study， the researchers said， are released to help spur (激勵(lì)) lazy members of the public to choose to lead more active lives.

雖未列居榜首，不過第八名的排名還是忍不住讓人浮想聯(lián)翩：難道是因?yàn)橛鴩癫粣圻\(yùn)動(dòng)，才讓剛剛過去的倫敦奧運(yùn)會(huì)狀況百出嗎？