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Firefighters are often asked to speak to school and community groups about the importance of fire safety, particularly fire prevention and detection. Because smoke detectors reduce the risk of dying in a fire by half, firefighters often provide audiences with information on how to install these protective devices in their homes.
Specifically, they tell them these things. A smoke detector should be placed on each floor of a home. While sleeping, people are in particular danger of an emergent fire, and there must be detector outside each sleeping area. A good site for a detector would be a hallway that runs between living spaces and bedrooms.
Because of the dead-air space that might be missed by hot air bouncing around above a fire, smoke detector should be installed either on the ceiling at least four inches from the nearest wall, or high on a wall at least four, but no further than twelve, inches from the ceiling.
Detectors should not be mounted near windows, entrances, or other places where drafts(过堂风)might direct the smoke away from the unit. Nor should they be placed in kitchens and garages, where cooking and gas fumes are likely to cause false alarms.
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Watch out! Here comes London Mayor Boris Johnson riding a bicycle from his new bike hire plan. “What we’ve put in is a new form of public transport. These bikes are going to belong to everybody. “
More than 12, 000 people have signed up for the plan. They each receive a key at a cost of three pounds, with cost at one pound for a 24-hour membership, five pounds for seven days, and 45 pounds for an annual membership.
John Payne, a London teacher who cycles a lot, is among the first to use the system. “It’s very comfortable. For people who don’t cycle much I think it’ll be very useful. But for people who cycle regularly, they are possibly a bit slow. But they’re perfect for London streets, very strong. I think they’ll be very widely used. “
And Johnson says it’s of good value. “I think it’s of extremely good value. The first half hour is free. If you cycle smart and you cycle around London—most journeys in London take less than half an hour, you can cycle the whole day free. “ Some 5, 000 bikes are currently available at over 300 docking stations(租车点)in central London. Johnson says the city will gradually expand the system. “Clearly one of our ambitions is to make sure that in 2012 when the world comes to London, they will be able to use London hire bikes to go to the Olympic stadiums. “
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Tony Huesman, a heart transplant recipient(接受者)who lived a record 31 years with a single donated organ has died at age 51 of leukemia(白血病), but his heart still going strong. “ He had leukemia, “ his widow Carol Huesman said. “ His heart—believe it or not—held out. His heart never gave up until the end, when it had to. “
Huesman got a heart transplant in 1978 at Stanford University. This was just 11 years after the world’s first heart transplant was performed in South Africa. At his death, Huesman was listed as the world’s longest survivor of a single transplanted heart both by Stanford and Richmond, Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing.
“I’m a living proof of a person who can go through a life-threatening illness, have the operation and return to a productive life, “ Huesman told the Dayton Daily News in 2006.
Huesman worked as marketing director at a sporting-goods store. He was found to have serious heart disease while in high school. His heart, attacked by a pneumonia(肺炎)virus, was almost four times its normal size from trying to pump blood with weakened muscles.
Huesman’s sister, Linda Huesman Lamb, also was stricken with the same problem and received a heart transplant in 1983. The two were the nation’s first brother and sister heart tansplant recipients. She died in 1991 at age 29.
Huesman founded the Huesman Heart Foundation in Dayton, which seeks to reduce heart disease by reducing children and offers a nursing scholarship in honor of his sister.
