At 8: 43 p.m. Beijing time on November 3, accompanied by the thunderous roar of engines, a 57-meter-tall rocket pushed itself into the sky over Hainan Province.

An increasing number of Chinese rockets have been launched in the past few years, but this one was particularly significant. It was the first launch of the new Long March 5 rocket, which is much larger than previous versions of China’s carrier rockets. Its successful launch has pushed China to the forefront of the world in terms of rocket carrying capacity (容量、能力). The heavy-lift carrier rocket will enable China to build a permanent manned space station by 2022.

“China is developing very rapidly into one of the major space players,” says Brian Harvey, a space analyst and author of China in Space: The Great Leap Forward. “You will see the Chinese quite visibly begin to match the capacity of the other space powers.” “We are not satisfied with the achievements we have made in the fields of space technology. With the development of China’s space program, we are trying to make contributions to human knowledge about the universe.” says Wang Chi of the National Space Science Center.

For the next decade, the Tiangong Space Station will be China’s principal destination. Although not as large as the International Space Station, it will have a broadly similar capacity to perform scientific experiments. China also plans to land a small rover (探测车) on the far side of the moon in 2018, which will be a world first. Also in the advanced planning stages is a over to go to Mars. Additionally, designs for a Long March 9 rocket are being studied. With the first launch of the rocket due in 2025, China could very well be in a position to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

China’s space program is making progress year upon year. It is quite clear that a dramatic shift in space power is taking place.

It may surprise bookworms, but apparently masterpieces such as Jane Eyre are lacking in something — sound effects. An electronic-book firm is adding background noises and music to the works of Charlotte Bronte, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Shakespeare in the hope of attracting younger readers. In one example, a description of rain lashing against a window in a Sherlock Holmes story will be “enhanced” with matching noises.

The first multimedia e-books — with sounds to accompany novels — will be available this Friday in the UK. The Booktrack releases are available to iPad users, with other tablet computer versions to follow. The concept is already in use in the U.S., where the classics come with added sound effects. Readers for example can hear the china cups chinking in Mr. Darcy’s garden as they read Pride And Prejudice.

A story by Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie will be released later in the year with a specially crafted orchestral score. Rushdie’s story In The South will be released with a soundtrack provided by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

The Power Of Six by Pittacus Lore, a novel for young adults, is one of the first to be tested with a soundtrack which builds in suspense in keeping with the plot. It works by timing the speed of each reader and the software measures the “turning” of a page and moves the music or sounds along accordingly. It has been created by Booktrack which synchronizes (使同步) music to each novel. It is funded by Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal.

Mr. Thiel said, “It’s always exciting to witness the creation of a new form of media. The technology promises to captivate readers in a different way.”

However, they have been greeted with horror by traditionalists, who say the technology takes away the pleasure of having one’s imagination stimulated by a story. They also raise the prospect (预期) of having to ask an overly eager reader to turn their book down. David Nicholls, whose bestseller One Day was recently turned into a film starring Anne Hathaway, said, “This sounds like the opposite of reading. It would be a distraction.”

“Won't you be my neighbor?” is a famous song from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, a popular children's television show. The show, broadcast for 31 years and ending in 2001, sought to teach American children the importance of kindness and understanding towards others. But recently fewer and fewer Americans seem to know their neighbors. That may be destroying Americans communities.

Marc Dunkelman wrote a book called “The Vanishing Neighbor”. In it, he examined how American communities have changed over time. Dunkelman said most Americans have three levels of relationships: The inner circle includes family and close friends. The middle circle is more casual relationships. People in this circle include neighbors and people in community groups. The outer circle includes people who live far away but share a common interest.

In his book, Dunkelman argued that people spend most of their time and attention on the inner and outer circles. But he said the middle-circle is necessary to strengthening local communities. Relationships with neighbors are important for debate, hearing different ideas and finding compromise.

Americans used to have more middle-circle relationships. Face-to-face communication was unavoidable without cell phones or the internet. People also felt more of a duty to join community organizations.

Dunkelman argued that modern life has made middle-circle relationships less important. He said globalization, education and more women in the workforce have resulted in less middle-circle communication. Americans may be losing what it means to be a good neighbor, as Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers Neighborhood taught.

However; doing good for a neighbor is healthy “not just for our neighbor but for ourselves as well,” Dunkelman said. “Learning how to be a good citizen can be lost when we defer the problem to somebody else.”