_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

   _______________________________________________________________

It’s nothing new that you can find many files or services you can download or use from the Internet. The question is：is downloading legal（合法的） or not？In most cases the answer is “No”，because sharing and downloading are illegal. Of course，you can find files for legal downloading，but you have to pay for them.

It seems innocent（无辜的） if you click on the download mark，but it isn’t. It should be compared with stealing in a store. Would you steal a magazine，an mp3 player or a car? Downloading from the Internet is a theft，and sharing files，once you have stolen them，only makes it worse. For example, if everybody only downloaded，movies wouldn’t make money and the studios wouldn’t invest millions of dollars to make new ones.

Many people may think it better，easier and cheaper to do downloading. I think，that is the main reason why Internet users prefer sharing something to buying them. In the modern world we love convenience and what could be more convenient than getting music，films and games without having to leave your house？You don’t need to pay for what you get，there is no registration，and you don’t have to wait until the shops open or the CD/DVD you want is posted to you. However，you could be in big trouble if you are caught. You could go to prison as a result of acting unlawfully，but so far only a tiny amount of people have been charged（指控） for downloading illegally. The majority of people who download illegally，and use the files for their personal use，will not get into trouble. And that’s why it’s important for people to understand what the long--term consequences are if they don’t want to pay for their music，films and TV. Will film and music companies still spend millions of pounds every year if they have no chance of making a profit？The answer is plainly “no”．

Finally I would like to say that the Internet offers a lot of services for money，but people will always try to get them for free. To summarize my thoughts I’d like to highlight that illegal downloading is both unfair towards producers and dangerous for those who practise this kind of activity. You have to decide whether to buy or download.

Cutting trees in half can help scientists understand the past and now it appears it can be used to predict the future. Researchers have been looking at ring growth from trees to make sense of past weather patterns such as droughts and rain.

Combining data from the rings allowed them to create a copy of pictures of climate changes over the past 2, 000 years and this information could also be used to foresee future famine (饥荒), unrest and conflict. The project has been named Old World Drought Atlas, or OWDA.

Its main author, Columbia biologist Edward Cook, has already carried out similar projects using trees to create chronological (按顺序排列的) maps of drought in Asia and North-America. He believes that combining the three atlases could throw light on the global causes of drought and climate change.

The study, for instance, gave special attention to the importance of one of such causes, the North Atlantic Oscillation (波动), in affecting climate patterns in Europe, and specifically in making Europe wetter north of the Alps and drier south of them.

The OWDA also helped analyse historical events from a climatic perspective. For instance, the 1740-174l famine in Ireland had so far been explained by an unusually cold winter and spring, but the atlas shows that unusually low rainfall over the spring and summer of 1741 could also have played a role. Finally this made growing food nearly impossible and caused a continent-wide famine.

A better grasp of these processes could even make it possible to predict future famine, unrest and conflict.

Cook said, “the Old World Drought Atlas fills a major geographic gap in the data that’s important to determine patterns of climate changes in time. That’s important for understanding causes of many droughts, and it’s important for climate modelers to test hypotheses (假说) of climate forcing and change.”

Does the future of filmmaking lie in virtual reality (VR) films?

An ambitious team led by Yale senior Celine Tien might hold the answer to that question．

Tien produced, directed and acted in Pippa’s Pan, which she says is “one of the world’s first live-action VR films．” The film, which was completed in April, mixes live action with VR sections．Some of the characters were created via animation (动画) and other techniques that distinguish the film from 360° VR videos like the ones frequently seen on YouTube．

“360° VR videos are stagnant, which means you don’t move with them and see a 360° view of whatever they’re filming,” Tien explained．“What we’re doing is immersive (沉浸式的) VR．When you put on the goggles (a kind of special glasses) you can physically walk around in the space, pick up objects and engage with the environment．It’s a huge difference．”

The immersive VR film experience is different for everyone who interacts with the medium, but that doesn’t mean the film’s ending will change for each viewer．

The film stars two Chinese-speaking actors．“It’s a love story about a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease who is trying to bring back memories of her husband,” Tien said．

The film has already been recognized by the VR industry．After handing in a short demo to the AT&T Developer Summit Conference, Tien and her team were invited to Las Vegas in January, where they came in third place．

If you’re dying to see the film already, your choices are a bit limited: Pippa’s Pan can’t be seen in movie theaters unless they happen to have VR goggles available．According to Tien, many theaters in China will soon have the ability, which makes sense considering China is the film’s target market．

Pippa’s Pan will be released in three languages: Chinese, English and Korean．“It can get spread in different ways: at film festivals with VR set ups and through HTC or Oculus headset stores,” Tien says．“If you have VR goggles you can download it and experience it yourself．We will also cooperate with movie theaters that have VR set ups．”

If you need help herding some sheep or retrieving a stick, you can count on your canine companion(伴犬) because dogs always seem to be keen on lending a paw. But only if their partner is a person. When it comes to cooperating with one another, dogs are truly lost－and instead it’s wolves who’ve mastered the art of teamwork. That’s according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For thousands of years, humans have been breeding (饲养) dogs that can do all sorts of neat tricks. And because dogs aim to please, we’ve come to think that domestication(驯养) has somehow boosted dogs’ powers of cooperation. But researchers in Austria have been wondering whether that idea could be barking up the wrong tree. Because left to their own devices, dogs are bigger loners than wolves.

“So wolves live in closely knit family packs, they cooperate in raising the young, they also cooperate in hunting and in defending their territories. So they really have a strong dependence on cooperation in many aspects of their lives. In contrast, to this free ranging dogs actually forage (觅食) mostly by themselves. It’s only mothers that raise their young. And they do form packs but they tend to be somewhat more fluid(不固定的), if you want.”

That’s Sarah Marshall-Pescini of the Wolf Science Center at the University of Vienna. She and her colleagues decided to test dogs’ and wolves’ relative powers of cooperation. In the setup, a pair of animals—either two dogs or two wolves—is presented with a contraption(装置) that will allow the participants to access a plate of food—but only if both members of the team pull on the two ends of a rope at the same time.

A dozen wolves and 14 dogs took the challenge. And the results? The wolves ran circles around their doggie descendants. In some 400 attempts, the wolf teams scored a snack 100 times. Which may not sound all that impressive…until you compare it with the doggie duos, who, in nearly 500 trials, succeeded only twice.

Now, it’s not that dogs are less avid learners. Or that they turned tail and avoided the apparatus. Marshall-Pescini says the dogs were curious about the device.

“What seemed to be happening was they didn’t want to get into conflict with each other. So they wouldn’t both go and try things on it but rather took it in turns. And this really hindered(阻碍了) their capacity to cooperate.”So rather than step on each others’ toes, the dogs took turns bowing out, giving their teammate a chance at the plate. That show of social grace left the poor dogs with their tummies growling (饥肠辘辘). And no treat to wolf down.

(Source:Scientific American Oct. 25, 2017)

Amazing Railway Stations in the World

Railway stations are not usually among people’s ideal places to spend a day. The noise and crowd are enough to make people run away as soon as possible. However, there are some railway stations, which offer more than just chaos (混乱).

Kanazawa Station

It was with the upgrade of the 1898 station that Kanazawa Station caught attention from architects around the world. Even though it raised some eyebrows upon opening because its rather modern architecture didn’t suit to the old castle city, the Kanazawa Station in Japan is one of the grandest railway stations in the world.

St. Pancras International, London

Known as the “church of the railways”, the St. Pancras International was opened in 1868. It has gone through renovation (革新) many times since then but has kept its old charm. Famous for its Victorian architecture, it is decorated with many artworks. Its facade (正面) is occupied by the Renaissance Hotel. The station also houses a large number of shops and restaurants.

Gare du Nord

It goes without saying that one of the most beautiful cities in the world has one of the most beautiful railway stations as well. The Gare du Nord, opened in 1864, is a brilliant achievement of architecture. The 23 female statues in the facade stand for the destinations (目的地) served by the railway line.

Grand Central Terminal

Designed by the architectural firms of Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore, this railway station in New York is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. The Grand Central Terminal draws over 20 million visitors in a year, making it one of the top ten tourist destinations.

Special trees that grow faster, fight pollution, produce better wood, and even sense chemical attacks are being planted by scientists in the US.

When 40 percent of Hawaii's US$14 million-a-year papaya (木瓜)industry was destroyed by a virus（病毒）five years ago, work began on creating genetically engineered(转基因的) trees.

Researchers successfully introduced seeds that were designed to resist the virus. Since then, more and more people have been testing genetically engineered trees.Some researchers put special bacteria into trees to help them grow faster and produce better wood. Others are trying to create trees that can clean polluted soil.Meanwhile fruit farmers are looking for trees that are strong enough to resist worms, and paper companies want trees that produce more wood and therefore more paper.

The Pentagon (五角大楼) even gave the researchers US$500,000 this year after they developed a pine tree that changes its colours if it senses a chemical attack..So far,the poplar, eucalyptus (杨树与桉树), apple and coffee trees are among those being engineered. All this can be done today because we have a better understanding of tree genomes(基因组).

However, some people fear that the genetically engineered trees will cause dangerous results. They are worried that the new trees will breed() with natural species and change the balance of the forest environment.

"It could be destructive," said Jim Diamond, an environmentalist. "Trees are what is left of our natural environment and home to many endangered species."

But researchers insist that science could give nature a fighting chance against both natural and man-made dangers.They hope to answer the critics by stopping the new trees from breeding, so their effect on the environment can be controlled.

—个英文网站面向中学生征稿请你写一篇英语稿件，介绍“中秋节”及这个节日里的主要活动。

写作要点：

(1).它是中国的传统节日之一； 

(2). 家人团聚； 

(3). 赏月、吃月饼； 

(4). 还有旅游、访友等其他活动。 

要求行文连贯，逻辑合理，字数100字左右。      

参考词汇：中秋节  the Mid-Autumn Festival      农历 lunar calendar       赏月  enjoy the full moon          月饼 moon cake 

The Mid-Autumn Festival

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Americans have always been interested in their Presidents' wives. Many First Ladies have been remembered because of the ways they have influenced their husbands. Other First Ladies have made the history books on their own.

     At least two First Ladies, Bess Truman and Lady Bird Johnson, made it their business to send signals during their husbands speeches. When Lady Bird Johnson thought her husband was talking too long, she wrote a note and sent it up to the platform. It read, "It's time to stop ! " And he did.  Once Bess Truman didn't like what  her husband was saying on television, so she phoned him and said, "If you can't talk more politely than that in public, you come right home. "

      It was First Lady Helen Taft's idea to plant the famous cherry trees in Washington, D. C. Each spring these blossoming trees attract thousands of visitors to the nation's capital Mrs. Taft also influenced the male members of her family and the White House staff in a strange way: she persuaded them to shave off their beards(胡须) !

     Shortly after President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke (中风),  Edith Wilson unofficially took over most of the duties of the Presidency until the end of her husband's term  Earlier, during World War I, Mrs.  Wilson had sheep brought onto the White House lawn to eat t e grass. The sheep not only kept the lawn cut. but provided wool for an auction(拍卖) held by the First Lady. Almost$ 100,000 was raised for the Red Cross.

     One of the most famous First Ladies was Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was active in political and. social causes throughout her husband's term in office After his death, she became famous for her humanitarian(人道主义的) work in the United Nations. She made life better for thousands of needy people around the world.

Two of the saddest words in the English language are “if only”. I live my life with the goal of never having to say those words, because they convey regret, lost opportunities, mistakes, and disappointment.

My father is famous in our family for saying, “Take the extra minute to do it right.” I always try to live by the “extra minute” rule. When my children were young and likely to cause accidents, I always thought about what I could do to avoid an “if only” moment, whether it was something minor like moving a cup full of hot coffee away from the edge of a counter, or something that required a little more work such as taping padding(衬垫) onto the sharp corners of a glass coffee table.

I don’t only avoid those “if only” moments when it comes to safety. It’s equally important to avoid “if only” in our personal relationships. We all know people who lost a loved one and regretted that they had forgone an opportunity to say “I love you” or “I forgive you”. When my father announced he was going to the eye doctor across from my office on Good Friday, I told him that it was a holiday for my company and I wouldn’t be here. But then I thought about the fact that he’s 84 years old and I realized that I shouldn’t miss an opportunity to see him. I called him and told him I had decided to go to work on my day off after all.

I know there will still be occasions when I have to say if only about something, but my life is definitely better because of my policy of doing everything possible to avoid that eventuality. And even though it takes an extra minute to do something right, or it occasionally takes an hour or two in my busy schedule to make a personal connection, I know that I’m doing the right thing. I’m buying myself peace of mind and that’s the best kind of insurance for my emotional well-being.