Cycads(苏铁)grow in warm places. They are tall and green all year round. Their leaves grow on the top and flowers seldom come out. Some have bright orange fruits. They usually need hundreds of years to grow into adult plants.

    Cycads are facing problems now. In South Africa, the situation of cycads is getting terrible, but this has drawn little attention from the public. "In fact, there are 38 kinds of cycads in South Africa. Among them, 2 kinds have disappeared since 2003 and 25 kinds are in great danger," said a gardener. "Do you know what the loneliest plant is in the world? It is Wood's Cyead. Someone found it in a forest in 1895. It is the only one of its kind."

    So what causes cycads to be in danger? Surprisingly, the danger is from the people who love them most. These slow-growing adult cycads even sell for tens of thousands of dollars each. As time goes by, they have become a symbol(象征)of wealth and position(地位)in society. This makes cyead lovers want to own more. Cyead lovers buy and plant them in their private gardens. As a result, nearly all these cyeads die because the living conditions have changed.

    Recently, South African government has taken some actions to protect cycads from being stolen traded. At the same time, people around the world should also work together to protect the plants.

    "Without music, life would be a mistake, "famous German philosopher(哲学家)Friedrich Nietzsche said over a century ago. Music is a big part of our lives. But in recent years, some American schools have cut music classes to control budgets(预算).

    For example, Chicago public schools hurt arts education when it fired over 1, 000 teachers. Among them, 10 percent of the teachers taught art or music, according to The Washington Times. In fact, this is not just a problem in the US. In other countries, such as China and the UK, music classes are not thought to be as important as ones like science, math and history. That's partly because music is not seen as a very important life skill, and it isn't tested. Many students are busy with schoolwork, so parents and students choose to focus on subjects that are tested more often.

    However, learning music is beneficial(有益的)in many ways.

    When playing music, you need different abilities to work together. It is not as simple as it looks, according to Kenneth K. Guilmartin of Music Together, an early childhood music development program. For example, when playing the piano, people see music notes and decode(解码)them in their brains. They also use their fingers to make sounds. You need to deal with all these things at the same time.

    Music has a special connection with science as well. You can see that many scientists are good at playing music：Einstein played the violin and German physicist Max Planck was talented in playing the piano.