You might make a disgusted face when you notice that the person waiting in their car at the red light next to you is picking their nose,but admit it,you do it too.And while it might be the natural option when there isn't a box of tissues around,it can be bad for you.The main reasons people feel the need to pick their nose is to clear it of dried liquid,stop an itch（痒）,or just because it feels good.Boogers（鼻屎）form when dried liquid and cilia,the tiny hairs that line the nostrils（鼻孔）,trap the dust,dirt,and other things.When boogers build up in your nose,it can be uncomfortable,and sometimes just blowing into a tissue doesn't do the trick.

    Otolaryngologist Erich P.Voigt, MD ,told Business Insider that picking your nose can cause injuries and bleeding within your nostrils.That's not terribly damaging,but when the bacteria from your hands get into your body,it can cause a cold and flu.So doctors strongly suggest not picking the nose.

    If dry winter air is causing the dirty liquid to harden in your nostrils,making you want to pick,consider damping the air at home,or taking a steam shower to soften things up in there.

    Children, who are most famous for having a finger up their nose,sometimes don't realize how much injury they're causing,and sometimes it.can lead to nose bleeds.

    So, next time you go to pick your nose,think about how many bacteria are on your hands and in your boogers, and maybe reach for a tissue instead.Even if you 're alone,and not waiting for the light to turn green,please,use a tissue.

Letter One

Dear Editor,

    After I finish my homework, I often go online and chat with my friends. Sometimes I play computer games. But my parents hate to see me playing games on the computer. Maybe they have heard too much news about how QQ and computer games harm children. Once I went to a net bar(网吧) to play games after school. But after that I told my parents that I was playing basketball at school. I said so because I didn't want to make them unhappy. I feel bad about it. However, I need to rest for a while by playing computer games after studying for a long time. I really want my parents to understand that. Do foreign parents do the same to their children? Please help me.

Li Ping,

Beijing

Letter Two

Dear Li Ping,

    I don't think it's strange for parents to keep their children away from anything bad. Foreign parents will do the same as your parents! They may not let their children watch TV for too long a time, or like your parents, they don't want their children to play computer games.

    Talk to your parents and be honest to them, I think. Tell them what you are doing and why you are doing so to make them understand you. It's never good to do things behind your parents. They aren't fools as you think sometimes! Our parents seem to know what is the best for us.

Remember: to be honest is the best way.

Good luck,

Rebecca

    For years, decades in fact, I've puzzled over the response most people have when I tell them I mostly travel alone.

    "You're so brave!"

    Why is it that a woman travelling alone, as I have often done for months at a time, is perceived to be "brave", whereas men who travel alone are entirely unremarkable?

You are only brave when you are afraid of something but still do it anyway. I have never been afraid of travelling alone.

    The first time I travelled alone was when I was 19. I was due to travel in Europe with a friend at the end of the summer. She announced by letter two days before our departure that she would be leaving me halfway at Vienna. It was too late by then to rope in another friend, so it was either to go home after Vienna, or keep going by myself. I kept going. I got on trains by myself, checked into hostels by myself and found my way around by myself. It was weird at first, but later I stopped worrying about it.

    When I got back to Ireland after that trip, I felt proud of myself. I had done something I had assumed would be hard, and it had turned out to be not hard at all.

    That was three decades ago, and since then I have travelled all over the world, usually on my own. I still do what I did then, which is to keep a diary. The greatest gift of solo travel has been those I've met along the way. I may have set off alone each time but I've encountered many people who became important to me. I met my husband in Kathmandu, Nepal. I met lifelong friends in Australia, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, India, Indonesia and many other places.

EVENTS(赛事)

Bicycle tour and race

    A bike tour and race will be held on August 26 and 27(Sat. & Sun. ). At 5:30am, the riders will leave

    Tian'anmen Square and ride the first 35 kilometers as a training leg. Then the next 55 kilometers leg, from Yanjiao to Jixian, will be the first competitive(竞争性的)part of the tour. The riders and their bikes will then be taken from Jixian to Changli.

    The second racing leg of the tour will be from Changli to the seaside of Nandaibe, covering a distance of 20 kilometers. Saturday night includes the stay at Nandaihe and supper. Sunday morning is free for play at the seaside. At noon all the people and their bikes will be taken back to Beijing.

    Cost: 200 yuan

     Telephone: 4675027

    Brazilian footballers

    The Brazilian Football Club will play Beijing Guo'an Team at the Workers Stadium on August 26. The club has four national team players. Also coming is 1994 US World Cup star Romario who has promised to play for at least 45 minutes.

    Ticket prices: 60,100,150 yuan

    Time/Date: 4:30 pm, August 26 (Sat.)

    Telephone: 5012372

    Rock climbing

    The Third National Rock Climbing Competition will be held on August 26-27 at the Huairou Mountain-climbing Training Base. More than 10 teams from Beijing, Wuhan, Dalian, Jilin and other places will take part in it. A Japanese team will give an exhibition climbing. Free for spectators(观众).

    Take a long-distance bus from Dongzhimen to Huairou.

    Time/Dates: 9-12 am, August 26 and 27

    Telephone: 7143177, 7144850, Wang Zhenghua

Biologists from the John Innes Centre in England discovered that plants have a biological process which divides their amount of stored energy by the length of the night. This solves the problem of how to portion out (分配) energy reserves during the night so that the plant can keep growing, yet not risk burning off all its stored energy.

While the sun shines, plants perform photosynthesis (光合作用). In this process, the plants change sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into stored energy in the form of long chains of sugar, called starch (淀粉). At night, the plants burn this stored starch to fuel continued growth.

"The calculations are precise so that plants prevent starvation but also make the most efficient use of their food," said study co-author Alison Smith. "If the starch store is used too fast, plants will starve and stop growing during the night. If the store is used too slowly, some of it will be wasted. "

The scientists studied the plant Arabidopsis, which is regarded as a model plant for experiments. To give the plants some math tests, the biologists let night arrive unexpectedly early or late for them.

During one of the exams, they shut off the lights early on them that had been grown with twelve-hour days and nights. Putting them into darkness after only an eight-hour day means they didn't have time to store as much starch as usual. And this forced the plants to adjust their normal nightly rhythm.

Amazingly, even after this day length trick, the plants did very well in their exams and ended up with just five percent of starch left over at the end of the night. They had neither starved, nor stored starch that could have been used to fuel more growth.

The authors suggested that similar biological calculators may explain how a migratory bird, the little stint, can make a five-thousand-kilometer journey to their summer habitat in the Arctic and arrive with enough fat reserves to survive only approximately half a day more, on average.

The results of the study were published in e Life.

In the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, many climate changes including an ice age are caused by global warming. Much of the science in the movie has been questioned by people. However, there may be some truth to the idea in the movie that global warming could cause an ice age.

The theory starts with an understanding of why Europe and Scandinavia are not colder already. After all, other places at the same latitude(纬度) are covered with ice. The ocean current called the Gulf Stream brings warm waters from the Caribbean to the UK and Europe. These waters warm the countries around their path. This is why the UK, Europe and Scandinavia have a warmer climate than Alaska. Global warming has nothing to do with this. Global warming is significant. It could slow the Gulf Stream, or even stop it. If this were to happen, the cold waters would stay in the area of Europe, the UK, Scandinavia and the Northeastern US. It could mean an ice age for those regions.

Some weaknesses in the Gulf Stream could happen for different reasons. These days, it could happen due to global warming, caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels.

If a new ice age happened, it would probably be caused by the melting of the polar ice. This will lead large quantities of cold and fresh water to come into the ocean, which would disrupt the Gulf Stream and cause the cooling of many areas that now have a mild climate.

Scientists have gathered a lot of data from the oceans and the land to try to determine whether an ice age could be caused by global warming. With all this information at hand, it appears that it is indeed possible that global warming could lead to an ice age.