Nearly all our food comes from the soil. Some of us eat meat, of course, but animals live on plants. If there were no plants, we would have no animals and no meat. So the soil is very necessary for life. The top of the ground is usually covered with grass or other plants. There may be dead leaves and dead plants on the grass. The waste matter(粪) from animals also falls on it.

    All soil needs food. If we do not give it any, the plants will be weak. Farmers found that animals' waste is the best food for the soil, but chemical fertilizers(化肥) are also very useful. The same crop（庄稼）should not be grown in the same place every year; it 's better to have a different crop. A change of crop and the use of a good fertilizer will keep the land good.

    Computer technology has become a major part of people's lives. This technology has its own special words. One example is the word " mouse". A computer mouse is not a small animal that lives in buildings and open fields. It is a small device (装置) that you move around on a flat surface in front of a computer.The mouse moves the cursor (光标) on the computer screen.

    Computer expert Douglas Engelbart developed the idea for the mouse in the early nineteen-sixties. The first computer mouse was a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was called a mouse because it had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to the computer.

    Using a computer takes some training. People who are experts are sometimes called hackers. A hacker is usually a person who writes software programs in a special computer language. But the word" hacker" is also used to describe a person who tries to steal information from computer systems.

    Another well known computer word is Google. It is the name of a popular search engine for the Internet.People use the search engine to find information about almost any subject on the Internet. The people whostarted the company named it Google because in mathematics, googol, spelled g-o-o-g-o-l,is an extremely

    large number. It is the number one followed by one hundred zeros.

    When you "Google" a subject, you can get a large amount of information about it. Some people like to Google their friends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the Internet. If you Google someone, you might find that persons name on a blog. A blog is the shortened name for a Web log. A blog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories, comments, pictures and links to other websites. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.

    Robots come in many shapes and sizes. But most have one thing in common. They are built to help people, Lately engineers have been developing new kinds of robots. These high-tech machines are designed to lend a hand everywhere from hotels to disaster areas.

    "Robots help people by making their lives easier, safer, and more fun, "says engineer Omar.

    Since November, a robot named Pepper has been on the job at Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. When guests have questions or need directions, they can ask Pepper. They can also use the robot's touch screen to find the information they need. Pepper is able to talk with guests and make them happy with stories too. It can even tell what kind of mood they are in.

    "Pepper provides our guests with information in an exciting and new way." says the hotel manager Donald Bowman.

    For a kid, being in the hospital can be boring and even scary. But a small robot called NAO is helping to make hospital stays easier. It was designed to keep people company.

    A Tennessee doctor named Phil Parker bought a NAO robot three years ago. He programmed(为…….编制程序)it to talk to and play with young patients. He brought it to hospitals to help sick kids. When kids get medical tests, NAO explains what is going on. The robot also reads to kids and plays games with them like Rock, Scissors ,Cloth(石头剪刀布).

    "The robot gets many kids to smile for the first time since they were in hospital," Parker says.

    Other robots are designed to help to save people in dangerous areas. For example, disaster areas can be full of broken stones and other dangers. Engineers in Japan are planning to build a robot called E2-DR to go into those areas and search for people who are hurt.

What comes to your mind when talking about the Tang Dynasty（618—907）? Many of you will probably think of famous poets and their beautiful poems. If you love traditional Chinese poems as well as cartoons, then you are lucky. A cartoon movie named Chang'an San Wan Li or 30,000 Miles From Chang'an, hit big screens in China.

The movie is set in（以……为背景）a few years after the An-Shi Rebellion and Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, was in danger. Gao Shi, general（将军）of the Tang Dynasty and a famous poet, stayed in a city and talked about his lifelong friendship with Li Bai. The poets supported each other in hard times. Their friendship touches many people.

The movie not only tells us the rise and fall of Chang'an and the touching stories of the poets, but also reveals the beauty of traditional Chinese poems. It mentions a total of 48 Tang Dynasty poems written by different poets. Through the poems, we can learn about the poets' talent, dreams and love for the country.

Many people think highly of the movie. Children can think of many poems they have learnt. Adults can understand the history better through the movie. "The stories made me feel the warmth of friendship," one man said. "And I learned the true reasons why Chang'an is more than just a name of a city but a symbol of culture."