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    Thousands of bats(蝙蝠)in the Northeast are dying, and no one knows why. Scientists are conducting investigations(开展调查) to find out the cause and stop the spread of deaths, which have been most heavily reported in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts.

    "Most bat researchers agree that this is the most serious threat to bats they have ever seen, " says Alan Hicks, a bat expert who works in the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.

    There are few clues about the cause of the deaths. Bats are easy to catch the contagious disease(传染病) because they hibernate(冬眠) together. In some caves, there are 300 bats per square foot. Environmental officials are asking people to stay out of bat caves to avoid spreading the mysterious(神秘的) sickness while they are working to find out what it is.

      We are all busy talking about and using the Internet ,but how many of us know about the history of the Internet?

      Many people are surprised when they find that the Internet was set up in the 1960s.At that time, computers were large and expensive. Computer networks(网络)didn' t work well .If one computer in the network broke down, then the whole network stopped. So a new network system(系统) had to be set up. It should be good enough to be used by many different computers. If part of the network was not working, information could be sent through another part. In this way the computer network system would keep on working all the time. At first, the Internet was only used by the government, but, in the early 1970s, universities, hospitals and banks were allowed to use it too.

    However, computers were still expensive and the Internet was difficult to use. By the start of the 1990s, computers become cheaper and easier to use. Scientists had also developed software(软件) that made “surfing(浏览)” the Internet more convenient (方便).

    Today it is easy to get on-line and it is said that millions of people use the Internet every day. Sending e-mail is more and more popular among students.

   The Internet has now become one of the most important parts of people's life.

    We live in the world full of colours. Does a colour have weight? If you say “no”, you are wrong. If you don't believe, you may do an experiment.

    First, put two objects with the same weight into two boxes. Then cover the boxes. Third, wrap one box with a red piece of paper, the other woth a white piece of paper. Now hold the boxes with your hand one by one. It is certain that you think the red one is a little heavier.

    Why? A scientist found that different colours have different weight in a man's mind. So he did many tests and at last he found that every colour has its own weight in our mind and their order is the same. The heaviest colour is red, then blue, green, orange, yellow and white.

    The scientist told us that colours also have smell. Can you smell the colour? Of course not. Then why did the scientist say so? That is because every colour stands for a kind of light with a certain wavelength, and it reaches our brain through sense organs.

    According to this discovery, scientists say that people accept the colours they like, and refuse the colours they hate. So your body and mind will be healthy by using the colours you like. Or you'll be nervous or even get ill. For example, if you stay in a room with red windows, wallpapers and furniture for two hours, you'll feel you have been there for four hours. But if the room is blue, you'll feel you have been there for only an hour. Another example, if a person walks out of a red room and into a blue room, his temperature will fall. That means our body temperature will change with different colours.

    Some of the greatest problems we face today are the destruction (破坏) of our environment. Brown clouds, polluted water, endangered wild animals.., these problems seem so huge.

    So my family does what we can. We take cloth bags to stores instead of using plastic bags. We walk where we don't have to drive...

    But does it do any good? When I am the only one in line at the market with cloth bags, am I doing any good? Does my walking to stores make any real difference to the world?

    I recently learned something about flamingos (火烈鸟) which like to get together in groups of a thousand or more. Every year, when the time comes for migration (迁徙), a few of them first takeoff from the lake. But none of the others seem to notice, so the small group returns. However, the next day they try again. This time few more fly along with them, but most of them still pay no attention, so they return again. They try for several times. Every time a few more birds join in but, since the thousands of others still take no notice, the great migration plan is once more stopped.

    Then one day something changes. The same small group of birds once again starts flying and a small number more join in just as before, then more. Finally, they all take flight and the migration really begins. What a spectacular sight it must be—thousands of flamingos taking off into the sky at once!

    A few can make a difference. Even if you're the one to take the first step, and continue trying, others will someday take notice and together we will solve even our greatest problems.

    For us humans, one of the greatest experiences is to taste all kinds of delicious food. But for penguins, they cannot get a taste of this happiness. That's because penguins can't actually taste the delicious flavors (味道) of their favorite food-fish!

    Scientists from the University of Michigan examined the genome (基因组)of five species of penguins. They found that no one can taste umami (鲜味),the flavor of meat or fish, the BBC reported.

    Many animals have five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. But according to genetic data, penguins are believed to have only sour and salty tastes.

    These findings are surprising and puzzling. And scientists don't have a good explanation for them. But they have a few ideas.

    First, one of the umami genes doesn't work in cold temperatures. "It's about zero degrees when they eat cold fish," Zhang Jianzhi, the lead scientist, told the Daily Mail, so even if the penguins had a functional (功能的)gene, it might not work when they needed it.

    Second, penguins' tongues (舌头) are very special which may have something to do with their lack of taste. Instead of being covered with taste buds which help to taste food, penguins' tongues are very spiky. This is better for them to hold slippery (滑的) fish than tasting them. One study even showed that some types of penguins don't even have taste buds.

    However, penguins seem to be managing just fine.

    "Their behavior of swallowing food whole, and their tongue structure and function, suggest that penguins need no taste perception," said Zhang.

    Sometimes it seems that time is flying. Perhaps it doesn't need to feel this way. Our experience of time can be possibly changed. By understanding the psychological (心理学的) processes behind our different experiences of time, we might be able to slow down time a little.

    One basic law of psychological time is that time seems to slow down when we're exposed (接触) to new environments and experiences. The law is caused by the relationship between our experience of time and the amount of information our minds process. The more information our minds take in, the slower time seems to pass.

    It follows, then, that we have different experiences of time in different situations. In some situations, our life is full of new experiences. Our minds process a lot of information and time seems to slow down. In other situations, we have fewer new experiences and the world around us becomes more and more familiar (熟悉的). We become insensitive to our experience, which means we process less information, and time seems to speed up.

    How can we slow down time? Here are two suggestions.

    Firstly, since we know that familiarity makes time pass faster, we can expose ourselves to as many new experiences as possible. We can give ourselves new challenges, meet new people, and expose our minds to new information, hobbies and skills. This will increase the amount of information our minds process and expand (增加) our experience of time.

    Secondly, and perhaps most effectively, we can give our whole attention to an experience-to what we are seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling or hearing. This means living through our senses rather than through our thoughts. For example, on the way home, focus your attention outside of yourself, instead of thinking about the problems you have to deal with. Look at the sky, or at the buildings you pass, traveling among them. This open attitude to your experiences helps take in more information and also has a time-expanding effect.

    To a certain degree, we can understand and control our experience of time passing. It's possible for us to slow down time by expanding our experience of time.