The Asian elephant has been respected for centuries and is still used today for ceremonies and religious purposes. It is respected, not only because it plays a role in Asian culture and religion, but also because it is a key biological species in the tropical forests of Asia.

    The Asian elephant is the largest land mammal in Asian. It is smaller than the African elephant, with relatively smaller ears. Asian elephants have a single “finger” on the upper lip of the long trunk, while African elephants have a second on the lower tip. A number of adult male Asian elephants have no tooth, and the percentage of males carrying ivory(象牙）is different from only about 5% in Sri Lanka to 90% in south India. Asian elephants keep their ears in constant motion in order to free the heat they produce. The species is reported to have well-developed hearing, vision, and smell , and they are also fine swimmers.

    Asian elephants prefer to convey something to form groups surrounding 6 to 7 related females that are led by the oldest female. Like African elephants, these groups occasionally join others to form herds, although these associations are relatively temporary.

    More than two thirds of the day may be spent feeding on grasses, but large amounts of tree bark, roots, leaves and small stems are also eaten. Crops such as bananas, rice and sugar plants are favored foods. Besides, they need to drink at least twice a day so the source of water is quite important.

    The Asian elephant used to live from modern Irap and Syria to the Yellow River in China at first, but it is now found only from India to Vietnam, with a tiny population in the extreme southwest of China's Yunnan Province. More than 100,000 Asian elephants may have existed at the start of the 20^th century. The population is estimated to have fallen by at least 50% over the last 60-75 years.

Speaking to Develop Self-confidence

Overcoming stage fright

    Most people are nervous about public speaking. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} If you know that your topic is interesting, and that your material is well organized, you have already reduced a major worry.

Facial expressions

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} During your speech try to change your facial expressions to convey the emotions that you feel. Throughout your speech you need to use expressive facial expressions.

Eye contact

    When you speak, you should look your audience straight in the eye. The idea is to give the impression that you are talking to each individual in your audience. If you have a large audience, try to look at people in the middle of the room, then slowly look to the right side of the room, then to the left side, then back to the center of the room. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} This will give the audience the idea that you are not interested in your topic or in them.

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Enthusiasm is being lively and showing your own personal concern for your subject and your audience. If you are truly interested in your topic, your delivery is certain to be enthusiastic and lively.

Varying speaking rate

    Your words should not be too fast or too slow. If you speak too slowly you will bore your audience. If you speak too rapidly you will be difficult to understand. Adapt your rate to the content of your speech. For example, if you are explaining complex information, slow down. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. If you are nervous , take a few steps to your right or left while speaking.

B. Smiling before you start your speech shows that you are not nervous.

C. The best way to cope with nervousness is to be really well prepared.

D. If you are happy or enthusiastic, you should speed up.

E. Don't look at the floor, the ceiling or out the window.

F. Speaking with enthusiasm

G. Inspiring your audience

    Patricia Blues, 29, has a new aim in life: to keep drivers' hands on their steering wheels and off their cell phones. On November 2, 2007, Blues lived through a horrible experience. A motorist dialing a cell phone drove through a stop sign at 45 miles per hour and ran into the side of Blues' car. Blues' 2-year-old daughter was killed immediately in the crash.

    Blues has since devoted her time top pushing for laws that would prevent this type of tragedy from happening again.

    Cell phones are not the only distractions（分神） that cause accidents. Eating, changing CDs, reading maps, talking to passengers, and just reaching for an object on the floor can be dangerous. Therefore, the emphasis should be on educating drivers to avoid all distractions. However, talking on cell phones might be easier to regulate than eating or changing music. At least 34 states have already passed laws to restrict cell phone use in moving cars. No state has banned it yet, but several US. cities. Worldwide, 13 nations, including Australia, England, Germany, Japan and China have banned drivers' use of cell phones in moving cars.

    To date, no scientific evidence has been published showing that talking on the phone affects driving safety. But according to a test by some high school students, “driving while on the phone does affect safety and probably shouldn't be done”.

TaIL Spin

    Two dolphins race around in a big pool in the Ocean Park. The smaller dolphin Grace, shown off a few of her tricks, turning around and waving hello to the crowd. The most amazing thing about her, however, is that she's even swimming at all. She doesn't have a tail.

Grace lost her tail as a baby when she got caught up in a fish trap. When the dolphin arrived at the Ocean Park in December 2005, she was fighting for her life. “Is she going to make it?” Her trainer, Abbey Stone, feared the worst. Grace did make it — but her tail didn't. She ended up losing her flukes and the lower part of her peduncle.

Over the past six years, she has learned to swim without her tail. Dolphins swim by moving their flukes and peduncle up and down. Grace taught herself to move another way—like a fish! She pushed herself forward through the water by moving her peduncles from side to side.

    The movement put harmful pressure on Grace's backbone. So a company offered to create a man-made tail for her. The tail had to be strong enough to stay on Grace as she swam but soft enough that it wouldn't hurt her.

    The first time Grace wore the artificial tail. She soon shook it off and let it sink in the bottom of the pool. Now, she is still learning to use the tail. Some days she wears it for an hour at a time, others not at all. “The tail isn't

necessary for her to feel comfortable,” says Stone, “but it helps to keep that range of motion(动作) and build muscles(肌肉).”

    Now, the dolphin is about to get an even happier ending. This month, Grace will star in Dolphin Tale, a film that focus on her rescue and recovery. Her progress has inspired more than just a new movie. Many people travel from near and far to meet her. Seeing Grace swim with her man-made tail gives people so much courage.

    There are a lot of reasons why people calling 911 might not be able to tell operators which floor they're on in a high-rise building. They could be injured or simply confused. Yet precious minutes are wasted when emergency personnel have to search a building to find a person in need. With a new app called Sensory, emergency responders soon may be able to use a caller's smartphone to locate his exact position in a building.

    Columbia University researchers William Falcon and Henning Schulzrinne created Sensory using a two-step process. First, they used all existing smartphone features that help narrow down a caller's location. All iPhones produced after 2014 already include GPS and altimeter（测高仪） that can help emergency responders determine if a person is outdoors or inside a building. But when it comes to tall buildings, just knowing a person's altitude may not be enough，because the distance between floors changes from one building to another.

    So Falcon and Schulzrinne analysed the plans of figuring out the average distance between floors in residential（住宅的）buildings and office buildings among more than 1000 buildings in New York City. They tested their app in 63 experiments in five high-rise buildings and found that it could find a caller's location within two floors with about a 91 percent accuracy.

    In a survey conducted by Find Me 911 this year, dispatchers（调度员）said that they regularly received calls from people in need who often couldn't share their location. They sometimes accidentally give the wrong address or floor number. Some callers are too young to know their address. Dispatchers also received calls from those who are deaf or have hearing problems and they often couldn't hear the operator's questions.

    The new Sensory app could help shave precious minutes off the time it takes first responders to get to those calling for help. And it could make the difference between life and death.

Gemini Man

    Gemini Man is a big-budget Hollywood sci-fi-action movie based on an original concept, rather than on a superhero comic or an old TV series, even though this particular original concept is more 20 years old. In it a government assassin (杀手)is being hunted down by his own clone The original script was sold by Darren Lemke to a studio in 1997, and since then almost every male A-listener has been attached as a potential star. Now, at long last, Ang Lee has directed Gemini Man, and Will Smith plays both the veteran assassin and his much younger doppelganger (分身).

Jojo Rabbit

    During World War Two, a 10-year-old German boy (Roman Griffin David) is desperate to be a dutiful Nazi, only to discover that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding, a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their house. It may not sound like the stuff of a big-hearted comedy but Taika Waititi can make anything warm and funny. As well as writing and directing Jojo Rabbit, Waititi co-stars as the boy's imaginary friend,a nitwitted Adolf Hitler.

Doctor Sleep

    Mike Flanag's new film is adapted from Stephen King, novel, Doctor Sleep, which was a sequel (续集) to The Shining. You can expect to see blood flowing out of lifts in a rapid stream, ghostly twin girls and headache-including carpet patterns. Ewan McGregor stars as Danny Torrance, the boy with psychic powers m 1980 film. Now, he is a middle-aged hospital counsellor.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

    Here's another chance to see Angelina Jolie. In 2014 she starred in Maleficent, Disney's live-action remake of the Sleeping Beauty cartoon from 1959. The twist was that the eponymous wicked fairy wasn't so wicked, after all, and that the real villain was the father of Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning). The sequel's subtitle promises that Maleficent will actually be evil this time around, her change of heart prompted by Aurora's engagement to handsome prince (Harris Dickinson).