Soon computers and other machines will be able to remember you by looking at your eyes! The programme works because everyone's eyes are different. So in the future you won't have to remember a number when you want to use a machine or take money out of a bank. You'll just have to look at the machine and it will be able to tell who you are.
    The eye-recognition（识别）programme is already being tested in shops and banks in the USA, Britain, Spain, Italy and Turkey. Soon, this technology will take the place of all other ways of finding out who people are.
    However, scientists are working on other systems. Machines will soon be able to know you from the shape of your face or hand or even your smell! We already have machines that can tell who you are from your voice or the mark made by your finger.
    Eye-recognition is better than other kinds because your eyes don't change as you get older, or get dirty like hands or fingers. And even twins have different eyes, so the programme can be up to 94％ correct, depending on how good the technology is. Some programmes may only be right  51％ of the time. In Britain, it was found that 91％ of people who had tried it said that they liked the idea of eye-recognition. In the future your computer will be looking at you in the eye. So smile!

    On June 26th, 2000, two scientists, called Francis Collins and Craig Venter, told the world that they could now read the whole “map” of the human body: DNA. DNA is something that all humans have, and it tells the body what to do. DNA is the reason that we look like our mother and father, because we get some of their DNA to make our own. Now we can read some of this “map”, and so we can find out more about how our bodies work.

    People have been trying to understand the human body for a long time. In 1860, Gregory Mendel discovered that there is a special reason why we look the same as other people in our family. It is because of small things called “genes” that we have in our body. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick made another discovery and found out that those small parts are really messages written in the DNA with a special language.

    In 1961, Marshall Nirenberg and Johann Matthaei found the first “word” that they could understand in that language, showing how DNA tells the cell to build its parts. This meant that one day we would be able to read all the messages that a human body gets from its parents' bodies. Scientists have now found all the words in DNA map, but we still do not understand what they all do. By understanding what just one “word” means, we can help save people from several diseases. So the more we understand, the more doctors will be able to do.

    Most people hope that this will help to make better medicine and help people who are very ill. Other people worry about that when we learn more words and find out lots of other information, we still use it in the wrong way, just to make people more attractive, or stop sick people getting jobs.

    Have you ever wondered why birds sing? Maybe you thought that they were just happy. After all, you probably sing or whistle when you are happy.

    Some scientists believe that birds do sing some of the time just because they are happy. However, they sing most of the time for a very different reason. Their singing is actually a warning to other birds to stay out of their territory.

    Do you know what a 'territory' is? A territory is an area that an animal, usually the male, claims as its own. Only he and his family are welcome there. No other families of the same species are welcome. Your yard and house are your territory where only your family and friends are welcome. If a stranger should enter your territory and threaten you, you might shout. Probably this would be enough to frighten him away.

    If so, you have actually scared the stranger away without having to fight him. A bird does the same thing. But he expects an outsider almost any time, especially at nesting（筑巢）season. So he is screaming all the time, whether he can see an outsider or not. This screaming is what we call a bird's song, and it is usually enough to keep an outsider away.

    Birds sing loudest in the spring when they are trying to attract a mate and warn others not to enter the territory of theirs.

    You can see that birds have a language of their own. Most of it has to do with attracting mates and setting up territories.

    Can animals be made to work for us? Some scientists think that one day animals may be taught to do a number of simple jobs. They say that in a film or on TV .We may see elephants, or monkeys, dogs, bears, or other animals doing a lot of things. If you watch carefully, you may find that those animals are always given something to eat in return(作为回报) for doing them. The scientists say that many different animals may be taught to do a number of simple jobs if they know they will get something to eat in return.

    Of course, as we know, dogs can be used to guard a house, and elephants can be used to do some heavy jobs. And we can also teach animals to work in factories. Apes(猿猴), for example, have been used in America to help make cars and scientists believe that these large monkeys may one day get in crops(收割庄稼) and even drive trains.

    In ancient Chinese stories, the moon is home to Chang'e and her pet rabbit Yutu. Now, Chang'e and Yutu are really there!

    On Dec. 2, 2013, the Chang'e-3 lunar probe（月球探测器）took off from Sichuan, China. On Dec. 14, 2013, it landed successfully on the moon. Several hours later, Yutu, China's first moon rover（月球车）, "walked" out of the probe and onto the moon.

    Yutu is a big robot that weighs 140 kg. It is about 1.5 meters long and 1.1 meters tall. It has six wheels and travels at 200 meters per hour.

    There are cameras on both Yutu and Chang'e-3. They can take pictures of each other. That's how Yutu got is first picture on the moon.

    Yutu and Chang'e-3 will explore（探索）the moon.

    Yutu can walk around and work for three months. It can look for natural resources（资源）on the moon. Chang'e-3 can work at the landing site for one year and it can watch the space from the moon.

    They both get energy from the sun. So they "get up" to work when the sun rises, and "go to sleep" at night.

    China is now the third country in the world to soft-land on the moon after the US and the former Soviet Union.

    Also, China is planning to send its Chang'e-5 lunar probe around 2017. The probe will fly back to the Earth and bring natural resources from the moon.

    When will China fly a human to the moon? There's no plan yet. But the door is now open.