You may know the Eiffel Tower as one of the most famous man-made monuments in the world, and you'd be absolutely right! Read on to learn about the history of the great Eiffel Tower.

    Travelers from around the world flock(蜂拥)to Paris, France, to visit the Eiffel Tower, making it the most visited paid monument in the entire world! In fact, in 2010, the Eiffel Tower welcomed its 250 millionth visitor!

The history of the Eiffel Tower

    The Eiffel Tower was named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the famous monument. Construction began in January of 1887 and was completed in only two years. Their plan was to finish the tower in time to be the entrance arch for the World's Fair in 1889. This fair celebrated the 100^th anniversary of the French Revolution, which took place from 1789 to 1799.

The height competition

    Located on the Champs de Mars, the tower is the tallest structure in Paris. It was the tallest man-made structure in the world for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York surpassed(超过) it. Then the spire(塔尖) on the top of the tower was added, raising its height to 17 feet taller than the Chrysler Building. It is now 1,063 feet tall! There are two replicas(复制品) of the Eiffel Tower in the world: a half scale model at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas and a full-sized monument of a similar (but not exact) design in Tokyo, Japan.

Three shades of wonder

    Some pictures make the Eiffel Tower look like a dark iron color. But it is, in fact, bronze. Not only that, but the tower is actually painted three different shades to make it appear even taller: darkest on the bottom and lightest on the top.

    Danielle Steel, America's sweetheart, is one of the hardest working women in the book business. Unlike other productive authors who write one book at a time, she can work on up to five. Her research before writing takes at least three years. Once she has fully studied her subjects, ready to dive into the book, she can spend twenty hours nonstop at her desk.

    Danielle Steel comes from New York and was sent to France for her education. After graduation, she worked in the public relations and advertising industries. Later she started a job as a writer which she was best fit for. Her achievements are unbelievable: 390 million copies of books in print, nearly fifty New York Times best-selling novels, and a series of "Max and Martha" picture books for children to help them deal with the real-life problems of death, new babies and new schools. Her 1998 book about the death of her work shot to the top of the New York Times best-selling list as soon as it came out. Twenty-eight of her books had been made into films. She is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for one of her books being the Times best-seller for 381 weeks straight.

    Not satisfied with a big house, a loving family, and a view of the Golden GateBridge, Danielle Steel considers her readers to be the most important resource and has kept in touch with them by e-mail. While she is often compared to the heroines of her own invention, her life is undoubtedly much quieter. But, if she does have anything in common with them, it is her strength of will and her inimitable (独特的) style. There is only one Danielle Steel.

    On the third Sunday in June, Americans take time to recognize and thank a special person in the family -fathers! Father's Day celebrates the importance of fathers, young and old and the men thought of as father figures.

    The words "the child is father of the man" come from William Wordsworth's poem My Heart Leaps Up. "It means people's personalities form when they are children. They will most likely have the same qualities as an adult that they had as a child.

    Used in everyday speech, one could say, "In his case, the child was father of the man; he loved nature as a child and now works as a botanist(植物学家)".

    Let's say you want to tell a child a story about something that happened long before they were born. You could say it happened when they “were just a twinkle in their father's eyes.” This expression has a humorous and dreamy feel. Here, the word “twinkle” suggests the interest your father had in your mother.

    When a much older man is interested in a much younger woman and supports her with his money, he is called he “sugar daddy.” The money part is very important-that's the sugar.

    Sometimes fathers are not a good influence or active in the lives of the children. In that case, a person may look for a father figure, a man who is not actually the person's father but who acts like one.

    The relationship between a man and his son can be complex. But the relationship between a father and daughter is often simpler. The expression “daddy's little girl” is understood to mean that, in a father's eyes, his daughter can do no wrong.

    There is usually not a dry eye at any wedding during the traditional father-and-daughter dance, especially if they are dancing to a song like Michael Buble's “Daddy's Little Girl.”

    Anki has introduced Cozmo, a little robot powered by an advanced artificial intelligence. Cozmo promises to be far more interactive（互动的）than any toy robot.

    Cozmo, which can lie in your hand, has a “brain”—technically its CPU—that can process data amazingly fast. In addition Cozmo has a playful personality. He's designed to react to emotions and even ask users to play with him.

    Cozmo is not the first interactive toy to reach the market nor is it the first robot toy. What sets Cozmo apart from the other “smart toys” is that it has greater play value than those toys, which can become repetitious all too quickly.

    “Every interaction with Cozmo is different, so you do not put up with repetitive patterns and responses typically found with other preprogrammed robots,” explained Anki spokesperson Peter Nguyen. Because it has functionality that is similar to that of video games, Cozmo also can receive regular updates, which could extend its playability. Still, Anki has designed this toy to be just that: a toy. It's not an advanced computerized robot. Its software is app-based.

    Cozmo lacks the “traditional” human-like robot form factor of legs, arms and a head. But Cozmo does have an OLED screen / face with blue eyes, which in fact were designed to help it connect with its user.

    “I'm glad my kids are already raised,” said Roger L. Kay, analyst an Endpoint Technologies Associates. “Otherwise, they might become more antisocial if their relationship with Cozmo is more satisfying than those with real people,” said Kay. “Cozmo might encourage kids to learn more about technology or even inspire them to try programming and similar studies,” said Charles King, analyst at Pund-IT.

    Yet this technology does promise to be more than a toy. “It's a pretty cool invention and might have further applications, for example in elder care,” suggested Kay.

    Last month, the president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, held an underwater meeting. The purpose of the ocean floor conference is to highlight the effects of global warming on his island nation.

    The Maldives, located in the Indian Ocean, is the lowest-lying country on Earth. Melting glaciers and polar ice are causing sea levels to rise, putting the Maldives and other low-lying areas at risk of being swallowed by the sea within the next 100 years.

    What can be done? Scientists and leaders from 190 nations will try to figure that out at the United Nations climate change conference next month. The main goal of the meeting is to come up with a new climate agreement for 2012 and beyond. That is when the existing plan, the Kyoto Protocol will expire. The agreement was created in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Since then, it has been ratified(正式批准) by 190 nations. The countries promised to limit the amount of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which they produced each year.

    The debate over who should cut greenhouse emissions has been going on for years. The US has been hesitant to reduce emissions unless fast-growing nations such as China and India also reduce their use of fossil fuels. In recent months, China has taken steps to be greener. But India has been unwilling to change. It argues that it is unfair for rich nations to ask poorer countries to cut down on emissions.

    While world leaders work on a plan in Copenhagen, there are many things you can do to help the planet. You can save fuel by walking or biking instead of riding in a car. You can start a recycling program in your community. You can plant trees. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and give off oxygen.

    With the development of our society, cell phones have become a common part in our lives. Have you ever run into a careless cell phone user on the street? Maybe they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new "species" of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name—phubbers (低头族).

    Recently a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes a selfie (自拍) in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events finally leads to the destruction(毁灭) of the world.

    Although the ending of the film sounds unrealistic, the damage phubbing can bring is real. Your health is the first to bear the effect and result of it. "Always bending your head to check your cell phone could damage your neck," Guangming Daily quoted doctors' words. "The neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching." Also, staring at cell phones for a long time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.

    But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. When getting together with family or friends, many people prefer to play their cell phones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Qilu Evening News reported.

    It can also cost your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.