B

    I work with Volunteers for Wildlife, a rescue and education organization at Bailey Arboretum in Locust Valley. Trying to help injured, displaced or sick creatures can be heartbreaking; survival is never certain. However, when it works, it is simply beautiful.

    I got a rescue call from a woman in Muttontown. She had found a young owl(猫头鹰) on the ground. When I arrived, I saw a 2-to 3-week-old owl. It had already been placed in a carrier for safety.

    I examined the chick(雏鸟) and it seemed fine. If I could locate the nest, I might have been able to put it back, but no luck. My next work was to construct a nest and anchor it in a tree.

    The homeowner was very helpful. A wire basket was found. I put some pine branches into the basket to make this nest safe and comfortable. I placed the chick in the nest, and it quickly calmed down.

    Now all that was needed were the parents, but they were absent. I gave the homeowner a recording of the hunger screams of owl chicks. These advertise the presence of chicks to adults; they might also encourage our chick to start calling as well. I gave the owner as much information as possible and headed home to see what news the night might bring.

    A nervous night to be sure,but sometimes the spirits of nature smile on us all! The homeowner called to say that the parents had responded to the recordings. I drove over and saw the chick in the nest looking healthy and active. And it was accompanied in the nest by the greatest sight of all — LUNCH！The parents had done their duty and would probably continue to do so.

    In 1905, as part of his Special Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein published the point that a large amount of energy could be released from a small amount of matter. This was expressed by equation E = me 2(energy = mass times the speed of light squared). But bombs were not what Einstein had in mind when he published this equation.

    In 1929, he publicly declared that if a war broke out he would “refused to do war service, direct or indirect…” His position would change in 1933, as the result of Adolf Hitler's coming into power in Germany.

    Einstein's greatest role in the invention of the atomic bomb was signing a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging that the bomb be built because some physicists feared that Germany might be working on an atomic bomb. Among those concerned were physicists Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner. But Szilard and Wigner had no influence with those in power. So in July 1939 they explained the problem to someone who did: Albert Einstein. After talking with Einstein, in August 1939 Szilard wrote a letter to President Roosevelt with Einstein's signature on it, which was delivered to Roosevelt in October 1939.

    Germany has invaded Poland the previous month; the time was ripe for action. That October research of a-bomb began but proceeded slowly because the invention of the atomic bomb seemed distant and unlikely. In April 1940 an Einstein letter, ghost-written by Szilard, pressed the researchers on the need for “greater speed”.

    As the realization of nuclear weapons grew near, Einstein looked beyond the current war to future problems that such weapons could bring. He wrote to his friend about his fear about the future use of the a-bomb.

    The atomic bombings of Japan occurred three months after Germany gave in.

In November 1954, five months before his death, Einstein summarized his feelings about his role in the creation of the atomic bomb: “I made one great mistake in my life… when I signed a letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—- the danger that the Germans would make them”.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    Most of the people who appear most often and most gloriously in the history books are great conquerors and generals and soldiers, whereas the people who really helped civilization forward are often never mentioned at all. We do not know who first set a broken leg, or launched a seaworthy boat, or calculated the length of the year, or manured(施肥)a field; but we know all about the killers and destroyers. People think a great deal of them, so much so that on all the highest pillars (纪念柱) in the great cities of the world you will find the figure of a conqueror or a general or a soldier. And I think most people believe that the greatest countries are those that have beaten in battle the greatest number of other countries and ruled over them as conquerors. It is just possible they are, but they are not the most civilized.

    Animals fight; so do savages (野蛮人); hence to be good at fighting is to be good in the way in which an animal or a savage is good, but it is not to be civilized. Even being good at getting other people to fight for you and telling them how to do it most efficiently －this, after all, is what conquerors and generals have done －is not being civilized. People fight to settle quarrels. Fighting means killing, and civilized peoples ought to be able to find some way of settling their disputes other than by seeing which side can kill off the greater number of the other side, and then saying that that side which has killed most has won. And it not only has won, but, because it has won, has been in the right. For that is what going to war means; it means saying that might is right.

    That is what the story of mankind has on the whole been like. Even our own age has fought the two greatest wars in history, in which millions of people were killed or disabled. And while today it is true that people do not fight and kill each other in the streets －while, that is to say, we have got to the stage of keeping the rules and behaving properly to each other in daily life － nations and countries have not learnt to do this yet, and still behave like savages.

    New York's iconic, blue-green statue of liberty wasn't always green. When the statue was gifted to the US from France in 1885, she was actually a shiny copper color. A new video reveals the chemical reactions involving oxygen and even air pollution that led to her color change from copper to liberty green. The statue of liberty was a gift from France to the US as a way of commemorating the US's fight for independence, as well as their own aspiration for democracy.

    A video, published by the American Chemical Society, explains that the 305-foot (93 meter) statue was built over nine years in sections of copper skin on top of an iron skeleton.

    In her first few decades in the Big Apple, the statue slowly turned from that shiny copper color to a dull brown and the, finally, to the blue-green, or as they'd say back in France, 'verdigris' we see today,' said the video's narrator.

When it changed color, some officials suggested restoring her back to her original color, but after the public protested against this decision, she was left the way she is. The statue's color change was as a result of oxidation reactions between copper and the air. But it was more than one reaction - the color change is due to about 30 years worth of different reactions leading to a mixture of greenish minerals.

    Oxidation reactions happen when an atom loses an electron to another atom.

    In the case of the statue of liberty, her color change was bound to happen due to oxygen in the atmosphere that is 'hungry' for electrons. On top of this, elements of New York City's polluted air added to the color change too.

The first chemical reaction of the color change involved copper giving up electrons to electron-hungry oxygen in the atmosphere. This led to a mineral called cuprite - which is pinkish red.

    Then, cuprite loses even more electrons to oxygen, forming a new mineral（矿物质） called tenorite, which is blackish in color. The black color of tenorite explains why the statue got darker over time, forming a dark brown color.

    Then, further chemical reactions occurred when sulfur（硫） in the atmosphere reacts with oxygen to form sulfur dioxide. Sulfur comes from natural processes such as volcanic eruptions, but also from man-made emissions from boats, cars, airplanes and factories. When sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere reacts with water, it produces sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid forms green minerals with copper oxides, so the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere made the state green over time.

    Added to that, chloride from the sea spray surrounding Ellis Island where the statue is located made the statue even greener.

    The statue stayed this way for over 100 years because the exposed copper is now oxidized and stable, but the statue wouldn't be the same anywhere else.

    There is an English saying that “Laughter is the best medicine.” Until recently, few people took the saying seriously. Now, however, doctors have begun to look into laughter and the effects it has on the human body. They have found that laughter can really improve people's health.

    Tests were carried out to study the effects of laughter on the body. People watched funny films while doctors checked their hearts, blood pressure, breathing and muscles. It was found that laughter has similar effects to physical exercise. It increases blood pressure, makes the heart beat quicker and makes people breathe deeper; it also works on several groups of muscles in the face, the stomach, and even the feet. If laughter exercises the body, it must be beneficial(有益的).

Other tests have shown that laughter appears to be able to reduce the effects of pain on the body. In one experiment doctors produced pain in groups of students who listened to different radio programs. The group that tolerated（忍耐）the pain for the longest time was the group which listened to a funny program. The reason why laughter can reduce pain seems to be that it helps to produce a kind of chemical in the brain which diminishes both stress and pain.

    As a result of these discoveries, some doctors in the United States now hold laughter clinics(诊所), in which they help to improve their patients' condition by encouraging them to laugh. They have found that even if their patients do not really feel like laughing, making them smile is enough to produce beneficial effects similar to those caused by laughter.

    People like to post their selfies(自拍照) on social media. To know more about it, scientists at Syracuse University in New York recently did a research and came up with some surprising findings.

    People who post selfies and use editing software to make themselves look better show behavior connected to narcissism(自恋), the researchers said. Makana Chock, a professor from Syracuse University, said because social media is mostly used by people to share unimportant information about their lives, it is a good place for people to "work towards satisfying their own vanity." Those "likes" under their Facebook selfies make them feel good.

    Besides, people who post group selfies show a need for popularity and a need to belong to a group, the research found. Some people feel "peer(同伴) pressure" to post selfies and some follow the popular belief that if there is no picture of an event or experience, it did not really happen. "Anyway, it shouldn't be seen as negative. People get sense of satisfaction especially when they get likes. And it does no harm," Chock said.

    Other findings from the study include: There are no major differences on how often men and women post selfies and how often they use editing software. But men who post selfies showed more of a need to be seen as popular than women who posted selfies.

Chock said posting selfies on social media is not all that different from what people have done for many years. On trips and special events, our parents and grandparents used cameras instead of phones to take photos. They would bring back photos to show friends and family. You had no choice but to look at them. You probably commented about how nice everyone in the photos looked, especially children and the person showing the photos. They were happy to hear your comments. That was the old way of "clicking like". On social media, however, people can decide not to look at photos — even if they click "like".