A seabird named Lydia recently made a 26-day nonstop(不间断的)journey of about 2,500 mi­les, just to search for food for her baby. She is fitted with a satellite tracking device (卫星跟踪仪). Her trip started on Oct. 18 from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. The trip is known as the lon­gest nonstop journey by one of these endangered seabirds.

      Before that, this kind of birds was known only to fly a few hundred miles from where they live, staying away for just a few days at a time. They usually fly over the sea.

      The scientists feel it strange that Lydia made such a long, nonstop journey and flew overland. So the above facts raise some serious questions about efforts to stop the decline(减少)of the birds. The number of the birds has fallen by 10 percent over the past 20 years.

Besides, the scientists are surprised that she was away from her baby for such a long time. They wonder why she needed to go that far. Maybe it shows that fish resources (资源)around Christmas Island are not large enough now. That might explain the slow decline of the bird 一 sea pollution(污染) is serious.

B

    Many years ago, there was a very popular sport in America. Who invented the sport more than 3,000 years ago? We don't know. But everyone thinks it was the Olmecs(奥梅克人）made it popular.

    People don't have the same rules about the game all over the world. People in different parts of the world play the game in different places at different times. If we want to bring back the sport, we need to have two teams of players standing on each end of a court. When the game begins, the two teams need to pass a ball from one side of the court to the other. The players can't touch(触) the ball with their hands and feet. But they can use their elbows(肘) and other parts of their bodies hit it. If a player does not pick up the ball in time and lets it fall to the ground, that team loses a point. But if a player makes the ball through a hoop(环),that team scores a point. The team with the most points wins the game.

    A study of sleep in sparrows suggests the relationship between sleep and the ability to learn may be more complicated (复杂) than realized．

    Niels C. Rattenborg of the University of Wisconsin—Madison wanted to find out how the sparrows were able to deal with getting so much less sleep．He and his team brought eight wild birds into a lab and watched them for one year．They invented a game to check how well the birds could learn．In the game, the sparrows had to peck (啄) three buttons (按钮) in a certain order to get a food treat．The scientists discovered that the birds' ability to learn the right button order depended on (依靠) two things, the time of year and the

amount of sleep the birds had．

    During the migration (迁徙) season, the sparrows were restless at night and got much less sleep than usual．Even so, they were able to understand how to get the food quickly as if they'd had a regular night of sleep．Outside the migration season, they found the sparrows that got less sleep than usual had much more difficulty learning how to get the food treats than birds that had a regular sleep．

    The results show that the sparrows can deal with much less sleep during the migration season than usual．If scientists can find out why, they may learn from sparrows and find ways of helping people deal with getting much less sleep．Until scientists fully understand the relationship between sleep and learning, it's better to get plenty of sleep when preparing for an exam．

No one knows when the first kite was made. The first record of a kite was more than 2,000 years ago in China. Han Xin, the leader of an army, wanted to bring down a king. He decided to dig a tunnel (隧道)into the king's palace. He flew a kite over the wall of the palace to make sure the length (长度)of its string (线).In this way, he could determine how long the tunnel should be. His men in the tunnel took the kite string with them. When they reached the end of the string, they knew to dig up.

    Kites have been flown in Japan for hundreds of years. In the 1700s, kites were flown in autumn to give thanks for a good harvest. They were also flown to send good wishes to couples who had their first son. Today in Japan, kites are often flown as part of a celebration, such as the beginning of a new year. And kite festivals are held each year in many parts of the country.

    Kites have been used for scientific purposes in the western world. In 1752，Benjamin Franklin tied a key to a kite and flew it in a storm to find out that lightening was a form of electricity. In the 1890s, Lawrence Hargrave invented the box kite to test ideas about flight. From 1898 until 1933, the United States Weather Bureau (气象局) used box kites to collect weather data. The Wright brothers also experimented (试验)with kites. What they learned helped them make the first airplane flight in 1903.