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    Do you have brown hair? Are you taller than other kids your age? These characteristics were decided before you were born. You got your traits from your parents. They passed their traits on to you through genes (基因).

    Genes carry codes (代码) for blue eyes or brown eyes. Genes say how tall you will get and what color hair you will have. You got half of your genes from your mother. You got half of your genes from your father. So you have your own set of genes. Each person gets different genes for each body part. That is why you look like but not exactly like your brother or sister.

    A dominant (显性的)  gene shows up most of the time. Brown eyes are dominant over bluc eyes. A recessive (降性的)  gene shows up less often. Light hair comes from a recessive gene. Dark hair is more common. Look at the eye color and hair color of the people around you. You will see that this is true.

    Genes help to make you who you are. But they don't tell the whole story. Your genes may help you to be fast and strong. But you still need to learn how to run or swim or skate well.

    People have understood that kindness is good for the person who receives help. For example, when we give food to a hungry person, he is lucky. However, scientists have recently begun to study the effect(影响)of the kindness on the person giving it. What they have found is that doing good is good for the doer(行为者).Acts of kindness can improve health, help a person reach goals and even add years to a person's life.

    The first study to show the connection between doing good and living a long life was a study on aging(衰老). Beginning in 1956, scientists studied a group of married mothers for 30 years. They thought the women with the most children would die first. But the number of children a woman had did not matter. Wealth did not matter. Education did not matter. What did matter was whether they volunteered. Women that volunteered had fewer diseases during their life.

    Many other studies have found the same positive(积极的)effects. Helping other people improves long-term health. The gains are the same for men, women, old people and the young. Those who volunteered had fewer serious diseases than those who did not volunteer. This included diseases such as heart attack, cancer and stroke.

    Scientists are studying many possible causes. One possible cause is an increase in antibodies(抗体)，which help fight against disease. One study showed the body produces more antibodies after an act of kindness.

    Another one is an increase in Oxytocin(催生素)，it is a chemical that fights the effects of stress from life. Scientists have found a link between being kind to people and an increase in the chemical oxytocin.

    The kiwi lives only in New Zealand. It is a very strange bird because it can not fly.

    The kiwi is the same size as a chicken. It has no wings or tail. It doesn't have any feathers(羽毛)like other birds. It has two feet and each foot has four toes. Its mouth is very long.

    A kiwi likes to have a lot of trees around it. It sleeps during the day because the sunlight hurts its eyes.

    It can smell things with its nose. It is the only bird in the world that can smell things. The kiwi's eggs are very big. There are only a few kiwis in New Zealand now. People never see them. The government says that people can't kill kiwi. New Zealanders want their kiwis to live.

    There is a picture of a kiwi on New Zealand money. People from New Zealand are sometimes called kiwis.

    You may know several kinds of police, traffic police and street police. But have you ever heard of energy-saving (节能) police?

    A group of 22 new policemen went to work in Beijing. They went around the city to see the use of energy in hotels, office buildings, shopping centres and other public places. One of their aims is to make sure that these places have set their air conditioners (空调) no cooler than 26℃.

    They also set up a special phone hotline so that people can tell them which building doesn't follow the rule.

    "If everyone sets the air conditioner at 26℃, Beijing will save 400 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in one summer. That's one third of all the usage of the city in the season, said an advertisement."

    A show was held in Beijing last week on energy-saving technology (技术) and productions to introduce a green life to the public. Environmentally—friendly machines, like a machine that helps collect used bottles, have attracted lots of attention.

    "We want to tell people that there are some ways to protect the environment. Each of us can find effective (有效的) ways to do it in our daily life," said Liu Qianguang, an environmental engineer.

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