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.

    There are many kinds of animals that live in the forest, such as mice, rabbits, squirrels, bears.

    Animals in the forest depend on（依靠）one another for food. Many small forest animals, such as mice, eat green plants for food, and then larger animals eat them. This is called food chain. A food chain begins with the sun. The green plants in the forest use the sun's energy to make food for themselves. It's called photosynthesis(光合作用). Mice eat flowers and seeds that forest plants produce(生产).The mice get their energy from the plants, and the mice become food for a larger animal, such as the hunting hawk. So the energy from the sun passes from the plants to the mice to the hawk. A break（中断）in any part of this food chain means some animals may not have enough food to eat.

    Today some people call Amsterdam the "City of Bicycles" because it is a city which is flat and convenient（方便）for bicycles.

    In the 1960s, a group of cycling fans1an idea . They believed that it would be better for everybody if only bicycles were allowed in the city centre. They were2that this would help to save energy, reduce pollution and provide free public transport. The group painted hundreds of bicycles3and placed them in public places around Amsterdam for people to use.4was allowed to take them and use them for short journeys, whether he was a local or a foreigner, Wherever someone finished a journey, they would5the bike there for someone else to use. The problem was that it didn't work-thieves took all the bicycles6 weeks!

    7,more than thirty years later, the "white bike" is back in town-this time with a computer chip(芯片)to8 its every move! To take a bicycle, you have to put a special card inside. The new "White bike" is not white any more but is an unusual9with bright colours. The bikes are parked at special parking places and people who want to use them have to take them to another place that has enough room.

    There is already less traffic in central Amsterdam, 10 both locals and tourists have been using the white bikes. Thanks to the good ideas of lots of people, like the cycling fans in the 1960s, many people around the world have been enjoying city centre streets without cars for many years.

B

    Language students often think they have memory problems. They worry because they can't remember words. In fact, the problem usually isn't with their memory. The problem is with how they study.

    To remember words better, you need to understand how memory works. There are two kinds of memory: short-term and long-term. When you see, hear, or read something, it goes first into short-term memory. But short-term memory lasts for only a few seconds. You will only remember something longer if it goes into long-term memory. Your long-term memory is like a very big library with many, many books. And like a library, it's organized (有条理的). When you put away a book – or memory – you can't just leave it anywhere. You have to choose a place where you can find it again.

    How can you do this with vocabulary? The answer is to work with the word and think about the word in new ways. You can do this by writing new sentences that include it. Even better, you can invent a little story about the word, with people or places that you know. Another way is to make a picture in your mind with the word. For example, if the word is height, you can think of the tallest person you know and try to guess his or her height. All of these activities are good ways to think about words. They make the meaning of words stronger in your long-term memory. And they give a way to find a word when you need it.

D

    The earth moves round the sun , and the moon moves round the earth . When our part of the earth faces the moon , it is night .

    The sun is much bigger than the moon . But sometimes the moon looks bigger than the sun , because it's much nearer to the earth

    The sun is very bright . It gives off very strong light . The moon looks quite bright , too. But it doesn't give off any light at all .

    The moon looks much bigger and brighter than the stars . But actually the stars are much bigger and brighter than the moon . They look smaller than the moon because they're much farther away from us .

    When the Audet family turns on the lights at Blue Farm, they are using electricity that comes from cows- cow manure(粪肥).

    Cows produce a lot of waste. One cow can create 30 gallons of waste each day. Now imagine the output of over 1,000 cows at Blue Farm. That's really a big amount.

    When farmers clean their barns, they put the waste together，and spread some of it on their fields for fertilizer(肥料). But now places like Blue Farm have a new way of using cow waste. They use it to produce electricity.

    Here's how it works: A big machine moves back and forth cleaning the barn floor. "The cows are animals of habit; they get used to it,and just lift one foot and then another to let it go by. "says Marie Audet.

    The machine pushes the manure into a big 600-gallon tank like a small swimming pool. The tank is called a digester(化粪池) because what happens there is just like what happens inside a cow: Bacteria(细菌) get to work and continue to digest the manure.

    Methane gas(甲烷;沼气) in the atmosphere is known as a "greenhouse" gas because it keeps heat just like a greenhouse does, causing our planet to warm up. That's an environmental concern. But the digester has a good result. Its gas is kept and used to power electric generators(发电机).

    At Blue Farm, the generators make enough electricity to power 400 homes. The Audet family sells the extra electricity they can't use themselves.