If you ever visit an English village, make sure to look out for morris dancing. Undoubtedly one of the strangest traditions of English culture, morris dancing is a form of folk dancing that dates back to the 15th century. If you ever get the opportunely, you really have to see it.

    Men and women wearing old-fashioned, shabby clothing dance in the streets of towns and villages across the country during the holiday periods. Women wear long, frilly(有褶皱边的) skirts and men wear short trousers with bells attached to them. They dance to traditional folk music which is often played on traditional musical instruments.

    Some groups carry heavy black sticks which they beat against each other while they dance. Other groups wave handkerchiefs in the air while they perform. The dances are usually performed near a pub so that when it's over, the dancers and audience can sing some traditional folk songs over a pint of beer. The celebrations will often continue long into the night, by which point most people are too drunk to think about performing again.

    Morris dancing is a great English tradition but it's facing a big crisis. As the years go by, fewer and fewer young people are joining morris dancing groups. The dancers are getting older and older and eventually, if nothing is done to change this trends, the tradition will die out within the next few decades.

    If you've ever had the fortune to see morris dancing, you may understand why teenagers aren't rushing to sign up. Putting it to the point, it's not exactly the coolest thing for an 18-year-old to be doing. Why dress up in bells and funny costumes when you could be going clubbing? Or playing sport? Or doing anything else?

    However, it would be a great shame to lose such a fun and lively part of England's history and culture. It's important to look after some traditions and customs especially when it's something as harmless and happy as morris dancing. So here's a toast to the next generation of would-be morris dancers! Let's hope they don't leave it too late.

    Graph can be a very useful tool for conveying information especially numbers， percentages, and other data . A graph gives the reader a picture to interpret. That can be a lot more pages and pages and pages explaining the data .

    Graphs can seem frightening, but reading a graph is a lot like reading a story. The graph has a title ,a main idea ,and supporting details.You can use your active reading skills to analyze and understand graphs just like any other text .

    Most graphs have a few basic parts: a caption or introduction paragraph, a title , a legend or key, and labeled axes. An active reader looks at each part of the graph before trying to interpret the data. Captions will usually tell you where the data came from (for example, a scientific study of 400 African elephants from 1980 to 2005). Captions usually summarize the author's main point as well. The title is very important. It tells you the main idea of the graph by stating what kind of information is being shown. A legend, also called a key ,is a guide to the symbols and colors used in the graph. Many graphs, including bar graphs and line graphs, have two axes that form a corner, Usually these axes are the left side and the bottom of the graph .Each axis will always have a label. The label tells you what each axis measures.

Bar Graphs

    A bar graph has two axes and uses bars to show amounts. In Graph 1 ,we see that the x-axis shows grades that students earned, and the y-axis shows bow many students earned each grade .You can see that 6 students earned an A because the bar for A stretches up to 6 on the vertical measurement. There is a lot of information we can get from a simple graph like this(See Graph 1).

Line Graphs

    A line graph looks similar to a bar graph ,but instead of Bars, it plots points and connects them with a line .It has the same parts as a bar graph – two labeled axes –and can be read the same way .To read a line graph, it's important to focus on the points of intersection rather than the line segments between the points, This type of graph is most commonly used to show how something changes over time.

    Here is a graph that charts how far a bird flies during the first Five days of its spring migration (See Graph 2).

    The unit of measurement for the x-axis is days. The unit of measurement for the y-axis is kilometers. Thus we can see that ,on the first day, the pipit flew 20 kilometers. The line segment goes up between Day 1 and Day 2,which means that the bird flew farther on Day 2.If the line segment angled dawn, as between Day 4 and Day 5,it would mean that the bird flew fewer  kilometers than the day before. This line graph is a quick, visual way to tell the reader about the bird's migration.

    Pie Graphs

    A typical pie graph looks like a circular pie. The circle is divided into sections, and each section represents a fraction of the data. The graph is commonly used to show percentages; the whole pie represents l00 percent, so each piece is a fraction of the whole.

    A pie graph might include a legend，or it might use icons or labels within each slice. This pie graph shows on month's expense, (See Graph 3 ).

    Food $ 25

    Movies $ 12

    Clothing $ 36

    Savings $ 20

    Books $ 7

    Organic food, grown without artificial chemicals, is increasingly popular nowadays. Consumers (消费者) have been willing to pay up to twice as much for goods with organic labels (标签). However, if you think paying a little more for organic food gets you a more nutritious and safer product, then you'd better save your money. A study led by researchers at Stanford University says that organic products aren't necessarily more nutritious, and they're no less likely to suffer from disease-causing bacteria, either.

    For their new study, Smith-Spangler and her colleagues conducted a review of two categories（种类）of research, including 17 studies that compared health outcomes between consumers of organic against traditional food products, and 223 studies that analyzed(分析) the nutritional content of the foods, including key vitamins, minerals and fats.

    While the researchers found little difference in nutritional content, they did find that organic fruit and vegetables were 20% less likely to have chemicals remaining on the surfaces. Neither organic nor traditional foods showed levels of chemicals high enough to go beyond food safety standards(标准). And both organic and traditional meats, such as chicken and pork, were equally likely to be harmed by bacteria at very low rates. The researchers did find that organic milk and chicken contained higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, a healthy fat also found in fish that can reduce the risk of heart disease. However, these nutritional differences were too small, and the researchers were unwilling to make much of them until further studies confirm the trends.

    Organic food is produced with fewer chemicals and more natural-growing practices, but that doesn't always translate into a more nutritious or healthier product. The U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) states that "whether you buy organic or not, finding the freshest foods available may have the biggest effect on taste." Fresh food is at least as good as anything marketed as organic.

    While smartphones stand accused of a variety of crimes, these pocket computers can certainly be a force for good. Your phone is always with you, making it the perfect device to push you into a more beneficial way of living. Here are some of the best apps that can help.

    Habitica

    Habitica turns the goal of forming good habits into a game, with its own characters and scoring. It's a lot of fun, and the app also lets you build habits with friends and family. In addition to regular repeating habits, you can add a more general to-do list, and the rewards you get can be customized too — you could treat yourself to a meal out or an extra hour of games.

    Smoke Free

    If you've got a specific habit in mind，then you'll usually find specific apps to help, like Smoke Free. If you're determined to give up smoking, then this is one of the most comprehensive apps for giving you that extra push you need to make a permanent change. The app offers a host of useful features for people wanting to go smoke-free: The ability to see your progress over time, charts showing how your health is improving, day-by-day encouragement, and some advice on techniques for giving up smoking.

    MyFitnessPal

    You can find a ton of health and fitness apps for your phone, but MyFitnessPal stands out not just because it is easy to use, but because it makes practical suggestions for you. It can take in a host of data, from the calories (卡路里)you're taking in to the number of swims you're doing per week, and offer reports on calorie consumption and macronutrient (大量营养素) breakdown.

    The siesta competition took place in a supermarket, with plenty of shoppers, screaming babies, talking voices, and footsteps to take the competitors' attention away from their after lunch sleeps.

    Five bright blue sofas were laid out, and five competitors at a time were allowed to take a 20-minute sleep. A doctor measured their pulse to time how long they actually spent on asleep. Competitors earned extra points for snoring (打鼾), sleeping in strange positions, or wearing silly pajamas (睡衣). The winners of each round advance to the next stage in the competition.

    It's amazing that any of those people would fall asleep in the middle of such a busy place, while on couches that they are not used to. Yet, many of them did. They hugged pillows or soft toy bears. They covered their eyes with sleep masks, too. Whatever it took to help them fall asleep fast and stay asleep.

    The siesta is a tradition in Spain that many feel is becoming forgotten. It used to be that people would take a brief nap after lunch every day. This would energize them, and keep them going for the rest of the day. Not to mention the health benefits of a good nap. But, that's all changing. People are too busy making money or watching gossip shows on TV after lunch to care about taking a nap.

    The National Association of Friends of the Siesta wants to bring Spain back to their traditional roots. They are doing this by having the siesta competition. They set up the competition to reward the best sleepers with money. Actually, they were paid to sleep.

    There are really health benefits to a midday nap. We could all learn from this tradition. It's a much better way to get more energy than drinking a cup of coffee. It is also believed that a nap, and in fact a good night's sleep, can help reduce heart disease. The more rested we are, the less stress we feel with day-to-day life.

    Fern loved Wilbur more than anything. She loved to stroke him, to feed him, to put him to bed. Every morning, as soon as she got up, she warmed his milk, tied his bib on, and held the bottle for him.  Every afternoon, when the school bus stopped in front of her house, she jumped out and ran to the kitchen to fix another bottle for him. She fed him again at suppertime, and again just before going to bed.  Mrs. Arable gave him a feeding around noontime each day, when Fern was away in school. Wilbur loved his milk, and he was never happier than when Fern was warming up a bottle for him. He would stand and gaze up at her with adoring eyes.

    For the first few days of his life, Wilbur was allowed to live in a box near the stove in the kitchen. Then, when Mrs. Arable complained, he was moved to a bigger box in the woodshed. At two weeks of age, he was moved outdoors. It was apple-blossom time, and the days were getting warmer. Mr.  Arable fixed a small yard specially for Wilbur under an apple tree, and gave him a large wooden box full of straw, with a doorway cut in it so he could walk in and out as he pleased.

    "Won't he be cold at night?" asked Fern.

    "No," said her father.  "You watch and see what he does."

    Carrying a bottle of milk, Fern sat down under the apple tree inside the yard. Wilbur ran to her and she held the bottle for him while he sucked. When he had finished the last drop, he grunted and walked sleepily into the box. Fern peered through the door. Wilbur was poking the straw with his snout. In a short time he had dug a tunnel in the straw. He crawled into the tunnel and disappeared from sight, completely covered with straw.

    Fern was enchanted. It relieved her mind to know that her baby would sleep covered up, and would stay warm.