Life in the year 3044 is very different1 life in the 21^st century. We still do many of the things you did, but we do them 2. For example, we now have e-friends to help us and keep us company. An e-friend is a machine that looks just3a human being. It can walk and talk and can do almost4 we human beings do. My e-friend is a lot like me and we have5fun together. She helps me 6 my homework and we often go swimming.  She is programmed to take care of me if anything7, so I always feel safe when we are together.  She can also send me messages, just like old-fashioned e-mail, and I can download information from her memory. It's great8an e-friend. I am never lonely and I always have someone to talk9.

      I would like to tell you more about life in the year 3044, but I have to send my e-friend to clean up my room. Maybe10I will be able to travel back in time and visit you.

　The  1  is getting colder, and soon winter  2  shorter. We live in warm houses and we  3  thick coats when we go outside. But 4  do animals stay warm in winter?

Adapt(适应)

    Some animals keep  5  in winter, so they must adapt to the changing weather.  6  warm, they may grow new, thicker fur in  7 autumn.

Migrate(迁徙)

    Some of the animals migrate. That means they travel to other places  8  the weather is warm or they can find food.

Hibernate(冬眠)

    Some animals hibernate for part or  9  of the winter. These animals usually find a cave or a hole under the ground to spend their winter. The body temperature of the animals drops, their heart beats more slowly and they breathe  10  .

    Elephants are the largest living animals on land. More than 5001 kinds of elephants were found on the earth over the last 55 million years. Only  2   kinds are still alive today: the African elephant and the Asian (or Indian) elephant. These elephants can only be found in  3   places. However, the older kinds lived in cold places a long time  4 . An example is the mammoth (猛犸象) — the largest hairy elephant.

    The mammoth was the largest living elephant, which was about seven tons. 5  the elephants today, mammoths had black or dark brown hairs 6 their bodies. All the mammoths had tusks (长牙).

    Scientists found most of the extinct (灭绝的) animals by 7  the fossils,  8  their bones and teeth that could be found. However, mammoths are quite different. During the Ice Age, mammoths died and were covered  9 in the ice. The ice kept them very well. So scientists could find the  10  body of the mammoth.

    A major development to self-driving cars may change the way we will drive in the future. Google, the leading company in self-driving technology, has changed its develop plan. It had driverless cars built by car factories, but now it will start building its own cars.

    Google has started to build some kinds of experimental electric self- driving cars that look like a Smart car or Fiat 500. There is no steering wheel(方向盘), gas pedal or brake. The only things a human passenger controls are a red "e-stop" button (按钮) for fear stops and a start button. The car's only "friendly" face is designed to make it help people accept self-driving technology.

Google workers took part in a long experiment, in which they used self-driving cars for their usual travel to work. No accident happened, but Google's heads realized that depending on a human passenger to drive in an emergency(紧急情况) wouldn't work because they may be reading, working , or sleeping. Now the self-driving car drives by itself if the driver takes his hands off the wheel for over ten seconds.

Google recently announced that its cars had covered 700,000 miles of public roads, and they were now running in busy city streets. People who love self-driving cars say this will improve transport by making roads safer, cutting down accident, and making less pollution.

    Of course, there's no need to look for parking at a crowded shopping mall. Instead, users could let their self-driving cars drop them off to park itself. A mother who took a test ride said that having the car would allow her more time to catch up with her son. The cars could also allow people who might not be able to drive to enjoy the hand-free driving. And drunk driving? Not a problem. It is very likely that by 2020, driverless cars will be common. Do you believe so?