Australia is the smallest continent in the world. It is a little smaller than China. It is on the Southern Hemisphere of the earth. Australia is big, but its population is small. The population of Australia is nearly as large as that of Shanghai.

    Enough laws have been made to fight against pollution. The cities in Australia have little air or water pollution. The sky is blue and the water is clean. You can clearly see fish in the rivers. Plants grow very well.

    Last month we visited Perth, the biggest city in Western Australia, and went to a wild flower exhibition. There we saw large numbers of wild flowers on show, most of which we had never seen before. We had a wonderful time. Perth is famous for its beautiful wild flowers. Every year in spring Perth has a wild flower exhibition. After visiting Perth, we spent a day in the countryside. We sat down and had a rest near a path at the foot of a hill. It was quiet and we enjoyed ourselves very much. When we heard bells ringing at the top of the hills, we looked up, but what we saw made us pick up all our things and run back to our car as quickly as we could. There were about three hundred sheep coming towards us along the path.

    Australia is famous for its sheep and kangaroos. After a short drive from any town, you will find yourself among the white sheep. Sheep, sheep, everywhere you can see sheep.

    For most people, Christmas is a time to relax in the company of family and friends. But for Santa Claus, and the thousands of fake Santas who impersonate（模仿） him every year, the Christmas season is time to get to work.

    Although Santa Claus waits until Christmas Eve to take his famous sleigh (雪橇) ride, Santa impersonators can be found at shopping malls around America throughout the six weeks leading up to December 25. "When you see Santa talking with kids at your local mall, that's when you know Christmas really is on the way," says Mary Lewine of New York City.

    With the excitement of Christmas, people often forget about the real people behind the red robes （长袍) and white beards, but being a mall Santa. is a tough job. "There is more to it than just sitting in a chair. There is more to it than just a red suit," said Timothy Connaghan, who has worked as a Santa for.38 years. "Children can really put the wear and tear on you.”

    A recent survey showed some of the challenges that mall Santas face every year. About 90 percent of Santas claimed that children pulled their beards to see if they were real, and 60 percent said that up to ten kids cough or sneeze on them every day. Even more disturbing, one-third of the Santas admit to having children wet themselves while sitting on their laps.

    So why would anyone take this job? For Ben Brauch, a retired high school teacher who has worked as a Santa for the last six years, the answer is simple-the children. "I see maybe 12,000 kids in a six-week period.

    It's hard work, but it's worth it because you get to play with kids." In fact, Brauch loves his job so much that he keeps his white beard long all year.

    Why Do People Blink Their Eyes?

    People blink(眨眼) their eyes tens of thousands of times every day. Scientists have long believed blinking was an involuntary movement and served mainly to keep the eyeballs wet. But a new study suggests it has a more important purpose.

    An international team of scientists from the University of California at Berkeley studied the blinking of human eyelids. The journal Current Biology published their findings. The team said they found that blinking “repositions our eyeballs so we can stay focused” on what we are seeing. They said that when we blink our eyelids, the eyes roll back into their sockets--the bony area that surrounds and protects the eyes. However, the researchers found the eyes don't always return to the same position. They said this causes the brain to tell the eye muscles to reorganize our eyesight.

    Gerrit Maus is the lead writer of the report. He serves as an assistant professor of psychology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Maus says: “Our eye muscles are quite sluggish(迟缓的) and imprecise, so the brain needs to constantly adapt its motor signals to make sure our eyes are pointing where they're supposed to. Our findings suggested that the brain measures the difference in what we see before and after a blink, and commands the eye muscles to make the needed corrections.” The researchers said that without such corrections our surroundings would appear unclear and even jumpy. They said the movement acts “like a Steadicam(摄影稳定器) of the mind.”

    The researchers said they asked volunteers to sit in a dark room while staring at a small dot on a flat surface. They used special cameras to follow the volunteer's blinks and eye movements. After each blink, the dot was moved one centimeter to the right. The volunteers did not notice this, but the brain did. It followed the movement and directed the eye muscles to refocus on the dot. After the dot was moved in this way 30 times, the volunteers' eyes changed their focus to the place where they predicted it would be.

    Professor Maus says “Even though participants did not consciously register that the dot had moved, their brains did, and adjusted with the corrective eye movement. These findings add to our understanding of how the brain constantly adapts to changes, commanding our eye muscles to correct for errors in our bodies' own hardware.”

    As the world around them is changing, teenagers continue to need guidance and support from both parents. Studies show that teens who have an active relationship with their fathers are less likely(可能的)to involve themselves in dangerous behaviors and more likely to succeed in school and develop higher self-worth, because their fathers go beyond social expectations to devote attention to them.

    Peer(同龄人)pressure has always been a big part of the teens' experience. Even the best father can't completely protect their kids from the growing influence of their peer group. However, studies show that teenagers whose fathers focus on their lives are more likely to resist (抵抗)the more bad effects of peer pressure, taking drugs, for example.

    Teens may not like to admit it, but they are watching their parents closely and often follow their example. An interesting finding explains just how important parents are, especially Dad. Swiss researchers discovered that if Dad attends church, even though Mom doesn't, 44 percent of the kids are still more likely to keep going to church as adults. But if Mom goes regularly and Dad never shows up, only 2 percent of the kids continue to attend.

    Teenagers face a lot of difficult choices, especially in their later teens. Fathers don't get to make those choices for them, but they can be influenced. For example, teenagers can learn a lot from their parents' concern on what to do when they finish high school. Should they go directly to college and, if so, where? Should they consider going to trade schools, joining the army or looking for a job? A father's guidance brings a long-term perspective that teens often lack to these important decisions.

    A heated debate is currently going on in our town.Should we allow the cinema to be constructed in the Havenswood Shopping Center? There is just one large lot left to build on,and the theater would use up all of that space.Some people are excited at the idea of finally having our own movie theater.Others would rather travel ten miles to the nearest theater to keep our quiet town the way it is.They say it is enough to have Marvin's Movie Video Rentals.After all,Marvin's store keeps thousands of the latest videos.

    There are certainly benefits to renting videos.For one thing,you can plan your own schedule when it is convenient for you.You can relax on your sofa,and take a break whenever you need one.You can also talk to others without bothering any strangers seated nearby.In additional,it is a less expensive way to view a movie compared to going to a theater.

    On the other hand,seeing a movie in a theater is an experience all its own.First,you can see the movie on wide screen as the filmmaker intended.To be viewed on a television screen,a film must be changed in some way to make it smaller.One is the “pan-and-scan” method,which involves removing some of the details in the picture.The other way,called “letterboxing”,keeps the image the way it is on the big screen,with one annoying exception; because the big-screen version is wide,the same picture on a television screen must be long and narrow.

    Another problem is sound.The sound from a television cannot compare to the sound system in a theater.Your experience of a movie improves when you can clearly hear all of the sounds.Furthermore,at home,viewing companions often talk during a movie,which makes you miss out on what's happening in the film.

    Besides,having a movie theater will not mean that you can't still go to Marvin's! You will just have a choice that you didn't have before.Isn't it time for Havenswood residents to enjoy a little progress?

Los Angeles Could Be One Of The Few Cities The Olympics Can't Ruin

    In just the past several years, six cities—Boston; Rome; Stockholm; Hamburg, Germany; Krakow, Poland; and Oslo, Norway—have decisively rejected the idea of hosting the Olympics.

    The games' high costs, damaging effects on poor communities in the places that have recently hosted them have turned cities, against them—fostering the belief that "nobody wants to host the Olympic Games anymore."

    But Los Angeles is different. And on Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council made final decision to try to get the chance to host the 2024 Olympics, taking the step Boston and many others never did. In LA, organizers promise they can hold an Olympics that stays within its $5.3 billion budget Organizers in every possible host city make the same promise. But when it comes to LA, where residents greatly support the plan, even people who doubt the Olympics believe that success in hosting the Olympics without any loss might be possible. "It's basically sound," said Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist, who wrote the book on the financial risks the Olympics bring to cities and their taxpayers. "I think they'll be able to do it without any financial downside, although there is always some risk attached."

    There's another reason to believe LA could succeed: It's done it before. It last hosted the Olympics in 1984, when the Olympic turned a small profit. No host since has replicated that feat.

    The Los Angeles Coliseum, which was used for the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, will again serve as the place of the games, along with a new NFL stadium set to open in Inglewood in 2019. There's no need for a new Olympic village, thanks to dorms at UCLA. When LA announced its final three stadiums this month, chairman Casey Wasserman said proudly that a Los Angeles Olympics won't require any new construction—instead, it will rely entirely on already planned or temporary (临时的) places.