Earthquake Intensity & Observed Effects（强度与现象）
I.Felt by only a few people under very special conditions.
II. Felt by only a few people at rest, especially on the upper floors of buildings.
III. Felt noticeably indoors, especially on upper floors of buildings.
IV. Felt indoors by many people, outdoors by a few; some awaked.
V. Felt by nearly everyone; many awaked; dishes and windows break; plaster (灰泥) cracks (开裂).
VI. Felt by everyone; many frightened and run outdoors; heavy furniture such as tables and shelves moves.
VII. Everyone runs outdoors; small to moderate (中等的) damage(损毁) in usual buildings.
VIII. Considerable (相当大的) damage in usual buildings; monuments(碑) fall.
IX.Considerable damage in all buildings; ground cracks; underground pipes (管道) break.
X.Most buildings damaged; rails bend(弯曲); landslides (山崩) take place; water splashes(溅落) over banks.
XI.Few buildings left standing; bridges damaged; wide cracks in the ground; underground pipes break.
XII.Damage total; waves seen on ground; objects thrown into air.

    Better think twice before choosing a password for email, online bank or shopping. Simple passwords are easy to be stolen.

    A password is like a key to your home. If someone steals it, he'll get chances to steal something else. We use passwords everywhere in our life. We are so used to passwords that we don't pay any attention to them until we lose or forget one.

    A study of 28，000 passwords recently stolen from a popular website showed that people often do the easy thing. It found that 16% took a first name as a password. Another 14% used the easiest keyboard combinations such as “12345678” or QWERTY. 5% of the stolen passwords were names of television shows or stars popular with young people. 3% of the passwords expressed feelings like “I don't care，” “Whatever，” “I love you，” or their opposite, “I hate you.”

    Robert Graham, who did the study, advises people to choose a password that is longer than eight characters with one capital letter and one symbol.

    Of course, safe passwords don't mean those hard to remember. Forgetting your password is sometimes a big headache for you. Maybe, the perfect password is easy for you and hard for others.

    Noise pollution is doing much harm to our health now. Noise, in fact, is unwanted sound and is a kind of invisible (无形的) killer. More and more students enjoy listening to music very much. When they listen to MP3 players, they like to turn up the volume (音量). Some people love listening to loud music. Furthermore, while watching TV, they keep the volume up. But they haven't realized that the noise is weakening their hearing. In fact, the noise not only influences each member in the family, but also makes a difference to the comfort of neighbors.

Noise pollution is a source of increasing misery (痛苦) to people in our society. If people are often disturbed by it, they may feel uncomfortable or upset. What's worse, the noise can make people mad sometimes. If a worker works in a printing factory for too long, his/her hearing loss is much faster than a common person working in a quieter environment. So everybody must pay more attention to noise pollution. Generally speaking, the following four types of noise should be watched out for:

    ◆Noise in the street

    ◆Construction site (建筑工地) noise

    ◆Noise at work

    ◆Transportation noise

    I think the local department (部门) should take measures to control the noise levels, but it's everybody's duty to keep a quiet environment.

    Bananas are the perfect snack. Not only are they sweet and delicious, but they are easy to carry around, so you can take them anywhere. Best of all, bananas provide different things that the human body needs!

    Bananas grow best in warm places that get lots of rain. They grow on plants that look like trees.

    The banana plant, however, is considered a herb rather than a tree because it doesn't have a strong, woody stem(茎，干). The plants can grow as high as 30 feet. When they reach their full height, flowers grow out from the stem. These flowers produce bananas.

    Two or three times each year, the plants produce fruit. The bananas grow together, which seem like "hands". A hand is made up of 10 to 20 bananas. Growers sometimes call bananas "fingers".

    Each bunch(丛) of bananas has about 15 hands, and so a whole bunch may have as many as 200 bananas and can weigh more than 100 pounds.

    After about three months, the bananas are ready to be picked. At this point, they still aren't the sunny yellow color of bananas. Farmers pick them when they're green. That's how they're shipped to stores. They turn yellow along the way and are ready to be sold.

    If you love bananas, you've got a lot of company. Americans have been enjoying bananas since the first shipment arrived in the United States in 1876. Today, American eat more bananas than any other fruit. More bananas are sold than apples and grapes together. Every American eats over 26 pounds of bananas each year!

    Babies born after 2017 may never need to take a driving lesson because of the development of self ­driving cars. Some scientists say that self ­driving or driverless cars(无人驾驶汽车)may hit the roads within 15 years, and it is possible that driving may become unnecessary, or more relaxing and enjoyable.

    Companies like Google, Baidu, Apple and Alibaba are working on driverless cars. But, if the tests are successful, these electric self­ driving cars could be put into use very soon. This kind of cars may change the way we live in the future. All you have to do is to type in the address!

    According to Baidu, driverless technology has the following four advantages. Firstly, driverless cars are actually safer. With driverless cars, the number of deaths caused by accidents will decrease. Secondly, driverless cars are more efficient(效率高的) than manned cars. Thirdly, driverless cars follow the traffic rules. Therefore traffic control will be easier to achieve. At last, the cost of transportation will be reduced as the labor cost becomes less.

    There are many different technologies needed to make a successful self ­driving car. The most difficult technologies of all are environmental perception(感知), behavior prediction, planning control, HD mapping, and exact GPS.

    The unknown world's mystery

    The sea is the biggest unknown part of our world. It covers about seventy-one percent of the earth. There is still much to be discovered about this huge part of water. If the waters of the ocean could be removed, the sea floor with its wide valleys(峡谷), tail mountains and long rivers in the sea would be a special sight.

    Tourism under the deep blue sea

    From tourist submarines(潜艇) to underwater dining, undersea tourism is making a big splash.

    Tourists can now explore(探索) the world under the sea without ever getting wet.

    Tourist submarines

    The popularity of submarine tours has grown fast during these years. Now, submarine tours have been on in more than 20 places worldwide, including the waters around Okinawa and Taiwan's Green Island. The submarines carry nearly 2 million tourists each year. Large windows give passengers special views as the submarines explore colorful coral reefs and sunken ships. Most one-hour tours cost about $ 80.

    Underwater dining

    For a more fantastic experience, tourists can enjoy fine dining under the sea. In 2016 the Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa opened the world's first underwater restaurant, Ithaa. Tourists walk down a staircase into the restaurant, which rests 35 feet in the Indian Ocean. You can have a great ocean view. But this excellent view doesn't come cheap. The dinner costs about $ 400 per person. Be sure to book it early, too, The restaurant seats only 14 people.