There are world records at the Olympic Games. But what are the word records in animal kingdom?

    The largest and heaviest animal on earth is the blue whale. It weighs between 110 and 120 tons. Its heart is the size of a Mini Cooper, It's got the biggest mouth in the world as well. About 100 people can fit inside it. But it doesn't eat people! In fact, the biggest thing it can eat is the size of an apple.

The giraffe is smaller than the blue whale but it is also a record breaker. It's the tallest living land animal. It's got the longest neck-about 2 metres long, and it's got the longest legs-about 1.8 metres long. Drinking is difficult, but eating from the top of trees is easy! And its tongue is 50 c m long!

    The most dangerous animal in the world isn't a lion or a bear. It's an insect! The mosquitoes (蚊子) that carry malaria kill over 1 million people a year. After that, the most dangerous animal is the venomous snake. They kill 50,000 to 125,000 people a year.

     A. the mosquito           B. the giraffe                C. the blue whale

    You may get the idea once or twice a year. You come home on a hot summer day, hoping to have a cool bath, and find out there is no water. Then you see how important water is in your everyday life. However, in many parts of the world, water is not just about one's everyday needs.

    In countries like Tanzania, water is hard to get, and the job of collecting water falls on women's shoulders. Girls are often kept home from school to collect water while their brothers stay at school studying. More time spent collecting water means less time for learning. For these girls, "Knowledge is power" is not just words; it is a sad fact in real life. With less time spent at school, their chances of getting well-paid jobs are small. And they often have no voice in important matters, like who to marry. These girls are often married into poor families. They have little money or knowledge to take care of their children, so the children often die young. For the baby girls who are lucky enough to live, their life may still center around "water," just like it did for their mothers.

    What would the world be like if cars could drive themselves? Imagine seeing an empty car passing by on its way to pick up its owner, or a car full of passengers who are reading, listening to music or even sleeping. But none of them are worried about the road ahead.

    Well, all of this could be the future of driving. There are several companies, including Google, working on driverless cars. So far, no Google self-driven car has gotten a traffic ticket, bus some of them have been in accidents when other cars hit them.

    These cars are now still in the testing stages. But, if the tests are successful, these electric self-driven cars could be put into use very soon.

    The cars already have many features（特点）allowing them to take the place of drivers during certain situations. Some features include cars being able to park themselves, or slow down when they notice objects close by. They can also control the speed if there are dangerous conditions.

    Scientists and engineers believe, with the help of wireless（无线电的）signals, cameras and GPS, we are now at a stage where creating a safe self-driven car might be possible.

    The cause of deadly road accidents is usually careless drivers or dangerous conditions. The self-driven car may be able to prevent these. However, some people do not like the idea. American lawyer Whit Drake, for example, doesn't believe these cars are safe. He thinks that technologies can also be mistakes.

    Height is just one of the thousands of features your genes decide. In fact, because you have two parents, your genes provide you a height that usually lands somewhere between the height of each parent. If both your parents are tall, then most probably you will be tall, too, but if you have questions about how tall you're going to be, ask your doctor if he or she can help you find it out.

    But genes don't decide everything. For example, eating an unhealthy diet can keep you from growing to your full potential(潜力). Getting plenty of sleep and enough exercise will help you grow to the expected height.

    No doubt you're wondering how fast you should grow. It depends. There's no perfect or right answer. Generally speaking, kids grow about 2 inches (6 centimeters) a year between age 3 and the time when they start puberty (when your body starts changing and becoming more grown up).

    Your doctor will know how your growth has been going over the years. Two centimeters here and 2 inches there are not nearly as important as the height you're at now, how you've been growing up to this point, and what other changes your body may be going through.

    Don't be scared if you seem to have grown a lot in a very short time. Everyone has a growth spurt（高峰）during____The age for starting puberty is about 10 for girls and about 11 for boys. But it can be earlier or later —between 7 and 13 for girls and 9 and 15 for boys.

    You'll usually begin to notice that you're growing faster about a year or so after your body starts to show the first changes of puberty.

    Do you know what the hump(驼峰) of a camel is used for? If you answered to store water, guess again. In fact, a camel's hump is a place for storing fat.

    Most animals, including humans, store fat throughout their bodies, under their skin. But camels store their fat in one place, their hump. A hump can weigh as much as 80 pounds. Why do camels keep their fat this way? The answer is most likely because of their environment. Camels can go up to two weeks without eating because they have this fat to live off.

    Also camels are great at handling(处理，应付) changes in body temperature. Their humps can help the camels keep cooler. Their coats also help them adapt(适应) to the heat. While the coat is thick, it reflects(反射)the sunlight and protects the camel from the heat that rises off the desert sand.

    There are two kinds of camels, those with one hump and those with two humps. Camels with one hump are called Dromedary or Arabian camels. They live in the dry deserts in West Asia. Camels with two humps are called Bactrian camels. They live in Central and East Asia.

    Besides their humps, camels have a lot of interesting facts. They can live between 40~50 years. They can carry about 400 pounds and run up to 40 miles per hour. It's true that camels can go long time without drinking water, and they can drink about 26 gallons of water at a time. Camels can also close their nostrils(鼻孔). So whether a camel has one hump or two, it is one amazing animal that is very well adapted to its environment.

    Technology is changing our ways of life. Robby Pepper is Italy's first robot gatekeeper. He can answer questions in Italian, English and German. He is placed at a hotel to help answer simple questions from visitors. A guest from Moldova, congratulated the robot on his skills. "He's like a real person. He's really good." She said. "He talked to me, and he shook my hand."

    Japan's Softbank Robotics created Robby. It can provide hotel guests with information they need, like where to find a restaurant and its hours of operation. The use of robots is growing in service industries like tourism. But they are expected to become more useful as better artificial intelligence, or AI, is developed.

    The International Federation of Robotics says about 79,000 professional service robots were sold last year. It expects up to 25 percent sales growth each year. There are many different kinds of artificial intelligence machines: learning robots, cleaning robots, medical robots and public relations robots.

    We have made some progress in the development of AI, but we still have a long way to go. Experts say people in the United States and Japan seem more welcoming to robots than people in Europe do. Shoppers at a store in Scotland got one robot, Softbank's Fabio Pepper, fired out Customers were not willing to talk to the robot. And a security robot in Washington DC made news last year when it rolled itself into a fountain*and could not get out.

    In Brescia, the Cayu car sore is using another Softbank Pepper robot to sell cars Named Cayuiki .the robot is programmed to give information on cars, playing games and collecting information. It is helping to bring in possible car buyers .But the head of the Cayu car store said, "To sell the cars, you still need human beings."