One of the most important things in the world is friendship. In order to have friends, you have to be a friend. You have to be with them in both good and bad times. In return, they will be there for you. But how can you be a good friend?

    Listen. Listen when they are talking. Keep eye contact. Don't say anything unless they ask you a question. Sometimes you're not required to have anything to say; they just need someone to talk to about their feelings.

    Help them. If your friends are ever in need of something, be there to help them. You should try to put them first, but make sure you don't become their slave (奴隶). Try to take an extra pencil or pen with you to classes as they may forget to take one. Have a few extra dollars in your pocket in case they forget something they need.

    Be there for them. Try to make something for your friends to help make them feel better in hard times. Making cards and baking things are among the nicest things you can do for a friend when they are in hard times. Marilyn Monroe once said, "I'm selfish, impatient (急躁的) and a little insecure. I make mistakes, and I am out of control and at times hard to deal with. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you surely don't deserve (值得) me at my best. " Always remember this! If you don't want to deal with your friends when they're depressed, then you don't deserve to be with them during those parties where you have a good time!

    Try to make plans with your friends. Go shopping, go for an ice cream, have a party, go to a movie and so on. Make time to know each other even better by doing something you both enjoy. These are the things you'll remember once you're all long graduated when looking back on your life!

    In US, the potato is one of the most widely consumed crops. French fries are commonly found in typical American fast-food burger joints and cafeterias. French fries were introduced to the US when Thomas Jefferson served them in the White House during his presidency from 1801 to 1809. Potato chips are popular with consumers as well.

    The humble potato is more than just a kind of food. In many ways it's part of the American pop culture. Let's take a look at some pop culture potatoes.

Mashed Potato dance

    The Mashed Potato dance is a craze that began in 1962. The name of the dance came from the song it accompanies, Mashed Potato Time, performed by American R&B singer Dee Dee Sharp. The move vaguely resembles that of the Twist dance style, by Sharp's fellow Philadelphian.

Chubby Checker.

Hot Potato!

    Hot Potato! is an action puzzle video game released in 2001. In the game the player must drive a bus and clear the road of alien potato beings. The potato beings are either red or blue; when two like-colored potatoes touch each other, they disappear. Over the years, Hot Potato! has received mostly positive reception from critics.

Mr. Potato Head

    Mr. Potato Head is an American toy invented by George Lerner in 1949. The toy consists of a plastic potato model and a variety of plastic parts like hands, feet, ears and mouths. In 1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on television. This commercial revolutionized marketing and caused a boom that solidified this toy's place in American pop culture.

    At the end of last summer my parents' house in Tunstall went up in flames. Several months on, we're still trying to find out exactly what happened, but my parents John and Carole were out when more than half the house was burned to the ground. What was left behind needed to be pulled down and most of the things that were not actually destroyed were so smoke-damaged that they would have to be thrown away.

My parents were both teachers and not the kind of people to fill their house with expensive furniture, so most of their belongings were memories—--including photos and the tracksuit(运动服) that Dad was given when he carried the Olympic torch (火炬). But what really upset me was not the loss of these things.

    Dad had an album(唱片) for every occasion. Once his car got broken into and he was more upset that his cassettes had been nicked(划伤) than about all the rest of the damage. So when I was considering doing something to help after the fire, I immediately thought about his music. We couldn't get the old photos back, but we could replace his CDs and records. Then I started a little page about my dad on the blogging site Tumblr.

    Within a few days, news of what had happened spread by word of mouth, and I was getting messages from friends I hadn't spoken to for years. I also heard from Dad's mates and even from people neither of us had ever met. Soon packages arrived from all over the country. I expected 100CDs if we were lucky, but his new collection would now run into the thousands!

    On Christmas Day, all the records, tapes and CDs were packed into a beautiful box, which of course, was for my dad. A lot of them came from his previous students and he was touched to realize what an effect he had had on their lives. Eventually , he told me, “What could have been a bad Christmas has been a very good one.”

    As long as people have been telling stories, crones(丑陋的老太婆)have been scaring the wits out of children. "Nags(怨妇),witches, evil stepmothers, cannibals(食人妇). It's quite dreadful," says Maria Tatar, who teaches a course on folklore and mythology at Harvard. "But old women are also powerful—they're often the ones who can work magic." In the Disney film Snow White, there's a scene in which the beautiful, charming, wicked queen turns into an old hag and poisons Snow White so she'll sleep forever. The old lady in Hansel and Gretel wants to roast children in her oven and the witch in The Little Mermaid cuts out Ariel's tongue.

    Tatar says old women villains (恶人)are especially scary because，historically, the most powerful person in a child's life was the mother. "Children do have a way of splitting the mother figure into...the evil mother—who's always making rules and regulations, policing your behavior, getting angry at you—and then the kind mother—the one who is giving and protects you, makes sure that you survive."

    Veronique Tadjo, a writer who grew up in the Ivory Coast, thinks there's a fear of female power in general. She says a common figure in African folk tales is the old witch who destroys people's souls. Still, they're not all bitter and evil hags. Elderly women in folk tales often use their knowledge and experience of the world to guide the troubled protagonist(主人公). Tadjo points to the Kenyan story Marwe In The Underworld about a girl who commits suicide by drowning herself and enters the Land of the Dead where she meets an old woman. "That old woman teaches her quite a lot of things," Tadjo says. "And also, when Marwe starts longing for the world of the living, she helps her go back to the surface with a lot of riches. And we understand that Marwe has been rewarded for her goodness." In other words: Do your chores and you'll be rewarded. The point of these ancient tales, no matter what continent they come from, may have been to scare children into behaving.

    Perhaps the scariest old woman character—the ugly Baba Yaga—comes from Russia. She's bony with a hooked nose and long, iron teeth. Her hut(小屋)stands on chicken legs and she kidnaps children and eats them. Safe to say Baba Yaga has been making Eastern European children sleepless for centuries. In one interpretation, a mean stepmother sends the young girl Vasilisa to Baba Yaga's hut in the woods to get a candle. The girl is sure she's being sent to her death. Baba Yaga forces her to cook and clean, and Vasilisa does everything she's told. In the end, the old crone gives her what she needs and sends her home. "You see this kind of double face of the hag,"Maria Tatar says. "On the one hand: aggressive, threatening. And on the other hand: sometimes to make sure that there is a happily ever after."

    There's that power again. In Japanese folklore, the Yama Uba(山姥)is an equally ambiguous old woman. She's a mountain witch who, like Baba Yaga, lures people into her hut and eats them. But she'll also help a lost traveler. Noriko Reider is a professor at Miami University of Ohio who's done extensive research on Yama Uba stories. "She brings fortune and happiness," Reider says. "She can also bring death and destruction for those who are not very good."

    According to Cuban-American writer Alma Flor Ada, in Hispanic(拉美地区的)culture old women are multi-talented. Ada is co-author of Tales Our Grandmas Told, which includes a story about Caliph's son who becomes seriously ill. After "all of the best physicians in the land" fail to cure him, Caliph sends his messengers searching for help. Then one morning, an old woman arrives with this advice: To get well, the prince must wear the overcoat of a man who is truly happy. And of course it works.

    According to a recent study, a new genetically modified rice can prevent infections of HIV, the virus responsible for the disease AIDS.

    The study reports the newly-developed rice produces proteins that attach directly to the HIV virus. This process prevents the virus from mixing with human cells. The scientists say it can remove the effect of the virus and block its spreading.

    The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS reports that worldwide, nearly 37 million people were living with HIV in 2017. The organization says the largest number of those are in developing countries. Nearly two-thirds of HIV cases are in Africa. Now there is no cure for HIV/AIDS though there have been developments in oral drug treatments to slow the progression of the disease.

    The new study predicts the rice-based method will lead to long-term use of the anti-HIV treatment across the developing world. Researchers said the "groundbreaking" discovery is "realistically the only way" that anti-HIV combination treatments can be produced at a cost low enough for the developing world.

    They say the easiest and most cost-effective way to use the rice will be to make it into a cream to be put on the skin. The HIV-fighting proteins can then enter the body through the skin. People all over the world could grow the rice and make the cream themselves. This would prevent the cost and travel required for many patients to receive treatments and medicine.

    The process of changing the genetic structure of food crops has been debated for some time. Critics of genetically engineered crops believe they can harm people. The scientific team says further testing is needed to ensure that the genetic engineering process does not produce any additional chemicals that could be dangerous to people.