C

   The English are often described as unfriendly people who don't talk to strangers (陌生人). But not London taxi drivers. I once asked one cabby to describe his life to me and he didn't stop talking until I arrived home half an hour later. He told me many interesting stories and this is one of them.”Some strange things happen late at night. The other day I was taking a woman home from a party. She had her little dog with her. When we got to her house, she found that she'd lost her key. So, I waited in the cab with her dog while she climbed in through the window.”

    “I waited and waited. After hour of ringing the bell I decided to find out what was going on. I tied the dog to a tree and started to climb in through the window: The next thing I knew was that the police came. They thought I was to rob the house! Luckily, the woman came downstairs. She'd gone to sleep and forgotten about me and the dog. I was in such a hurry to get away that I forgot to ask her for the fare.”

    Light travels at a speed which is about a million times faster than the speed of sound. In one second, light travels about 300,000 km, but sound travels only 344m. You can get some idea of this difference by watching the start of a race. If you stand some distance away from the Starter, you can see smoke come from his gun before the sound reaches your ears.
     This great speed of light produces some strange facts. Sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach us. If you look at the light of the moon tonight, remember that the light rays (光线) left the moon 1.3 seconds before they reached you. The nearest star is so far away that the light which you can see from it tonight started to travel towards you four years ago at a speed of nearly 2 million km per minute. In some cases the light from one of tonight's stars started on its journey to you before you were born.

    Thus, if we want to be honest, we cannot say “The stars are shinning tonight.” We have to say, “The stars look pretty. They were shining four years ago but their light has only just reached Earth.”

    Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan for William Randolph Hearst from 1919 until 1947. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the fortune to the state of California. Since that time it has been maintained as a state historic park where the estate and its considerable collection of art are open for public tours. Despite its location far from any urban center, the site attracts roughly one million visitors per year.

    Guided Tours

    There are several tours which highlight various parts of the castle and gardens.

    Tour One is recommended for first time visitor．It now includes the movie, Hearst Castle Building the Dream.

    Tour Two gives visitors a closer look at the main house's upper floors, Mr. Hearst's private suite, the libraries, and the kitchen.

    Tour Three looks at the Castle's North Wing, guest rooms and guest house Casa Del Monte.

    Tour Four features the impressive gardens and grounds, the largest guesthouse, the wine basement, and the Hidden Terrace.

    The evening tour is a special tour that allows visitors to experience the Castle at night as one of the Hearst's own visitors might have.

    Reservation Information

    While tickets may be purchased at the Visitor Center upon arrival, tour reservations are strongly recommended and may be reserved online now or by calling 1 - 800 - 444 - 4445, see below for times.

Visit www．hearst castle ． org for more information.

    The world's first-known nursery for baby giant manta rays(蝠鲼) has been discovered hidden away in the Gulf of Mexico, the place of 70 miles off the coast of Texas, after studying decades of giant manta ray data from the area by the scientists.

    Where the baby manta rays grow up has long troubled scientists, as they are rarely spotted in the four to five years it takes them to become adults, when they can often grow to more than 20ft wide.

In the study Mr Stewart and colleagues describe a reef (暗礁)—filled with mantas of all ages—where the sea floor runs down into deeper water. He said "We think they may be feeding on specific types of zooplankton(浮游生物) there, then migrating up toward the surface, where we saw them. They might be hanging around the banks because it could be a little safer than open water. We've seen them so rarely that we know very little about these baby manta rays. We don't know how far they move, or exactly what they feed on, or all of the habitats these access.”

    Giant manta rays are listed as species dying out by protectors, although actual population numbers of the mysterious "gentle giant" are hard to calculate. Sightings of the closely-related reef manta, however, have dropped by 90 percent in regions of southeast Asia in the past decade, according to a study.

    Fishing is considered the biggest threat to giant manta numbers, both intentional and accidental. Their gill plates(腮下肉)- the parts through which they filter(过滤) their food from seawater-are sold in China for medical purposes, while they often end up as something caught by mistake due to their huge wings.

    In China, there are more and more people leaving the countryside to hunt for jobs in the cities, because the countryside is much poorer than the city, and often there isn't much work there. Services such as hospital and transport are usually much better in the city than in the countryside. They hope that their lives will improve when they move to the city.

    But in the big cities of Europe like London or Paris, people are moving out of the city. These rich families want to live a quieter life. They are tired of the noise and the dirt of the city, and they are tired of the crowded streets, crowded trains and buses. They don't want to live in the cities any more. They want a house with a garden in the countryside, and breathe the fresh air there. So they move out of the cities. Some don't go very far, just a little way out of the city, to the towns near the cities. Other people move to the real countryside with sheep, cows and green fields. There they start new lives and try to make new friends.

    Not all those who move from the city to the countryside are happy. After two or three years, many people who have done this feel that it is a big mistake. They don't make so much money and there isn't much work to do. People in the countryside are different and aren't always very friendly. As a result, quite a lot of people who have moved to the countryside move back to the city. “It's wonderful to see crowds in the streets and cinema lights.” they say.

    Something very strange and mysterious was going on in Sesemann's house. Every morning, when the servants went downstairs, they found the front door wide open. During the first few days that this happened, every room and corner was searched in great alarm to see if anything had been stolen, but not a thing in the house had been touched. The door was doubly locked at night, and for further security the wooden bar was fastened across it; but it was no good – next morning the door again stood open. One servant even claimed he had seen a white figure standing at the top of the steps and then all in a minute it disappeared.

    Mr. Sesemann told his old friend, a doctor, what had happened in his house. That evening they decided to wait for the ghost. One o'clock struck. There was not a sound. Suddenly the doctor lifted his finger. "Hush! Don't you hear something?" They both listened, and they distinctly heard the bar softly pushed aside and then the key turned in the lock and the door opened. They stepped into the hall.

    "Who is there?" thundered the doctor in a voice that echoed through the hall, as the two men advanced with lights and weapons towards the figure. It turned and gave a low cry. There stood Heidi, with bare feet, staring with wild eyes and trembling from head to foot. The two men looked at one another in surprise. "Child, why did you come down here?" said Sesemann. White with terror, and hardly able to make her voice heard, Heidi answered, "I don't know." The doctor gently took the child by the hand upstairs.

    Then the doctor sat down besides her and asked her some questions in a kind voice. Later he went downstairs. "Sesemann," he said, "let me first tell you that the child is a sleep-walker; secondly, the child is consumed with homesickness. Something must be done at once."