Most animals have little connection with animals of a different kind, unless they hunt them for food. Sometimes, however, two kinds of animals come together in a partnership (伙伴关系) which is good for both of them. You may have noticed some birds sitting on the backs of sheep. This is not because they want a ride, but because they find easy food in the parasites (寄生虫) on sheep. The sheep allow the birds to do so because they remove the cause of discomfort. So although they can manage without each other, they do better together.

    Sometimes an animal has a plant partner. The relationship develops until the two partners cannot manage without each other. This is so in the corals(珊瑚) of the sea. In their skins they have tiny plants which act as “dustmen”, taking some of the waste products from the coral and giving in return oxygen which the animal needs to breathe. If the plants are killed, or are even prevented from receiving light so that they cannot live normally, the corals will die.

    Good afternoon, and welcome to England. We hope that your visit here will be a pleasant one. Today, I would like to draw your attention to a few of our laws.

    The first one is about drinking. Now, you may not buy alcohol in this country if you are under 18 years of age, nor may your friends buy it for you.

    Secondly, noise, Enjoy yourselves by all means, but please don't make unnecessary noise, particularly at night. We ask you to respect other people who may wish to be quiet.

    Thirdly, crossing the road. Be careful. The traffic moves on the left side of the road in this country. Use pedestrian crossings and do not take any risk when crossing the road.

    My next point is about litter（throwing away wasted material in a public place）. It is an offence to drop litter in the street. When you have something to throw away, please put it in your pocket and take it home, or put it in a litter bin.

Finally, as regards smoking, it is against the law to buy cigarettes or tobacco if you are under 16 years of age.

    I'd like to finish by saying that if you requires any sort of help or assistance, you should get in touch with your local police station, who will be pleased to help you.

    Now, are there any questions?

    Beginning life at college naturally develops both excitement and anxiety for many reasons. Fors ome, this feeling is quickly overcome as they adapt to a new environment; for others the change takes longer and sometimes appears as homesickness.

    If you are homesick, you might notice an increase in:

    Low energy or motivation.

    Trouble sleeping.

    Increases/decreases in appetite.

    Having difficulty with school.

    Increased use of drugs or alcohol.

    Lack of interest or involvement in new surroundings.

    CAUSES

    The distance from home—the farther you go, the worse it may be.

    Unhappiness when things are different from your expectations of student life.

    You have finally arrived at college after working toward it for so long.

    A heavy workload.

    Students who are homesick often feel they have no control over their environment.

    WHAT MIGHT HELP?

    Keep in good contact with the people you have left behind, but also give yourself time within the university to begin to get involved here.

    Be realistic about what to expect from student life and from yourself. Set up a balance between work and leisure.

    If work is proving too difficult, you may need to improve your study skills or your organization of time.

    Remember to get enough food and sleep! These affect you emotionally as well as physically.

    Make contacts and friends through shared activities such as sports or other interests.

    If you stop being able to do normal social and academic things, seek professional help either from your advisor or dean or the counseling service.

    Youth volunteers from Beijing University visited Song tang Hospital, a care clinic for the aged and dying patients, during the second Global Youth Service Day on April 21．

    Thirty student volunteers from the university's School of International Studies sat at the beds of the patients in their specially decorated “care huts”. They talked with them and gave massages （按摩）to patients kept in their beds.

    I felt sorry that I could not offer more to these people than talking with them and trying to cheer them up, said Deng Yetao, 20, a third - year student. “But it occurred to me that they need more care and love than babies. They are afraid of the coming death. Their loneliness is worse than physical pains.”

    “Even though they are suffering a lot, the majority of the elderly people want to talk to us. Each of them has a lot of life experiences and philosophies to share. Instead of doing them a favor, I felt I was gaining a valuable lesson. Said Mao Xiaohua, another third - year student.

    Mao talked with two elderly patients for a whole afternoon. The fact that most of the patients in the 80 - room clinic are aged people with diseases which will lead to death soon made the volunteers' hearts heavy.

    Ninety - one percent of the patients will spend the last days of their lives in the clinic, according to a survey by the hospital.

    Daily visits and services by social workers and youth volunteers are a very important part of their programmer. A total of 330, 000 Beijing students from 119 universities and colleges have visited the hospital. Many continue to offer services in their spare time. Some of them volunteer to hold the hands of dying patients during the last minutes of their lives.

    Yin Hang, a student from Beijing Medical College, said he felt“ the glory of life” as he saw the fading smile on the face of the old man who passed into a deep unconsciousness（昏迷）while he was holding his hands.

When we meet someone for the first time, we usually get a vague sense of what kind of person they are by the way they shake hands, talk, or walk. In the age of social networking, however, first impressions are sometimes made even before we actually meet someone in person—that is, by looking at their profile photo.

    According to a recent study, these social images say a lot about our personality. In the study, presented in a paper at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, a group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in the US used software to analyze the profile pictures of 66,000 users of US social platform Twitter and 3,200 of their tweets. At the same time, about 434 participants were asked to complete a survey about their personality type. The researchers wanted to find out if there was a connection between personality traits—like openness, extroversion, and neuroticism(神经质)—and a person's profile picture.

    According to the results, open people are more likely to pose in an unusual way and use objects such as glasses or a guitar in their profile photo because they enjoy new and exciting experiences. Meanwhile, neurotic people often hold back their negative emotions. They try to avoid showing their face；Instead, they use an image of something like a pet, a car or a building.

    Apart from the objects in profile pictures, the colors used in them also give us some hints about the photo's owner. For example, extraverts were found to have the most colorful profile images, as they want to emphasize their personality and show themselves off, the researchers wrote.

    Although social media photos "usually represent an extension of one's self, they also allow a user to shape his or her own personality and idealized view," according to the researchers. So, when choosing a profile photo, maybe we should ask ourselves first what kind of image we'd like to convey. After all, first impressions always last.

    Donald Watson was a man who thought very much about the food he ate. He was born in Yorkshire, England, in September 1910. And he died in November 2005, at the age of 95. That is a very great age. Watson explained that it was because he never ate any food from animals.

    When he was a boy, Watson stayed on a farm. .He loved to see the animals. He said that they gave so much to people. And all the animals were so friendly. Then, one day, he saw a man killing a pig. He was very sad. From then on, Watson decided that he would never again eat meat. Twenty years later he decided that he wouldn't eat anything from animals, such as milk, cheese or eggs. He became vegan (素食主义者).

    Watson formed a group called "The Vegan Society". In its newspaper, The Vegan Society thought it was terrible and wrong to eat food from animals. At first, there were not many people who agreed with him. They thought it was crazy to do it. Most people thought it was too difficult and unhealthy. However, over time, more and more people began to agree with Watson and The Vegan Society.

    People become vegans for many reasons. Watson and his friend stopped eating because they loved animals. They believed that it was wrong to hurt another living thing.

    Now, people also become vegans for environmental reasons. Keeping animals takes a lot of resources(资源), including water and food. Also, in some places, people are cutting down trees to create more land for cows. By avoiding food from animals, vegans hope to protect these forest areas.

    Finally, just like Watson, some people believe that being a vegan is healthier. They believe that food from animals causes heart problems, a high body weight and many other health problems.