In Western countries, bread is one of the most important foods. When they get up in the morning many people eat toast (烤面包). They spread butter and jam on their toast. People eat bread at other times of the day too. For example, at main meals, they often eat bread with soup.

    It's also very common to eat sandwiches. A sandwich is two pieces of bread with a filling inside - salad, cheese or fish. A hamburger is a kind of sandwich.

There are many different kinds of bread. Some are special to some countries. For example, the baguette (法国棍子面包) is a long, thin loaf that began in France.

    There is also white bread and whole-wheat (全麦面) bread. What's the difference? White bread is refined (精制的). It has things taken out of it to make it softer and easier to eat. The trouble is, white bread also has lots of goodness taken out. Although some people dislike the taste of whole-wheat bread, it is much healthier.

    Some kinds of bread have additives (添加剂). They are put into the bread for many reasons. Some additives are good for you - for example vitamin C. Others are there to make the bread last longer. Still others to make it taste better - but they do not necessarily make the bread healthier to eat!

    Have you ever wondered why people drive on a different side of the road? It might seem bizarre that U. K. drivers stay on the left, but they're not the only ones. Around 35 percent of the world population do the same, including people in Ireland, Japan, and some Caribbean islands.

    Originally, almost everybody traveled on the left side of the road. However their way of transport was quite different from today: Think about four legs instead of four wheels. For Medieval swordsmen on horseback, it made sense to keep to the left to have their right arms closer to their enemies. Getting on or off was also easier from the left side of the horse, and safer done by the side of the road than in the center.

    So why did people stop traveling on the left? Things changed in the late 1700s when large wagons (货车) pulled by several pairs of horses were used to transport farm products in France and the United States. The wagon driver sat behind the left horse, with his right arm free to use his whip to keep the horses moving. Since he was sitting on the left position, he wanted other wagons to pass on his left, so he kept to the right side of the road.

    The British Government refused to give up their left-hand driving ways, and in 1773 introduced the General Highways Act, which encouraged driving on the left. This was later made law thanks to The Highway Act of 1835.

    When Henry Ford showed his Model T in 1908, the driver's seat was on the left, meaning that cars would have to drive on the right hand side of the road to allow front and back passengers to exit the car onto the roadside. However, British drivers remain on the left, and this is highly unlikely to change.

    Peter Thiel,the billionaire co-founder of PayPal,plans to live to be 120.Compared with some other tech billionaires,he doesn't seem particularly ambitious.Dmitry Itskov,the “godfather” of the Russian Internet,says his goal is to live to 10.000;and Sergey Brin,co-founder of Google,hopes to someday "cure death.

    They aren't being ridiculous.Their search is based on real science that could fundamentally change what we know about life and about death.It's hard to believe,though,since the human search for immortality is both ancient and filled with disastrous failures.Around 200 B.C.,the first emperor of China,Qin Shi Huang,accidentally killed himself trying to live forever;he poisoned himself by eating mercury（水银）pills.Centuries later, the search for eternal life wasn't much safer: In J492,Pope Innocent VIII died after blood transfusions from three healthy boys whose youth he believed he could absorb.

    But historical examples haven't discouraged some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley.Thiel,for example,has given $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation.Aubrey de Grey,Methuselah's co-founder,says SENS,the nonprofit's main research is devoted to finding drugs that cure several types of age-related damage:"Loss of cells, excessive（过多的）cell division,inadequate cell death,garbage inside the cell,garbage outside the cell,...The idea is that the human body,being a machine,has a structure that determines all aspects of its function,so if we can restore that structure—at the molecular（分子的）and cellular（细胞的）level—then we will restore function too,so we will have comprehensively renewed the body."

    But SENS,which has an annual operating budget of $5 million,is small,compared with the Brin-led Project Calico,Google's attempt to “cure death,”which is planning to pump billions into a partnership with medicine giant AbbVie.Google is secretive,but it's said to be building a drug to copy a gene associated with exceptional life span.

    Then there's the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research,started by Paul F.Glenn in 1965.Since 2007,the foundation has distributed annual "Glenn Awards,"$60,000 to independent researchers doing promising work on aging.The Glenn Foundation also works closely with the Ellison Medical Foundation,a far younger institution (founded in 1997).Ellison's passion project gives out hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to scholars seeking research on aging.Their decision to fund independent research may be paying off.Research projects funded by Ellison and Glenn appear to be developing into a testable means to stave off old age—for lab mice.The question is: Can those lab results be repeated in humans?

    Here is an astonishing and significant fact: Mental work alone can't make us tired. It sounds absurd. But a few years ago, scientists tried to find out how long the human brain could labor without reaching a stage of fatigue(疲劳). To the amazement of these scientists, they discovered that blood passing through the brain, when it is active, shows no fatigue at all! If we took a drop of blood from a day laborer, we would find it full of fatigue toxins(毒素)and fatigue products. But if we took blood from the brain of an Albert Einstein, it would show no fatigue toxins at the end of the day.

    So far as the brain is concerned, it can work as well and swiftly at the end of eight or even twelve hours of effort as at the beginning. The brain is totally tireless. So what makes us tired?

    Some scientists declare that most of our fatigue comes from our mental and emotional(情感的)attitudes. One of England's most outstanding scientists, J. A. Hadfield, says, "The greater part of the fatigue from which we suffer is of mental origin. In fact, fatigue of purely physical origin is rare. "Dr. Brill, a famous American scientist, goes even further. He declares, "One hundred percent of the fatigue of a sitting worker in good health is due to emotional problems. "

    What kinds of emotions make sitting workers tired? Joy? Satisfaction? No! A feeling of being bored, anger, anxiety, tenseness, worry, a feeling of not being appreciated—those are the emotions that tire sitting workers. Hard work by itself seldom causes fatigue. We get tired because our emotions produce nervousness in the body.

    Life is difficult.

    What do you think about life? Maybe most people say that life is difficult. But life is no longer difficult once we truly understand and accept it. Most people do not fully see this truth. Instead, they complain about their problems and difficulties as if life should be easy. It seems to them that their difficulties represent a special kind of suffering especially forced upon (强加于) them or their families, their class, or even their nation.

    What makes life difficult is that the process of facing and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending on their nature, cause us sadness or loneliness or regret or anger or fear. These are uncomfortable feelings, often as painful as any kind of physical pain. And since life causes an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy.

    Yet, it is in this whole process of solving problems that life has its meaning.

    Problems are the serious test that tells success from failure. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we encourage the human ability to solve problems, just as in school we set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of meeting and working out problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Those things that hurt instruct." It is for this reason that wise people learn not to fear but to welcome the pain of problems.

    Near the city of Yogyakarta in Java(爪哇岛)is not only one magnificent(宏伟的)monument, Borobudur(婆罗浮屠), but a second equally impressive one. Prambanan, the second monument, shares a remarkable number of things in common with Borobudur.

    First, both huge temple complexes (建筑群) are thought to have been built at about the same time, around 850 AD. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Some historians think that both temples were created during the era of the Sailendra Dynasty

    Second, in both cases, the temples appear to have been abandoned just after they were completed. Why were they left alone, isolated (被孤立) in the mountains of Java? {#blank#}2{#/blank#} It certainly took a great deal of effort to build the monument, so why would their use come to a standstill(停止)without a very good reason?

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Prior to efforts to restore and preserve them in the 1800s, they lay in ruins, covered with plants. Today, both Borobudur and Prambanan are UNESCO World Heritage sites, famous for their religious art.

    Although there are so many similarities, there are important differences. For example, Prambanan, east of Yogyakarta, is a Hindu temple, while Borobudur, northwest of the city, is a Buddhist temple. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Overall, its individual (个别的) buildings are smaller than those of Borobudur. Borobudur sits on a hill and you can make it out from some distance. On the other hand, Prambanan is spread out over a flatter area. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. Perhaps it is due to the eruption of the volcano, Mount Merapi.

B. Borobudur and Prambanan each tell their sacred stories in vivid detail.

C. Borobudur temple is one of the best-preserved ancient monuments in Indonesia.

D. However, scholars are not completely sure about the exact dates of construction of either place.

E. Finally, you can go inside the Hindu temple, but you must admire the Buddhist one from the outside.

F. Borobudur is one huge structure with ten levels, but Prambanan is a group of eighteen temple buildings.

G. The third common factor is that both priceless monuments suffered a great deal of damage during the centuries when they were left alone.