Although cats may be one of the most popular pets today, little is known about how and when humans and cats set up their close relationship.

    The earliest evidence for human–cat interaction dates back to prehistoric Cyprus(史前塞浦路斯), where the remains of a wild cat and a human — dated 9,500 years old — were found buried together

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has confirmed the first direct evidence of a human–domestic cat relationship among Chinese farmers 5,300 years ago. Researchers studied the bones of cats, dogs, deer and other animals unearthed in an excavation (挖掘) near a village in Central China. By using some ways, scientists showed that the cats were living on a mostly millet(黍)–based diet, just like the domesticated dogs and pigs from the site.

"The most reasonable explanation for a high consumption of millet–based food is that the cats had formed a stable and mutual relationship with humans and could easily feed on rodents (啮齿动物) around human villages, find leftover food or even have been fed by people intentionally," said Hu Yaowu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, whose research focuses on the relationship between humans and domesticated animals.

    "It is very interesting for us to find the consumption of millet-based foods by the cats, since this kind of evidence had long been missing.” Hu explains. Since cats usually eat meat, such a diet would be unexpected, unless the cats were being fed by people, the study argues. The researchers also found that one of the cats survived to reach old age, implying that it had a safe place to live and enough to eat.

Why the farmers wanted to keep cats nearby or make them "pets" could be answered by other evidence. Chinese archaeologists found some storage containers were specifically designed to keep out rodents — a vermin (害兽) that cats could certainly have helped with.

The simplified theory is that rats were attracted to the food of farmers, and so were harmful to farmers. Cats were attracted to the rats, and so farmers formed a mutually beneficial relationship with cats, taking care of them in return for pest control.

No. 4 Middle School

Kunming, Yunnan

April 2nd, 2014

Dear Editor,

I live in a beautiful city. Many visitors come to my city. There are so many colorful peacocks (孔雀)here.

    The peacocks mostly (主要）live on the grassland of Dongfeng Square. Visitors can give them food freely. They usually throw food to them, and don't think about at all whether the food is right or not. Some of the peacocks became ill. Some even died after eating the bad food.

    I'm sure most of the visitors who throw food to the peacocks really like the birds, but they don't realize that they may be doing any harm.

    We should tell the visitors that what they have done is very harmful to the birds, and we also must stop this kind of thing from happening.

    Perhaps we can build some small shops beside Dongfeng Square to sell peacock food. For every one of us, it's our duty to give more love to these beautiful birds and to look after them carefully.

Yours,

Sun Yan

    Baboons(狒狒) live in Africa. They are like monkeys. Most people think daddy baboons don't know their babies. But scientists (科学家) find that daddy baboons know how to help their babies. The daddy baboons are smart.

    Joan Silk is a scientist. She studies the baboons for 3 years. She says the daddy baboons are happy to see their babies. They have big teeth to help the babies to eat hard things. Mother baboons are small. And they live in a place. When a mother baboon gives birth(分娩), she often has only one baby. Baby baboons have fur. They are very cute.

    During the day they eat things. At night, they sleep in the trees. Most children like baboons because they look like the man.

    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."