At midnight at New Year's Eve people in Rome and Italy throw (扔) all the things they no longer want .The streets are filled with old chairs, beds, clothes and dishes…… In Madrid, Spain, new year comes in more quietly (安静地). People go to the main square, each holding a bag of grapes. As the clock strikes (敲) twelve ,the people eat grapes .

    In Tokyo people eat noodles at New Year's Eve. This food is said to bring long life. Early the next morning, some Japanese families climb Mount Fuji. There they watch the first sunrise (日出) of the new year.

    In China, New Year's food include (包括) a whole fish and a chicken. The chicken must be presented (呈现) with a head ,a tail and two feet to symbolize (象征) completeness (完美).

    Cats are the most popular pets among Americans. So it is not surprising there are many expressions about cats. Do you know any of them? Now let me tell you.

    Some cats like to catch small birds, like canaries. If someone feels excellent about himself, we say, "he looks like the cat that ate the canary."

    Sometimes, a cat likes to play with a small animal it catches. So if you play "cat and mouse" with someone, you change between different kinds of actions when facing another person. For example, a child might serve something sweet to her little brother, and then take it away when reaches for it.

    A cat will often catch a small animal and show it to its owner. The saying "that looks like something the cat dragged in" describes something in bad condition.

    A fat cat is a person with a lot of money.

    There are many other expressions about cats in America. How interesting! Which kind of cat are you, or which kind would you like to be? 

    Many years ago, most of our earth was covered with blocks (块) of ice. These ice blocks were as tall as high buildings in modern cities. Most of the ice was in the northern part of the world. Then the ice blocks started to move south. Cold and rain came with the ice. Animals had to move. At last, the ice began to melt (融化). After half a million years, most of it melted. More than half of the earth became covered with water. The climate became much warmer. Things began to grow. The earth began to look the way in which it looks today.

    Many people know that rubbish is a big problem on planet Earth. What many people don't know is that junk (垃圾) has become a problem in outer space too.

    According to BBC News, there are more than 22, 000 pieces of space junk floating around the earth. And these are just the things that we can see from the surface of the earth by telescopes (望远镜). There are also millions of smaller pieces of junk that we can't see.

    Objects, like bits of old space rockets or satellites, move around the planet at very high speeds, so fast that even a very small piece can break important satellites or become dangerous to astronauts. If the tiniest piece of junk crashed into a spaceship, it could damage the vehicle.

    To make things worse, when two objects in space crash, they break into many smaller pieces. For example, when a U. S. satellite hit an old Russian rocket in 2009, it broke into more than 2,000 pieces, increasing the amount of space junk.

    To reduce additional space junk, countries have agreed that all new space tools can only stay in space for 25 years at most. Each tool must be built to fall safely into the earth's atmosphere after that time. In the upper parts of the atmosphere, it will burn up.

    Many scientists are also suggesting different ways to clean up space junk. In England scientists are testing a metal net that can be fired into space junk. The net catches the junk and then pulls it into the earth's atmosphere to burn up. The Germans are building robots that can collect pieces of space junk and bring them back to Earth to be safely destroyed.

    "The problem is becoming more challenging because we're sending more objects into space to help people use their mobile phones and computers," says Marco Castronuovo, an Italian space researcher.

    "The time to act is now. The longer we leave the problem, the bigger it will become," he says.

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