I loved my aunt Suzy. She was such a kind old lady. I loved going to her house on holiday. She had been sick for the last few years and, though my job had taken me away across the town, I tried to visit her as much as possible. I helped with the shopping, the cooking and the cleaning and taking her pet cat Mazy to the vet.

    Sad as her passing away was, what happened to Mazy was even more worrying. Because aunt Suzy had no children, there wasn't anyone who seemed to care for her beloved cat friend. I would have taken her in a short time, but my apartment doesn't allow pets. First, we talked with her neighbors. Mr. Jenkins, who was alone and lived across the street, wasn't interested. Joe and Sally who lived next door had a small child with serious skin allergies(过敏症). My aunt's best friend Molly who had lived just down the road was unable to take care of herself as she had serious health problems.

    Second, we thought about our family members. My brother Bobby and his wife Jill were eliminated at once as they aren't cat people. My cousin in California was a bit interested, but we weren't sure about the trip as Mazy was nearly as old as my aunt (in cat years!). Finally, we came to the local humane society to see whether they would be able to help her find a new home. The problem was that most people and families only welcomed a smart little cat into their home, not a dull old one.

    In the end, we had to put Mazy to sleep. I had spoken with the vet and realized it was possible for the best. It was so hard to lose aunt Suzy and then have nowhere for Mazy to live. A few months went by and I had gone to my aunt's house to clear out some of her belongings. I happened to see her mailman. Jerry and we started to talk about my aunt when he asked about Mazy. I told him that we had to put Mazy to sleep because we couldn't find a home for her. Jerry got really quiet. “I promised Suzy that if anything ever happened to her, I'd take care of Mazy”, he said sadly. “Suzy always said she'd told her lawyer the arrangement.”

    Hearing this, my heart sank to my feet and I almost cried. The saddest part, I realized, was this all could have been avoided. I guess we were just so busy in those final months that we didn't think about it. We could have called my aunt's lawyer to take care of it in less than 10 minutes. I'll never forgive myself for not thinking of it sooner. And I'll never forgive myself for losing Mazy.

    In a natural disaster: a hurricane, flood, volcanic eruption, or other catastrophes. Minutes and even seconds of warning can make the difference between life and death. Because of this, scientists are working to use the latest technological advances to predict when and where disasters will happen. They are also studying how best to analyze and communicate this information once it is obtained.

    On September 29,1998, Hurricane Georges made landfall in Biloxi, Mississippi, after damaging Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and several islands of the Caribbean badly with heavy rains and winds up to 160 km per hour. Few people lost their lives along the Gulf Coast of the United States, although hundreds died in the Caribbean. This was a very different result, when a powerful Gulf Coast hurricane made an unexpected direct hit on Galveston, Texas, killing at least 6,000 people. Vastly improved hurricane warnings explain the different circumstances at either end of the 20th century—residents of Galveston had no advance warning that a storm was approaching, while residents of Biloxi had been warned days in advance, allowing for extensive safety precautions (预防).

    At the same time that people in Biloxi were thankful for the advance warning, some residents of New Orleans, Louisiana were less satisfied. A day before Georges made landfall, forecasters were predicting that the hurricane had a good chance of striking New Orleans. Emergency management officials must begin evacuations (疏散) well before a storm strikes. But evacuation costs money. The mayor of New Orleans estimated that his city's preparations for Georges cost more than 50 million. After Georges missed New Orleans, some residents questioned the value of the hurricane forecasts in the face of such high costs.

    The different views on the early warnings for Hurricane Georges show some of the complexities (复杂) related to predicting disasters. Disaster prediction is a process of providing scientific information to the government officials and other decision makers who must respond to those predictions.

    Amazing concept images have shown what homes of the future could look like, as preparations are made for the world's first free from 3D-printed property (房产).

    Experts will build a house called Curve Appeal, which will be 3D-printed off-site before being put together on-site to create two outside walls, a roof and an inside part. These four main sections will then be joined together.

    Although 3D-printed buildings have been made before, this home - to be constructed in Chattanooga, Tennessee, later this year — will be the first of its kind, as it will contain no regular shapes or angles. The house is the creation of the design company WATG, based in London and California. The design for Curve Appeal draws inspiration from the Case Study House program.

    The architects leading the program were famed for constantly pushing the limits in terms of minimalist (极简主义) materials, and trying to create open-plan spaces that focused on enhancing (增强) natural light. In a written statement, a spokesman for WATG said, “Employing many of the same modem design principles, Curve Appeal is the next evolutionary step. It's important that the architecture and the environment work together harmoniously. The chosen site is steps away from the Tennessee River in a beautiful wooded, sunlit area.”

    WATG was awarded the first prize in the Freeform Home Design Challenge in 2016 and given prize money of $ 8,000 to make its plans a reality. The competition was aimed at architects, designers, engineers and artists. Participants were challenged to design a 600 to 800sq ft single-family home that rethinks traditional aesthetics (美学), ergonomics, construction, building systems and structure.

    Over the last year, WATG's Chicago office has been developing their design with Branch Technology. This project is currently underway, working towards breaking ground later this year. Once completed, the Curve Appeal home will have open and light-filled inside living spaces.

    Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls, UK.

    A hundred years ago, women had very few opportunities. Their role was to marry and raise children. Sally Nicholls, new novel is set in that time. Her main characters are three young London women. Evelyn is from a wealthy family, May is from a religious background, and Nell is a woman from a much poorer community. Though they are from, different backgrounds, they all become involved in the women's suffrage(选举权)movement during World War 1(1914-1918).

    Far From the Tree by Robin Benway, US

    The New York Times reviewer called the book a “brilliant exercise in empathy (感同身受) It's an unusual novel. It begins with a troubling event for the main character, Grace, a 16-year-old who loves chemistry and cross-country running. But when she finds that she has become pregnant, she chooses to give up her baby for adoption and has to deal with the pain that this causes her.

    The situation is __________for her because Grace was once an orphan(孤儿)herself. She feels that she cannot turn to her adoptive parents for comfort and advice. Instead, she turns to her blood siblings (兄弟姐妹). But Grace soon finds that they are as troubled as she is, and that they are also keeping things to themselves that hurt too much to speak about.

    Readers can expect to be moved by the characters and their situations, but also gain insight (理解)into modem family life in America.

    Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, US

    This novel has two principal teenage characters. Aza Holmes has a mental illness, which is a condition where a person does the same thing over and over, without being able to stop. Aza narrates (叙述)the novel, so we learn all about her from the inside out.

    The second main character is Daisy, Aza's friend. The two start an adventure to find a billionaire who has gone missing.

    “This is my first attempt to write directly about the kind of mental illness that has affected my life since childhood, so while the story is fictional (虚构的)，it is also quite personal, ” said Green in a statement.

    Along the river banks of the Amazon and the Orinoco there lives a bird that swims before it can fly, flies like a fat chicken, eats green leaves, has the stomach of a cow and has claw s ( 爪) on its wings when young. They build their homes about 4.6m above the river, an important feature for the safety of the young. It is called the hoatzin.

    In appearance, the birds of both sexes look very much alike with brown on the back and cream and red on the underside. The head is small, with a large set of feathers on the top, bright red eyes, and blue skin. Its nearest relatives are the common birds, cuckoos. Its most striking feature, though, is only found in the young.

    Baby hoatzins have a claw on the leading edge of each wing and another at the end of each wing tip. Using these four claws, together with the beak (喙), they can climb about in the bushes, looking very much like primitive (远古的) birds must have done. When the young hoatzins have learned to fly, they lose their claws.

    During the drier months between December and March hoatzins fly about the forest in groups of 20 to 30 birds, but in April, when the rainy season begins, they collect together in smaller living units of two to seven birds for producing purposes.

"Cool" is a word with many meanings. Its old meaning is used to express a temperature that is a little bit cold. As the world has changed, the word has had many different meanings. 

"Cool" can be used to express feelings of interest in almost anything. When you see a famous car in the street,maybe you will say, "It's cool." You may think, "He's so cool," when you see your favourite footballer. 

We all maximize (扩大) the meaning of "cool". You can use it instead of many words such as "new" or "surprising". Here's an interesting story we can use to show the way the word is used. A teacher asked her students to write about the waterfall (瀑布) they had visited. On one student's paper was just the one sentence, "It's so cool." Maybe he thought it was the best way to show what he saw and felt. 

But the story also shows a scarcity (缺乏) of words. Without "cool", some people have no words to show the same meaning. So it is quite important to keep some credibility (可信性). Can you think of many other words that make your life as colourful as the word "cool"? I can. And I think they are also very cool.