Does your local town have a nickname？If so，what does it say about the area and the people who live there?

    Many cities are recognized across the world by  their unofficial titles.New York is the Big Apple，London is the Big Smoke，and Los Angeles is famously called La La Land.

    Now Britain's National Mapping Agency(规划局)，Ordnance Survey，and the British Linguistics (语言学)Charity，the English Project，are launching an interactive project to uncover the nicknames people use for local places.

    The project，which was launched last week to coincide with English Language Day，is called Location Lingo.It aims to identify the names people use every day，whether it's a term of endearment(昵称) or a hate name.

    The University of Winchester's Professor Bill Lucas is a leader of the English Project.He explains that unofficial place names often show what people think about a place.“The name that people conjure up or create for a place forms an emotional connection，”he says.“So Basingstoke becomes Amazingstoke，Swindon is known as Swindump.Padstow，hometown of chef Rick Stein，is nicknamed Padstein.”

    Basingstoke is a town in central England.The local nickname，Amazingstoke，shows the love that locals seem to have for the area.Swindon，on the other hand，is sometimes called Swindump，showing that local people think it's a big dump.Stanford Le Hope in Essex is called Stanford No Hope by locals.And Padstow in Cornwall is so closely associated with the local celebrity Rick Stein that it's become known as Padstein.

    Since launching the online database (数据库) last week，the creators have already received 3,000 alternative  titles for places and landmarks.

    Some also say that the project could even have a practical use.Glen Hart，Ordnance Survey's head of research，says the information could be very helpful to the emergency services，for example.“By having the most complete set of nicknames，we could help the emergency services quickly locate the right place，and maybe even save lives，”he says.

The idea of being able to walk on water has long interested humans greatly. Sadly, biological facts prevent us ever accomplishing such a thing without artificial aid—we simply weigh too much, and all our mass pushes down through our relatively small feet, resulting in a lot of pressure that makes us sink.

    However, several types of animals can walk on water. One of the most interesting is the common basilisk Basilicus basilicus, a lizard (蜥蜴)native to Central and South America. It can run across water for a distance of several meters, avoiding getting wet by rapidly hitting the water's surface with its feet. The lizard will take as many as 20 steps per second to keep moving forward. For humans to do this, we，d need huge feet that we could bring up to our ears in order to create adequate w hitting. ''

    But fortunately there is an alternative : cornflour. By adding enough of this common thickening agent to water (and it does take a lot), you can create a “non-Newtonian” liquid that doesn't behave like normal water. Now, if the surface of the water is hit hard enough, particles(粒子）in the water group together for a moment to make the surface hard. Move quickly enough and put enough force into each step, and you really can walk across the surface of an adequately thick Liquid of cornflour.

    Fun though all this may sound, it's still rather messy and better read about in theory than carried out in practice. If you must do it, then keep the water wings handy in case you start to sink--and take a shower afterward!

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How to read more and learn more

    These days, more and more Chinese people enjoy sending and receiving message on the phone. It can help the to get the latest news and communicate with friends. But I think I should read more books besides the textbooks, the more, the better. It can broaden my mind and improve my language skills.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Here are some tips for you.

Clear your purpose for reading

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}Most people read for two main reasons, pleasure or knowledge. Clearing about your reading purpose can not only help you choose the books you really need to read, but also remind you why reading the book is important to you, so you will keep reading and complete the book faster.

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    No matter what you are reading, it is important to enjoy what you read. Your friends may tell you the books they love, but those books might not necessarily be the ones you enjoy.

Give up books that you don't enjoy

    You may have chosen books that you are interested in, and they are right to your purpose. But while you are reading them, there may still be some books that you don't enjoy reading. Whenever you realize that you aren't enjoying the book you are reading, give it up.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

Set a reading goal

    It is interesting that I read the books borrowed from libraries faster than those I bought. The reason is the books I bought don't have a due date! I don't need to return those books. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Before you read each book, ask yourself what time you need to complete this book by.

A. Read only what you are interested in.

B. Read the books borrowed from others

C. Remember reading shouldn't be a chore

D. Of course, it also can help me to get good grades

E. We need to get the latest news and communicate with friends

F. Before you start reading, ask yourself why you are reading this book

G. Having a reading goal helps you work out how much reading you need to do in a week or even a day.

    As we all know,drinking beers while running can upset the stomach.However,that's all part of the attraction of the Beer Mile,a unique race that has participants competing in running and drinking.The Beer Mile Race started off as a tradition in 1990,when a group of Canadians thought it would be fun to race each other while drinking a few beers.But it has come a long way since then.The Beer Mile Race is now a major sporting event with around 100,000 official competitors,brand name sponsors and so on.In 2015,the first Beer Mile World Classic was held in San Francisco,where all of the record holders from Canada and the United States came together for the competition.But this year,the event was organized in London,in an effort to take in more competitors about the sport outside North America.

    The rules of the race are pretty simple: runners have to consume four beers before each of the four 400-meter laps making up the famous Beer Mile.The beers can come in bottles or cans but should not be less than 355ml and must be at least 5% alcohol.The drink like apple juice will not do.Runners must drink the beers within a 10 meter zone before the start/finish line and then they are required to tip the bottle/can over their heads to confirm it is empty.

    In the case of vomiting（呕吐）during the race,and yes,there's quite a bit of that during the Beer.Mile,offenders must complete one more lap at the end of the race.Organizers mention that even in the case of vomiting several times, only one more lap must be completed.

    This year,the Elite Men's race was won by Canadian Corey Bellemore,who also set a new world record with a time of 4 minutes and 34 seconds.“I just drink the beers as quickly as I could,hold them down and get the burps（饱嗝）out,”Corey said.“If you can drink a beer in 8 seconds and also run very fast with a feeling of vomiting,then you'll be fine like me.”

    French writer Frantz Fanon once said, “To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture. ” Since the world changes every day, so does our language.

    More than 300 new words and phrases have recently made it into the online OxfordDictionary, and in one way or another they are all reflections of today's changing world.

    After a year that was politically unstable, it's not hard to understand the fact that people's political views are one of the main drives of our expanding vocabulary. One example is “clicktivism”, a compound of “click” and “activism”. It refers to “armchair activists”—people who support a political or social cause, but only show their support from behind a computer or smartphone. And “otherize” is a verb for “other” that means to alienate (使疏远)people who are different from ourselves—whether that be different skin color, religious belief or sexuality.

    Lifestyle is also changing our language. For example, “fitspiration” —a compound of fit and inspiration—refers to a person or thing that encourages one to exercise and stay fit and healthy.

    The phrase “climate refugee”—someone who is forced to leave their home due to climate change—reflects people's concern for the environment.

    According to Stevenson, social media was the main source for the new expressions. “People feel much freer to coin their own words these days, ” he said.

    But still, not all newly-invented words get the chance to make their way into a mainstream (主流的) dictionary. If you want to create your own hit words, Angus Stevenson, Oxford Dictionaries head of content development,  suggests that you should not only make sure that they are expressive (有表现力的) and meaningful, but also have an attractive sound so that people will enjoy saying them out loud.

    Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy (星系).The black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world. It was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

    The announcement was made in Washington, Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo. Details have been published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

    Prof Heino Falckc, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who suggested the experiment, told BBC News that the black hole was found in a galaxy called M87. "What we see is larger than the size of our entire Solar System," he said. "It has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. And it is one of the heaviest black holes that we think exists. It is an absolute monster, the heavyweight champion of black holes in the Universe."

    The image shows an intensely bright "ring of fire", as Prof Falckc describes it, surrounding a perfectly circular dark hole. The bright halo is caused by very heated gas falling into the hole. The light is brighter than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined - which is why it can be seen at such distance from Earth. The edge of the dark circle at the center is the point at which the gas enters the black hole, which is an object that has such a large gravitational pull (万有引 力）,not even light can escape.

    "It is remarkable that the image we observe is so similar to that which we get from our theoretical calculations. So far, it looks like Einstein is correct once again." said Dr Ziri Younsi, of University College London -who is part of the EHT cooperation.

    Chinese scientists were involved in the observation through a telescope in Hawaii. They were also highly involved in follow-up data processing and theoretical analysis, said Shen Zhiqiang, head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanhai Astronomical Observatory and a member of the EHT international team.

    Shanghai and Taipei were selected as two of the cities to hold news conferences, together with Washington, Brussels, Santiago and Tokyo, a recognition of China's contribution.

    "In the fields of astronomy, radio astronomy, and space astrophysics, China has made a significant contribution to this global project," Falcke said.