My husband and I had been married nearly twenty-two years when I acquired Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a disorder where my immune system (免疫系统) responded to a virus by producing painful blisters (水疱). Although my long-term evaluation was good, I, who had been so fiercely independent, rapidly became absolutely helpless.

    My husband, Scott, stepped up to the plate, taking care of kids and cooking dinners. He also became my personal caretaker, applying the medicine to all of my blisters because my hands couldn't do the job. Needless to say, I had negative emotions, bouncing from embarrassment to shame caused by total reliance on someone other than myself.

    At one point when I had mentally and physically hit bottoms I remember thinking that Scott must somehow love me more than I could ever love him. With my illness, he had become the stronger one, and I the weaker one. And this disturbed me.

    I recovered from my illness, but I couldn't seem to recover from the thought that I loved my husband less than he loved me. This seeming distinction in our love continued to annoy me for the year following my illness.

    Then recently Scott and I went on a long bike ride. He's an experienced cyclist; I'm quite the green hand. At one point with a strong headwind and sharp pain building in my tired legs, I really thought I couldn't go any further. Seeing me struggle, Scott pulled in front of me and yelled over his shoulder, “Stay close behind me.” As I fell into the draft of his six- foot- three- inch frame and followed his steps, I discovered that my legs quit burning and I was able to catch my breath. My husband was pulling me along again. At this very moment I woke up to what I now believe: during these and other tough times, love has the opportunity to become stronger when one partner learns to lean on the other.

    I pray my husband will always be strong and healthy. But if he should ever become the struggling one, whether on a bike ride or with an illness, I trust I'll be ready to call out to him: Stay close behind me-my turn to pull you along.

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。

    Last month, it was my first time to have a bus tour for sightseeing(观光) in Hong Kong. It's really pleasant and interesting. Sitting on the second floor of the bus, I visited Hong Kong in a different way. When the bus passed along the street, all the buildings along the way seemed very close to me. I bought a one­ day pass priced around US $6 to enjoy unlimited (不受限制的) rides on two important routes. I started the trip from Central Star Ferry, and took the H1 Heritage Route (遗产路线) to travel around the Central and Western District. After leaving Star Ferry, the bus passed Western Market and Hollywood Road, where the famous antique (古董) shops are located, then Man Mo Temple. Not only could I see on the bus, I also got off at many stops. I got off in Man Mo Temple and walked along Lascar Row. Then, I got on the sightseeing bus to Dr Sun Yat­sen Museum, which was built in 1914 to honor the father of the Republic of China. And the famous Hong Kong University left a good impression on me. After traveling back through the dried seafood shops without stopping, I went to the last stop at Star Ferry.

    After the heritage journey, I took the H2 Metropolis Route for my shopping tour. I left from Star Ferry and traveled through Wanchai to Causeway Bay and Times Square for shopping. Having bought a lot of things, I went back.

    Though tired, I did have lots of fun on my one­ day bus tour!

    I passed a man on the way home from work this evening. He was walking down the side of the carriageway. Actually, he was walking unsteadily. I slowed down wondering whether to stop and give him a lift, at least down to a safer part of the road. I couldn't be sure but he appeared to be quite drunk. I pulled over and watched him in my rear-view mirror. He was obviously well-oiled. A truck turned sharply to avoid him at one point-he didn't appear to care.

    Having stopped now, I thought I might as well wait for him to reach the car. Five minutes went by and he reached the car. My windows were down, and I asked him if he wanted a lift. He indicated that he was going to the next town, just out of my way, but not far enough to put me to trouble. So in he got.

    “Sorry, I'm really quite drunk. I've been at a funeral. My family are all really out of it, so I decided to walk home. I'm Ryan,” and he offered me his hand. I drove and we talked. He told me he'd buried his uncle, and that he was a traveler.

    He called me brother and offered me his cool shades as payment. I declined and said the joy was in the giving. Three times along the way he told me that, “Whatever we put out there comes back to us. Something good will come to you for picking me up.” We told each other where we came from, the places we've lived, and how we both ended up here. He apologized again for being so drunk. “Anywhere around here is fine for me,” he said. So I dropped him at the next junction. We shook hands and spoke each other's names again.

    I felt as if I'd been blessed somehow. I think I have been.

    When it comes to climate change, there are always some new, terrifying consequences to worry about—like ancient viruses and bacteria coming from the ice as the earth warms. Unfortunately, researchers fear we may see more of this in the future.

    Some of these viruses and bacteria may have been trapped for thousands of years, and it's not even totally clear yet what they are, let alone what kind of damage they might have.

    Researchers have met complex “giant viruses” in the melting permafrost(永久冻土) of Siberia. One such virus, 30,000 years old, was still infectious when it was discovered in 2015, though it posed no danger to humans. It turns out that permafrost is excellent at preserving bacteria and viruses that are temporarily inactive, and then become reactivated with warming.

    Scientists have discovered Spanish flu viruses in dead bodies buried in 1918 in the Alaskan tundra (冻原). When close to half of the population of a Siberian town in the 1890s died of smallpox (天花), their bodies were buried in the permafrost along the Kolyma River. The banks of that river are now beginning to wear away amid global warming, the BBC reports.

    In Siberia in August 2016, some 100 people and 2,300 deer were infected with anthrax(炭疽) in the first outbreak in the area since 1941. One boy died from the disease. Scientist believed the anthrax had been trapped in the body of a long-frozen dead deer and became active during particularly hot summer of 2016, releasing the bacteria cells into the environment.

But even in warmer climates, rising temperatures can help grow and spread dangerous diseases. Over a decade ago, researcher Paul Epstein prophesied the possible spread of mosquito-born illnesses as a result of climate change. “Mosquitoes are sensitive to temperature changes,” he said. “Warming speeds up their rates of reproduction and the number of blood meals they take, makes their breeding (繁殖) season long, and shortens the maturation period for the germs they spread” — all of which makes them more efficient at spreading disease.

    When my daughter Sara was in the fifth grade, she came to me with a problem." Marcy hates me！" she cried." Because Kathy is my friend, too. She wants me to be her friend and nobody else's. You talk to Marcy. You tell her that I want to be her friend, but I can have other friends, too！"

    Oh！I looked at her for a few moments，wondering how I got into this mess，when suddenly an idea came to me.

    Picking up two baskets from the living room, I explained, "When everyone is born, he or she has a little basket. This little one here is yours. The big one is mine. As you grow, so does the basket. You can see your little basket is inside mine because when you were born, there were too many things you couldn't do for yourself. I did everything you couldn't do on your own." She nodded.

    "Well, as you grew older and began to do some things on your own, I began placing a few more things in your basket. When you learned to tie your shoes, that went in your basket."

    She said softly, "I can tie my own shoes."

    "Right. As you grow older，there will be more and more things you must do on your own." As I spoke, I gradually took her basket out of mine and handed it to her." You will finally carry your own basket with things only you can do."

    She looked up at me and said," I understand. There are some things that I have to do for myself because they are in my basket."

    A study based on data gathered by a NASA sensor has revealed China and India, the world's two most populous countries, are primarily responsible for making the Earth greener over the past two decades.

    The study, published on Feb 11 in the journal Natural Sustainability, has found that since 2000 the Earth's green leaf area has increased by over 5 million square kilometers. That's an area equivalent to the total of the Amazon rainforests. "China and India account for one-third of the greening, considering the general idea of land degradation (退化) in populous countries from overexploitation," said Chen Chi from Boston University, lead author of the study.

    The effect mainly comes from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries, NASA said in a statement. China is the source of a quarter of the planet's increase in forest area, despite having only 6.6 percent of the world's vegetated (固定植被的)area, according to the study. Forest conservation and expansion programs account for 42 percent of the increase, and another 32 percent come from intensive agriculture of food crops, NASA said. While raising their green leaf areas, China and India have also greatly increased their food production through" multiple cropping" practices, where a field is replanted and crops are harvested several time each year. "Production of grains, vegetable, fruits and more have increased by about 35 to 40 percent since 2000 to feed their large population," NASA said.

    Over the past decades, China has made great efforts to green the land. In 1978, the central government launched a national-level forestation project-the Three North Shelterbelt Forest Program. By the end of 2017, the forest coverage rate among the regions in the project reached 13.57 percent, compared to 5.05 percent 40 years ago. In a greening project, Kubuqi Desert, seventh largest in the country, has seen one-third of its area covered by vegetation during the past three decades thanks to forestation efforts.