Walt Disney is credited for creating such wonderful things as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. However, he cannot take the credit for creating other well-loved characters, such as Cinderella and Snow White. They are almost automatically associated with Disney because Disney turned old fables(寓言) into cartoon movies.

    The original Cinderella varies very much from the Disney version we know today. It started off with the girl mourning her mother's death and going to her tomb three times a day. In addition, there were only birds that helped Cinderella; there was no such thing as a fairy godmother or helpful mice, nor was there mention of a horse and carriage.

    The stepsisters were cruel: they always threw Cinderella's food into the ashes of the fire and made her sleep on the ashes on the floor, hence（因此）her name.

    In the original story, the king's ball actually lasted for three days. With the help of the birds, the girl, beautifully dressed, danced with the prince on all three nights and the prince fell in love with her. However, she broke away from him to rush back home each night. On the last night, the prince placed soothing sticky on the stairs; as Cinderella made her escape, a shoe got stuck on it.

    Here now is where the story becomes unpleasant: when the prince went to the house looking for the girl whose foot fit the shoe, the wicked(邪恶的) stepmother told one of her two daughters to cut off her big toe to fit into the shoe. The daughter did as told. So the prince took her away to be his bride. But when they passed the tomb of Cinderella's mother, the birds called out to the prince,

    “Turn and peep, there's blood in the shoe;the shoe is too small, the true bride waits for you.”

    Realizing he had been tricked, the prince returned the daughter to her mother. The other then had to cut off part of her heel in order to fit into the shoe, with the same result. Only Cinderella's foot fit perfectly and so the prince chose to marry her. The story ends with the wedding day: as Cinderella's two stepsisters followed her, pretending to be devoted to her so that they could enjoy the king's riches, two birds flew by and plucked(啄) out their eyes. Because of their wickedness and falsehood, they had to spend the rest of their days blind.

    The original Cinderella is so different from the Disney version. Thank goodness Disney made such changes; it indeed was a wise move.

    Weighing too much can damage your health, and obesity is a growing problem for both kids and adults around the world. Sleep might be one answer to the problem. A new study has found that elementary school students who slept too little were more likely to gain pounds.

    Past studies have shown a link between sleeping less and weighing more, but scientists have had a tough time determining "which came first, the chicken or the egg," says Julie C. Lumeng of the university of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In other words, it hasn't been clear whether kids who weigh too much have trouble sleeping, or whether sleeping less leads to weight gain. Both scenarios (可能出现的情况) seemed equally possible.

    To get a better idea of which causes which, Lumeng and her colleagues interviewed the parents of 785 third graders from around the United States. The parents answered questions about how well their kids slept that year. Three years later, the parents answered the same questions. By sixth grade, 18percent of kids involved in the study were obese.

    The scientists found no relationship between weight and the students' race or gender. It also didn't matter how strict their parents were, or whether they were boys or girls. Obesity struck all of these groups equally. Instead, sleep seemed to be the key factor. Over the three years of study, the children averaged a healthy 9. 5 hours of sleep a night. Some kids, however, slept a lot more or less than others.

    For the sixth graders, every hour of sleep above the 9. 5houraverage was linked to a 20 percent lower risk of being obese. Sleep appeared doubly important for the third graders. Every extra hour of sleep they got was linked to a 40 percent drop in obesity.

    While the U.S. is still debating about getting rid of the penny, Sweden is rapidly moving towards abolishing currency (货币) altogether. Though this may sound radical(过激的), it is a natural evolution in this digital society.

    Sweden, which was the first European country to introduce banknotes in 1661, has just been working harder to convince its residents that digital payments are a safer alternative to carrying cash.

    Over the years, the idea has gained popularity with residents, especially the younger generation that is much more comfortable with technology. Today many banks don't even have ATMs and some have stopped handling cash altogether!

    Tickets to ride public buses in most Swedish cities can only be purchased via cell phones. Numerous businesses are also moving towards accepting only digital payments. Even the homeless that sell street paper to make ends meet have to start accepting this mode of payment!

    But despite its growing popularity, some people don't like this radical idea. They include the homeless, elderly people as well as those living in rural areas who are still uncomfortable with mobile phones and computers. But the officials are confident that in the very near future, they will be able to convince everyone to move this safe and more cost-effective payment system.

    Sweden is not the only country trying to abolish paper currency and coins. The movement is rapidly gaining ground in Denmark and Finland as well. In 2014, Israel announced a three-step plan to go cashless and just last week the vendors(小贩)of a popular street in Sydney declared they would stop accepting currency from customers. Whether this phenomenon spreads remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure—With increasingly advanced payment systems being introduced every day, pulling out cash is rapidly becoming "uncool".

    All of us know that smoking does harm to our health. But do you think everything will be OK as long as you quit smoking?

    Unfortunately, the answer is NO.

    New research has found that even if you give up smoking, the damage it has done to your genes (基因) will stay there for a much longer time. In the research, a team of US scientists studied the blood of 16,000 people. Among them, some were smokers, some used to smoke, and the rest were non-smokers. Scientists compared their genes and found that more than 7, 000 genes of smokers had changed—a number that is one-third of known human genes. According to NBC News, both heart disease and cancer are caused by genetic changes. Some people may have had the changes when they were born, but most people get them in their daily lives while doing things like smoking. When you stop smoking, a lot of these genes will return to normal within five years. This means your body is trying to heal (治愈) itself of the harmful effects of smoking. But the changes in some of the genes stay for longer. They can stay for as long as 30 years, It's almost like leaving a footprint on wet cement (水泥)—it will always be there, even when you've walked away and when the cement becomes dry. Although the study results may make people unhappy, there is a bright side: the findings could help scientists invent medicine to treat genetic damage caused by smoking or find ways to tell which people have heart disease or cancer risks.

    A man going abroad to work leaves his young lady crying. "Don't worry, I will write to you every day," he said. For years he did write to her. But since he was happy with his job, he had no immediate plans of going home. One day, he received a wedding invitation. His girlfriend was scheduled to be married. To whom? To the mailman bringing regularly the letters of her boyfriend! Indeed, distance does make hearts struggle.

    While presents are important, love demands what is basic: presence of the beloved.

    Martha was busy with her job. She believed she had to work harder because she loved her father who had serious disease. She had to provide for his expensive medicine. Her brothers and sisters meanwhile stayed with their father most of the time. They bathed him, sang for him, spoon­fed him or simply kept him company.

    One day Martha was hurt. She overheard her father telling her mother, "All our children love me except Martha." "How can this be?" Martha thought. "Am I not the one killing myself in my work to earn money to buy for his medicine? My brothers and sisters do not even provide their share in the expenses as much as I do."

    One night, as Martha was as usual late in going home, she peeped for the first time in the room where her father was lying. She noticed that her father was still awake. She decided to come close at his bedside. Her father held her hands and said, "I miss you. I don't have much time. Stay with me." And she stayed with her father holding his hand the whole night.

    The next morning Martha said to everyone, "I have taken a leave of absence. I would like to be with my father. I will bathe him and sing for him from now on." Her father had a beautiful smile. He knew this time Martha loved him.

    As children, we need the assuring presence of our loved ones. Adult people need no less.

Every animal sleeps, but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

One idea is that sleep helps us strengthen new memories. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} We know that, while awake, fresh memories are recorded by reinforcing (加强) connections between brain cells, but the memory processes that take place while we sleep have been unclear.

Support is growing for a theory that sleep evolved so that connections between neurons(神经元) in the brain can be weakened overnight, making room for fresh memories to form the next day. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}The synapses in the mice taken at the end of a period of sleep were 18 per cent smaller than those taken before sleep, showing that the connections between neurons weaken while sleeping.

If Tononi's theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night's, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information — our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.

Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapses become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}"You keep what matters," Tononi says.

A. We should also try to sleep well the night before.

B. It's as if the brain is preserving its most important memories.

C. Similarly, when people go for a few days without sleeping, they get sick.

D. The processes take place to stop our brains becoming loaded with memories.

E. That's why students do better in tests if they get a chance to sleep after learning.

F. "Sleep is the price we pay for learning," says Giulio Tononi, who developed the idea.

G. Tononi's team measured the size of these connections, or synapses, in the brains of 12 mice.