As a boy, Charles Robert Darwin(达尔文) collected anything that caught his interest: insects, coins and interesting stones. He was not very clever, but Darwin was good at doing the things that interested him.

    His father was a doctor, so Darwin was sent to Edinburgh to study medicine, and was planned to follow a medical career. But Charles found the lectures boring. Then his father sent him to Cambridge University to study to be a priest. While at Cambridge, Darwin's interest in zoology and geography grew. Later he got a letter from Robert FitzRoy who was planning to make a voyage around the world on a ship, the Beagle. He wanted a naturalist to join the ship, and Darwin was recommended(推荐). That voyage was the start of Darwin's great life.

    As the Beagle sailed around the world, Darwin began to wonder how life had developed on earth. He began to observe everything. After he was home, he set to work, getting his collection in order. His first great work The Zoology of the Beagle was well received, but he was slow to make public his ideas on the origin of life.

    Later Darwin and Wallace, another naturalist who had the same opinions as Darwin, produced a paper together. Darwin's great book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”(《物种起源》) appeared. It attracted a storm. People thought that Darwin was saying they were descended from monkeys. What a shameful idea! Although most scientists agreed that Darwin was right, the Church was still so strong that Darwin never received any honors for his work.

    Afterwards, he published another great work, The Descent of Man. His health grew worse, but he still worked. “When I have to give up observation, I shall die,” he said. He was still working on 17, April, 1882. He was dead two days later.

    Since 2013, Torobo, a robotic arm designed to test the limits of artificial intelligence, has had one ambition—to be admitted to the University of Tokyo. However, it has repeatedly failed. This year was no exception.

    In early November Torobo took an exam to prepare for an all-important standardized test. While Torobo's total score of 525 out of 950 was 14 points higher than in 2015，its standard score of 57.1% was slightly lower, because human students did better in the 2016 test.

    Though the score，which is higher than the national average, is enough to get the robot admitted to many other famous Japanese universities,
it falls short of the minimum required for the University of Tokyo.

    A closer analysis of the results showed that Torobo's newly programmed ability to solve complex physics problems helped increase its
year-over-year physics score from 46. 5% to 59%. The robot also dug deep into its database of information from textbooks and websites to obtain
an impressive 66.3% in world history. The average 60% scores acquired in the two math sections, were not too shabby either.

    But，while Torobo is able to handle knowledge-based questions and ones involving complex mathematical calculations, it has a hard time thinking independently. As a result, the robot is unable to fully understand multiple sentences and phrases to arrive at the logical conclusions required in the English language tests. This weakness was reflected in the weak oral and writing scores, which came in at 36.2% and 50.5%, respectively.

    Fortunately, after four tiring years, the robot's creators have decided to free Torobo from its annual test-taking suffering, the research team will instead focus on improving the robot's ability to pick out specific answers from massive sets of data—a skill that led to its excellent history scores. They believe the expertise(专业技术）will  help Torobo succeed as an industrial robot.

    Some of the best thing in life don't happen until you grow old enough to recognize them. I can say that about tea. .

    I didn't start to drink tea until I was 35. The first time felt a genuine urge to drink tea was in 2003, when I stayed briefly in the United Kingdom. After a time of consuming local food, I started to really like strong black tea.

    I took packs of green tea with me as gifts but was disappointed to find my British friends preferred much stronger black tea from Sri Lanka. Later I learned that although people know China for its tea, it ranks only third among the world's black tea exporters, after Sri Lanka and Kenya.

    After I came back to China and started to cover food stories, I met friends in the tea-drinking circle and learned more. Although the majority of the rest of the world drinks black tea, which the Chinese call “red tea”, China processes and drinks mostly green tea.

I feel lucky to be Chinese because of the great variety of tea available in the county. It is estimated that there are more than 2000 tea in China it you divide them geographically,] including more than 600 locally famous tea. A more simple way to categorize it is by color ； and extent of fermentation(发酵). That comes down to six main categories — green, white, yellow, dark greenish(oolong), red and black tea.

    Tasting tea can be compared to our life. It can be plain and predictable but sometimes it is j full of pleasant surprises. Occasionally it can even seem too good to be true. The best thing is, you know there's always more to explore.

    Energy goes from one plant or animal to another. A food chain shows how this energy moves. Each time an animal gets eaten, its energy is passed onto the animal that eats it. The food chain is very important because it keeps the balance of nature. If one part of the food chain disappears, it can affect all the other plants and animals. Any threat to the food chain is a threat to the environment's biodiversit(生物多样性). The food chain helps keep animal populations in balance. However, if something happens to increase or decrease one of the links in the food chain, that balance is broken. If one animal becomes endangered, it puts all the animals above it at risk.

    Some of the threats are natural, such as wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, floods and so on. But the biggest threats to the food chain come from you and me. These threats include overhunting, overfishing, logging, farming, development, pollution, etc. The food chain is endangered anywhere humans have had an effect on the natural environment.

    A recent study shows that the overfishing of large sharks is damaging the food chain along the US Atlantic coast. Canadian and American scientists say sharks are being killed in great numbers for their meat and fins(鳍). Now, not enough sharks are around to eat the cownose(牛鼻) ray. The ray's population has increased and they have eaten up the shellfish to the point where it has hurt commercial(商业的) fishing.

    Many of us disturb the natural environment in our own backyards. It's up to us to take care of the environment and try not to disrupt the natural food chain. If we don't act responsibly, animals will start disappearing.

    Griffith Observatory (天文台) is a national leader in public astronomy，and one of the most popular attractions in Los Angeles. It is located on the southern slope (山坡) of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park at 1,134 feet above sea level.

    Visitors may drive to the observatory and park in its parking lot or on nearby roads. No reservation (预订) is required to visit. Parking is limited，and the busiest time is weekends. Buses，taxis，and car pools are welcome. LADOT provides weekend public bus service from the Sunset/Vermont Metro Red Line Station.

    Griffith Observatory is open six days a week. Admission and parking are free.

    Hours of Operation

    Tuesday—Friday    12 noon—10 p．m.

    Saturday—Sunday      10 a．m.—10 p．m.

    Monday  Closed

    Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day Closed

    Samuel Oschin Planetarium

    The Samuel Oschin Planetarium theater offers 8 to 10 live，half-hour presentations each day. There are usually four different shows from which to choose.

    Shows are presented every 60 to 90 minutes. Check the website，information desks，or the box office for each day's show time. Being seated late is not permitted.

    Samuel Oschin Planetarium tickets must be purchased at the observatory and are only available on the day of the show. The ticket prices for shows are：

    Adults (13—59 years old)      $7.00

    Children (5—12 years old)         $3.00

    Seniors (60 years and older)        $5.00

    Students                        $5.00

    Children under 5 years old will be admitted only to the first show each day.

    Hearing assist devices are available on request.

    Public Telescopes

    Free public telescopes are available each evening the observatory is open and skies are clear.The Zeiss telescope on the roof is generally open by 7 p．m.All observing must be completed by 9：45 p．m.

    If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven't you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?

    According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.

    The study also found the effect is greater when the younger people learn a second language. A team led by Dr. Andrea Mechelli, from University College London, took a group of Britons who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of "early bilinguals" who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.

    Scans showed that grey matter density (密度) in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference.

    "Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language," said the scientists.

    It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.

    Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales, has researched the link between bilingualism and maths skills. "Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible (灵活的)," he said. "You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas."

    The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and thirty-four. Reading, writing, and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. "Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world," explained the scientists.