The Canadian red and white maple leaf (枫叶) flag is officially called the National Flag of Canada. The Canadian flag shows a stylized red maple leaf with 11 points on a white background, with red borders down each side. The Canadian flag is twice as long as it is wide. The white square containing the red maple leaf is the same width as the flag.

    The red and the white used in the National Flag of Canada were proclaimed the official colors of Canada in 1921 by King George Ⅴ. Although the maple leaf did not have its official status as a symbol of Canada until the announcement (宣告) of the national flag in 1965, it had historically been used as a Canadian symbol, and was used in 1860 in decorations for the visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada. The 11 points on the maple leaf have no special significance.

    In the early days，the Royal Union Flag，or the Union Jack, was still flown in British North America. In 1925 and again in 1946, the Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King tried to get a national flag of Canada adopted, but failed. In 1964，Prime Minister Lester Pearson appointed a 15-member, all-party committee to come up with a design for a new flag. The committee was given six weeks to complete its task.

    The committee studied 2,000 submitted(提交的) designs as well as 3,900 that had been gathered as a result of the 1946 committee's study. Those designs with a chance of being accepted were given to the full committee for further study.

    The suggestion of a red and white single maple leaf design for the Canadian flag came from George Stanley, a professor at the Royal Military College. After a heated discussion, they finally decided on his suggestion.

    Mrs. Turner's telephone number was 3463, and the number of the cinema in town was 3464. People often made mistakes and telephoned her when they actually wanted the cinema.

    One evening the telephone bell rang and Mrs. Turner answered it. A tired man's voice came over the telephone, “At what time does your last film begin?” “I'm sorry,” said Mrs. Turner, “but you have the wrong number. This is not the cinema.” “Oh, it began twenty minutes ago? ” said the man. “I'm sorry about that. Well, goodbye.” Mrs. Turner was very surprised, so she told her husband. He laughed and said, “No, that wasn't a mistake. The man's wife wanted to go to the cinema, but he was feeling tired, so he telephoned the cinema. His wife heard him, but she didn't hear you. Now they will stay at home this evening, and the husband will be happy!”

    There's no doubt that man is the smartest. But do you know what other animals are smart, too?

    Dolphins

    Dolphins are very smart. Most of the “tricks” they're taught to do are actually behavior they would engage in on their own. They love to play, race and generally enjoy their life to the fullest. They speak a language we have yet to completely understand and like all civilized creatures, dolphins' mothers always provide their young children with guidance and possibly, love.

    Great apes

    The great ape family primarily consists of gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans. Their brain chemistry is so similar to humans' that NASA once used chimpanzees in place of astronauts during many dangerous missions. Gorillas have been taught sign language and orangutans exist in complex familial relationships.

    Elephants

    Everyone has heard the phrase “an elephant never forgets”. Elephants establish long-term friendships, recognizing and remembering their friends years later. If an elephant comes upon a fallen friend, it has even been known to feel sad.

    Parrots

    As proved by this list, parrots are very smart. They are also the only animals listed that can actually hold a conversation. Some parrots know hundreds of words by imitating humans. The birds are also capable of remembering words and using them intelligently in response to situations.

    Taxi-booking app Uber agreed to sell its business in China to Didi Chuxing. The two firms had been fierce competitors, but Didi Chuxing had controlled the Chinese market with an 87% share.

    Uber China launched in 2014, but it had failed to make any profit for a long time. Cheng Wei, founder and chief executive of Didi Chuxing, said the two companies had learned a great deal from each other over the past two years in China. He added that the deal would set the mobile transportation industry on a healthier path of growth at a higher level. As part of the deal, Mr. Cheng would join the board of Uber, while Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick would also join Didi's board.

    Uber's China business would own its separate branding while US-based Uber Technologies would hold about 17.5% in the combined company. Didi Chuxing is backed by Chinese Internet giants Tencent and Alibaba.

    Uber had been struggling to break into the Chinese market despite having Chinese search engine Baidu as an investor. Last February, the company admitted it was losing more than $1 billion a year in China. “Funding their Chinese dreams was becoming too expensive for Uber,” Duncan Clark, chairman of Beijing-based consultancy BDA, told the BBC. Travis Kalanick said, “As a businessman, I've learned that being successful is about listening to your head as well as following your heart.”

    The fierce competition had led both companies to spend much more on their journeys. The combination is likely to see fewer such subsidies（补贴）. “One thing to watch carefully is how quickly consumers feel the impact as subsidies are withdrawn.” Mr. Clark added.

    The deal with Didi Chuxing came just days after China had agreed to provide a legal framework for taxi-ordering apps. Both Uber and Didi welcomed the decision. The new rules took effect last November and could, among other things, forbid such platforms to operate below cost.

    More than one billion young people risk damaging their hearing through the overuse of smartphones and other audio devices, the UN warned Tuesday, proposing new safety standards for safe volume levels.

    Currently, about five percent of the global population, or some 466 million people, including 34 million children, suffer from disabling hearing loss. Young people are particularly likely to develop such risky listening habits. Around half of those between the ages of 12 and 35, or 1.1 billion people, are at risk due to "long and severe exposure to loud sounds, including music they listen to through personal audio devices," the UN health agency said.

    In a bid to safeguard hearing, the World Health Organization and International Telecommunications Union issued an international standard for the manufacture and use of audio devices. WHO considers a volume above 85 decibels for eight hours or 100 decibels for 15 minutes as unsafe. The safe listening devices and systems standard calls for a "sound allowance" software to be included in all audio devices, to track the volume level and duration of a user's exposure to sound, and to evaluate the risk posed to their hearing. This system could alert a user if they have dangerous listening habits.

    WHO is also calling for parental as well as automatic volume controls on audio devices to prevent dangerous use. While some smartphones and other audio devices already offer some of these features, the UN would like to see a uniform standard used to help protect against disabling hearing loss.

    "Think of it like driving on a highway, but without a speedometer in your car or a speed limit," Shelly Chadha of the WHO told reporters in Geneva. "What we've proposed is that your smartphones come fitted with a speedometer, with a measurement system which tells you how much sound you're getting and tells you if you are going over the limit".

    After I mastered my first concerto (协奏曲) at the age of 14, my parents decided to get me a nice violin. I tried out dozens of instruments before I found my match: a German violin. It was beautiful, but what I liked best about it was its voice. Confident and strong, it was everything I longed to be.

    I'm not sure how much that violin cost, but my parents made me promise never to let it out of my sight. They didn't understand that pulling a large violin case ran counter to my daily middle school task of not being noticed. I was a strange, absent-minded kid. When I spoke up in class, my comments brought confused silence from teachers and wild laughter from students. Like a deer in a wolf pack, I tried to be quiet and still.

    However, my new violin was almost shockingly loud. Together, we were much louder than the rest of my middle school orchestra—which was encouraged, since the other kids made sounds like cats' crying. For one wonderful hour every day, I was showered with attention. Everyone wanted to hear what I had to say.

    Between classes, I bent under the combined weight of my violin case and a backpack filled with books. My body suffered, but my confidence grew. With my violin by my side, I found my voice. More and more, I contributed to class discussions and even made a couple of friends.

    Today, I'm just an excellent violinist with a regular day job. As I sit in my community orchestra, sometimes I feel jealous (嫉妒的) of my fellow musicians' instruments with their elegant voices. I may not be the best violinist around, but at least I'm still the loudest.