The Internet is becoming important in our life. How much do you know about it?

What is the Internet?

The Internet is a large, world-wide collection (聚集) of computer networks( 网络). A network is a small group of computers put together. The Internet is many different kinds of networks from all over the world. These networks are called the Internet. If you have learned to use the Internet, you can have a lot of interest on the World Wide Web(网)

What is the World Wide Web?

The World Wide Web has been the most popular development of the Internet. The Web is like a big electronic (电子) book with millions of pages. These pages are called homepages. You can find information about almost anything in the world on these pages. For example, you can use the Internet instead of a library to find information for your homework. You can also find information about your favourite sport or film star, talk to your friends or even do some shopping on the pages. Most pages have words, pictures and even sound or music.

What is e-mail?

Electronic mail (e-mail) is a way of sending messages to other people. It' s much quicker and cheaper than sending a letter. If you want to use e-mail, you must have an e-mail address. This address must have letters and dots (点) and an" @ " (means "at"). For example: Lily @ Yahoo, com. Write a message, type a person's e-mail address, then send the message across the Internet. People don't need to use stamps, envelopes  or go to the post office since the invention of the Internet . Quick, easy and interesting — that' s the Internet .

    Do you know some great inventors and their inventions?

    What factors (因素) are needed for their success?

    Well, good timing for a start. You can have a great idea which the public simply doesn't want … yet. The Italian Giovanni Caselli invented the first fax（传真）machine in the 1860s. Although the quality is excellent, his invention quickly died a commercial(商业的) death. It was not until the 1980s that the fax became very common in every office… too late for Giovanni Caselli.

    Money also helps. The Frenchman Denis Papin (1647-1712) had the idea for a steam engine （蒸汽机）almost a hundred years before the better-remembered Scotsman James Watt was even born… but he never had enough money to build one.

    You also need to be patient (it took scientists nearly eighty years to develop a light bulb which actually worked)… but not too patient. In the 1870s, Elisha Gray, a professional inventor from Chicago, developed plans for a telephone. Gray saw it as no more than “a beautiful toy”. However, when he finally sent details of his invention to the Patent Office(专利局) in February，1876, it was too late. Almost the same invention had arrived two hours earlier and the young man who sent it , Alexander Graham Bell, will always be remembered as the inventor of the telephone.

    Of course what you really need is a great idea—but if you haven't got one, a walk in the country and a careful look at nature can help. The Swiss scientist, George de Mestral, had the idea for Velcro(魔术贴) when he found his clothes covered in sticky seed pods after a walk in the country. During a similar walk in the French countryside some 250 years earlier, Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur had the idea that paper could be made from wood when he found an abandoned wasps' nest(蜂巢).

    You also need good commercial sense. Willy Higinbotham was a scientist doing nuclear (核能的)research in the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, USA. In 1958 the public were invited to an exhibition in the Laboratory to see their work, but both parents and children were more interested in a tiny 120cm screen with a white dot which could be hit back and forth over a “net” using a button and a knob. Soon hundreds of people were ignoring the other exhibits to play the first ever computer game—made from a simple laboratory instrument called an “oscilloscope”. Higinbotham, however, never made money from his invention: he thought people were only interested in the game because the other exhibits were so boring!

    Animals United is a 3D German cartoon which is directed by Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe. It is a story about animals that get together to find water. Along their journey, lots of funny things happen, and of course, they have a lot of adventures.

    The animals in the grasslands in Africa are waiting for the coming flood. However, this year's flood seems to come later than in other years. The animals become upset and worried. At the same time, some animals from other places come to the grasslands to look for peace. However, the situation seems worse because the water is becoming less and less. So they decide to look for the river.

    Finally, they find the reason why they don't have any water to drink. A dam(坝) has been set up so that humans can have a better life. After a long fight with humans, they let the world know that animals are in danger.

    This film is about environmental matters. The humans are the bad and the animals are the good. This film is to give humans a warning that they must not destroy the homes of animals or damage nature in order to improve their own life. Humans should know that animals also have their own world.

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    Science is proving what pet owners have long believed: Dogs understand what we're feeling. Especially, dogs can recognize(识别) the difference between a happy and an angry human face, a study published Thursday in Current Biology suggests.

    It's the first research to show that dogs are sensitive (敏感) to our facial expressions, says the author Ludwig Huber at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.

    In the Austrian study, 20 different kinds of pet dogs were taught to play a computer game through a series of exercises. In the first step, the dogs were shown two touch screens, one with a circle and one with a square. Through the exercises, they learned that a treat would appear if they chose the right one.

    Eleven of the 20 dogs were able to catch on to rules of the game and make it to the next test, where they were shown photos of happy and angry faces. The dogs were rewarded if they picked certain expression correctly. During the test, the dogs were shown only the upper half or the lower half of a face.

    It was easier to teach the dogs to choose a happy expression than an angry one, suggesting the dogs do indeed understand the meaning behind the expression, Huber says.

    As a test, the dogs were then presented with: the same half of the faces they saw during the training, but from different people， the other half of the faces used in training， the other half of new faces， the left half of the faces used in training.

    In the cases, the dogs chose the right answer 70 to 100 percent of the time.

    Dogs who had been trained to recognize an expression of anger or happiness on the upper part of a face could find the same expression when shown only the lower part. Huber says, "The only possible explanation is that they recall from memory of everyday life how a whole human face looks when happy or angry."

    Dog owners know their pets not only recognize emotions but also understand the feelings.

An invention in front of your eyes

    What is the most important invention of all time? Is it the written word that helps us to record information? Is it the telephone that lets us talk to people from all over the world? Is it the car that lets us travel at great speeds to meet others? Umberto Eco, an Italian writer, thinks it is something quite different. He says the most important invention might be bright in front of your eyes. He is talking about a simple pair glasses.

    Modern eye glasses were invented around 1000years ago. They were more than just a convenient way to read. Before glasses, writers, scientists or teachers who could not see properly had to memorize everything. After about ten years of poor eyesight, they could not remember well enough and could not work. Glasses meant that people could work in their old age.

    People who wanted to remember some information could write it down and read it. Eye glasses are one of the world's greatest inventions and were probably worn by the people who designed the first telephones and cars.