B

    Around the world, there are about 7,000 National Parks. Most of them cover huge areas of land where nobody lives. However, the National Parks in England include places where people live and work, as well as wild areas where there are few human activities.

    The National Parks in England are called “England's Breathing Spaces” because they are places where people can go to be in the open air, away from the dirt and noise of cities. They provide wonderful scenes of mountains, woods, grasslands and wetlands. And there are plenty of activities to do in all of the National Parks in England. Visitors can walk or ride bikes for fun. Many of the parks put on activities for families.

    Every year there are about 110 million visitors to the parks, bringing many benefits(益处) to the areas. At the same time, it creates problems too. First, life can be difficult for local people. Car parks and roads are too crowded. Gift shops and cafes take the place of many everyday shops. Even house prices in some areas can become too high. Besides, country roads can be damaged, for too many people walk, cycle or ride horses on them. Roads can be rebuilt, but then they look less natural. Another big problem to the National Parks is litter. In the parks it is a danger to wild animals. Broken glass can also cause fires by focusing the rays of the sun. Such fires in wild places can be out of control.

    ▲   ? All National Parks in England are making more rules, which tell people how to take good care of their environment. If these rules are followed, the National Parks will be well kept and continue to give pleasure to many people for a very long time.

    On June 26th, 2000, two scientists, called Francis Collins and Craig Venter, told the world that they could now read the whole “map” of the human body: DNA. DNA is something that all humans have, and it tells the body what to do. DNA is the reason that we look like our mother and father, because we get some of their DNA to make our own. Now we can read some of this “map”, and so we can find out more about how our bodies work.

    People have been trying to understand the human body for a long time. In 1860, Gregory Mendel discovered that there is a special reason why we look the same as other people in our family. It is because of small things called “genes” that we have in our body. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick made another discovery and found out that those small parts are really messages written in the DNA with a special language.

    In 1961, Marshall Nirenberg and Johann Matthaei found the first “word” that they could understand in that language, showing how DNA tells the cell to build its parts. This meant that one day we would be able to read all the messages that a human body gets from its parents' bodies. Scientists have now found all the words in DNA map, but we still do not understand what they all do. By understanding what just one “word” means, we can help save people from several diseases. So the more we understand, the more doctors will be able to do.

    Most people hope that this will help to make better medicine and help people who are very ill. Other people worry about that when we learn more words and find out lots of other information, we still use it in the wrong way, just to make people more attractive, or stop sick people getting jobs.

B

    EVERYDAY since March 8, people all over the world are repeatedly asking the same question: Where did Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 go? It turns out to be the saddest answer.

    On March 24, Malaysian Prime Minister(总理) Najib Razak announced that the plane "ended in the southern Indian Ocean". All 239 people on board, including 154 Chinese, died.

    The conclusion was based on satellite(卫星) data from the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch and Inmarsat, a Britain ­based satellite company. No debris(残骸)of the plane had been found.

    The news sent people, especially families of passengers(乘客), into deep sorrow. They are asking for more details about the investigation.

    China has already asked Malaysia to provide(提供) all the information and evidence(证据) leading to the conclusion, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei. He said China would continue with their search effort. "We hope that other countries will also continue their search, " Hong said.

C

    Different weather makes people feel different.It has an effect on health，intelligence(智力) and feelings.

    In August，it is very hot and wet in the southern part of the United States.People there have heart trouble and other kinds of health problems during this month.In the Northeast and the Middle West，it is very hot at some times and very cold at other times.People in these states have more heart trouble after the weather changes in February or March.

    The weather can also influence intelligence.For example，in a 1983 report by scientists, the IQ(智商) of a group of students was very high when a very strong wind came，but after the strong wind，their IQ was 10% lower.The wind can help people have higher intelligence.Very hot weather，on the other hand，can make it lower.Students in many schools of the United States often get worse in exams in the hot months of the year(July and August)．

    Weather also has a strong influence (影响)on people's feelings.Winter may be a bad time for thin people.They usually feel cold during these months.They might feel unhappy during cold weather.But fat people may have a hard time in hot summer.At about 18℃，people feel more comfortable.

    Are you feeling sad，tired，or unhappy today？It may be the weather's problem.

    We each have memory(记忆力).That's why we can still remember things after a long time. Some people have very good memories and they can easily learn many things by heart, but some people can only remember things when they say or do them again and again. Many of the great men of the world have got surprising memories.

    A good memory is a good help in learning a language. Everybody learns his mother language when he is a small child. He hears the sounds, remember them and then he learns to speak. Some children are living with their parents in foreign countries. They can learn two languages as easily as one because they hear, remember and speak two languages every day. In school it is not easy to learn a foreign language because the students have so little time for it, and they are busy with other subjects, too. But your memory will become better and better when you do more and more exercise.