阅读下列短文,从每小题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中选出一个最佳选项。

    You know how much your telephone has changed over the past 10 years? Your car will change even more than that in the next 10 years.

    One of the biggest changes is that cars will drive themselves. Some day you may not need to drive a car. You will just tell the car where you want to go and it will drive itself.

    Google

    The American company Google has been working on a self-driving automobile for years. These cars are already on the roads in the United States, mainly in California.

    Google cars are truly self-driving. These cars have no steering wheels(方向盘) or pedals(刹车踏板).

    Last week, police ordered one of Google's cars to stop for driving too slowly on a public road. The car was not against any law, so no one was punished. But police did speak to the operators of the vehicle(车辆).

    According to Google, its self-driving cars have been driven nearly 2 million kilometers. That is equal to the distance the average person drives in 90 years.

    So far, no Google self-driving car has gotten a traffic ticket. Some of them have been in accidents when other cars hit them.

    Tesla

    Another American company, Tesla, added an “Autopilot(自动驾驶仪)” feature to its cars last month. Tesla put the feature, a computer software program, in cars that were built after September 2014.

    With the Autopilot turned on, the vehicle drives itself. The car will speed up, slow down, brake and steer by itself.

    You can take over driving any time by turning the steering wheel or touching a pedal. Your car will slow down if the vehicle in front of you gets closer. It will turn at bends and change lanes if you use the turn signal.

    Tesla Autopilot takes over driving at speeds over 29 kilometers per hour when you press a button twice. Autopilot is made for cross-country driving. It keeps you in the lane and helps you avoid hitting other cars.

    Other Self-Driving Cars and Buses

    Other companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, Volvo and Toyota are working on self-driving cars. Another company called BestMile is also working on self-driving buses in Switzerland. The buses can hold up to nine people and will be tested for two years.

    There is a popular belief that goldfish only have a three-second memory. But a 15-year-old schoolboy from Adelaide has just finished an experiment（实验）to tell us that it is not true. He shows everybody that the goldfish is smarter than we think.

    “I don't believe that they had a three-second memory because animals need their memory, so they build up over time a knowledge of where the food is,” said Roy Stokes, a student at the Australian Science and Mathematics School.

    He did the experiment in small tank（鱼缸）of goldfish. “I decided to get a bit of red Logo and just feed them next to that. Every day I'd put it in and spread food around it.” He said.

    “At first they were a bit scared of it, but by the end of the three weeks, they were actually almost coming before I put the food in.”

    After leaving the fish alone for a week, Rory placed the red Logo block in the tank again.

    “They remembered perfectly well,” he said.

    “They actually had a time faster than the average of the three feeds before I left.”

    The goldfish showed that not only could they store information, they also had the ability to get it back as a later date.

    Culum Brown, a research fellow at Sydney's Macquarie University, has studied fish behavior for more than ten years.

    He says his studies of Australian native fish show fish were intelligent creatures that know how to avoid enemies and catch food like any other animal.

    “The thing that I really liked about Rory's experiment is he not only got that classical conditioning going but the fact that he could get them next just to that specific coloured market. I thought it was really good.” He said.

    Artificial intelligence (AI) (人工智能）is the ability of a computer program or a machine to think and learn. It is also a field of study that tries to make computers "smart". John McCarthy, a scientist, came up with the name "artificial intelligence" in 1955. Many things such as learning and problem solving can be done by computers, though not in the same way as we do.

    An unusual goal of AI research is to create computer programs that can learn, solve problems, and think logically(逻辑地）. At present we use the term Al for successfully understanding human speech, recognizing(识别）human faces, operating self-driving cars and competing in some game systems like Chess and AlphGo（阿尔法狗）. Some people also consider AI a danger to humans if it develops too quickly. Professor Stephen Hawking (霍金), a well-known British scientist, was not for this kind of technology.

    Math is the basic language of AI. If we raise the standard in the learning of math, our students will be more likely to become successful AI designers in the future. We not only want bright students, but also need to attract average students and give them the math skills which are needed to change them into AI designers. Besides, a good knowledge of computer science is also necessary for AI designing.

    Scientists hope to create creative and emotional AI which can possibly understand human feelings or create art. Many ways and tools have been tried to discover this fascinating field.

    Amy is a biologist working at a marine （海洋的） park. These kinds of parks provide fun and education for tens of thousands of people each year.

    Amy takes care of many animals in the park, but she also does important research. As she observes the animals that she looks after, she learns more about their needs and behavior. This information helps the animals in the park, but it can also be used to protect other members of the species（物种） in the wild.

    It's hard work to look after these animals. Their needs often change according to different hours of the day. So Amy must depend on her science knowledge and good number sense to help her make the right decisions all day long.

    Even though dolphins spend much of their time underwater, they are mammals. This means that they must come to the surface to take in air. Dolphins give birth to their young. They're not hatched from eggs. Just like all other mammals, mother dolphins must nurse, or feed milk to their babies.

    Amy and her team know this first﹣hand. One of their dolphins recently gave birth. A baby dolphin is not small, either. It was almost 1 meter long the day it was born. A big dolphin usually eats about 4% of its body weight in food every day. Amy knows that a mother dolphin that is nursing needs twice the food. So when the baby dolphin was born, Amy immediately doubled the mother's food every day.

    In many places the weather changes during the year. These changes are called seasons. In the north and south there are four seasons in a year. At the North and South Pole, there are only two seasons. In tropical (热带) places near the Earth's equator (赤道), there are two seasons: a 'wet' season and a 'dry' season. Each season brings changes. They are important for plants and animals that live in different parts of the world.

    Spring starts when the day and night are the same length. The weather gets warmer and sunnier. Trees and plants start to grow. Many animals have their babies in spring.

    Summer begins on the longest day of the year. In the north this is on June 21 or 22. Summer is usually the warmest and sunniest time of the year. Fruit grows faster on trees and plants. Young animals grow bigger and stronger.

    Autumn starts when the day and night are the same length again.

During autumn, the leaves change color and fall down from the trees. Some animals collect food before winter comes.

    Winter begins on the shortest day of the year. In the north this is on December 21 or 22. The weather is colder and in some places there is lots of snow. Plants and trees stop growing. Some animals, like bats and bears, find places to hide and sleep. This is called hibernation.