What is your favorite color? Ask famous persons like Cate Blanchett, Scarlett Johnson, and Bono (singer for the band U2), and maybe they will say “green.” That's not because these artists like the color green best. Instead, they are interested in green fashion.

       Green fashion is about making (and wearing) clothes that are good for humans, animals, and the Earth. In the past, green fashion made people think of ugly clothes. But today, green fashion is different. It is about looking good and caring about the Earth and other people. You can have interesting clothes and be green.

Around the world, green fashion is becoming popular. For example, the U.K. company People Tree sells men's and women's clothing and accessories(配搭物). They are made from natural fabrics(织物) like cotton and wool. Workers who make the clothes are from countries like Kenya(肯尼亚), and Bangladesh(孟加拉国). People Tree pays the men and women good money for the clothes they make.

Singer Bono and his wife also started a clothing company called EDUN. When the clothes are sold, EDUN uses most of the money to help people around the world.

      Our living environment is being polluted faster than before and it seems nobody can prevent it. Time brings us more people, and more people bring us more industry, more cars, larger cities and growing use of man-made materials.

      How can we understand and solve this problem? The fact is that pollution is caused by man —by his desire (欲望）for a modem way of life. So we are often ready to offer everything: clean water, good food, our health and the future of our children. There are more people from the countryside moving into the cities and enjoying the modem society. But as the technological momentum (势头) has grown in the last twenty years, pollution has become a serious problem.

      Now we have to stop to ask ourselves where we are going and why. It makes one think of the story about the airline pilot who told his passengers over the loudspeaker, “I've got some good news and bad news. The good news is that we're going at 530 miles per hour. The bad news is that we're lost and don't know where we are going.” The sad fact is that this problem becomes a true story when speaking of our modem society.

    Do you notice music playing there when you go somewhere? Today most stores, stations restaurants and other places play music. You might even hear music in an office or on a farm.

Scientists believe that music changes the way people behave. They think that Western classical music makes people feel rich. When a restaurant plays classical music, people spend more money on food and drinks. When the restaurant plays modern music, people spend less money. Without music, people spend even less.

Scientists also believe that loud, fast music makes people eat faster. In fact, people eat their food faster when the music gets faster. Some restaurants play fast music during their busy hours. This gets people to eat faster and leave more quickly. Restaurants can make more money this way.

Some scientists think that music makes people think and learn better. They say that music helps students be more active. It is true that people learn better when they are relaxed. And listening to music can help people relax.

    Next time you hear music somewhere, be careful. It might change the way you do things.

C

    Thousands of bats(蝙蝠)in the Northeast are dying, and no one knows why. Scientists are conducting investigations(开展调查) to find out the cause and stop the spread of deaths, which have been most heavily reported in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts.

    "Most bat researchers agree that this is the most serious threat to bats they have ever seen, " says Alan Hicks, a bat expert who works in the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.

    There are few clues about the cause of the deaths. Bats are easy to catch the contagious disease(传染病) because they hibernate(冬眠) together. In some caves, there are 300 bats per square foot. Environmental officials are asking people to stay out of bat caves to avoid spreading the mysterious(神秘的) sickness while they are working to find out what it is.

    A computer program that could help catch and ever translates from aliens in outer space has been started by a British scientist.

    If aliens are discovered one day, scientists fear their language may make it possible to understand them. But John Elliott of needs Metropolitan University in Britain has come up with a program that can figure out the structure(结构)of their language. He thinks that's the first step in understanding what they are saying.

    Dr. Elliott's program would compare an alien language to a database (数据库)of 60 different languages in the world to look for a similar structure. He believes that even an alien language will have its own structure. Language has to be structured in a certain way, or it will be harder to use, he told New Scientist magazine.

    Research had shown that it is possible to know if a signal(信号)carries a language rather than a picture or music. Dr. Elliott has gone a step further by finding a way to pick out what might be words and sentences. Because languages have different word orders, Dr. Elliott has set up a library of the sentence structures of 60 human languages.

    If a message is received from outer space, it could be compared against this database. Scientist would then be able to see if ti's similar to any human language, or a mix of the language.

    However, Dr. Elliott also said that in order to translate what the aliens are actually saying, it may still be necessary to have a code book.