阅读短文，从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出最佳选项。

    St Moritz, the showiest of Switzerland's Alpine resorts (旅游胜地), is no ordinary ski town. It's responsible for winter tourism as we know it today. It was a small band of English holidaymakers that changed Switzerland forever. In 1864 a bet took place between hotelier Johannes Badrutt and the vacationers on a damp September evening in St Moritz. As they sat around the fire at the Engadiner Kulm Hotel, concerned about returning to the foggy London winter, the Swiss manager saw a golden opportunity.

    “You holiday here in summer,” he challenged them over a bottle of red wine. “Why not enjoy the mountains year-round? Winter is so pleasant that on fine days you can even walk without a jacket.” Attracted by the promise of clean skies against a backdrop of towering peaks, the Englishmen were pleased to accept it; up until then, St Moritz had been a modest hiking destination in July and August. But if Badrutt's promise proved false, the hotelier would pay for their journey and winter-long stay. How could they lose?

    Come mid-December, the group of men returned to Switzerland. Towards the end of their week-long journey, sitting on a horse-pulled sledge and wrapped head-to-toe in furs, they went through the 2,284m Julier Pass in southeastern Switzerland. But by the time of their arrival in St Moritz, the skies had cleared, they were sweating abundantly, and Badrutt, jacketless and with his shirt sleeves rolled up, was there to greet them.

    Of course, Badrutt won the bet. Word quickly spread throughout Britain about St Moritz's distinctive climate—dry and sunny with a high degree of snow certainty. Year-round tourism landed the Alpine town of St Moritz.

    That Badrutt almost single-handedly marketed this undeveloped winter wonderland is a little unbelievable. The first tourist office in Switzerland had been established in the same year as the bet. Other resorts like the ones in Davos and Grindelwald were also popping up then. The story of St Moritz is, in some ways, also a tale of social transformation. But what Badrutt did made the Swiss mountains accessible in a way that no one else had done before, so his role as pioneer cannot be downplayed.

    That cold January night, I was growing sick of my life in San Francisco. There I was, walking home at one in the morning after a tiring practice at the theater. With opening night only a week away, I was still learning my lines. I was having trouble dealing with my part-time job at the bank and my acting at night at the same time. As I walked, I thought seriously about giving up both acting and San Francisco. City life had become too much for me.

    As I walked down empty streets under tall buildings, I felt very small and cold. I began running, both to keep warm and to keep away any possible robbers. Very few people were still out except a few sad-looking homeless people under blankets.

About a block from my apartment, I heard a sound behind me. I turned quickly, half expecting to see someone with a knife or a gun. The street was empty. All I saw was a shining streetlight. Still, the noise had made me nervous, so I started to run faster. Not until I reached my apartment building and unlocked the door did I realize what the noise had been. It had been my wallet falling to the sidewalk.

    Suddenly I wasn't cold or tired anymore. I ran out of the door and back to where I'd heard the noise. Although I searched the sidewalk anxiously for fifteen minutes, my wallet was nowhere to be found.

    Just as I was about to give up the search, I heard the garbage truck pull up to the sidewalk next to me. When a voice called from the inside, "Alisa Camacho？" I thought I was dreaming. How could this man know my name？ The door opened, and out jumped a small red-haired man with an amused look in his eyes. "Is this what you're looking for？" he asked, holding up a small square shape.

    It was nearly 3 a. m. by the time I got into bed. I wouldn't get much sleep that night, but I had got my wallet back. I also had got back some enjoyment of city life. I realized that the city couldn't be a bad place as long as people were willing to help each other.

    For those who may not be familiar, there is no such thing as a bicycle grants(补助金). As a matter of fact, there are a number of organizations and programs offering bicycle grants to bicyclers all over the world. Now of course, you can't simply receive money, because you want to buy a new mountain bike. Usually, those awarded grants are working on improving the quality of life. People are excited about the bicycle grants. This type of influence and achievement is gaining the attention of various companies that want to help by providing the necessary funding.

Eastman Kodak Company

    Kodak has developed a fund called the “Kodak American Greenways Awards". They are cooperating with the National geographic Society and the Conservation fund. Each year, they present grants as high as $2,500. The “seed” grant award is awarded to organizations that focus on improving blue ways, greenways, natural areas, and trails.

    US Government

    The government has developed their only program for bicycle riders, called" The US Department of transportation's Recreational Trails Program". The government's program is primarily focused on funding trail projects. The benefits of the fund is recreation, which includes bicycling, hiking, in-line skating, snowmobiling, all-terrain(地面)vehicle riding, and so forth. The great addition to the fund is that they distribute the funding to all the states. This means that everybody has the opportunity of receiving bicycle grants.

    Bikes Belong Coalition

    The Bikes Belong Coalition makes putting more people on bicycles their priority. They advocate for a better environment, recreation, sports, and better health, by way of bicycling. At the same time, they provide funding for supporting projects and bicycle facilities. Some of the projects they accept are paved lanes and bike paths. Applications for their grants can be submitted by either a facility class or a supporting class. Also, Bikes Belong Coalition are not quick to award bicycle grants to those who have been awarded in the past 3 years. This is partially due to their limited amount of funding

    A team of international scientists is due to set off for the world's biggest iceberg in a mission aiming to answer fundamental questions about the impact of climate change in the polar regions. The scientists, led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), are trying to reach a newly revealed ecosystem that had been hidden for 120,000 years below the Larsen C ice shelf.

    Last year, part of the Larsen C ice shelf calved (崩解) away, forming a huge iceberg-A68—which is four times bigger than London, and revealing life beneath for the first time. Now scientists say it is a race against time to explore these new ecosystems before they are transformed to the light. Marine biologist Dr Katrin Linse from the BAS is leading the mission.

    "The calving of A68 provides us with a unique opportunity to study marine life as it responds to a huge environment change," she said. "It is important that we get there quickly before the undersea environment changes as sunlight enters the water."

    Professor David Vaughan, science director at the BAs, said, "We need to be bold (大胆的) on this one. Larsen C is a long way south and there's lots of sea ice in the area, but this is important science, so we will try our best to get the team where they need to be. He said climate change had already affected the sea around Antarctica and is warming some coastal waters. "Future warming may make some habitats warm. Where these habitats support unique species that are adapted to love the cold and not the warm, those species are going to either move or die."

    There is growing concern about the possible impact of climate change in the Antarctic. Earlier this month, a report revealed that melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of the sea level rise. The research, published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, said, "At the current rate, the world's ocean will be, on average, at least 60cm higher by the end of the century." However, it found that the process is accelerating, and more than three quarters of the acceleration since 1993 is due to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the study shows.

The ancient Herculaneum scrolls (卷轴)are thought to contain works of important thinkers in ancient Greece. But the scrolls can't be unrolled (打开). Even a light wind threatens to reduce them to dust. The reason is that they were turned into carbon by a natural disaster in A.D. 79.

But now researchers from the University of Kentucky have found a way to look inside the scrolls without having to touch them. They first create a light that is 10 billion times brighter than the sun by taking advantage of a machine. Then they will use the light to go through the Herculaneum scrolls to study and finally read the words recorded on the scrolls. Researchers think it might take them six months to read the scrolls.

This isn't the first time researchers have tried to read the Herculaneum scrolls. Several years ago, scientists from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) worked on uncovering the mystery using an X-ray beam 100 billion times brighter than anything used in a hospital, This didn't allow scientists to actually read the scrolls, but it allowed them to make one surprising discovery. The scrolls were written in metallic (金属的) ink, a writing technology that scientists didn't know existed at the time the scrolls were penned.

"For a long time, we thought our studies have let us know everything about the ancient ink used to write on scrolls. Now we find it's not the case. This shows that we should tell ourselves it may not be true when thinking we fully know something once some research is done," said Daniel Delattre, one of the study's authors.

The finding wasn't just a historical curiosity. To learn just how special these scrolls are, consider that the thinker Chrysippus in ancient Greece is said to have written over 700 works; but all are lost, with the exception of a few works found in the Herculaneum scrolls. In other words, it's possible that these scrolls represent the only existing complete works left by this great thinker. And who knows what other great works could exist in the scrolls?