More companies and recyclers are taking steps to ensure that old electronic devices such as TVs and computers aren't sent to poor countries.

    The Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based non-profit that largely exposed the overseas discarding (丢弃) of US electronic waste, on Thursday launched a programme to use third-party employees to certify (证实) recyclers who don't export dangerous electronic waste.

    The so-called e-Steward recyclers will also agree not to discard the waste in US landfills and agree to meet other criteria. The certification is intended to provide companies and consumers with some assurance that the waste, which can include toxins (毒素) such as lead and mercury, is disposed of safely.

    The Government Accountability Office, in a 2008 report, declared that US electronic waste was often disposed of unsafely in such countries as India. There, workers recycle gold, silver and copper from the waste, often in open-air acid baths.

    The Basel Network also says it won assurances from 13 organizations, including Samsung, Bank of America, Wells Far-go, that they'll use e-Steward recyclers whenever possible. Wells Fargo had already been using recyclers who declared not to export. So far, Basel has certified three recyclers and seven sites.

    Before e-stewards, even, companies that wanted to avoid export of electronic waste had to “hope for the best”, when, they handed their waste to recyclers, says Robert Houghton, president of Ohio-based recycler Redemtech. It is an e-Steward that counts major companies among its customers. “Now, they can get some proof,” Houghton says.

    Basel's standards compete with another set launched in January. It was made by industry and backed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

    That standard, called R-2, doesn't ban the export of dangerous electronic waste but requires that it be handled safely. Instead of a ban, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries says, efforts should be made to help poor countries develop safe recycling.

    John, a very thin boy, loved football with all his heart when he was very young. Practice after practice, he eagerly gave everything he had. But being half the size of the other boys, he could only sit on the bench and hardly ever played in games. Even though the son was always on the bench, his father was always standing with cheers and encouraging him.

    When John went to college, he decided to try out for the football team as a “walk-on”. Everyone was sure he could never make the cut, but he did. The coach thought he could provide the other members with the spirit they needed.

    The news that he had survived the cut excited him so much that he rushed to the nearest phone and called his father. His father shared his excitement and was sent season tickets for all the college games.

    It was the end of this last football season. One day John received a telegram and asked one week off. Nobody knew what happened except the coach. The coach said, “Don't plan to come back to the game on Saturday.”

    Saturday arrived, and the game was not going well：When the team was ten points behind, John came back. “Coach, please let me play. I've just got to play today,” said John. The coach pretended not to hear him. But John persisted, and finally feeling sorry for the kid, the coach gave in.

    Before long everyone could not believe their eyes. John was doing everything to fight. The opposing team could not stop him. He ran, he passed and blocked like a star. And at last his team won the game.

    After the game, John looked at the coach, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Well, you knew my dad died, but did you know that my dad was blind?'' John swallowed hard and forced a smile, “Dad came to all my games, but today was the first time he could see me play, and I wanted to show him that I could do it.”

    I've been really lucky this year. Not only did I have the opportunity to live in France, but I was able to see some other countries with my girlfriend. Now she is studying in Essen, a large city in Western Germany. I recently went to stay with her—it was my first visit to Germany! Essen is a very large city. It has all the conveniences of any large city so I felt immediately at home. I loved the variety of shops, restaurants, shopping malls, cocktail bars, nightclubs, parks and even a lake. There is also a city­wide network of trams, which makes getting around a piece of cake!

    I found the people to be really friendly, and most Germans speak very good English which made life easy for me. I was surprised by the casual attitude to alcohol in Germany, where it seems normal for people to drink beer on the street, or on the tram. My girlfriend and I visited two famous local cities, Düsseldorf and Cologne, which are both on the Rhine River. Düsseldorf is an urban metropolis with a great variety of restaurants. We took a boat tour on the river and went up the Rhine Tower, a really tall building which offers great views across the city. Cologne, as you might know, is world-famous for its perfumes. The cathedral there is an unmissable landmark. We made the effort to climb to the top of one of the cathedral's towers. The spiral (螺旋的) stairs seemed endless, but it was worthwhile for the impressive sights from the top.

    We also went in a cable car over the river and tasted a German delicacy called "Spaghettieis" which is ice cream with strawberry sauce! I also got to try the famous German sausage. I must admit, I really enjoyed the food! The only disappointment was the grey and rainy weather, which proves that Britain does not have the worst weather in Europe!

    Throughout history, music spread among people of different cultures. In today's technological advanced society, however, people spread music online, sometimes without an artist's permission. This can lead to many problems, and music companies are now cracking down on this practice. Sharing music online without permission is theft (盗窃).

    Sharing music online prevents recording companies from making money from their efforts. They say that sharing music online has resulted in a huge drop in profits and sales over the past 10 years. People who find music for free online are not paying for CDs or every MP3 downloaded. To truly understand the influence of music piracy (盗版) on creators, one must understand how many people are involved in the recording process. For the sale of each album, profits must be shared between musicians, sound engineers, music producers, managers, advertisers, and the company selling the product. Many people believe sharing music only affects the recording artist, but the reality is that sharing hurts business for all companies involved.

    There are many people who don't see the harm in sharing music online and even think they have the right to do it. One online blogger states that he originally paid for an entire CD and that he should be able to do with the material whatever he wants. While he may have legally paid for the music, he does not have the right to provide permission, which means people like the blogger are thieves.

    Although we don't spread today's music the same way we did before, there's no doubt that people around the world love to share music. However, internet piracy would prevent musicians from continuing producing albums for fear of theft. Therefore, if people want to continue listening to their favorite artists, they need to buy their music so that artists will make enough profit to continue their music careers.

    Have you ever spent an afternoon in the backyard, maybe grilling or enjoying a basketball game, when suddenly you notice that everything goes quiet? There is an old phrase "calm before the storm", often used in a situation—a quiet period just before a great activity or excitement. According to our own experience, we know there is actually calm before the storm. But what causes this calm? And is it always calm before the storm? Let's hear what scientists have to say.

    A period of calm happens in a particular kind of storm, the simplest kind of storm—a single-cell thunderstorm. In this type of thunderstorm, there is usually only one main updraft, which is warm, damp air and drawn from places near the ground. Storms need warm and damp air as fuel, so they typically draw that air in from surrounding environment. Storms can draw in the air that fit their need from all directions—even from the direction in which the storm is traveling.

    As the warm, damp air is pulled into a storm system, it leaves a low-pressure vacuum (真空) coming after. The rising air meets the cold dry air that has already existed in the storm clouds, thus the temperature of the warm, damp air drops, and the water vapour (水蒸汽) in it changes into tiny drops that are a precondition of rain. These drops accumulate and build on larger particles like dust, until they grow large enough to form raindrops.

    This warm, damp air keeps moving upwards, but it becomes cooler and drier during its trip through cloud. When it reaches the top of the cloud, the air gets spit out (被挤出) at the top. This air is sent rolling out over the big thunderclouds. From there, the air goes down. Warm and dry air is relatively stable, and once it covers a region, that air, in turn, causes the calm before a storm.

    Most thunderstorms, though, don't start with calm. That's because most are actually groups of storms with complex wind patterns. There's so much air moving up and down storm groups that the calm before the storm never happens. Instead, before the storm,让 might be really windy!

    Does your older brother think he's cleverer than you? Well, he's probably right. According to a new research published in the journal Intelligence, the oldest children in families are likely to have the highest IQs and the youngest the lowest.

    A number of studies have suggested that IQ scores decline with birth order. In the most recent study, at Vrije University, Amsterdam, researchers looked at men and women whose IQ had been tested at the ages of 5, 12, and 18.

    The results, which show a trend for the oldest to score better than the youngest in each test, involved about 200,000 people. That showed that first-borns had a three-point IQ advantage over the second-born, who was a point ahead of the next in line.

    The order of birth can also affect personality, achievement, and career, with first-borns being more academically successful and more likely to win Nobel prizes. However, eldest children are less likely to be radical(不同凡响的) and pioneering. Charles Darwin, for example, was the fifth child of six.

    Exactly why there should be such differences is not clear, and there are a number of theories on environmental influences on the child.

    The so-called dilution(稀释法) theory suggests that as family resources, both emotional and physical, as well as economic, are limited, it follows that, as a result , as more children come along, the levels of parental attention and encouragement will drop. Another theory is that the intellectual environment in the family favors the first-born who has, at least for some time, the benefit of individual care and help.

    The theory which enjoys the most support is that the extra time and patience that the earlier-borned get from their parents, compared with those arriving later, gives them an advantage.