It's summer movie time again. And heroes are ready to try their strength and magic on the silver screen. Check out our list of four films that look most promising to young audience.

    Harry potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

    Release Date:  June 4

    Story: It's the summer before Harry Potter's third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A shadow is hanging over Hogwarts. A dangerous murderer, Sirius Black, has escaped the Wizards' Prison. And he broke out to fulfill one task to kill Harry Potter.

    Around the World in 80 Days

    Release Date:  June 16

    Story: This version of the classic novel set in 1872 focuses on Passepartout (Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan), a Chinese thief who seeks refuge with a strange London adventurer, Phileas Fogg. Passepartout uses his martial arts skills to defend Fogg from danger as he travels around the world in 80 days to win a bet.

    Spider- Man 2

    Release Date: June 30

    Story :Peter Parker is still coming to terms with his dual  identity (双重身份)as the crime superhero Spider-Man. He wants to reveal his secret identity to Mary Jane: meanwhile, his aunt May has fallen on hard times. A new bad man, Dr Otto Octavius, has appeared to cause more troubles.

    King Arther

    Release Date: July 7

    Story: King Arthur is presented as a clever ruler who manages to unite all the knights(骑士) in Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire(帝国). Under the guidance of Merlin and the beautiful, brave Guinevere, Arthur will struggle to realize his dreams

                                                                           Exhibitions in the British Museum

    Hokusai: beyond the Great Wave

    Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is widely regarded as one of Japan's most famous and influential artists. He produced works of astonishing quality right up until his death at the age of 90. This new exhibition will lead you on an artistic journey through the last 30 years of Hokusai's life — a time when he produced some of his most memorable masterpieces.

    25 July — 13 August 2018

    Room 35

    Adults￡12, Members/under-16s free

    Places of the mind: British watercolour landscapes 1850-1950

    Drawn from the British Museum's rich collection, this is the first exhibition devoted to landscape drawings and watercolours by British artists in the Victorian and modern eras — two halves of very different centuries.

    23 July — 27 August 2018

    Room 90

    Free, just drop in

    Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia

    This major exhibition explores the story of the Scythians — nomadic tribes and masters of mounted warfare, who flourished between 900 and 200 BC. Their encounters with the Greeks, Assyrians and Persians were written into history but for centuries all trace of their culture was lost — buried beneath the ice.

    14 September 2018 — 14 November 2018

    Room 30

    Adults￡16.50, Members/under-16s free

    Politics and paradise: Indian popular prints from the Moscatelli Gift

    This display is part of the Museum's contribution to the India-UK Year of Culture 2017. It looks at the popular print culture of India from the 1880s until the 1950s.

    19 July — 3 September 2018

    Room 90a

    Free, just drop in.

    Our summer vacation begins on July 15th and lasts nearly two months. Considering that my brain needs rest after a period of hard work, I, together with my family, went to our countryside, a very small farmhouse in which my grandparents used to live, to spend the summer. Obviously, life in the country is very different from that in the city.

    Early in the morning I took a walk along the field side. The air was fresh and pure. With a dog following, sometimes I ran a race in the meadows covered with tall grass. Sometimes I climbed up the hill to see the sun slowly yet steadily rise from the eastern horizon. The birds also sang restlessly among the bushes. In order to appreciate the quietness of the country, I gave myself entirely to nature, with a light heart and a happy mind.

    Sometimes in the afternoon I, together with my cousins, took a rod and went to the river to fish. It made the family happy when they saw me returning with a basketful of large fresh fish. When night came, I would sit at the door and tell the most wonderful and interesting stories to my cousins, who listened to the tale of wonder with open eyes and mouth.

    I wish I could enjoy such calm, pure and beautiful rural life forever.

Help Hermit Crabs

    Hermit crabs are nature's recyclers. They eat waste and help keep oceans and shores clean. Unlike other crabs, the hermit crab has a thin outer shell over its soft tail. This makes the hermit crab easy prey for hungry predators(天敌).Hermit crabs stay safe by living in old seashells. A hermit crab is picky(狡猾); it tries on many shells until it finds one that fits just right. In recent years, however, many hermit crabs have had trouble finding their perfect homes. What is the problems. There are not enough shells to go around!

    One reason for the seashell shortage is that ocean water is not as clean as it once was. This has caused chemical changes to sea water. Some sea animals, like snails, are affected by these changes.  Now there are fewer snails making shells. People visiting the beach often take shells home as souvenirs(纪念品).This is another problem. Other people even take shells for their own pet hermit crabs! They do not realize that hermit crabs in the wild need those shells too.

    Now people are working to solve this hermit crab housing shortage. They are teaching beach-Boers to leave seashells where they belong--at the seashore! Some people even make fake seashells that they hope the hermit crabs will like. For example, a group called Project Shelter invited people who visited their website to create different designs for hermit crab shells.

    These designers had a lot to consider. What kind of material should be used to build a seashells. The material must be light enough for the hermit crab to carry, but strong enough to protect the crab from predators. The man-made shells could not contain glue or any other substance(物质)that might harm a hermit crab. Another challenge with building a hermit crab home was the opening to the shell. Too big would mean the crab would not feel safe. Too small would be uncomfortable, and the crab would not want to move in.

    The Project Shelter shells are placed in the wild for hermit crabs to find. Lucky hermit crabs can move into these new dream homes.

Plants may tell us when they're in trouble.Thirsty tomato and tobacco plants make clicking sounds,researchers have found.The sounds are ultrasonic (超声波的),meaning they are too high-pitched for human ears to hear.But when the sounds are transformed to lower pitches,they sound like popping bubbles (爆破的泡泡).Plants also make clicks when their stems (茎) are cut.

"It's not like the plants are screaming," says Lilach Hadany,an evolutionary biologist working at Tel Aviv University in Israel."Plants may not mean to make these noises.We've shown only that plants create informative sounds."

Hadany and her colleagues first heard the clicks when they set microphones next to plants on tables in a lab.The microphones caught some noises.But the researchers needed to make sure that the clicking was coming from the plants.So,the scientists placed plants inside soundproof boxes in the basement,far from the noise of the lab.There,microphones picked up ultrasonic pops from thirsty tomato plants.Though it was outside humans' hearing range,the clicking made by plants was about as loud as a normal conversation.

Cut tomato plants and dry or cut tobacco plants clicked,too.But plants that had enough water or hadn't been cut stayed mostly quiet.Wheat,corn and grapevines also made sounds when stressed out.

The researchers don't yet know why plants click.Bubbles forming and then popping inside plant tissues that transport water might make the noises.But however they happen,pops from crops could help farmers,the researchers suggest.Microphones,for example,could monitor fields or greenhouses to detect when plants need to be irrigated (灌溉).

Hadany wonders whether other plants and insects already tune into plant pops.Other studies have suggested that plants respond to sounds.And animals from pests (害虫),moths to mice can hear in the range of the ultrasonic clicks.Sounds made by plants could be heard from around five meters away.Hadany's team is now studying what the living things near the plants will do after hearing the sounds.

Nowadays, countries are eager to get more electric cars on the road because moving away from gas-powered vehicles is vital to fighting climate change. China says that most new vehicles sold by 2035 will be electric. The United Kingdom will ban new gas-powered cars in 2030. One of the world's major automakers, General Motors (GM), announced that it would stop selling gas-powered cars by 2035. 

The key to an electric future is batteries. Automakers are racing to pack the most energy into the smallest one. The lithium-ion battery is what powers our mobile devices, which can be recharged again and again. Making these batteries has an environmental cost. Lithium is taken from the earth, like the oil used to make gasoline. But the long-term cost is much smaller. "Once you burn gasoline, you can't recycle it," says Jessika Trancik, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "But when you use up a battery, you can still recycle the material."

It's up to governments to make electric cars accessible to everyone. National policies can help. In the United States, an electric Chevy Volt costs about $35, 000. Trancik says charging stations must also be made widely available. As part of an effort to fight climate change, America plans to build half a million of them in the US by 2030. She hopes enough charging stations will be built soon. "It's important to put chargers where many different people can have access to them," she says, "not just wealthier people."

Last year, almost 5% of approximately 67 million new cars sold world widewere electric. For Venkat Viswanathan, a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, green electricity is part of the solution to climate change, and electric cars are just the beginning. He sees a future of solar powered homes and electric flying cars. "Soon, a plug in vehicle might be as cheap as a gas-powered car. It is now abundantly clear that electric is the future," he says. "It will be a totally new world."