Ebola is a dangerous virus that can cause people to get very sick and even die. The virus is causing the biggest problems in western Africa, where it has spread quickly. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} But it can get worse and cause life-threatening symptoms(症状), such as bleeding and trouble breathing.

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    Ebola does not spread like colds or the flu because it does not float through the air. Ebola also doesn't spread through food or water, like some other viruses. Instead, Ebola spreads when someone touches the body fluids(液体) of a sick person.

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    An outbreak is when many people are getting sick with the same illness around the same time. You may have heard of a flu outbreak, which is when lots of people get sick from the same types of flu virus. When an outbreak happens because of a virus, more people could get sick because there is a lot of that virus around.

    Where did Ebola come from?

    Scientists aren't sure how the first person gets Ebola at the start. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Tropical animals in Africa believed to carry the virus include great apes, chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, fruit bats, porcupines, and forest antelopes.

    What do kids need to do about Ebola?

    Ebola is making many people sick in Africa, but no matter where you live, it's always a good idea to wash your hands well and often. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

A. How do people catch Ebola?

B. But they think that people may pick up the virus by touching or eating infected animals.

C. Why do I need to wash my hands?

D. It's very important that infected people get treatment right away.

E. Ebola symptoms can start with fever and headache, kind of like the flu.

F. What is an outbreak?

G. Keeping hands clean can help protect you from common illnesses like colds and the flu.

The Grand Palace

    If there is one must-see sight without which no visit to Bangkok would be complete, it's the spectacular Grand Palace, undoubtedly the city's most famous landmark. Built in 1782 and for 150 years the home of the Thai King, the Royal court and the administrative seat of government, the Grand Palace of Bangkok continues to have visitors in awe of its beautiful architecture and complicated details, which is a proud salute (致敬) to the creativity and craftsmanship of Thai people. Within its walls were also the Thai war ministry, the state departments, and even the mint (铸币厂). Today, the complex remains the spiritual heart of the Thai Kingdom.

    Important Notes about the Grand Palace

    A strict dress code applies. The Grand Palace with the Temple of the Emerald Buddha is Thailand's most sacred site. Visitors must be properly dressed before being allowed entry to the temple. Men must wear long pants and shirts with sleeves (no lank lops). If you're wearing sandals or flip-flops you must wear socks, in other words, no bare feet. Women must be similarly modestly dressed. No see-through clothes, bare shoulders, etc. If you show up at the front gate improperly dressed, there is a booth near the entrance that can provide clothes to cover you up properly (a deposit is required).

Opening Hours: Daily 8:30-15:30

    Location: Na Phra Lan Road, Old City (Rattanakosin)

    Price Range: Tickets sold from 8:30-15:30 and cost 500 baht! One ticket includes entry to Vimanmek Palace and Abhisek Dusit Throne Hall.

    Most animals on land are known to us, but many living things underwater are not. Now let's get to know some of them.

    Sea cucumber

    Sea cucumber are strange animals living at the bottom of the sea. They wear brown or white green coats. When summer comes, they stay deep to sleep because they are afraid of heat. And when it is autumn, they move to shallow (浅的) water and get their food.

    Pike

    The pike is a kind of freshwater fish. They are good swimmers and like swimming near boats, waiting to be fed. They have sharp teeth to catch fishes. When they are young, they live in groups. However, when they grow up, they prefer to live alone.

    Cuttlefish

    A cuttlefish can swim quite fast, so it is also called rocket (火箭) fish. It has eight arms and two feelers on its head, just around its mouth. It ejects ink (喷墨) when it is in danger. Its meat is delicious, and it is often the first choice for many people.

    Octopus

    An octopus has long arms, with which to catch food and protect itself. When it is sleeping, one or two of its arms are still on duty, keeping moving. Once it feels something dangerous, it can wake up at once to take action.

    Do you often dream at night? How do you feel when you dream? Is it useful to our health? “Dreams may be more important than sleep, and we all need to dream,” some scientists say.

    Dreams take up about one quarter of our sleeping time. People have several dreams each night. Dreams are like short films. They are usually in colour. Some dreams are like old films. They come to us over and over again. That may be because the dreamer is worrying about something. Dreaming may be a way of trying to find an answer. Some people get new ideas about their work from dreams. They may have been thinking about their work all day. These thoughts can carry over into dreams.

    Sometimes we wake up with a good feeling from a dream. But often we can't remember the dream. Dreams can disappear quickly from memory.

    Too much dreaming can be harmful. The more we sleep, the longer we dream. The mind is at work when we dream. That is why we may have a long sleep and still wake up tired.

    Escaping predators (食肉动物), digestion and other animal activities—including those of humans—require oxygen. But that essential ingredient is no longer so easy for marine life to obtain, several new studies reveal.

    In the past decade ocean oxygen levels have taken a dive—an alarming trend that is linked to climate change, says Andreas Oschlies, an oceanographer at the Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Germany, whose team tracks ocean oxygen levels worldwide. "We were surprised by the intensity of the changes we saw, how rapidly oxygen is going down in the ocean and how large the effects on marine ecosystems are," he says. It is no surprise to scientists that warming oceans are losing oxygen, but the scale of the drop calls for urgent attention. Oxygen levels in some tropical (热带的) regions have dropped by an astonishing 40 percent in the last 50 years, some recent studies reveal. Levels have dropped less significantly elsewhere, with an average loss of 2 percent globally.

    A warming ocean loses oxygen for two reasons: First, the warmer a liquid becomes, the less gas it can hold. That is why carbonated drinks go flat faster when left in the sun. Second, as polar sea ice melts, it forms a layer of water above colder, more salty sea waters. This process creates a sort of lid that can keep currents from mixing surface water down to deeper depths. And because all oxygen enters the surface, less mixing means less of it at depth.

    Ocean animals large and small, however, respond to even slight changes in oxygen by seeking refuge in higher oxygen zones or by adjusting behavior, Oschlies and others in his field have found. These adjustments can expose animals to new predators or force them into food-scarce regions. Climate change already poses serious problems for marine life, such as ocean acidification, but deoxygenation is the most pressing issue facing sea animals today, Oschlies says. After all, he says, "they all have to breathe."

    Aside from food web problems, animals face various other physiological challenges as their bodies adjust to lower oxygen levels. Chinese shrimp (虾) move their tails less vigorously to preserve energy in lower oxygen environments. Some creatures, such as jellyfishes, are more tolerant of low oxygen than others are. But all animals will feel the impact of deoxygenation because they all have evolved their oxygen capacity for a reason, says Oschlies. "Any drop in oxygen is going to damage survivability and performance," he says.

    Depression(抑郁) can be a destructive illness, plaguing millions of people worldwide with feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and fatigue. Despite numerous antidepressant drugs, as many as a third of patients don't respond to medication. This has forced doctors to be more creative in finding different treatments for the condition.

    In the past two decades, researchers have tied depression to a seemingly unrelated condition: inflammation(炎症), the body's natural response to stress. It could rise from injury or inflection, or even emotional issues like an unhappy marriage or problems at work. Some amount of inflammation is generally beneficial, as it increases production of cytokines(致癌因子)，proteins that help us heal and protect us from the effects of overwork.

    But excessive cytokine levels, and the inflammation they bring on, could come at a cost—a number of studies suggests that high levels of cytokines could contribute to depression.

    Cytokines can reach the brain several ways: directly through the blood-brain barrier or indirectly by binding to nerve fibers elsewhere, which send signals to the brain to produce the inflammation molecules. In the brain, cytokines can disturb the production and release of several important signaling chemicals, including serotonin, dopamine and glutamate, which help control emotion, appetite, sleep, learning and memory. It's though that a lack of serotonin activity in the brain causes depression; most antidepressants increase the activity. But cytokines also have been shown to activate stress hormone signaling in the brain, which man also serve to develop depression.

    With all the evidence implicating inflammation in depression, doctors have been anxious to test anti-inflammatory drugs as a potential treatment. Four small studies published between 2006 and 2017 by research groups in Europe and Iran found that adults diagnosed with depression who took aspirin or another anti-inflammatory drug called Celecoxib, along with an antidepressant, got more relief from feelings of sadness, hopelessness, guilt and fatigue compared with those taking an antidepressant alone. However, Andrew Miller, a professor of psychiatry at Emory University, thought something was wrong in these small, limited studies. None of them looked at whether the participants had to have high levels of cytokines before they'd see a benefit from anti-inflammatory drugs.  "Unfortunately, much of the field has fallen into the trap of viewing inflammation as the be-all, end-all," Miller says. He and his colleagues wanted to see whether the effect of these drugs was limited to the depression patients with high cytokine levels, or if it helped all people diagnosed with depression.