"You see someone just sitting there, looking like they're stupid," explains teenager Manny Logan excitedly. "You just run up to them, slap(掌击) them and run off. It's funny."

    The 16-year-old Logan was describing "happy slapping". It's supposed to be fun but it's a new problem in Britain. Young people will attack passers-by while their friends record the whole thing on camera phones. It was first reported in south London six months ago. But, the practice has spread to other parts of the country and videos of attacks have become popular on the Internet.

    The young people are called "hoodies" because they usually wear a sweatshirt with a hooded top. The top can be used to cover the head or face.

    One study in England published earlier this year suggested that as many as one in four teenagers is an active offender. That includes both serious crimes and small acts like not paying for a bus ticket.

    The fear of youth crime has left some parts of towns empty of ordinary people.

    So, the British government declared war on public disorder last week. The Prime Minister has supported a decision by the country's biggest shopping centre in southeast of England to ban teenagers wearing hooded tops. The clothing helps troublemakers hide from the centre's cameras.

    This week, the government is going further. It plans to force teenage offenders to wear orange jackets while they do public service. The idea is to shame them in front of others.

    But some teenagers and experts have complained that, in their rush to stop the hoodies, politicians risk tarring all teenagers with the same brush.

    The idea of cloning your pet sounds like a laughable waste of money, because it is. But it starts to seem a little less laughable when your own beloved pet starts getting older. If I had had a few hundred thousand dollars to spare, I know I would have half-seriously considered it for my dear little cat, who died last year. One couple that does happen to have a few hundred dollars to spare is Barry Diller and Diane, who have reportedly cloned their beloved Jack Russell Terrier (a kind of dog), Shannon, and now have two identical Jack Russell Terrier named Deena and Evita.

    When your pet dies, you just want your pet back, or at least as close a copy as you can get. So it's really no surprise that of the around 600 dogs cloned by Sooam Biotech Reaserch Foundation most were cloned for sad pet owners. The lab in Seoul, South Korea, is now the only place on the planet in the business of cloning pet dogs for pet owners.

    But, in fact, the technology won't give you your pet back. There don't yet appear to be any studies on the behaviour of cloned pets, but research on cloned cows and pigs has so far shown marked differences in behaviour and even looks in cloned animals. The DNA is exactly the same, but there are still differences in personality and appearance.

Even if Diller and Von Furstenburg raise their new dogs in the exactly same environment in the exactly same way that they raised Shannon, the new dogs will still behave differently. “The promise of pet cloning is that your cloned pet is going to behave and look like the one you already have — and that will not be the case,” said Professor Jorge Piedrahita at N.C. State. “We have cloned animals that were raised in the same environment, but they still didn't act the same.”

    Perhaps you have heard a lot about the Internet, but what is it, do you know? The Internet is a network. It uses the telephone to join millions of computers together around the world.

    Maybe that doesn't sound very interesting. But when you've joined to the Internet, there are lots and lots of things you can do. You can send E-mails to your friends, and they can get them in a few seconds. You can also do with all kinds of information on the World Wide Web (WWW).

    There are many different kinds of computers now. They all can be joined to the Internet. Most of them are small machines sitting on people's desks at home, but there are still many others in schools, offices or large companies. These computers are owned by people and companies, but no one really owns the Internet itself.

    There are lots of places for you to go into the Internet. For example, your school may have the Internet. You can use it during lessons or free time. Libraries often have computers joined to the Internet. You are welcome to use it at only time.

    Thanks to the Internet, the world is becoming smaller and smaller. It is possible for you to work at home with a computer in front in the future, getting and sending the information you need. You can buy or sell whatever you want by the Internet. But do you know 98% of the information on the Internet is in English? So what will English be like tomorrow?

    Have you ever wondered why birds sing? Maybe you thought that they were just happy. After all, you probably sing or whistle when you are happy.

    Some scientists believe that birds do sing some of the time just because they are happy. However, they sing most of the time for a very different reason. Their singing is actually a warning to other birds to stay out of their territory.

    Do you know what a "territory" is? A territory is an area that an animal ,usually the male, claims(声称)as its own .Only he and his family are welcome there. No other families of the same species(物种)are welcome. Your yard and house are your territory where only your family and friends are welcome. If a stranger should enter your territory and threaten you, you might shout. Probably this would be enough to frighten him away.

    If so, you have actually scared the stranger away without having to fight him. A bird does the same thing. But he expects an outsider almost any time ,especially at nesting(筑巢)season. So he is screaming all the time, whether he can see an outsider or not. This screaming is what we call a bird's song, and it is usually enough to keep an outsider away.

    Birds sing loudest in the spring when they are trying to attract a mate and warn others not to enter the territory of theirs.

    You can see that birds have a language of their own. Most of it has to do with attracting mates and setting up territories.

    People typically wash their hands seven times a day in the United States, but they do it at a far higher temperature than is necessary to kill germs, a new study says. The energy waste is equivalent to the fuel use of a small country. Amanda R. Carrico, a research assistant professor at the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment in Tennessee, told National Geographic that hand washing is often “a case where people act in ways that they think are in their best interest, but they in fact have inaccurate beliefs or outdated perceptions.”

    Carrico said, “It's certainly true that heat kills bacteria, but if you were going to use hot water to kill them it would have to be a way too hot for you to tolerate.”

Carrico said that after a review of the scientific literature, her team found “no evidence that using hot water that a person could stand would have any benefit in killing bacteria.” Even water as cold as 40°F (4.4℃) appeared to reduce bacteria as well as hotter water, if hands were scrubbed, rinsed(冲洗)and dried properly.

    Using hot water to wash hands is therefore unnecessary, as well as wasteful, Carrico said, particularly when it comes to the environment. According to her research, people use warm or hot water 64 percent of the time when they wash their hands. Using that number, Carrico's team calculated a significant impact on the planet.

    “Although the choice of water temperature during a single hand wash may appear unimportant, when multiplied by the nearly 800 billion hand washes performed by Americans each year, this practice results in more than 6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually,” she said.

    The researchers published their results in the July 2013 issue of International Journal of Consumer Studies. They recommended washing with water that is at a “comfortable” temperature, which they noted may be warmer in cold months and cooler in hot ones.

Best Ways to Quit Smoking

    Not sure how to quit smoking cigarettes? Try the following ways to stop smoking and start your path towards a healthier, smoke-free life.

    Post this list in a visible location in your house.

    Whenever you're tempted to light up, take a look at all the ways smoking can damage your health:

    Increases risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure.

    Reduces levels of folate, low levels of which can increase the risk of heart disease, depression, and Alzheimer's disease.

    Affects mental capacity and memory.

    Contributes to thin bones.

    Affects ability to smell and taste.

    Increases risk of depression in adolescents.

    To minimize cravings (欲望), change your routine.

    Sit in a different chair at breakfast or take a different route to work. If you usually have a drink and cigarette after work, change that to a walk. If you're used to a smoke with your morning coffee, switch to tea, or stop at Starbucks for a cup of java—the chain is smoke-free. You might even work better in coffee shops！

    Tell your friends, coworkers, boss, partner, and kids how you feel.

    Don't bottle up your emotions. If something makes you angry, express it instead of hiding it with cigarette smoke. If you're bored, admit to yourself that you're bored and find something energetic to do instead of lighting up.

    Make an appointment with an acupuncturist (针灸师).

    There's some evidence that auricular acupuncture (i. e., needles in the ears) controls cigarette cravings quite successfully. You can even do it yourself by taping "seeds" (small beads) onto the acupuncture points and squeezing them whenever cravings arise. Acupuncture can treat these other conditions, too.