How much do you know about the bird world?

    Birds use three gaits: walking, running and hopping．

    In walking, the left and the right feet move in turn (轮流)．Each foot is on the ground for more than half the time, so there are more times when both feet are on the ground．In running, each foot is on the ground for less than half the time, and there are more times when both feet are off the ground．In hopping, the feet move almost at the same time．This means that for much of the time both feet are off the ground．

    Middle-sized and large birds walk at low speed and either run or hop at higher speed．Small birds, such as sparrows and swallows, usually do not walk, because walking may be too slow for them．It seems that the more time a bird spends in trees, the more likely it is to hop．Perhaps there is wide space in a tree between one thin branch (树枝) and the next, so walking is not a good choice, while on each small branch there is enough room to set both feet down side by side, so hopping seems to make sense．

    Can plants eat people? Probably not, but there are many plants that eat meat. Some of them are big. And they can eat small animals. One famous meat-eating plant is the Venus flytrap(捕蝇草).

    The Venus flytrap is a very strange plant. It grows in dry parts of the United States. Its leaves are like the pages of a book. They can open and close very quickly. Inside the leaves, there are three small hairs. If a fly touches one of the hairs, the leaf closes quickly. The fly cannot get out. In about half an hour, the leaf presses the fly until it is dead. Then, the plant covers the fly. Slowly, the plant eats the fly.

    Why do plants do it? Most plants get what they need from the sun, the air, and the ground. In some places, the ground is very poor. It doesn't have all these important things, especially nitrogen(氮). Animal meat has a lot of nitrogen, so some plants eat meat to get what they need. Let's hope that some of the bigger plants don't get the same idea!

    Do animals have a culture? What do we mean by "culture?" Lately social scientists have begun to ask if culture is found just in humans, or if some animals have a culture too. When we speak of culture, we mean a way of life a group of people have in common. Culture includes the beliefs and attitudes we learn. It is the patterns of behavior that help people to live together. It is also the patterns of behavior that make one group of people different from another group.

    Our culture lets us make up for having lost out strength, claws, long teeth, and other defenses. Instead we use tools, cooperate with one another, and communicate with language. But these aspects of human behavior, or "culture," can also be found in the lives of certain animals. Animals can make tools, for example. We used to think that the ability to use tools was the dividing line between human beings and other animals. Lately, however, we have found that this is not the case. Chimpanzees(非洲小猩猩) can not only use tools but actually make tools themselves. Animals can also share knowledge with each other and use their own language to communicate. So it may be important for us to know that the line dividing us from animals is not as clear as we used to think.

    Fresh green grass, Hundreds of colorful wild flowers. Water running into little pools. Birds making their homes in boxes. The 9, 500-square-metre Augustenborg Botanical Garden may look just like any other well-organized park but there's a difference. It lies on the roofs (屋顶) of industrial and office buildings in the city of Malmo in Sweden.

    Green roofs are not a new invention. And now they are getting popular again. The common roofs of a modern city have endless black surfaces with no life or water. Perhaps that's why a garden on a roof becomes such a perfect choice for more and more people.

    Green roofs are not just pretty. They also help to moderate the city temperature. The high temperatures on common roofs in the summer can make top floor flats uncomfortably hot. What is more, they play a part in making the cities hotter than the countryside around them, causing the "urban heat-island effect". On a green roof, however, with its plants and water, temperatures change only a little, as they do in a park. This can greatly cut the costs of heating and cooling in the building below.

    Also, a green roof takes in rain water, and protects the city drainage (排水) system.   ▲    And small animals and birds can make their homes on it. Thanks to this, the city may become part of nature, rather than something completely separate from it.

    While the cost of building such a roof can still be higher, it can be cheaper in the long term as a result of energy savings. And wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to walk out into a garden high above the city's noise and traffic, whether you're at school or in an office or just at home in a ten-floor block?

    The years from A.D 500 to 1450 are called the Middle ages. Sometimes they are also called the Dark Ages since few people had an education during that time. Still, there were lots of new ideas and inventions. Many of them came from China.