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We've all heard of mermaids. They are the beautiful half-human, half-fish creatures(生物). They have the head and body of a human and the tail of a fish. We also know that mermaids only exist in fairy tales. But where did all the stories about these creatures come from? If you have ever seen a manatee, then you might have an idea.
Manatees, which are also called sea cows, are mammals(哺乳动物) that live in the sea. Since they are mammals, they have to swim up to the surface to breathe air. Many people believe that the story of the mermaid began with the ancient sailors who saw the manatees putting their heads out of the water to breathe. Because manatees are upright when they do this, it looks like they are standing. If a sailor saw a manatee doing this from far away across the sea, it is possible that the sailor would mistake the manatee for a creature that is half-human, half-fish.
Mermaids are described as having very long hair. This is probably because manatees like to swim up to the surface of the water in areas where there is sea grass. Manatees eat all kinds of plants in the sea, including sea grass. The sea grass around the manatee's head when they eat could create a picture of long hair.

Manatees also have powerful tails that are very similar to the fish-like tail of a mermaid. The sailors probably watched manatees come up for air and then swim back below the surface, using their paddle-shaped tails. This would explain why the sailors thought mermaids had fish-like tails.

Better think twice before choosing a password for e-mail, online bank or shopping. Simple passwords are easy to be stolen.

A password is like a key to your home. If someone steals it, he'll get chances to steal something else. We use passwords everywhere in our life. We are so used to passwords that we don't pay any attention to them until we lose or forget one.
A study of 28,000 passwords recently stolen from a popular website showed that people often do the easy thing. It found that 16 percent took a first name as a password. Another 14 percent used the easiest keyboard combinations such as “12345678” or QWERTY. Five percent of the stolen passwords were names of television shows or stars popular with young people. Three percent of the passwords expressed feelings like “I don't care,” “Whatever,” “I love you,” or their opposite, “I hate you.”
Robert Graham, who did the study, advises people to choose a password that is longer than eight characters with one capital letter(大写字母) and one symbol.
Of course, safe passwords don't mean those hard to remember. Forgetting your password is sometimes a big headache for you. Maybe, the perfect password is easy for you and hard for others.

    Our eyes may be playing tricks on us.  New research shows that sometimes people physically see what they want to see. Cornell University social psychologist(心理学家) David

    Dunning carried out experiments to test whether wishful thinking can actually affect what we see.

    “It's well proved from what is experienced in everyday life, and from the laboratory as well, that people think what they want to think," he says. "We're taking this a step further.

    We're asking if strong wishes and fears can actually affect what people physically see."

    Dunning and his assistants told volunteers that a computer game would show them either a letter or number to decide whether they would drink orange juice or fruit syrup(果子露).

    As they wrote in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the computer would flash an ambiguous picture, which could be seen as the letter "B" or the number "13". Volunteers who were told that a letter would get them orange juice most often reported seeing "B". Those who were told that a number would get them orange juice most often saw "13".

    The researchers also used a hidden camera to track volunteers' eye movements, particularly the first eye movement. "We don't control them," Dunning says, "and they don't even know that we are watching them, so it honestly shows what a person is seeing."

    "This research suggests that the brain is doing a lot of work between the eye and the conscious awareness to affect what we think," Dunning concludes (得出结论). "Before we even see the world, our brain has decided to keep what we want to see and avoid what we don't want to see."

    The biggest influence that technology has on family time is the change of it. People used to spend more time with their family members before. Nowadays, with children (and the parents, too) spending more time texting, watching movies and television, playing video games, and listening to music, when will the family find time to bond (培养感情) and create lasting memories together?

    Far too often we don't pay more attention to making time for members of our own family. By the end of a long day at work or school, members of the family want to relax. And now that technology use is widespread across the country, normally our "relaxing" is also known as spending time on smart phones.

    Not only is the amount of family time affected (影响) by technology, but also the quality. Technology can affect the quality in different ways. For example, family members can be distracted (使分心) by their phones while trying to play a board game together, which wouldn't  have happened if the phone didn't exist in the first place.

    If "family time" means everyone sitting in the same room while playing online, what value is there? Personal interaction is key to time well spent with loved ones. Families don't even need to have something to do while together. If they simply ask each other how their day is and play a simple game together, family bonds will get better.

    When technology becomes a focus, quality(有质量的) time for families goes down, which in turn affects everyone's life. Lack of family interaction causes the family's unity to weaken, and each of the family will be influenced in different ways. Children are more likely to develop unhealthy habits when they fail to interact with their parents. Meanwhile, parents who put work before family or pay less attention to their children's growth are more likely to face bad parent-child relationship. 67 percent of American teens say they want to spend more time with their parents, which is rather sad. Therefore, this passage is meant to show how technology has negatively influenced families.

    There was a world's advanced robot exhibition in Moscow. Over 20 skilled robot performers from all over the world took part in the exhibition.

    The exhibition was opened by British-born Titan, a world-famous dancing robot that had performed together with artists. Besides its quick moves, the robot is also known for its stand-up comedy and beautiful voice.

    Robot Hespin, a life-sized humanoid robot can make others happy. The robot not only sings and dances but also acts as a museum guide. It's very impressive. It can even hold conversations with humans.

    Then there is Cubic, an ordinary boxy robot that has been created to make our lives easier. It can read the latest news, switch off lights, and order pizza. Cubic can hold basic conversations and tell jokes.

    South Korea's friendly robots not only dance but also clean floors. Germany's famous metal rock band performs wonderfully.

    Most of the robots seem to have some kinds of dancing skills. The organizers say that their main purpose is to create a meeting place or a global platform to enable the people of Russia to experience some of the world's most advanced robots.