Hundreds of years ago, life was harder than it is today. People didn't have modern machines. There was no modern medicine, either.

    Life today has brought new problems. One of the biggest is pollution. Water pollution has made our rivers and lakes dirty. It kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us talk louder and become angry more easily. Air pollution is the most serious kind of pollution to all living things in the world.

    Cars, planes and factories all pollute our air every day. Sometimes the polluted air is so thick that it is like a quilt (被状物) over a city. This kind of quilt is called smog.

    Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. Factories must now clean their water before it is thrown away, and they mustn't let dirty smoke go into the air.

    We need to do many other things. We can put waste things in the dustbin and do not throw them on the ground. We can go to work by bus with our friends in the same car. If there are fewer people driving, there will be less pollution.

    Rules are not enough. Every person must help to fight pollution.

    Since ancient times, human beings have looked up at the night sky. Comets (彗星) and meteors (流星) flying through the blackness were seen as signs from the gods. They were used to tell the future of human lives.

    In 2013, a meteorite shower hit an area in Russia. It injured around 1,200 people. In ancient times, this would have been a strange and terrible experience. Today, thought, science offers simple explanations for the occurrence (事件).

    Meteorites are small pieces of debris (碎片) that float around in space. Sometimes, they come near a planet, such as Earth. When they enter our atmosphere, they often heat up and become very bright. This is why they are sometimes called “fireballs”. They are usually made of metals, such as iron (铁), and other minerals (矿物). The Russian meteorites were stony, with iron making up 10 percent of them.

    Meteorite showers, such as that in Russia, happen when a large meteor enters the Earth's atmosphere and, due to heat, breaks up into small parts. Most of these are very small — smaller than a grain of sand — and so don't even make it to the ground. But others can cause a lot of damage.

    The meteor in Russia weighed 10 tons when it entered our atmosphere, and broke up about 20-30 miles (30-50 km) above ground. The sky was filled with bright lights and loud noises. Many windows were broken. The damage cost Russia around 206 million yuan.

    Don't be surprised if you see a car going down the road without a driver in Beijing these days.In march, 2018, baidu was given a license to test its self-driving cars in Beijing, China Daily reported.

    Self-driving cars have been in development since 2010, when google announced that it was making such cars. Since then, companies like Tesla, Uber and Baidu have been working to produce and test their own self-driving cars.

    Self-driving cars are expected to change the way we get around. They are safer and more environmentally friendly than regular cars. They can remove the stress(压力) of driving and allow disabled or blind people to get around more easily.

    But self-driving cars have their own disadvantages as well. In one test, researchers pointed a laser pointer（激光棒） at the car's sensors（感应器） while it was moving. The car mistakenly thought that the laser beam（波束） was in its way and slowed down or changed directions.

    The software(软件) that is used to direct the cars may not be safe enough. Reported Live science. Sometimes, without any reasons,it may break down when we use our computers or smartphones. If the software in a self-driving car happened to crash. The results could be deadly.Maybe improvements to the software could solve this problem.

    It is said that more than four million people die each year from smoking. That number is increasing. Seven in ten of those deaths are in developing countries. These numbers are frightening.

    Yet people around the world continue to smoke. The Great American Smokeout has been founded for twenty-five years to show the dangers of smoking and provide support for people who decide to stop smoking. The American Cancer Society says all cigarettes damage the body. It warns that smoking even a small number of cigarettes is dangerous. It is not easy to give up smoking forever. However, doctors say they probably will live longer if they do stop smoking. They will feel better and look better. They also will protect the health of family members who breathe their smoke.

    The American Cancer Society says there is not just one right way to stop smoking. Any useful way to stop smoking is worth trying. They may take long walks or spend time in places where smoking is not allowed. Also, they could eat a small piece of fruit instead of having a cigarette.

    The American Cancer Society says the sooner smokers stop smoking, the more they can reduce their chances of getting cancer and other diseases. It says blood pressure returns to normal twenty minutes after smoking the last cigarette. Carbon monoxide (一氧化碳) gas levels in the blood return to normal after eight hours. After one day, the chance of heart attack decreases. After one year, the risk of heart disease for a non-smoker is half that of a smoker.

Stop smoking before smoking stops you!

    Hi, everyone. I'm Tina. I think our life in 2060 will be different from our life at the moment. There will be many robots in my house. Because robots will be cheap. And these robots will help my family do many kinds of work every day. Every morning the clock-robot will ask me to get up. Then the clothing-robot will dress me quickly. Next the kitchen-robot will make breakfast for me. When I get out of the house with my schoolbag, a car-robot will wait for me. After I show it my school ID card, the car will go. And then the car-robot will check my homework. When we get to school, the car-robot will say to me "See you tomorrow, Tina. Good luck."

    In the morning, I will have three lessons with my classmates. We'll study on the Internet. We'll use the e-book. The teachers are all robots. They are in different sizes and they can answer any question about any subject. In the afternoon, we'll go to the science lab to have two classes in a new plane. After class, we'll play football with robots. My classmates and robots can all be my friends. Don't you think the life with robots in the future will be fantastic?

    Sometimes it seems that time is flying. Perhaps it doesn't need to feel this way. Our experience of time can be possibly changed. By understanding the psychological (心理学的) processes behind our different experiences of time, we might be able to slow down time a little.

    One basic law of psychological time is that time seems to slow down when we're exposed (接触) to new environments and experiences. The law is caused by the relationship between our experience of time and the amount of information our minds process. The more information our minds take in, the slower time seems to pass.

    It follows, then, that we have different experiences of time in different situations. In some situations, our life is full of new experiences. Our minds process a lot of information and time seems to slow down. In other situations, we have fewer new experiences and the world around us becomes more and more familiar (熟悉的). We become insensitive to our experience, which means we process less information, and time seems to speed up.

    How can we slow down time? Here are two suggestions.

    Firstly, since we know that familiarity makes time pass faster, we can expose ourselves to as many new experiences as possible. We can give ourselves new challenges, meet new people, and expose our minds to new information, hobbies and skills. This will increase the amount of information our minds process and expand (增加) our experience of time.

    Secondly, and perhaps most effectively, we can give our whole attention to an experience-to what we are seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling or hearing. This means living through our senses rather than through our thoughts. For example, on the way home, focus your attention outside of yourself, instead of thinking about the problems you have to deal with. Look at the sky, or at the buildings you pass, traveling among them. This open attitude to your experiences helps take in more information and also has a time-expanding effect.

    To a certain degree, we can understand and control our experience of time passing. It's possible for us to slow down time by expanding our experience of time.