There are more bicycles than residents in the Netherlands,and in cities

like Amsterdam and The Hague up to 70% of all journeys are made by bike.

    The BBC's reporter,Anna Holligan,examines what made everyone get back in the saddle（车座）.

    Before World WarⅡ,journeys in the Netherlands were mainly made by bike, but in the 1950s and 1960s,as car ownership increased quickly,this changed.As in many countries in Europe, roads became increasingly crowded.

    The jump in car number caused a huge rise in the number of deaths on the roads.In 1971 more than 3,000 people were killed by motor vehicles,and 450 of them were children.In response a social movement demanding safer cycling conditions for children was formed.Called Stop de Kindermoord,it took its name from the headline of an article written by journalist Vic Langenhoff whose own child had been killed in a road accident.

    The Dutch love of the motor vehicle was also shaken by the Middle East oil crisis of 1973,when oil-producing countries topped export to the US and Western Europe.

    These twin pressures helped to persuade the Dutch government to invest in improving cycling infrastructure（基础设施）and the Dutch urban planners started to change from the road-building policies designed mainly for cars.

    To make cycling safer and more inviting,the Dutch have built a vast network of cycle paths.These are clearly marked,have smooth surfaces,separate signs and lights for those on two wheels,and are wide enough to allow cycling side by side and overtaking.

    Even before they can walk,Dutch children live in a world of cycling.As babies they travel in special seats on bikes.As the children grow up they ride their own bikes.And,as the Dutch are not allowed to drive until 18,cycling offers teenagers an alternative form of freedom.

    The state also plays a part in teaching,with cycling lessons a compulsory（必修的）part in Dutch schools.All schools have places to park bikes and at some schools 90% of pupils cycle to class.

    Going online to do research when you're writing papers and doing projects is natural thing to do. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Knowing how to evaluate and choose online resources can help you avoid headaches and wasting time.

    How can you make researching online as easy and effective as possible? Before you begin your research, make a list of the kinds of sites that are best for your topic. Is the website reliable and up to date? {#blank#}2{#/blank#}  Government sites ending in . gov and educational sites ending in .edu usually are safe bets. Established news-related sites are OK, too, but be sure that you're using the original source. If a newspaper article mentions another source, like an organization or website, go directly to that source to find the information.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}They can be good resources, but it's always best to check with your teacher to make sure he or she considers the site appropriate. Wikipedia. Org is popular and ranks highly in search results, but it can be edited by anyone, whether a person has accurate knowledge of the topic or not. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} 

    On commercial websites ending in .com, check to see if the site has advertising. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}And bogs, personal websites and social media sites are more likely to give personal opinions rather than facts.

A. Check to see if the author is identified and sources are given.

B. That's why it helps to know the best sites for your needs.

C. But all of the choices at your fingertips can seem overwhelming sometimes..

D. Sites ending in .org are usually run by non-profit organizations.

E. Many schools block access to images or websites that may be valuable to your research

F. At most schools, using Wikipedia as a source is not a good way to build credibility.

G. If it does, it may be biased(有偏见的), since it's trying to sell a product

    Plants are very important living things. Life could not go if there were no plants. This is because plants can make food from air, water and sunlight.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Animals get their food by eating plants and other animals.    So animals and man need plants in order to live.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}.

    If you look carefully at the plants around you, you will find that there are two kinds of plants: flowering plants and non-flowering plants.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. The seeds are protected by the fruits. Some fruits have one seed, some have two, three or four, and some have many seeds.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}. An example of a fruit without seeds is the banana fruit.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. They grow from spores（孢子）. Spores are very small. Some spores are so small and light that they can float in the air. We may say that spores are quite the same as the seeds, when these spores fall on wet and shady places, they usually grow into new plants.

A. There are about half a million kinds of plants in the world

B. Animals and man cannot make food from air, water and sunlight

C. But a few fruits have no seeds at all

D. Not all the plants grow from the seeds

E. This is why we find that there are so many plants around us

F. Flowering plants can make seeds

G. Most non-flowering plants don't grow from seeds

    Microsoft has developed a new smartphone app that interprets eye signals and translates them into letters, allowing people with motor neurone disease to communicate with others from a phone.

    The GazeSpeak app combines a smartphone's camera with artificial intelligence to recognize eye movements in real time and convert them into letters, words and sentences. For people suffering from ALS（渐冻症）, also known as motor neurone disease, eye movement can be the only way they are able to communicate.

    "Current eye-tracking input systems for people with ALS or other motor impairments are expensive, not robust under sunlight, and require frequent re-calibration and substantial, relatively immobile setups," said Xiaoyi Zhang, a researcher at Microsoft who developed the technology.

    "To mitigate the drawbacks…we created GazeSpeak, an eye-gesture communication system that runs on a smartphone, and is designed to be low-cost, robust, portable and easy to learn."

    The app is used by the listener by pointing their smartphone at the speaker. A chart that can be stuck to the back of the smartphone is then used by the speaker to determine which eye movements to make in order to communicate.

    The sticker shows four grids of letters, which each correspond to a different eye movement. By looking up, down, left or right, the speaker selects which grids the letters they want belong to. The artificial intelligence algorithm is then able to predict the word or sentence they are trying to say.

    Zhang's research, Smartphone-Based Gaze Gesture Communication for People with Motor Disabilities, is set to be presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May.

    Maybe ten-year-old Elizabeth put it best when she said to her father. “But, Dad, you can't be healthy if you're dead.”

    Dad, in a hurry to get home before dark so he could go for a run, had forgotten to wear his safety belt — a mistake 11.5% of the US population make every day, according to a survey in 2015.

    The percentage doesn't seem so bad, but the big question is why still so many people ignore it when every day there are reports about car accidents and casualties (a death toll of 37461 in 2016).

    There have been many myths about safety belts ever since their first appearance in cars some forty years ago. The following are three of the most common.

    Myth Number One: It's best to be “thrown clear”of a serious accident.

    Truth: Sorry, but any accident serious enough to “throw you clear”is also going to be serious enough to give you a very bad landing. And chances are you'll have traveled through a windshield (挡风玻璃) or door to do it. Studies show that chances of dying after a car accident are twenty-five times greater in cases where people are “thrown clear.”

    Myth Number Two: Safety belts “trap” people in cars that are burning or sinking in water.

    Truth: Sorry again. but studies show that people knocked unconscious (昏迷) due to not wearing safety belts have a greater chance of dying in these accidents People wearing safety belts are usually protected to the point of having a clear head to free themselves from such dangerous situations, not to be trapped in them.

    Myth Number Three: Safety belts aren't needed at speeds of less than 30 miles an hour (mph).

    Truth: When two cars traveling at 30 mpb hit each other, an unbelted driver would meet the windshield with a force equal to diving headfirst into the ground from a height of 10 meters.

The giant panda,also {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (know) as panda bear or simply panda,is a bear native {#blank#}2{#/blank#} south central China.For the past many years,the giant panda  {#blank#}3{#/blank#}  (drive)out of the lowland areas where it once lived as a result of farming,deforestation and other {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (develop).Wild population estimates vary:one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(live)in the wild,while a 2006 study estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000.Some reports also show that {#blank#}6{#/blank#} number of giant pandas in the wild is on the rise.

The West first learned of the giant panda on March 11,1869,  {#blank#}7{#/blank#} the French missionary(传教士)Armand David received a panda skin from a hunter.In 1936,Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner  {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(bring)a live giant panda named Su Lin to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.To protect the pandas,in 2012,Earthwatch Institute,a global non-profit organisation that teams volunteers with scientists to conduct important {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (science) research,launched a program called"On the Trail of Giant Pandas".This program allows volunteers to work up close with pandas cared for in captivity(圈养),and help them  {#blank#}10{#/blank#}  (gradual)adapt to life in the wild.