The Parthenon(帕特农神庙) in Athens is a building with a long and complex(复杂的) history. Built nearly 2,500 years ago as a temple celebrating the Greek goddess Athena, it was for thousands of years the church of the Virgin Mary of the Athenians, then a mosque (清真寺), and finally a ruin. The building was changed and the sculptures(塑像) much damaged over the centuries. By 1800 only about half of the original sculptural decoration remained.

    Between 1801 and 1805, Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire(奥斯曼帝国), which controlled Athens, acting with the full knowledge and permission of the Ottoman authorities，removed about half of the remaining sculptures from the fallen ruins and from the building itself. Lord Elgin loved Greek history and transported the sculptures back to Britain. The arrival of the sculptures in London had a huge effect on the European public, greatly increasing interest in ancient Greek culture and influencing contemporary artistic trends. These sculptures were gained from Lord Elgin by the British Museum in 1816 and since then they have all been on show to the public, free of charge.

    Since the early 1980s, however, the Greek government has argued for the return of all the Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum. They have also challenged the British Museum Board of Trustees' legal title to the sculptures.

    The British Museum, however, insists that it exists to tell the story of cultural achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of human history over two million years ago until the present day. The museum considers itself an important resource for the world: the breadth and depth of its collection allows the world public to re-examine cultural identities and explore the complex network of interconnected world cultures.

    It also says that, within the context of this unparalleled collection, the Parthenon sculptures are an important representation of ancient Athenian civilization. Each year millions of visitors admire the artistry of the sculptures and gain insights on how ancient Greece influenced — and was influenced by — the other civilizations that it came across.

    If you want to travel from Xi'an to Chengdu by train, it will take about 16 hours. But starting this month, the new Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway will shorten this travel time to three hours.

    The 643-kilometer line is China's first high-speed railway to run through the Qinling Mountains, which form a natural boundary (分界线) between China's north and south. With a speed of 250 km per hour, it's also the first mountain-heavy train line to provide a 4G network. Along the way, the train passes through two areas for rare (稀有) wild animals — one for pandas and the other for crested ibises (朱鹮).

    To reduce the railway's influence on the animals, workers and experts have designed and built the railway to be environmentally friendly. There were 345 wild pandas living in the Qinling Mountains. China currently has 1,864 wild pandas in total, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

    To avoid disturbing the pandas, the railway was designed to run through tunnels (隧道) within the area. Protective shields (防护屏) are placed near the entrance of each tunnel to stop animals from going in.

    To protect the thousands of crested ibises that fly near one part of the railway, protective nets have been set up to make sure the birds will not fly into a train.

    The nets are about 32 km long and 4 meters high. Experts tested different shapes and materials for building the nets before making their final choice.

    When men get together, they seldom talk about their feelings or inner thoughts. However, they talk about a lot, like their newest computer, how to repair their car, or even business.

    Talk might move to the best place to find fish or women, jump to computer games, then continue to the sport of the season. They also like to tell jokes each other and spend a fair amount of time playing one-up and boasting (吹牛). Men seldom call each other to chat.

    When man meets woman, he usually wants to make a good impression. Many single men try hard to carry on amusing, fun, and pleasant conversations. They use conversation to discover her interests and feelings in order to learn how to be attractive to her.

    Some men, either out of nervousness or ignorance, spend most of the time talking about themselves, often appearing to brag about their achievements or talk endlessly about their problems or work. Even the quietest man talks to his woman when love is new.

    When women get together, they talk about feelings and relationships, their work and their family. They enjoy talking but also want the give and take of talk, then listen. Women often call each other to chat. Conversation is an important part of most women's 1ives.

    As relationships progress, however, many a man turns on the television and forgets how to talk. This raises anger and cry from his woman partner who says, “You never talk to me anymore.” Some men start talking. Many, however, mainly discuss their own achievements and problems.

    When the woman starts talking about her favorite subjects: feelings, family, relationships, friends and her work, many men lose interest or bring the conversation back to themselves. Pretty soon, the man is back to staring at the television each night, wondering where his relationship has gone. The woman is talking to her friends, mom, sister, or neighbor, often about that very relationship and how she is hurting.

    Last Thursday, Michael and Linda stood behind large food trucks distributing meals to 4,000 homeless people for their wedding reception on the border town of Kilis. The couple had decided that instead of hosting their friends and family for a traditional feast reception, they would feed the victims from an earthquake-stricken area.

    The idea came from the bridegroom's father, Ted, who volunteers for a Turkish relief organization. For the past few years, the organization has distributed daily meals to thousands of people who have suffered from natural disasters. He approached a representative of the organization and suggested that the family cover part of the costs of feeding them for the day.

    Then he told his son, who was surprised by the suggestion, but soon won over. When he told that to the bride, she was really shocked but finally accepted because in southeastern Turkey there is a real culture of sharing with people in need. They love to share their food, their table and everything they have. And afterwards she was quite amazed about it. So, they arrived at the distribution center on Thursday to spend the day serving food and taking photographs with their grateful recipients(接受者).

    On Tuesday evening, the newly married couple were still pleased with their decision to quit a personal celebration for one with a greater good. "It's like sharing a dinner with your friends and family who have this kind of thing on a daily basis or sharing something with people who don't even have the most basic things," Michael said. "Hopefully, this will also give the start for other wedding dinners to be held here with our brothers and sisters in need."

    I used to be crazy about the hunting season. The excitement of waiting for a prey(猎物)and the pride of showing off the kill fascinated me. However, everything changed after that cold morning.

    Early on that day of the late fall, I set off alone for the woods, packing a gun, a bottle of hot coffee and three thick sandwiches. After finding the fresh deer's tracks in the snow, I settled down behind a little bush.

I sat there for about an hour. It was then that I saw him. A deer, a big beautiful deer! There was no cover nearer to him than 30 yards. Surely I couldn't miss! I waited for him to realize I was there. I waited for him to be shocked and run away. But he fooled me completely. He came towards me! He was curious, I suppose, or maybe he was stupid—how else can you explain it? Well, that deer walked right up to where I was sitting. Then he stopped and looked at me!

    What happened next is hard to believe, but it's true. And it all seemed quite natural. Just as when a friendly young deer comes near you, I reached up and scratched his head. And he liked to be scratched. In fact, he practically asked for more. Then, I fed him my sandwich! Yes, I know what a deer eats, but that deer ate my sandwich. Well, he finally went his way, down the hill and up the deer trail. Shoot him? Not me. You wouldn't have either, not after that. I just watched him go.

    When I was about half way back, I heard two shots, followed by a dull slam(撞击)a few seconds later. Those two shots usually mean a kill. I had forgotten there were other hunters that day.

    Those hunters would never know they could have scratched his head.

Tropical cyclones (热带气旋), including hurricanes and typhoons, are now moving at a slower speed than they did decades ago, new research shows.

While having a cyclone travel with less speed may seem like a good thing, it's actually just the opposite. Wind speeds within the storm remain high, but the whole system itself moves slower, allowing punishing rains to stay longer over communities. "Nothing, good comes out of a slowing storm," says James Kossin, author of the paper. "It can increase the amount of time that buildings suffered from strong wind. And it increases rainfall."

In his paper, Kossin showed that from 1949 to 2016, tropical cyclones across the globe slowed their movement by 10 percent on average. In some regions (地区), the speed of those storms slowed even more as they hit land. In the western North Pacific, the decrease was much more manifest ― almost a third. That means a storm that may already hold more moisture (水分) will have time to drop more of it in each spot.

Kossin's work was based on details of almost 70 years' worth of storms, but he didn't try to determine what was causing the slowdown. Still, the change is exactly what he and other cyclone experts said, which would be expected from climate change. With the polar regions warming fester than other parts of the globe, that is changing the pressure and reducing the winds that push these storms.

Christina Patricola, a scientist, called Kossin9s work important and new and said she found it reliable. "I was not surprised by his findings," she says. "But I was surprised by the speed of the slowdown."

Kossin hopes that scientists will begin building models that show which places are likely to face the most risk. Given that storms in some regions are moving towards polar regions and already increasing in intensity (强度), cyclones causing unusually powerful rain may threaten places not normally in their paths. Scientists must take action to make those places suffer less from the disasters.