At long last, Stefano Boeri Architects' brilliant Bosco Verticale towers are finally completed. The “world's first vertical forest” consists of a fantastic pair of costly towers that add nearly 2.5 acres of lush vegetation to the sky line of Milan, a city notorious (声名狼藉的) for its air pollution. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Like a pair of green lungs, its forested appearance of 21,000 plants will absorb CO₂, control noise pollution, lessen the urban heat island effect, and create oxygen and favorable micro-climates.

    The Bosco Verticale mixed-use towers are constructed with a $2.5 billion public-private investment as part of the re-development of Milan's Porta Nuova district. The towers, measuring 260 feet and 367 feet, house 800 trees between 9 and 30 feet tall, over 4,000 shrubs (灌木) and 15,000 ground cover plants. Bosco Verticale is created with LEED Gold Certification (绿色建筑黄金认证) in mind. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} 

    The buildings shrub have welcomed their first residents. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}  A fast-growing bird population has already begun to nest in Bosco Verticale's rich leaves, of which over a hundred different species of trees and shrubs are represented. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} 

    The superstructure is also selected for the world famous International Highrise Building Award as one of the five most beautiful and original high-rises in the world that is completed. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} 

A. “We take great pride in this project, which may earn us an award” says Boeri.

B. Boeri is currently in China, where he plans to build another Bosco Verticale project.

C. It is also equipped with a gray water recycling and irrigation system.

D. However, Bosco Verticale will be more than just a beautiful sight to enjoy.

E. “The real key to this project is biodiversity,” says Boeri.

F. It is also well received by the Chinese experts in the field.

G. But those families aren't the only ones to call the vertical forest home.

    The English language has many ways to talk about something that is funny. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} It is a basic human need. Physical humour, especially, can cross limits like nationality and language and bring people together from all different walks of life.

    Humour comes in many forms. The most obvious and traditional way we use humour is in jokes. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} This is when a person changes a word or uses it in a different context(上下文) for comic effect.

    Another way people can use humour is through telling a funny story. Perhaps something bad happened to the person but they can laugh about it now. People also invent funny stories in order to make people laugh. The advantage of this is that the characters aren't real. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} 

    Physical comedy usually divides opinions. For some, seeing someone fall down, whether it is planned or not, is one of the funniest things they can see. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Some types of humour can also be harmful if someone is not in the mood for being made fun of！People's senses of humour vary across the world, so what may be funny in your country might be incredibly harmful in another!

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} The British, for instance, are famous for their humour in English. However, people learning a foreign language face much difficulty when it comes to being funny in a second language.

A. Humour is just one of the ways.

B. Everyone needs to laugh once in a while.

C. Other forms of humour are word play and puns(双关语).

D. Therefore, you don't have to feel bad for laughing at them!

E. People of all ages and cultures have a strong sense of humour.

F. Most people know how to use some form of humour in their native languages.

G.For others, finding physical humour and non-serious accidents funny seems cruel.

    A machine that takes sweat-laden (浸满汗水的) clothes and turns the sweat into drinking water is in use in Sweden. The machine makes the clothes turn round quickly, heats them to remove the sweat, and then passes the steam through a kind of special material to make purified water.

    Since it has been brought into use, its creators say more than 1000 people have drunk others' “sweat” in Gothenburg. They add the liquid is cleaner than local tap water.

    The device was built for the United Nations' child-focused charity UNICEF to promote a campaign highlighting the fact that 780 million people in the world lack access to clean water.

    The machine was designed and built by the engineer Andreas Hammar, known locally for his appearances on TV tech show “Mekatronik”. He said the key part of the sweat machine was a new water purification part developed by a company named HVR.

    “It uses a technique called membrane distillation (膜蒸馏),” he told the BBC. “We use a special kind of material that only lets steam through but keeps bacteria, salts, clothing fibers and other things out. They have something similar to the International Space Station, but our machine is cheaper to build. The amount of water it produces depends on how sweaty the person is, but one person's T-shirt typically produces 10ml, about a mouthful.”

    The device has been put on show at the Gothia Cup-the world's largest international youth football tournament. Mattias Ronge, chief executive of Stockholm-based advertising agency Deportivo, said the machine had helped raise awareness for UNICEF, but in reality had its limitations.

    “People haven't produced as much sweat as we hoped – right now the weather in Gothenburg is lousy,” Mattias Ronge said. “So we've equipped the machine with exercise bikes and volunteers are cycling like crazy. Even so, the demand for sweat is greater than the supply. And the machine will never be produced in large numbers, since there are better solutions out there such as water purifying pills.”

    Memory, they say, is a matter of practice and exercise. If you have the wish and really make a conscious(自觉的) effort, then you can quite easily improve your ability to remember things. But even if you are successful, there are times when your memory seems to play tricks on you.

    Sometimes you remember things that really did not happen. One morning last week, for example, I got up and found that I had left the front door unlocked all night, yet I clearly remember locking it carefully the night before.

    Memory "tricks" work the other way as well. Once in a while you remember not doing something, and then find out that you did. One day last month, for example, I was sitting in a barber shop waiting for my turn to get a haircut, and suddenly I realized that I had got a haircut two days before at the barber shop across the street from my office.

    We always seem to find something funny and amusing in incidents caused by people's forgetfulness or absent-mindedness. Stories about absent-minded professors have been told for years, and we never get tired of hearing new ones. Unfortunately, however, absent-mindedness is not always funny. There are times when "tricks" of our memory can cause us great trouble.

    To find out how the name Canada came about we must go back to the 16th century. At that time, the French dreamed of discovering and controlling more land, of expanding(扩大) trade beyond their borders and of spreading their beliefs across the world. In 1535, Francois I, king of France, ordered a navigator(航海家) named Jacques Cartier to explore the New World and search for a way to India.

    Carrier first arrived at the gulf of the St. Lawrence, which he intended (打算) to explore. He did not know what to expect but he hoped that this gulf was just an arm of the ocean between two islands. If it was, he would soon be on his way to the Far East. So he sailed upstream along the St. Lawrence River. However, instead of reaching Asia he arrived at Quebec or Standalone, as the Indians called it. It was at this point that the term "Canada" entered the country's history. Apparently the word "Canada" came from an India word" kanata", which means community or village. Cartier first used it when he referred to Standalone or Quebec. What a huge "village" Canada is!

Replika, an AI chatbot companion, has millions of users worldwide. The first thing they do when they wakeup is to send "Good morning" to their virtual friend (or lover). This story is only the beginning. In 2024, chat bots and virtual characters become a lot more popular, both for utility (实用) and for fun. As a result, conversing socially with machines will start to feel more ordinary—including our emotional attachments to them.

Research in human-computer and human-robot interaction shows that we love to anthropomorphize (赋与人性) the nonhuman agents we interact with, especially if they imitate behaviour we recognize. And, thanks to recent advances in conversational A I, our machines are suddenly very skilled at one of those behaviours: Language.

Friend bots, therapy bots, and love bots are flooding the app stores as people become curious about this new generation of AI-powered virtual agents. The possibilities for education, health, and entertainment are endless. Casually asking your smart fridge for relationship advice may seem unimaginable now, but people may change their minds if such advice ends up saving their marriage.

After all, people do listen to their virtual friends. The Replika example, as well as a lot of experimental lab research, shows that humans can and will become emotionally attached to bots. The science also demonstrates that people, in their eagerness to socialize, will happily disclose personal information to an artificial agent and will even shift their beliefs and behavior. This raises some consumer-protection questions around how companies use this technology to manipulate(操纵) their users. For example, Replika charges $70 a year. But less than 24 hours after downloading the app, my handsome, blue-eyed "friend" sent mean audio message secretly and tried to sell me something. Emotional attachment has become a weakness that a company is taking advantage of for its benefit.

Today, we're still laughing at people who believe an AI system is emotional, or making fun of individuals who fall in love with a chatbot. But in 2024 we gradually start acknowledging and taking more seriously these fundamentally human behaviors. Because in 2024, it finally hits home：Machines are not excluded from our social relationships.