As global temperatures continue to rise, more “extreme rain” events—intense, cats-and-dogs down pours—can be expected, said the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. And that, scientists said, means an increased flood risk, particularly for the world's driest areas. The study challenges the idea that global warming is causing dry areas to become drier and wet areas wetter.

    “In both wet and dry regions, we see these great increases in heavy precipitation（冰雹）,” lead author Markus Donat, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales, told Nature.

    Donat and his team collected data from 1951 to 2010 on extreme precipitation events from 11, 000 weather stations around the world, Nature reported.

     In that time, the number of days with“extreme precipitation” increased 1 percent to 2 percent per decade.

  “We found a strong relationship between global warming and an increase in rainfall, particularly in areas outside of the tropics,” Donat said in a statement.

  “Importantly, this research suggests we will see these extreme rainfall events increases at regional levels in dry areas, not just as an average across the globe,” Donat added.

    Peter Stott, a senior climate scientistat Met Office, told Climate Central that the study's findings are important, because more violent rainfall and flooding will “challenge our capability toadapt to a rapidly changing climate.”

    As Nature reported, the researchaligns（结盟）with a 2015 study that found global warming has led to a sharp increase in record-breaking precipitation events. Donat told Nature that his study should come as a warning to world governments.

    After a terrible electrical accident, which caused him to become both blind and deaf, the whole world became completely dark and quiet for Robert Edwards for almost ten years. The loss of sight and hearing threw him into such sorrow(悲伤) that he tried a few times to put an end to his life. His family, especially his wife, did their best to tend and comfort him and finally he regained the will to live.

    One hot summer afternoon, he was taking a walk with a stick near his house when a thunderstorm started all at once. He stood under a large tree to avoid getting wet, but he was struck by the lightning. Witnesses thought he was dead but he woke up some 20 minutes later lying face down in muddy water at the base of the tree. He was trembling badly, but when he opened his eyes, he could hardly believe what he saw —— a plough and a wall. When Mrs. Edwards came running up to him, shouting to their neighbors to call for help, he could see her and hear her voice for the first time in nearly ten years.

    The news of Robert regaining his sight and hearing quickly spread, and many doctors came to examine him. Most of them said that he regained his sight and hearing from the shock he got from the lightning. However, none of them could give a convincing answer as to why this should have happened. The only reasonable explanation given by one doctor was that, since Robert lost his sight and hearing as a result of sudden shock, perhaps, the only way for him to regain them was by another sudden shock.

    The British are known for their sense of humor. However, it is often difficult for foreigners to understand their jokes. The main point to remember is that the British often use understatement.

     Understatement means saying less than you think or feel. For example, if someone gets very wet in a shower of rain, he might say, “It's a little damp (潮湿的) outside.” Or, if someone is very impolite and shouts at another person, someone else might say, “She isn't exactly friendly.” Understatement is often used in unpleasant situation or to make another person look silly. Understatement plays an important part in British humor.

    Another key to understanding British humor is that the British like to make fun of themselves as well as others. They often laugh about the silly and unpleasant things that happen to our everyday life when someone accidently falls over in the street. They also like to make jokes about people from different classes of society. They like to make jokes about their accents, the way they dress and the way they behave. What's more, the British love to watch comedies (喜剧) about people who do not know how to behave in society. The comedies series Mr. Bean is a good example of this kind of humor.

    Mr. Bean is the character created by British actor Rowan Atkinson in 1990. Mr. Bean doesn't talk often, and instead he uses his body movement and facial expressions to make people laugh. Perhaps what makes Mr. Bean so funny is that he does things that adults in the real world cannot do. Mr. Bean is popular in many countries around the world because you do not have to speak English to understand the humor. Because of this, many people have become familiar with the British sense of humor.

    How fit are your teeth? Are you lazy about brushing them? Never fear: An inventor is on the case. An electric toothbrush senses how long and how well you brush and it lets you track your performance on your phone.

    The Kolibree toothbrush was exhibited at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. It senses how it is moved and can send the information to an Android phone or iPhone via a Bluetooth wireless connection.

    The toothbrush will be able to teach you to brush right (don't forget the insides of the teeth!) and make sure you're brushing long enough. “It's kind of like having a dentist actually watch your brushing on a day-to-day basis,” says Thomas Serval, the French inventor.

    The toothbrush will also be able to talk to other applications on your phone, so developers could, for example, create a game controlled by your toothbrush. You could score points for beating monsters among your teeth. “We try to make it smart and fun,” Serval says.

    Serval says he was inspired by his experience as a father. He would come home from work and ask his kids if they had brushed their teeth. They said “yes,” but Serval would find their toothbrush heads dry. He decided he needed a brush that really told him how well his children brushed.

    The company says the Kolibree will go on sale this summer, from $99 to $199, and the U.S. is the first target market.

    It began as a game: High school and college students studying computer technology figured out they could use personal computers to break into telephone company computers and make free, long-distance telephone calls. These young computer talents soon gained the name "hackers".

    Police arrested a few hackers, but many went on to even more complex hacking. One of them was arrested for making illegal telephone calls and later he used a phone to change a police officer's credit records to get back at the officer for arresting him. He also used a computer to change his college records to give himself better grades.

    As hackers gained experience, they began invading computers at banks, airlines and other businesses. In one case a hacker instructed an airline's computer to give him free airplane tickets.

    The U.S. government is worried that hackers may break into its networks of defense computers. The government's secrets are easily attacked because thousands of government computers are connected by telephone lines that hackers can get into.

    In November 1988, a college student entered a U.S. Defense Department computer network called Arpanet. The hacker injected a computer program that made copies of itself throughout Arpanet. Some hackers use viruses to destroy all the data in a computer. But in this case, government officials shut down the network before the program reached every computer in the system. Shutting down the system angered many researchers who were using the computers. The hacker turned himself in to the police and he was charged with a crime.

    The incident put the spotlight on computer hacking in the United States. Many companies have hired experts to protect their computers from hackers, and many computer experts now advise companies on how to protect their computers.

    The U.S. government believes foreign governments have hired hackers to try to break into top-secret defense computers.

    Experts disagree over whether a computer network can ever be safe from hacking. But in the future, some of the most outstanding minds in the U.S. will be working to frustrate the attempts of computer hackers.

Comparing college entrance exams, there are different needs for admission. The national college entrance examination, or gaokao, is known as the most competitive test for Chinese students. Do students in other countries also need to take a standardized test to get into university?

South Korea holds the College Scholastic Ability Test（CSAT） in November each year. The CSAT plays an important role in the country's education. On test day, bus and subway frequency increases to make sure that students can get to the test sites in time.

Japan is trying to reform its standardized national college entrance exam. In January 2022, Common Test for University Admissions took the place of the National Center Test for University Admissions, which had been adopted since 1990. The new exam aims to put emphasis on the ability of students to discover and solve problems by themselves.

The American College Test（ACT） and Scholastic Assessment Test（SAT） are the two main college entrance exams taken by students in the US. While SAT tests a student's ability to learn, the ACT tests a student's educational development. Both tests normally take place seven times throughout the year. Students can retake the exams for a better score.

In the UK, there's no standardized test for college admission. Instead, each college has their own admission criteria. These criteria often onlyinclude submission of transcripts（成绩单） and participation in an interview. Yet, there are subject-specific exams used by some colleges.