CHICAGO- Have you ever worked on your laptop computer with it sitting on your lap, heating up your legs? If so, you might want to rethink that habit from now on. Doing it a lot can lead to “toasted skin syndrome (症状)”, an unusual-looking spotted skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure (暴露), according to medical reports.

       In one recent case, a 12-year-old boy from California developed a skin discoloration on his left lap after playing computer games a few hours every day for several months. “He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, he did not change its position,” Swiss researches reported in an article published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

      Another similar case is a Virginia law student who needed treatment for the spotted darkening on her leg. Dr. Kimberley Salkey, who treated the young woman, learned the student spent about six hours a day working with her computer placed on her lap. As Dr. Salkey later learnt, the temperature under the laptop could reach 51 degrees. That case, from 2007, is one of 10 laptop-related cases reported in medical journals in the past six years.

The condition can also be caused by overuse of heating pads (垫子) and other heat sources that usually aren't hot enough to cause burns. It's generally harmless but can also cause such permanent (永久的) skin darkening. In very rare cases, it can cause damage leading to skin cancers, said the Swiss researchers, Drs. Andreas Arnold and Peter Itin from University Hospital Basel. They do not mention any skin cancer cases linked to laptop use, but suggest, to be safe, placing a carrying case under the laptop if you have to hold it on your lap.

      Dr. Kimberley Salkey said that under the microscope, the affected skin is similar to skin damaged by long-term sun exposure.

      Major producers including Apple and Dell warn against placing laptops on laps or exposed skin for long periods of time because of the risks for burns. In the past, “toasted skin syndrome” has happened to workers whose jobs require being close to a heat source, including bakers and glass blowers, and in people who gathered near hot stoves to stay warm.

Dr. Anthony J. Mancini, chief at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said that it's unlikely that computer use would lead to cancer since it's so easy to avoid close skin contact (接触) with laptops.

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    People often think of the North Pole(北极) and the South Pole as similar frozen(冰冻的) wastelands. They are both places with very cold temperatures and few people live there. However, the North and South Poles are not much alike as people may imagine.

    The North Pole has no land, only thick ice. Temperatures seldom go above 32°F, at which water turns into ice. Most of the time, it stays below zero. In winter temperatures are usually as low as -30°F.

    Although conditions were very poor, people tried for many centuries to reach the North Pole. About 100 years ago, two men, Robert Peary and Mathew Henson, were able to get to this environment full of troubles and difficulties. They reached the North Pole on March 8th, 1909. It was really a hard trip for them.

    There are few things more dangerous than crossing the Arctic(北极圈) on foot. People who stayed there may face many problems: very cold temperatures, sudden storms, and even hunger. Most of the area is uninhabited. Few people can live in such a difficult place.

    People might think that with such low temperatures for most of the year, the ice would be thick and hard. However, this is not true in the Arctic. The movement of the ocean water under the ice may often cause many different changes on the surface. Sometimes the ice breaks into two opening lanes of water(水道) called “leads”. Anyone who falls into a lead can be frozen to death in a few minutes.

    We live in the world full of colours. Does a colour have weight? If you say “no”, you are wrong. If you don't believe, you may do an experiment.

    First, put two objects with the same weight into two boxes. Then cover the boxes. Third, wrap one box with a red piece of paper, the other woth a white piece of paper. Now hold the boxes with your hand one by one. It is certain that you think the red one is a little heavier.

    Why? A scientist found that different colours have different weight in a man's mind. So he did many tests and at last he found that every colour has its own weight in our mind and their order is the same. The heaviest colour is red, then blue, green, orange, yellow and white.

    The scientist told us that colours also have smell. Can you smell the colour? Of course not. Then why did the scientist say so? That is because every colour stands for a kind of light with a certain wavelength, and it reaches our brain through sense organs.

    According to this discovery, scientists say that people accept the colours they like, and refuse the colours they hate. So your body and mind will be healthy by using the colours you like. Or you'll be nervous or even get ill. For example, if you stay in a room with red windows, wallpapers and furniture for two hours, you'll feel you have been there for four hours. But if the room is blue, you'll feel you have been there for only an hour. Another example, if a person walks out of a red room and into a blue room, his temperature will fall. That means our body temperature will change with different colours.

    After years of research and testing, the hybrid car was developed and put on the market. It's an interesting and exciting new improvement in today's world as we look for better ways to protect the quality of the air we breathe and save our natural resources.

    The quality of our air is affected by many different things. But one of the largest sources of air pollution is the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline which is used to power a car's engine. The EPA has set national standards to help control the level of harmful pollutants sent off into the air, and the automobile industry has acted by producing a hybrid car that uses less gas and therefore causes less pollution.

    A hybrid car is a combination of a regular car that runs on gasoline and an electric car that is battery powered. Some people tend to think that since the hybrid car is partially electric, you have to plug it in to charge it. But that's not how it works. The 144 volt battery pack is actually recharged through the energy that is produced when the car's brakes are used. This is referred to as "regenerative braking", because it produces electricity.

    Although the hybrid car still runs on gasoline most of the time, this helps it use less gas than a regular car. When the driver stops at a traffic light, the engine automatically shuts off to save fuel. Then, as soon as the driver puts the car in gear and touches the gas pedal, the engine starts back up.

    Have you ever ridden in a car with someone who ran out of gas? That probably wouldn't happen if you were riding in a hybrid car. It flashes a warning on its computer screen that says, "I am low on gas". When it completely runs out, the warning reads, "YOU ARE NOW OUT OF GAS!" Then the electric power supply kicks in to let the driver travel a few more miles to a gas station.