Computer technology has become an important part of people's life. This technology has its own special words. One well-known computer word is Google. It's the name of a popular “search engineer(引擎)” for the Internet. People use the search engineer to find information about almost any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in math Google is a very large number-One hundred zeros follow the number one. When you “Google” a subject, you can get a lot of information about it.
    If you Google someone, you might find that person's name on a blog (博客). A blog is short for a Web log. It's a personal Web page. Some people write blogs to express their opinions and ideas over the Internet. Some use them to share their lives with faraway friends or family. Others write blogs to help them deal with sickness, money problems or to choose movies to see or books to read. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.

　　　When you're not at home, many worries may start to crowd your mind. Did I turn the coffee maker off? Did I lock the door? Are the kids doing their homework or watching television? With a smart home, you can quiet all of these worries.

　　　A smart home is a home with a communication network. This network connects devices(装置),such as lights and TV sets, and allows them to be controlled from far away through electrical wiring, mobile phone communication or WiFi over the internet.

　　　More and more people may start to consider owning a smart home, because it makes life much more convenient. It can help keep your room at a certain temperature. It can record what happens inside the home and send the video to your phone. When you are on vacation abroad, you can use a smart home controller to switch on or off the electricity when necessary. Some smart homes can receive a visitor, allowing him to come in and offering him a drink. They can even feed the cat and water the plants.

　　　Besides, smart homes are easy to fix. Most smart home technology and devices are wireless and can be set up with a minimum of tools, using only the guiding information. When a problem appears, you can deal with it yourself without paying a professional.

　　　However, for home-users, the smart home technology is far from perfect. It can be rather expensive to own the technology and the devices. Also, because the smart home system(系统)allow its owner to get home information from anywhere, it leaves the home easy to be attacked by hackers(黑客),who may secretly use or change the information in the system.

　　　Now, many scientists are excited at the future of smart home technology. Imagine being able to get fashion advice from your mirror, or receive food shopping suggestions from your refrigerator. While there are others who worry that those smart devices will make people lazier and lonelier. Whatever it is, one thing is for sure—smart home technology will change the way we live and work.

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   Your brain controls everything you do. It makes it possible for you to think,

Learn, create and feel; to blink(眨眼) and breathe and for your heart to heat –this fantastic control center is your brain. It is so amazing that a famous scientist once called it "the most complex(复杂) thing we have yet discovered in our universe".

Can this small grey organ(器官) , which weighs less than one and a half kilos, really do so much? Amazingly , your brain contains about 100 billion neurons(神经元) -it would take you over 3, 000 years to count them all. Believe it or not, the activity in your brain never stops. Your neurons create and send more messages than all the phones in the world. And although one neuron creates only a little electricity, all your neurons together can produce enough electricity to power a light bulb (灯泡).

    So exactly how fast does your brain work? Well, imagine this: a bee lands on your foot. Neurons in your skin send this information to your brain at a speed of more than 240 kilometers per hour. Your brain then uses other neurons to send the message back to your foot to shake the bee off quickly. These neurons can send this information at more than 320 kilometers per hour. No computer has your brain's unbelievable ability to deal with the amount of information coming from your eyes, ears and other sensory organs.

    But how does your brain allow you to learn things that you will use in the future? The structure (结构) of your brain changes every time you have a new thought, remember or learn something. For example, riding a bike seems impossible at first, but soon you are able to do it. How? As you practice, your brain sends "bike riding" messages again and again soon, the actions are learnt and you are able to ride a bike easily from then on.

    There is a lot of salt on the Earth, and it mixes very well with water.

There is some salt in all water. Water on the land runs into lakes and rivers. These rivers run into the seas and oceans. They carry a little salt with them. Some of the ocean water moves into the air and clouds. It evaporates. Salt cannot evaporate. It stays in the oceans.

    The water in the oceans has more salt than river water. There is about 3. 5% salt in the ocean water. Some seas have more salt than others.

    Some of the water leaves the lakes. It evaporates, but the salt cannot. These lakes are very salty. There are two famous lakes like this. They are the Dead Sea in the Middle East and the Great Salt Lake in Utah(犹他州）in the United States. They are much saltier than the Atlantic Ocean（大西洋）and the Pacific Ocean(太平洋）.

    Thanks to software like Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana, it's easier than ever to do something on our phone or computer. All we have to do is "talk", and our favorite song starts playing a few seconds later. But in the neat" future, asking our phone to play a song by using our voice will seem as old--fashioned. That's because US tech company Microsoft recently applied for a patent* for a "brain control interface"(BCI): meaning that soon, we may be able to control our phone and computer with our thoughts.

    BCI technology works by changing brain signals into computer commands. This technology isn't brand new, however. Last year, for example, it was reported that scientists were able to help a disabled man from the US, 53-year-old Bill Kochevar, to move again. To do this, Kochevar was fitted with BCI technology, as well as equipment to make his muscles move. After a few weeks of getting used to it, Kochevar was able to use his thoughts to "tell" the BCI to move his muscles, meaning he was able to feed himself for the first time in years.

    Apart from helping disabled people, it's hoped that BCI technology will improve the daily lives of other people too. US social networking platform Facebook announced last year that it was working off BCI technology to help people type by using their brain. By 2020, the company hopes to have created a system that will allow people to type up to 100 words per minute just by thinking about them.

    However, many people are worried that technology that tan read our thoughts will create privacy problems, especially if social media companies are included. But Facebook researcher Regina Dugan said at a meeting last year that the company has no interest in reading people's private thoughts. "That might be more than any of us care to "know. And it's not something any of us should have a right to know," she said.

Would it surprise you to learn that, like animals, trees can communicate with each other and pass on their wealth to the next generation—their young trees?

    Suzanne Simard, forest ecologist(生态学家) at the University of British Columbia, explains how trees are much more complex(复杂的) than most of us ever imagined. Although Charles Darwin(达尔文) thought that trees are competing for survival of the fittest, Simard and her team have made a new discovery and showed just how wrong he was. In fact, the opposite is true: trees survive through their group work and support, passing around necessary nutrition(营养) such as nitrogen(氮) and carbon "depending on who needs it".

    Nitrogen(氮) and carbon are shared through miles of underground fungi (真菌) networks. This makes sure that all trees in the forest ecological system give and receive just the right amount to keep them all healthy. This system works in a very similar way to the networks of neurons (神经元) in our brains, and when one tree is destroyed, it influences all.

    Simard talks about "Mother trees". These are usually the largest, oldest plants that on which all other trees depend. These "Mother trees" are connected to all the other trees in the forest by this network of fungi, and may manage the resources of the whole trees and plants in the forest. She explains how these trees pass on the wealth to the next generation, transporting important resources to young trees so they may continue to grow. When humans cut down "Mother trees" without paying attention to these highly complex "tree societies" of the networks on which they feed, we are reducing the chances to save the whole forest.

    "We didn't take any notice of it," Simard says sadly. "Mother trees" move nutrition into the young trees before dying, but we never give them chance. If we could put across the message to the forestry industry, we could make a huge difference towards our environmental protection efforts for the future.