【推荐1】Many people go to school for an education. They learn languages, history, politics, geography, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Others go to school to learn a skill so that they can make a living. School education is very important and useful .Yet, no one can learn everything from school. A teacher, no matter how much he knows, can not teach his students everything they want to know. The teacher’s job is to show his students how to learn. He teaches them how to read and how to think. So, much more is to be learned outside school by the students themselves.

It is always more important to know how to study by oneself than to memorize some facts or a formula. It is actually quite easy to learn a certain fact in history or a formula in mathematics. But it is very difficult to use a formula in working out a math problem. Great scientists before us didn’t get everything from school .Their teachers only showed them the way. Edison did not even finish primary school. But they were all so successful. They invented so many things for mankind. The reason for their success is that they knew how to study. They read books that were not taught at school. They would ask many questions as they read. They did thousands of experiments. They worked hard all their lives, wasting not a single moment. Above all , they knew how to use their brain.

【推荐1】Everyone needs friends. As the saying goes, “Friends are God’s way of taking care of us .”

The American writer, Sally Seamans, tells young students some smart ways to make friends .Sally says finding friendship is just like planting a tree. You plant the seed and take care of it to make it grow .

First you should choose a friend. What makes a good friend? It is not because a person has money or good looks. A good friend should be kind and patient. For example, if you have a bad day, a good friend should listen to your complaints and do his best to help. To make friends, you cannot be too shy. You should make each other happy and share your lives .

But things cannot always be happy. Even the best friends have fights. What should you do when you have a fight with your friend? You have to talk to him or her. When there is no one around, have an honest talk. If he or she doesn’t want to talk, you could write a letter .

There are three steps to be friends again:

Tell him or her how you are feeling; say what your friend has done wrong; explain why you did this or that. Remember that friendship is the most important thing in your life .

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【推荐3】The world’s oldest pen pals have both turned 100 after 84 years of transatlantic(大西洋彼岸的)letters and have now switched to Zoom.

Geoff Banks from Honiton, Devon, and Celesta Byme, from US, started writing to each other aged just 16 in 1938. They met as part of an educational project to put British and American students in contact-and 84 years later they are still corresponding.

Geoff, a retired engineer, said, “I honestly struggle to remember how we got in touch, but I was talking to Celesta recently and I think it was something to do with an American school’s scheme(计划), which matched us up with Americans for a pen pal relationship, and somehow I ended up with this letter from an American girl, and we just kept corresponding ever since. There were a couple of years when we struggled to keep in touch because of the war. Now of course she is partially sighted, so I correspond mainly by email to one of her daughters who lives nearby. Email is much easier for me these days too because I can’t write very well anymore. We just talk about daily lives and our families really. She’s always been there to write to, even if it was just birthday cards and Christmas cards.”

Despite having chatted for decades, the pair has only ever met twice—first in 2002 while Geoff visited New York aged 80, and then again two years later. Geoff is now a great grandfather, having sadly outlived(比……活得长)his daughter but still having three sons scattered across the world and many more grandchildren.

Geoff said, “We actually met up again in 2004 when she invited me to her house for lunch. I have this new thing called Zoom I think now to chat with her, but I leave all the technology to younger people. They’re much better at pressing all buttons.”

【推荐1】Researchers at a university in Hungary say there is truth to what many dog owners always believed. Dogs do understand what humans say.

The researchers made images of the brains of 13 dogs using a machine that records brain activity. The dogs were trained to lie down in the machine for seven minutes. During that time, they listened through headphones to their trainers’ voices.

Dog owners may think the news is not surprising. But scientists are impressed. Brian Hare is a professor at Duke University. He called one of the findings a “shocker.”

The brain imaging showed dogs processed words using the left side of their brains, just as humans do. They use the right side of their brains to understand tone and pitch (音调). The study showed dogs understand words and how they are said. Meaningful words said in a neutral (中性的) way did not have the same effect as the same words said in an encouraging way.

Attila Andics was the lead researcher on the project. “Dog brains care about both what we say and how we say it,” he said. Researchers say they think dogs are tuned in to what people say because dogs have lived with people for a long time. Andics said he thinks other animals probably can understand human language like dogs do. But those animals are not very interested in what humans have to say.

People reacted to the story on Facebook and Twitter. They said they always knew their pets could understand them. And they were happy to see scientific support for what they experienced every day. One reader from Virginia said she thought her dog could probably read her mind, too. Someone in California joked that he always knew his dog ignored him. And Greg Matos in Boston called the study “fascinating!”

【推荐2】When you choose to study abroad in Madrid, you choose to do so in a beautiful city with one hand firmly rooted in the past and one reaching confidently toward the future.

Geography of Madrid

Madrid is Spain’s capital and the most populated city. The heart of Madrid is a well-developed city with a perfect public transportation system, busy streets and sidewalks. Some of Madrid’s remoter districts, however, feel more like ancient villages. The city sees some snow in winter and plenty of rain in spring and fall. Summers are hot with minimum amounts of rain.

Language in Madrid

The majority of people in Madrid speak Spanish which is the official language of Spain. Most colleges and universities in Madrid are Spanish-language schools. However, many study-abroad programs in Madrid offer options of attending English-language schools. Also, when you’re in Madrid, you might take advantage of many high quality Spanish-language programs available to help you learn the language.

Cost of living in Madrid

The cost of living in Madrid depends on where you want to live. You need to pay three months’ rent in advance plus a deposit of ＄200 for the first time. Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city center of Madrid costs about ＄650 per month. Rent for a three-bedroom apartment in the city center costs approximately ＄1,200. If you’re willing to live outside the city center, you can expect to pay approximately ＄450 to ＄850 for a one or three-bedroom apartment respectively(分别地).

【推荐3】Mountain gorillas (大猩猩) have been caught on camera as they“sing”during their supper,a behavior that has never before been documented on video. Filmmakers shot the astonishing footage of gorillas with the help from a very special camera: a robotic“spy”designed to look like a young gorilla.

Creating a realistic robot spy that could fool a gorilla means designing a face that is mobile and expressive, particularly around the eyes. “ Eye communication is very important among gorillas," said“Spy in the Wild" producer Matt Gordon.“You'll see in the film the gorillas came straight over to our spy gorilla and looked right into its eyes. So we made sure that the gorilla had the most amount of detail put into the face.”

Infiltrating communities of animals that live in groups requires a robot to smell like its animal subjects in order to get close to them, Sometimes animal waste is applied to the robot to allow it to be accepted into the group.

One tricky challenge for the gorilla robot is that it has to pass inspection by the chief male.“We wanted to make sure that we were not being threatening,so we avoided the stare of our spy gorilla ,”Gordon said. This display of obedience (顺从) convinced the male that the robot wasn't a danger; he then signaled to the troop that it was safe for them to take a closer look at the "stranger".

The robot was also able to beat its chest to respond to a baby gorilla' s chest- beating, allowing the filmmakers to shoot a rare sight of their playtime. “A young gorilla came over and beat its chest. For a baby gorilla, that means‘I want to play' ,and if our gorilla was lifeless, not moving, the gorilla would have lost interest. But our spy gorilla was able to beat its chest too,” Gordon said.

【推荐1】Popular music in America is what every student likes. Students carry small radios with earphones and listen to music before class, after class, and at lunch. Students with cars buy large speakers and play the music loudly as they drive on the street. Adult drivers listen to music on the car radio as they drive to work. They also listen to the news about sports, the weather, and the life of American people. Most of the radio programmes are music.

Pop or popular music singers make much money. They make a CD or tape which radio stations use in many places. Once the popular singer is heard all over the country, young people buy his or her tape. Some of the money from these tapes goes to the singer. Wherever the singer goes, all the young people want to meet him or her. Now the singer has become a national star.

There are other kinds of music that are important to Americans. One is called folk (民间) music. It tells stories about the common life of Americans. Another is called western or country music. This was started by cowboys (牛仔) who would sing at night to the cows they were watching. Today, any music about country life and the love between a country boy and his girl is called western or country music.

【推荐2】Every human being, no matter what he is doing, gives off body heat. The usual problem is how to get rid of it. But the designers of the University of Pittsburgh set themselves the opposite problem-----how to collect body heat. They have designed a collection system which makes good use of not only body heat, but the heat given off by such objects as electric lights and fridges as well. The system works so well that no fuel is needed to make the university’s six buildings warm and comfortable.

Some parts of most modern buildings-----theaters and offices as well as classrooms are   heated by people and lights far more than necessary, and sometimes they must be air-conditioned even in winter. The skills of saving heat and sharing it out again in a different way is called “heat recovery.” A few modern buildings recover heat from some buildings and reuse it in others.

Along the way, Pittsburgh has learned a great deal about some of its heat producers. The harder a student studies, the more heat his body gives off. Boy students send out more heat than girl students, and the larger a student is, the more heat he gives. The hottest for the Pittsburgh University would be a hardworking, overweight boy student who is very clever in the university.

【推荐3】Technology may have made working from home easier than ever, but according to a new study, staff who are out of sight may not perform as well as those in the office. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, wanted to find out whether being watched while undertaking a task made a diffrence to its outcome.

Many people believe that being under constant observation damages their creativity while others live in fear of freezing in front of an audience during a public event. But the findings suggest that the pressure of others actually makes people achieve more. "You might think having people watch you isn't going to help, but it might actually make you perform better," said lead author Vikram Chib, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Krieger Institute. “An audience can serve as an extra bit of incentive.” When people know they are being observed, parts of the brain associated with social awareness and reward stimulate a part of the brain that controls motor skills, improving their performance at skilled tasks.

In the new experiment, Dr Chib and colleagues asked 20 participants to play a game on a Nintendo Wii or Xbox Kinect. The participants performed the task both in front of an audience of two and with no one watching. Their brain activity was monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging (磁共振成像). While people were watching, participants were an average of five percent better at the video game—and as much as 20 percent better. Only two participants didn't perform better in front of others. But if the audience was a lot bigger, and the stakes (赌注) higher, the results could have gone the other way. “Here, people with social anxiety tended to perform better," added Dr Chib. “But at some point, the size of the andience sould increase the size of one's aniery. We still need to figure that out."

The research was published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.