【推荐2】Health officials in Canada are very busy these days. They are placing chickens at fixed points all along their border with the United States of America. That’s an enormous distance of 2,500 km.

It’s not a practical joke, nor have the Canadians gone mad. They are using these chickens to see if the deadly West Nile virus is lurking around. The virus infects birds, so they think that the chickens have a good chance of catching the virus. Or the virus will catch the chickens.

Countries around the world are realizing something important. That it may just be possible to stop certain kinds of people from entering their land, but it is very difficult to try and stop viruses that travel from one end of the earth to another. When they travel to new places, they adjust very easily to those climates and sometimes start destroying the local plant and animal life. These biological polluters are called smart polluters.

These smart polluters can be carried across borders of countries unknowingly. Just as we humans are travelling across the globe more often than earlier, these biological polluters have also started journeying much more. They slide into aircraft through their wheels. They bore their way into objects that air travelers may be carrying from one country to another.

Suddenly, a lot of things become clearer. Like why the customs officials in many foreign countries prevent you from bringing in a small plant, or a decorative item made of wood that is in its natural form… They tell you that it’s in the rules.

They have these rules because they know that these varieties of plants that are special to specific places have the power to spread new diseases among native plants and animals. They are called biological polluters and they always create problems in places where they do not belong. They could be special varieties of plants, bugs or even animals.

【推荐1】Art museums are places where people can learn about various cultures. The increasingly popular “design museums” that are opening today, however, perform quite a different role. Unlike most art museums, the design museums show objects that are easily found by the general public. These museums sometimes even place things like fridges and washing machines in the centre of the hall.

People have argued that design museums are often made use of as advertisements for new industrial technology. But their role is not simply a matter of sales — it's the honouring of excellently invented products. The difference between the window of a department store and the showcase(玻璃陈列柜) in a design museum is that the first tries to sell you something, while the second tells you the success of a sale.

One advantage of design museums is that they are places where people feel familiar with the exhibits. Unlike the average art museum visitors, design museum visitors seldom feel frightened or puzzled. This is partly because design museums clearly show how and why mass-produced products work and look as they do, and how design has improved the quality of our lives.Art museum exhibits, on the other hand, would most probably fill visitors with a feeling that there is something beyond their understanding.

In recent years, several new design museums have opened their doors. Each of these museums has tried to satisfy the public’s growing interest in the field with new ideas. London's Design Museum, for example, shows a collection of mass-produced objects from Zippo lighters to electric typewriters to a group of Italian fish-tins.The choices open to design museums seem far less strict than those to art museums, and visitors may also sense the humorous part of our society while walking around the exhibits.

【推荐2】She is widely seen as proof that good looks can last forever. But, at nearly 500   years   of age, time   is catching up with the Mona Lisa.

The   health   of   the   famous picture, painted by Leonardo da Vinci in 1505, is getting worse by the year, according to the Louvre Museum where it is housed.

“The thin, wooden panel on which the Mona Lisa is painted in oil has changed shape since experts checked it two years ago，”the museum said.Visitors have noticed changes, but repairing the world’s most famous painting is not easy.Experts are not sure about the materials the Italian artist used and their current (现在的) chemical state.

Nearly 6 million people go to see the Mona Lisa every year, many attracted by the mystery of her smile.“It’s very interesting that when you’re not looking at her, she seems to be smiling, and then, you look at her and she stops，”said Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University.“It’s because direct vision (视觉) is excellent at picking up detail, but less suited to looking at shadows.Da Vinci painted the smile in shadows.”

However, the actual history of the Mona Lisa is just as mysterious as the smile.Da Vinci himself loved it so much that he always carried it with him, until it was eventually sold to France’s King Francis Ⅰ in 1519.

In 1911, the painting   was   stolen   from   the   Louvre Museum by a former employee, who took it out of the museum hidden under his coat.He said he planned to return it to Italy.The painting was sent back to France two years later.

During World War Ⅱ， French men hid the painting in small towns to keep it out of the hands of German forces.

Like many old ladies, the Mona Lisa   has some interesting stories to tell.

【推荐3】This year, the Paris museum that looks like a jumble (杂乱的一堆) of giant, coloured pipes turns 40. The museum—the Pompidou Centre—has a secure place in the heart of Paris and in Parisians’ hearts. But it isn’t always the case.

“When it was first built, the reaction was one of disbelief,” said Serge Lasvignes, president of the Pompidou Centre. “Le Monde newspaper wrote the museum’s construction brought shame on Paris, and city politicians thought their money had been totally wasted,” said Lasvignes. Critics said it looked like an oil refinery (炼油厂).

France’s first museum entirely devoted to contemporary art saw the light of day thanks to the determination of one man—Georges Pompidou, an art-lover who served as France’s president from 1969 to 1974.

In 1971, he started an international competition to build the museum, originally known as the Centre Beaubourg. The winning team, which included three young architects from Britain and Italy, was completely unknown at the time. Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, the two architects who saw the project through, made the plan a reality.

“They didn’t think they had a chance to win. So they thought they might as well do exactly what they wanted,” Lasvignes said.

“The design took everyone by surprise and it was completely different from any other museum. Someone said to Piano, ‘Your thing is terrible—with the escalator (自动扶梯) on the outside, it looks like a supermarket!’” Lasvignes added.

Forty years later, the museum still tries to make culture available to everyone, Lasvignes said. He calls the Pompidou Centre a museum like no other. “We are not only a museum,” he said. “We have concerts, debates, performances, a library…and everything flows together.” Pompidou felt putting up walls between different forms of art was harmful. “So we are a house of culture where people return again and again,” Lasvignes said.

The Pompidou Centre is Europe’s biggest modern art museum; New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is the biggest in the world. “But the two museums have totally different strategies (策略),” Lasvignes said. “The MoMA’s strategy is to collect masterpieces, and we try to represent an entire epoch (时代).”

【推荐2】Music is an international language. The songs that are sung or played by instruments are beautiful to all people everywhere.

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 streets.

Adult drivers listen to music on the car radio as they drive to work. They also listen to the news about sports, the weather, politics, and activities of the American people. Most of the radio broadcast is music.

Pop or popular music singers make much money. They make a CD or tape which radio stations use in every state. Once the popular singer is heard throughout the country, young people buy his or her tapes. Some of the money from these tapes comes 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. One is called folk music. It tells stories about the common life of Americans. Another is called western or country music. This was started by cowboys 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.

Serious music for the concert halls is called classical music. Music for instruments is called orchestral music, such as the symphonies of Beethoven. There is opera for singers. There is ballet for dancers like the story of “Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai” in China.