【推荐2】Imagine a family is having dinner at a restaurant. What are they doing? Maybe they are eating and drinking. More possibly, they are looking at their own phones and ignoring (忽视) one another. These days, this is a very common scene and there is a word for it: phubbing.

Phubbing is an ordinary part of modern life. When a conversation gets boring, we turn to our phones. Often, people are using their phones to chat with other people or look at past memories. It’s funny. They could be chatting and making memories with the people next to them. But most of the time, they are losing themselves in an unreal world alone. That is not a good thing.

A study says that phubbing may ruin our relationships. When married people become phubbers, their relationship stops satisfying them and they may argue more. Phubbing hurts friendship, too. People say their phubbing friends don’t really respect them.

But why do people become phubbing? It’s because there’s a whole world inside our phones. That world’s pull is very strong. It’s almost like a drug. People can’t control themselves, so it’s hard to blame (责备) them for phubbing.

If others ignore you, be patient with them. Remind them to put their phones down and talk to you. You should pay attention to your phubbing habits, too. If you spend more time on your phone, stop. Put your phone away, look at the people beside you, listen to them and have fun with them.

【推荐3】El Nino is a natural phenomenon(现象). It appears(出现) when sea surface temperatures(温度) in the tropical (热带的) Pacific Ocean rise to above-normal levels for a long time. El Nino causes different weather in different parts of the world. It causes a lot of rain in some places and droughts in other places.

In normal weather conditions, warm winds from South America blow from east to west across the Pacific Ocean. The winds take storms to Australia and these storms bring rain to Australia.

During an El Nino period, the winds change direction（方向）. They blow from west to east across the Pacific Ocean. The storms no longer move across Australia. So Australia gets very little rain during El Nino.

A very serious drought began in Australia in January, 1982. El Nino often happens at this time of year. But that year, El Nino was stronger than usual. There was very little rainfall in eastern Australia. There was also very little water in the rivers. The drought was at its worst in February, 1983. At that time, the weather was very hot. The forests and fields were very dry. Rice couldn’t grow. Sheep farmers had no grass for their animals to eat.

So many of them died. Because the forests were dry. Forest fires started quickly. Some of the fires burned for a month. Many forests were burnt to the ground. Over 2,000 people lost their houses in the fires and 75 people died.

This drought cost the country over $3,000,000,000. It reminded Australians of how the weather could change their lives.

【推荐3】In the southern part of the Africa, just north of South Africa, there is a country called Botswana. And in the northwest corner of Botswana is a very unusual area: the Okavango Delta. Delta is usually in the place where a river goes into a large body of water—a lake or sea—and slows down. Over many years, the slowing river drops so much silt (泥沙) at its mouth. As the silt builds up, a fan-shaped area of new land, the delta, appears. An example of such a delta is the great Nile Delta in Egypt.

What makes the Okavango Delta so unusual is that the Okavango River doesn’t go into a larger body of water. After fanning out into many different small waterways and wetlands across the delta, the river simply disappears, either straightly into air or through the leaves (叶子) of the plants growing there. If the Okavango River didn’t end in a delta, this area would simply be a very dry part of the Kalahari Desert. But the river fans out, watering thousands of square kilometers. Much of the Okavango Delta is under good protection and is home to a lot of plant and animal life.

Few people live in the delta, and tourism is in good careful control. Visitors come only by air in small groups and stay in tents or small wooden houses. Some different safari companies have rights to operate (经营) in certain areas in the delta. With the help of these companies the delta goes better and better.

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