【推荐2】When I opened my e-mail the other day, Rachel, a pretty woman, appeared on my computer screen. She greeted me by name and started talking happily. Sometimes she stopped to smile at me or blow a kiss. It was cool, right? In fact, she was reading to me an e-mail from my brother John.

Rachel could be there because of a new technology called Facemail lets you send in a funny way. By using it, your e-mails can be read to the receiver by an attractive person or by a clown. You can download the software at www.Facemail.com without paying. Facemail faces are lively and they can simulate the emotions that you put in you text. For example, type in , and Rachel blows a kiss.

LifeFX, the company that developed the Facemail, is sure there are wide business uses. Why is e-business not so popular now? One of the reasons is that buying online has no human touch. But if you go to the Nike website, and the famous basketball star Michael Jordan greets you by name, serves you, and personally closes the sale, won’t you be happy? Also, if mom can’t be home when kids get back from school, she can leave a note with a voice and picture on the screen to tell them what there is to eat.

It’s true that Facemail makes life easy and fun, but it should be used with care. The clown looks lively and funny at first. But if you choose the clown, put a few rude words in an e-mail and add some angry emotions, you’re got a Psycho mail.

attractive adj.有吸引力的i clown n.小丑 simulate v.模拟 emotion n.表情 Psycho mail n.疯人型邮件

【推荐2】How do you feel when your teacher asks you to work on a group project with other students? Do you like to work together with others or work alone?

The Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, carried out a survey of students’ ability to work together in groups. They found that students who do well on tests by themselves are also likely to be better at working with other people. This finding was true for many countries. Students in Japan, South Korea, Finland and Canada, where test scores are high, also did well in working together to solve problems. But this is not the case for every country. Chinese students, who tend (倾向于) to have high scores as well, displayed just average collaborative (合作的) skills.

“One reason might be that Chinese parents and teachers focus too much on grades,” said Zhao Zhongxin, former vice president of the Chinese Family Education Association. “Students have a lot of exam pressure and they view school as a place for competition.” “However, collaborative skills are very important for preparing students for today’s society,” he added. Luckily, more Chinese parents and teachers are realizing the importance of this and are thinking of ways to help students improve these skills.

Another interesting finding from the PISA survey was that girls tend to be better than boys at working together. They said girls show more positive attitudes towards relationships, which means they are more willing to listen to others’ opinions.

PISA also found that the classroom environment tends to influence how well students collaborate. In classes where there are a lot of activities that require communication, such as class debates, students tend to have better attitudes toward collaborating.

【推荐3】If the population of the earth continues to increase , there will not be enough resources (资源) left to keep life on the planet. We will use up all the oil that drives our cars sooner or later .One possible way to work out the problem, has recently been suggested by an American scientist, Professor Carl Sagan.

Sagan believes that before the earth’s resources are completely used, it will be possible to change the atmosphere of Venus(金星) and create a new world almost as large as Earth itself. The difficulty is that Venus is much hotter than the earth and there is only a little water there.

Sagan suggests that algae organisms(海藻组织) can live in very hot or cold temperatures and at the same time produce oxygen. They should be bred(养殖) in conditions similar to those on Venus. When this has been done, In a short time, the algae will break down the carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon.

When the algae have done their work, the atmosphere will become cooler, but before man can set foot on Venus it will be necessary for the oxygen to produce rain. The surface of the planet will still be too hot for man to land on but the rain will finally fall and in a few years something like earth will be reproduced on Venus.