The winter vacation (假期) this year is coming soon. What do you want to do during the vacation? Do you want to watch TV? Do you want to play?     1     I hope you can have a meaningful vacation.     2    

About study

During the winter vacation, you will have a lot of free time for the three things.     3     Second, study some new lessons of the next term. Third, do your homework for two hours a day.

About food

    4     So you must eat some healthy food. When you see so much delicious food in the New Year, you must eat well. Please eat more green vegetables.

About sports

Eating is a good thing.     5     Just go out and play sports with your family or friends for fun and health.

If you follow these good tips, I believe you will have a great winter vacation

Five Rules to Have a Healthy Life

Thanks to better health care, many people are living healthier, longer lives. Someone who is born today can expect to live 25 years longer than someone who was born in the 19th century. It’s even thought that in the future more and more people will celebrate their hundredth birthday.     1    

Get off the sofa

Sure, it’s comfortable to sit on the sofa and watch TV. But experts say you should get off the sofa.     2     In the past, people’s jobs required more physical effort. When farmers were working in the fields, they were keeping fit at the same time. Think about it: do you get the same amount of exercise today as they did in the past?

Eat healthy food

It’s important to eat food that is fresh and natural, for example, fruit and vegetables.     3     You should only have it once in a while. Eating too much of the wrong food will harm your health. The bad diet means you’ll put on weight, one of the fastest ways to an unhealthy life.

Rest while you can

When we were babies, we slept for much of the day. Teenagers don’t need as much sleep as babies,     4     On weekends, you’ve got more time, so use it not just for your friends, but for rest, too.

Don’t worry. Be happy

Many people believe that happiness is important for our general health. Sometimes it is not easy to be a teenager because of the difficulties of school, exams or friendships. If you are worried about something, talk to your parents or teachers.

Say “no” to smoking

Yes, you knew I was going to say this! But it’s so important.     5     It’s dangerous. It harms nearly every part of your body. Think about how your family and friends will feel, and think about what it will do to your health.

【推荐1】A tiny fly (苍蝇) moves across a plant’s leaf. Suddenly, the two parts of the leaf close. The unlucky fly is kept in it and can’ t go out. Now it becomes food for the plant. What kind of plant is it? The Venus flytrap!

It is a kind of meat-eating plant. It grows in very few places, such as wetlands near the coast of North Carolina in America.

The Venus flytrap is not a large plant. It grows to be only about a foot tall. The plant has white flowers in spring, but it is the plant’ s leaves that make it so interesting. The ends of the leaves have folding parts with stiff, tiny hairs (带小硬刺的可折叠部分) . These are the plant’s “traps (捕捉器)”.

What does the Venus flytrap eat? As you might guess, the Venus flytrap eats flies. The Venus flytrap makes most of its food with sun, air, and water, just like other plants. Living things just give it extra nutrition (营养) to grow well in wetlands.

How does this plant trap and eat living things? The Venus flytrap uses a sweet liquid (液体) to attract its food. When a fly lands on one of the plant’s open traps, hairs on the surface make the trap closed. The fly cannot get out. The leaf presses the fly until it is dead. What happens next? The plant takes in (吸收) nutrition from the food, just as your body does. When this happens, the leaf turns red. After about 10 days, the leaf opens. The trap is ready again.

If you want to have your own Venus flytrap at home, you have to buy the plant from a special place. You can’ t take a Venus flytrap from where it grows! There are laws about taking it out of the wild.

【推荐2】Researchers at China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, a State-owned defense contractor, have developed and made the world’s first robot whale shark（鲸鲨）.

The robotic shark has been on display in an aquarium（水族馆）at Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park since January.

A whale shark is a slow-moving carpet shark and the largest known living fish.

Designed and built by engineers at the Shenyang-based No 111 Factory, the underwater robot is 4.7 meters long, weighs 350 kilograms and can move 42 meters a minute.

Powered by a lithium battery, it can swim, turn, float and dive like a real shark by moving its mechanical fins（鳍）. The mouth and gills（鳃）can also open and close like a shark’s. The biomimetic shark is made of sensors（传感器）, multi-joint fins, batteries, and systems which enable it to avoid what’s in the way in all directions.

“The robot can reach a depth of 10 meters and work for as long as 10 hours,” said Fang Xuelin, a senior researcher in charge of the robot shark program.

“The shark can be remotely controlled and can also swim based on preset programs or its own sensors,” he said.

“We have built multiple kinds of robot fishes, and the robotic whale shark is the largest mechanical fish we have made so far,” Fang added. “Our robots are to serve three purposes—to perform in aquariums for entertainment, spread knowledge about the sea and aquatic（水生的）animals among youngsters, and carry out scientific tasks such as hydrological surveys, underwater photography and environmental inspection.”

“The factory now plans to develop more types of aquatic robots, including some extinct mammals（哺乳动物）, for display in parks and schools. It will also promote the products to businesses engaged in fields such as underwater salvage and mineral prospecting,” he said.

【推荐3】Have you ever had trouble sleeping in a new place?

Lots of people do. And now researchers from Brown University in Rhode Island think they know why. They found that one half of the brain “remains more awake” than the other half when people are trying to sleep in a new place.

The findings were reported in Current Biology by Brown University. In their report, the researchers said many people say they have a harder time sleeping the first night at a hotel or other places outside their homes. They call it “first-night influence”. “In Japan, they say if you change your bed, you can’t sleep.” said Yuka Sasaki, one of the reporters.

The researchers measured (测量) brain waves for 35 volunteers over two nights in a laboratory. The two nights were a week apart (间隔). They found during the first night the left half of the brain was more active than the right half. This was during the first deep-sleep period, the researchers said.

Sasaki said a lot of questions still remain. Researchers did not keep measuring brain waves all night long. So they don’t know if the left half keeps “watch” all night, or whether it “works in shifts (轮换) with the right half later in the night”. They also do not know why brain activity, at least during the first period of deep sleep, is always on the left half.

For some, this research may be calming. It is good to know that our brain is “looking out for us” in a new place. But it may not help with sleep. That brain activity, at least according to this new research, makes it harder to get the sleep people wake up feeling well-rested in the morning.

It could almost be an act from a funny cartoon: A marmot (土拨鼠) jumps up with its mouth open in great surprise and stands on one foot. What was happening to the little one? A fox (狐狸) drew close silently from behind and was about to catch it!

This amazing picture, named "The Moment" was taken by Chinese photographer Yongqing Bao. It has won him the prize as Wildlife Photographer of the Year. He took the picture on a grassland in China's Qilian Mountains in early spring.

People say it's a powerful picture of both humor and horror! It includes the fun and danger of nature. For a photograph, it is quite simply the perfect moment.

In fact, Bao had watched the two animals for some time. Around an hour earlier before he caught the act, the marmot had noticed the fox. But it didn't find the fox lie low and still. Believing there was no risk of being seen, the marmot finally came out to find food. In a very short while, the fox ran forward. Thanks to his quick response (反应)，Bao was able to record nature's final match—a fight for living.

【推荐2】If you live in the United States, according to the law you can’t have a full-time job until you’re 16 years old. At the age of 14 or 15, you can do part-time jobs after school or on weekends. During summer, you can work 40 hours each week if you have a part-time job. Kids who are between the ages of 10-13 can do certain types of farm jobs, with their parents’ permission.

Does all that mean that if you’re younger than 14, you can’t make some real money of your own? Of course not! Here are some teenagers’ ideas.

Some teenagers make money through hard work. “I look after younger children or do some gardening for the neighborhood,” says Justin, an 11 -year-old boy. Jenny is 11 years old as well. She tells us that she makes some pocket money by cleaning up yards for others.

Some of teenagers are using their creativity to make money! Lena is 13 years old. She makes money by making dog sweaters and selling them to her neighbors. Ann is one year younger than Lena. She says, “When I started taking art classes and showing my work to people, they said they would pay me to draw pictures for them.” Jasmine is 13 years old. She even writes articles and book reviews for different magazines!

【推荐3】We sometimes say the lion is "the king of the forest" because it is stronger and more dangerous than the other animals. It can run faster than most other animals and it can hunt other beasts. It is said that the lion is the highest animal in the land food chain（食物链）. In the sea, people say the shark is at the top of the food chain. I can swim faster than most of the other sea animals. It can also use its big teeth to catch other sea animals and eat them.

What is at the top of the world’s food chain? Human beings!We are not the biggest or fastest but we are the cleverest. We could not run faster than most animals, so we invented（发明）cars. We could not fight better than a lion, so we invented guns. Now we can hunt the beasts.

People’s inventions are clever, but they can be dangerous, too. For example, people used guns to kill a lot of wild wolves. The wild wolves usually eat sheep.

But in recent（近来）years, the number of wild rabbits is becoming larger and larger because the number of wild wolves is getting smaller and smaller. The wild rabbits competed（竞争）for the grass with the sheep and the cows. Much of the grassland became desert because the grass was eaten by the rabbits.

Remember that we are a part of the food chain, so we are in danger, too! If we love animals, we are loving ourselves.