From a plane we can see the fields, cities, mountains or seas below.     1    . People and man-made satellites have been sent out into space to observe the Earth carefully and people have learnt more about the Earth in the last few years.

    2    . But it can be very terrible when there is a strong wind.

The sea is very huge. It’s nearly covers three quarters of the Earth. The sea is also very deep in some places.     3    . The highest mountain in the world is about 9 kilometers high. If that mountain was put into the sea at that place, there would be still 2 kilometers of water above it!

In most parts of the sea, there are many kinds of fishes and plants.     4    . Others live deep down. There are also a lot of small living things, and quantities of fishes live by eating them.

The sea can be very cold. When people go down, the sea becomes colder and colder.     5    . But in 1970, five women scientists lived in the deep sea for fourteen days.

【推荐3】“Bing Dwen Dwen” and “Shuey Rhon Rhon” are the mascots(吉祥物) for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and the Paralympics(残奥会). Here are their self-introductions.

	Hi! I’m Bing Dwen Dwen. I have a cartoon image(形象) of a panda wearing a spacesuit, which looks like a winter sportsman from the future. “Bing” means “ice” in Chinese, which is a symbol of winter sports. “Dwen Dwen” suggests health and shows the spirit of the Olympics, including a strong mind and a healthy body.
	Hello! My name is Shuey Rhon Rhon. I look like a red lantern, just like the lanterns hanging on homes and streets to celebrate Chinese New Year. On my head are paper cuts of pigeons(鸽子), “Shuey” means “snow” in Chinese. “Rhon Rhon” are two different Chinese characters(象征) communication among different cultures.

The idea behind these two mascots is to connect traditional Chinese culture with the Games. The panda is designed with its modern appearance to show our great expectations for the Games and our welcome to the whole world. The vivid red image of “Rhon Rhon” reminds people of the celebration of China’s Spring Festival.

Are you afraid of going to the dentist (牙医)? If so, you’re not alone.

These fears could just be in our heads, however. According to a recent survey by Martin Tickle, a professor at Manchester University in the UK, the pain isn’t felt most of the time in dental surgeries (牙科手术). In fact, among the 451 interviewed patients, 75 ％ reported no pain at all during their visits, including situations when they had their teeth pulled out.

Could it be the sound of the drill (钻头) then?

“I found that the sound of drilling can evoke deep worry in dental patients. Actually they don’t have any pain.”Hiroyuki Karibe, a scientist at Nippon Dental University in Tokyo, told the Guardian.

To find the reason why a drill might bring on a racing heart, Karibe divided the volunteers into low-fear and high-fear groups based on how much they feared a trip to the dentist. Volunteers were played the sound of a drill while their brain activities were watched by a machine.

What Karibe found in the low-fear group was increased activity in the areas of the brain relative to auditory processing (听觉处理), which means, for these people, the sound of dental drills is no different from other sounds.

In the high-fear group, however, the brain area that was activated (激活) was different. It was the area that carries out a number of duties, including learning, feelings and, most importantly, memory. This means that these volunteers not only heard the sound, but they remembered it—they made connections between the sound of a drill and the worry it produced in the past, causing their worry to return.

Understanding how brains reply to the sounds of dentists’ drills could help scientists find ways to make patients more relaxed, according to Karibe, because patients who worry about going to the dentist might keep putting off their visits. But the best way is to keep your teeth healthy.

【推荐2】There are some very good inventions which, for one reason or another, don’t become popular. These inventions should be better known, even though I think that some of them are crazy. Let’s have a look at some of these inventions and see if you agree that they should be more successful.

The Australians had a great idea to stop people from drinking and driving. The idea was that if a driver wanted to start the car, she or he would have to blow into a bag first. If there was too much alcohol(酒精) in their breath, the car wouldn’t start. It sounded like a great idea to me, but people said that they might need to drive the car in an emergency even if they had drunk too much alcohol. Another idea I liked was an invention by a scientist who thought his children watched too much TV. He linked the TV to an exercise bike so that the electricity to power the TV was generated(产出) by the bike. If the children wanted to watch a lot of TV, they had to pedal(踩踏板) very hard. I found another invention on the Internet which was intended (倾向于) to encourage good habits. Believe it or not, this invention was an ashtray(烟灰缸) which spoke to you when you lit a cigarette! The “voice” of the ashtray was activated (启动) by the heat from the cigarette and reminded you how dangerous it is to smoke.

One of the strangest inventions I have come across is a bicycle which can cross rivers! The idea was that when you came to a river, you could inflate a huge plastic ball all around the bike. You would then get into the ball which would float on the river while you pedaled the bike inside the ball! Why not use a bridge instead? A friend of mine at school once bought a strange pair of football shoes. On the bottom of the shoes there was a rotating pad of studs (转动钉垫). The idea was that you would change direction more quickly if the studs rotated with you. The problem was that every time you stopped you changed direction whether you wanted to or not! I think he wore those shoes twice! One thing I would like is a baseball cap with a built-in radio so you can listen to sport all day with your hands free. While we are on the subject of sport, the Americans invented a kind of robot for sports fans. If you were watching your team on TV on your own, you could press a button and the robot would do “high fives” with you! Fantastic! I wonder if you have any good ideas for inventions like these.

【推荐3】In the mid 1990’s, people started doing business on the Internet. At that time, there were two kinds of companies. First, there were traditional companies which sold things in stores. Then, there were Internet companies which didn’t have stores; they sold things only over the Net.

Traditional companies didn’t want to lose any business. Quickly, they created their own websites and began selling things over the Net. These are the so-called “brick and click”companies. Many stores are made of brick, and you click on your mouse to buy things with your computer. That’s where the name “brick and click” comes from.

By the late 1990’s, e-businesses like Amazon.com, Buy.com, and eToys.com were in trouble. Their profits were not very high, and there was a lot of competition. Many of these businesses lost a lot of money, and in 2000, many e-businesses were out of business.

Why are brick and click companies, like Barnes and Noble, Toys RUs, and Walmart so successful? First, many customers know and trust their names. Their websites, like Walmart.com, are easy to remember. These companies also have a lot of experience. They know how to run a successful business.

In the world of e-commerce(电子商务), companies are fighting for every dollar and every customer. Will brick and click companies win the war? Only time will tell.