How time flies! It is two years since you moved to America for your study.    1    How happy we are! During your staying in America, little companions(小伙伴们) kept complaining, “There is no one to play with.” Huang Lei talked about the little woods where we often played together.    2    Each time I saw your empty house next door, I held back tears. How much I have missed the days when we played in the woods behind our houses, where we dug up some worms, chasing the birds. I still remember we slipped down along the stream, feeling the spray(浪花) on our faces.

After reading your letter, Huang Lei and I came up with an idea. How about our families spending a week’s vacation together this summer?    3    It is located between the downtown of Chunxi and Wulin Town where we used to have fun. July will be the best month for us, so we must enjoy freedom and joy for a long time.    4    

I can’t wait to look forward to the time when we meet again.

Yours

Xiao Mei

【推荐2】Last year on Mother’s Day, someone from our community invited people to share stories about their mothers.

A policeman said his mother took him to the opera in St. Louis on Saturdays. He listened to dialects (方言) he didn’t understand. He grew to love opera. Now every Saturday he listens to a radio station that plays opera in the afternoons, enjoying Italian voices and fondly(深情地) remembering his mom.

A woman shared that she was only 17 months old when her mother died. Her father remarried. She values the things learned from her stepmother — how to keep house clean, cook and care for children. “But it wasn’t a mother’s love,” she said. “If you have a mother and you’ve known a mother’s love, don’t take it for granted.”

An businessman was 9 years old when his mom let him skip（逃课） school on his birthday. The car driver said, “Why aren’t you in school?” “My mom let me skip and is taking me out to lunch for my birthday,” he said. The attendant said, “Your mom loves you like nobody else. Don’t you ever forget that, OK? And take care of your mom!”

Another person shared that when he moved to the US as a young man, his parents did not agree. He came anyway and landed in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He found a roommate, and every weekend they drove to the roommate’s home where his mother had food prepared and waited for them. They’d pick it up and have food for the week. The roommate’s mother became a stand-in (替身) mother with whom he has kept a lifelong connection.

It is good to tell others what your mother, or someone who has helped fill that role, means to you. But if your mother is still living, it might also be good to tell her.

【推荐3】Are you shy? If you are, you are not alone. In fact, close to 50 percent of people are shy. Almost 80 percent of people feel shy at some point in their lives. These days, shyness is becoming more and more common. Now, scientists are trying to understand shyness. They have some interesting ideas about why people are shy.

Is it possible to be born shy? Many scientists say yes. They say 15 to 20 percent of babies behave shyly. These babies are a little quieter and more watchful than other babies. Interestingly, these shy babies usually have shy parents. As a result, scientists think that some shyness is genetic.

Family size might cause people to be shy as well. Scientists at Harvard University studied shy children. They found that 66 percent of them had older brothers and sisters. As a result, they became shy. At the same time, children with no brothers and sisters may be shy as well. Growing up alone, they often play by themselves. They are not able to learn the same social skills as children from big families.

You may also be shy because of where you were born. When scientists studied shyness in different countries. They found surprising differences. In Japan, most people said they were shy. But in Israel, only one of three people said so. What explains the difference? One scientist says the Japanese and Israelis have different opinions of failure. In Japan, when people do not succeed, they feel bad about themselves. They blame (责备) themselves for their failure. In Israel, the opposite is true. Israelis often blame failure on outside reasons, such as family, teachers, friends, or bad luck. In Israel, freedom of opinion and risk taking are strongly supported. This may be why Israelis worry less about failure and are less shy.

For shy people, it can be difficult to make friends, speak in class, and even get a good job. But scientists say you can get over your shyness. They suggest trying new things and practicing conversation. And don’t forget — if you are shy, you are not the only one.

【推荐1】Nature shows itself in many ways. One of the most impressive(令人印象深刻的) forms is a kind of storm known as a hurricane, typhoon or tropical cyclone. These powerful weather events form over water. They are known as hurricanes in the central and eastern North Pacific and the North Atlantic Oceans, typhoons in the Northwest Pacific Ocean and tropical cyclones in the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

The spinning(旋转的) round storms can become powerful, spreading over 900 kilometers across. The winds inside the storms can reach speeds of more than 320 kilometers per hour. The storms also may reach a height of up to 15 kilometers. They spin around a center called the “eye”, which is a calm area with low wind speed. When these storms reach the shore, they are sometimes strong enough to tear trees out of the ground. Heavy rains and large waves often cause flooding and great damage to buildings.

A new study shows that, during the last 70 years, the speed at which these storms move across water and land has been gradually slowing down. As a result, they have been putting more and more rain on land. This has caused increased flooding and loss of life. In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey moved so slowly across the U.S. state of Texas that it was able to put more than 30 inches of rain, leading to great damage.

According to scientists, the reason for these slower-moving storms is atmospheric(大气的) warming. Over the years, the Earth’s atmosphere has been slowly warming up. This has caused air circulation(循环) in the Earth’s atmosphere to weaken. As a result, the winds that push tropical storms along have gotten weaker, so the storms slowed down.

【推荐3】There are places in North America where great cities once stood. There were gardens, trees and grass. But now these places are like deserts. Scientists began to study this land to find out what had happened. Many of them believe the land died when the trees were cut down.

Trees help other plants grow. Tree roots (树根) hold the soil in place. They keep the wind from blowing away the soil. Leaves on the ground keep rainwater from running off. Trees near farms can help to stop strong winds.

Once there were hundreds of farms in the northwest of the US. Then the farms turned into fields of dry land. This was because few trees grow there.

Now we try to save trees. In many places, when a tree is cut down, a new tree is planted in its place. We don’t want the land to die.

【推荐1】The development of science and technology makes a difference to people’s life. The creation of special robots has helped farmers a lot.

The population on the earth grows larger each year. As a result, more and more food needs to be grown in order to feed everyone. Because climate (气候) changes all the time, it’s becoming even more difficult to grow more food. When farmers tried to grow more food in the past, some farming methods were used. However, those farming methods weren’t always healthy for the environment. In fact, they were harmful to the environment sometimes.

Could this problem be solved? Some scientists spent several years talking to farmers. They wanted to see what problems farmers were having and how these problems could be solved. This led to the creation of special robots. These special robots move around on farms and collect information about crops (庄稼). They can take pictures of plants and track (追踪) each plant’s growth.

By collecting information about plants, the robots can help farmers predict the growth of the plants. That means farmers can know how their plants will grow. By studying each plant, the robots can also help farmers look after plants better. For example, if the robots find out which plants get sick, farmers can quickly throw them away before they are about to influence other plants beside them. With the help of these robots, farmers can take better care of the plants in need.

【推荐2】

Zebra crossings can tell drivers that pedestrians (行人) may be trying to get across. A study reported that three out of four drivers kept the same speed as they were coming near a crossing. Even worse, only 5% stopped even when they saw someone trying to get across. Now a mother-daughter team, Thakkar and Pandya, in Ahmedabad, India have thought out a clever way to get drivers to pay more attention—A zebra crossing with an optical illusion (视错觉).

The artists painted these 3-D crosswalks on the highways in Ahmedabad. They wanted to help the city’s residents (居民) to cross the busy roads safely. They had ever seen images of 3-D zebra crossings on the streets in Taizhou, China. They decided to test if their 3-D crosswalks would work in India. Sure enough, in the six months that the 3-D crosswalks have been painted across four of the city’s most dangerous highways, there have been no accidents reported!

It may seem that the zebra-crossing could cause the drivers to brake suddenly, but such is not the case. Because of the way the human eye works, the illusion is only seen from a distance. As they get closer, the painting looks just like any other usual zebra crossing. But since the driver is driving slower, he/she is more likely to stop.

The artists hope that their smart design will become more and more common in India and perhaps even the world.