Have you ever seen a squid (乌贼) before?     1     You may have even seen one in the ocean on a family vacation. There are a lot of fantastic things to know about squids. Let’s take a closer look together!

Squids belong to a group of ocean animals called “mollusks (软体动物)”. That’s because squids do not have bones.     2     Squids’ bodies are long, but their heads are very short. Around its mouth, there are eight arms and two long tentacles (触须).

Do you know where squids live? Well, squids live in both salt water and fresh water.     3     Some can be found more than 13,000 feet (3,962 meters) deep. But sometimes they like to swim in shallow waters, or even along the coast.

Do you know what squids eat? Squids are carnivores (肉食动物).     4     They eat lots of fish. Sometimes they even eat smaller squids.

You might be surprised to know that squids do not live a very long life. No matter what their size is or what they eat, the average lifespan (平均寿命) of a squid is only about three to five years.

    5     There could be as many as 200 more types that we still have to discover.

【推荐2】To-wit-to-woo, to-wit-to-woo! What’s that strange sound coming from the forest in the moonlight? It’s an owl, of course!

All day long, seated comfortably on a tree, the owl is sleeping or at least he’s trying to snooze, because it’s sometimes hard to close the eyes with all the sounds made by the little birds and animals in the forest! The owl hunts only at night. When evening comes, the animals all get to a safe place. The owl opens its big, round eyes. Any little animal around had better watch out! The owl mostly eats small animals like mice, but it wouldn’t say no to another bird, if it gets the chance!

The owl uses its fantastic hearing to find its food, and then it turns its head from side to side, using its sharp eyes to follow the animal. Finally, it flies down to get the animal. Owls have special, soft feathers, so they can fly without making any sound. Owls are such good hunters that they can even catch a fly in the air!

The owl is quiet most of the time, except when you get too close to its home. The owl is a great mother, who will protect her babies by opening her feathers angrily. An owl will even hurt people if she thinks her babies are in danger!

An owl has no teeth, so it eats an animal whole. All the parts of the animal that the owl can’t digest (消化) will end up as small pieces. If you find these small pieces, you know you are near an owl’s home.

We can see the giraffe in the zoo. The wild giraffe lives in Africa.     1    . Here’s an introduction about the giraffe.

★    2    ?   

The giraffe is famous for its long neck. It also has spots (斑点) on is body. The giraffe has a long tongue (舌头). It uses its tongue to clean bugs (小虫) off its face.

★Does the giraffe have a big heart?   

Yes, it does.     3    . How much does its heart weigh? Let me tell you. Its heart can weigh about 24 pounds!

★    4    ?   

The giraffe eats tree leaves. It is very tall and it eats leaves high u on trees.

★Can the giraffe run fast?   

The giraffe has long strong legs. It can run very fast.     5    . It’s said that it can run at about 55 kilometers per hour.

【推荐1】①Have you watched the recent TV Three-Body? Changed by Liu Cixin’s science book The Three-Body Problem, the show is very popular with people. One of the most exciting part must be Operation Guzheng(“古筝行动”).

②In order to find the important information on a huge ship, people plan to cut the ship into pieces. They set up many thin strings(线) across the river, which are made by high technology. Looking like Guzheng, the strings quietly cut the steel ship into pieces as if the ship was soft tofu!

③Is it possible to cut ships with thin strings in real life? In fact, strings are very good at cutting. For example, the egg cutting machine uses thin strings to cut eggs into pieces. A kite line can easily hurt people if it gets circle around their necks. This is because the thin strings have a very small contact area(接触面积), leading to a high intensity of pressure(压强) when they cut things.

④In the program, the strings are as thin as human hair. To cut the ship, the pressure needs to be 200 MPa(兆帕斯卡，压强单位). How strong is that pressure? Imagine an elephant standing on a string! In real life, scientists won’t be able to make such thin strings that wouldn’t easily break, at least for years to come. The cutting will also create lots of heat. We don’t have the things to bear that high temperature while it’s also thin enough to cut through. It’s still far away from the technology in the program.