1 . Have you ever seen lions dancing in the streets? The lions dance to the beat of a drum. Of course, they are not real lions. They are dancers in lion costumes. Lion dancing first started in China centuries ago. It is meant to bring good luck in the coming year.

Usually, a lion is made up of two dancers. One dancer controls the head. The other controls the tail.

“I think of it as a sport,” says Anthony Huang, aged 16. He is a member of the New York Chinese Freemasons Athletic Club. Anthony performs as the lion’s head. It can weigh 20 pounds. Lion dancing is important to Anthony .“This tradition really lifts me up,” he says.

In the past, lion dancing was performed mostly by men. But it is different today. Lion Dance Me is a lion dancing group in San Francisco, California. There are boys and girls in its team. They dance together.

“Anyone can take up lion dancing. You have to believe that you can do it,” says Ananda Tang-Lee, a 17-year-old girl.

Lion dancing will continue to evolve. But team’s sense of community will never change. “We call it a family,” Ananda says .“It’s real great, because we always have each other’s backs.”

3 .

Chinese writer Hai Ya’s The Space-Time Painter won the Hugo Award (雨果奖) for Best Novelette (中篇小说) in October 2023. He became the third Chinese writer to win a Hugo Award after Liu Cixin in 2015 and Hao Jingfang in 2016.

Hai Ya got the idea of his work from a painting called Qianli Jiangshan Tu. Wang Ximeng from the Song Dynasty painted the work at the age of 18.

Modeled on (以……为原型) the life of Wang, Hai Ya created the character of an excellent painter Zhao Ximeng. Zhao painted for an emperor more than 1,000 years ago. One day, the painter’s mind left his physical body and went into a special space. There a modern police officer was working on a case having to do with a very old painting.

The Space-Time Painter tells about the political upheavals (政治动乱) of the time when the painting was created. We can find traditional Chinese culture, history, speculative elements (推理元素) and science fiction in Hai Ya’s work.

Hai, 33, developed an interest in science fiction when he was very young and started writing at university. Now, he works in Shenzhen. “I’m really surprised and very lucky. It’s like a dream come true,” said Hai Ya.

5 . Does it really matter if we know how old animals are? To many scientists, it does.

When studying animal populations, it is of great importance to scientists to know how many animals there are and how old they are. This information can help scientists learn which animals are thriving and which ones need more care and help. Scientists usually use the following ways to tell animals’ age.

For many animals, their teeth can help scientists know their age. In some animals, some teeth don’t come in until a certain age. Take cows for example. Like humans, cows have two sets of teeth, milk teeth and permanent teeth. They normally get their first pair of permanent teeth when they’re two years old. Then they have the next pair at the age of three, the third pair at the age of four...

Hair and skin can also provide information about age. Some animals tend to get bad skin and gray hair as they get older. If you have an older dog, you may have noticed that its nose and mouth get grayer as it gets older.

Animals’ eyes and ears might also help scientists tell animals’ age. As animals get older, their hearing often becomes weak and their eyesight might begin to fail.

Scientists are continuing to discover new and more ways of telling the age of animals. Recently, scientists have learned that ______. That’s really good news!

6 . There is a saying that “earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do.” It seems sadly true. Thousands of people died under bricks (砖块) of the damaged (毁坏的) buildings during the recent earthquakes. Is there a way to build earthquake-proof (抗震) buildings? Engineers have some life-saving ideas.

“Lift” the house up

To prevent earthquake waves from going through the building, one way is to “lift” the building’s foundation above the ground. The building can be built on top of pads (垫状物), which are usually made up of steel and rubber. During earthquakes, only the pads move and the building stays steady (平稳的). This can reduce the strength of earthquake waves by 13 to 15 percent, according to the website Bethinking the Future.

Right materials

Earthquake-proof materials must be easy to bend (弯曲) without breaking. Some of these materials include steel, wood and bamboo. In Japan, most traditional houses are built with wood. During earthquakes, wooden buildings bend to avoid building up stress. Steel is one of the main materials of modern tall buildings because it can increase their ductility (延展性).

Dome house

A Japanese company has made dome-shaped houses with styrofoam. Styrofoam is a very light material. The whole house weighs only 80 kilograms. So when earthquakes happen, the house will not hurt people.

Besides, there are many other good ideas on building earthquake-proof buildings. For example, a company in America is developing magnetic field (磁场) technology that can raise houses above ground when earthquakes happen. We hope these ideas can be put in action and more people’s lives can be saved.

Animals are natural resources (自然资源) that people have wasted all through our history. Animals have been killed for their fur and feather, for food, for sport, and simply because they were in the way. Thousands of kinds of animals have disappeared from the earth forever. Hundreds more are on the danger list today. About 170 kinds in the United States alone are considered in danger.

Why should people care? Because we need animals, and because once they are gone, there will never be any more. Animals are more than just beautiful or interesting. They are more than just a source of food. Every animal has its place in the balance of nature. Destroying one kind of animal can cause many problems. For example, when farmers killed large numbers of hawks (鹰), the farmers’ stores of corn and grain were destroyed by rats and mice. Why? Because hawks eat rats and mice, with no hawks to keep down their numbers, the rats and mice multiplied quickly.

Luckily, some people are working to help save animals. Some groups raise money to let people know about the problem. And they try to get the governments to pass laws protecting animals in danger. However, only 12 countries have passed laws. Slowly, the number of some animals in danger is growing.

Running is free, you can do it almost anywhere and it has many advantages. Suitable for adults and children, it can improve your fitness, reduce your risk of illness and help to have a healthy active lifestyle. If you’ve never been a runner and are thinking of giving it a try, there are a few useful tips.

Goals   Set yourself goals of time, times or miles. You don’t need to take part in a competition. Sometimes, competing with yourself can be just as much of an exciting challenge.

Clubs and teammates   Run with a friend or local group. Most clubs meet the demands for all ages and ability levels, including beginners. According to research, you’re more likely to keep on exercise if you do with someone else.

Diary   Keep a training note of your runs. This could include as much or as little detail as you like. You could write your route (路线), distance, time and feeling. If you feel like you’re not making as much progress as you wanted, look back over your past achievements!

Variety (变化)   Mix up your routes and distances to avoid being boring. Doing other forms of exercise is known as cross-training. Swimming and cycling are other great ideas to support and improve your running, as well as being enjoyable exercise too.