When I was a kid, my parents and I lived near the forest. They often told me that our family was a team that needed to work together for the household to function smoothly. There was always an abundance of work to do — cooking, cleaning, and walking dogs. I volunteered to walk our dog, Max, who had been adopted one month before. I never dared let this giant dog off the lead (牵狗绳), just in case he took off.

One morning, we were walking along in the forest when Max started pulling on the lead. At first, I was able to hold on despite the wet ground from a recent shower. But the more I tried to stop him pulling, the more it turned into a tug of war. And thanks to the slippery ground, I lost.

Pulling his lead, Max shot off like a bullet, leaving me screaming behind. I chased him but lost my footing and fell face-first into some mud. I stumbled (踉跄) to my feet, but looking ahead, I found him running back towards me. I thought he was going to stop and give me his “Sorry” look. But instead, the dog shot past me and returned after a while.

As soon as we got home, my mother immediately attended to Max with a warm towel and a doggy treat. I thought seeing me stumbling and covered in mud, I would also get a warm cup of tea and a motherly kiss. Instead, I got a very loud lecture about letting the dog loose in the forest.

I felt frustrated. It wasn’t fair that she didn’t understand how difficult it was to control Max. I fought back, “Stop lecturing me! Why is everything my fault?” With these words, I stormed into my bedroom and slammed the door shut.

In the evening, I heard my mother call Max and take him out. It wasn’t long before I heard my mother screaming and the door opening again.

I walked out of my room.

Dad stepped in, suggesting that we work together to train Max.

3 . Some of our planet’s power pollinators (传粉昆虫) may have originated tens of millions of years earlier than scientists once believed. In a study published July 27 in the journal Current Biology, a team of researchers traced bee family back over 120 million years to the ancient supercontinent Gondwana (冈瓦纳大陆). While looking deeper into bee history, the team found evidence that bees originated earlier, diversified faster, and spread wider than previously suspected, putting together pieces of a puzzle on the origin of these pollinators.

In the study, an international team of scientists would be in sequence and compared genes from over 200 bee species. They then compared these bees with the traits from 185 different bee fossils and extinct fossils to develop an evolutionary history and genealogical model for how bees have historically been spread around the world. The team was able to analyze hundreds of thousands of genes at a time to make sure that the relationships they inferred were correct.

“This is the first time we have broad genome-scale data for all seven bee families,” study co-author and Washington State University entomologist Elizabeth Murray confidently said in a statement. Earlier studies established that the first bees potentially evolved from wasps (黄蜂), transitioning from predators up to collectors of pollen and nectar (花蜜). According to this study, bees arose in the dry regions of western Gondwana during the early Cretaceous period, between 145 million years ago to 100.5 million years ago.

“There’s been a long-time puzzle about the origin of bees,” study co-author and Washington State University entomologist Silas Bossert said in a statement. “For the first time, we have statistical evidence that bees originated on Gondwana. We now know that bees are originally southern hemisphere insects.” The team found evidence that as new continents formed, the bees moved northward. They continued to diversify and spread in parallel partnership with flowering plants called angiosperms. The bees later moved into India and Australia and all major bee families appear to have split off from one another before the beginning of the Tertiary period (65million years ago).

It was a hot day. The sun scorched (炙烤) down and everywhere you looked, you could see the heat waves blowing above the sand. John rolled over, realizing that half of his body was well and truly burnt. He had not meant to sleep in the sun but the heat and late nights studying for his examinations made him miserable. Stretching, he got to his feet, picked up his surfboard and looked around. The beach, which had earlier been crowded in the sun, was now comparatively empty. Seagulls flew down to clean up the food of people’s picnic lunches.

The ice-cream van had gone, and so were the lifeguards who were doing first aid on the beach. John looked up to where the sun was and estimated it was about five o’clock. Time to head home. It was “Mum’s Kitchen Rule” that had him moving homewards. If he did not get home in time for dinner, he would go hungry. Wandering along the water’s edge, he happened to glance out to sea. What made him look up at that particular moment, he never knew, but it was the right time for the swimmer he spotted. His hand was up, signaling distress (险情) and he was calling out something.

Quickly John glanced around the beach — no one else was close enough to help the man, and crucially, no one had noticed. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted “Help” to get the attention of other people on the beach. Someone waved back to him and John pointed to the swimmer. “Get help,” he shouted. Then without hesitation, he jumped into the sea with his surfboard. John was a strong swimmer and had a good skill for distance swimming. His coach had tried hard to persuade him to go into competitions but he was not interested.

Now he was swimming for more than enjoyment or medals.

Fortunately, the sea was not rough and there was no wave.

People think animals are stupid, that they don’t understand kindness and that they can’t feel trust, or gratitude, or love. But I know they’re wrong and I have the evidence I need. It happened on a winter night, when a duck climbed up the stairs to save his sister.

That day, the temperature had suddenly dropped sharply, with cold winds blowing strongly and big snow falling. It wasn’t until late afternoon that we remembered our two ducks were still at our poorly built small farm. “Have they died due to the cold?” we wondered, worried.

My mother and I hurried to the farm and luckily found they were still alive. Their body was covered with snow; they were too cold to even quack. They stayed close together for warmth. We decided to take them home. Once back in the warm house, we made a nest for them in the basement, using newspaper and towels, and brought them food and water. The ducks gathered together in the warm basement. Near their nest, there were fishing nets we had carelessly left. We didn’t realize that could be a danger to them.

We just decided to leave the ducks alone to warm up and recover. We knew they had enough food and water, so we didn’t go down to the basement again that afternoon. That evening we were reading by the fire in the living room when we heard a strange sound coming from the basement. There was kind of a strange noise, then a pause (停顿), and then the strange sound again-over and over.

“Could that be the ducks?” my mother asked my father. Curious about that, we stood up and went to find out. It was indeed the ducks- at least one of them. We found the duck brother was standing on the second-highest step, beating his wings for balance. He gathered his strength and made the difficult leap to the highest step, the source of the strange noise

When he saw us, he stayed there and started quacking (呱呱叫) crazily and beating his wings.

To free the duck sister from the fishing nets, I rushed upwards to bring scissors.