1 . There are many interesting festivals in the world. Some look really strange, but they have special meanings in their culture. Here are several strange festivals in the world.

Holi Festival

Holi is a festival held in India for 16 days in the spring season. In this festival, people in colorful clothes go outside at night to throw colors on each other happily. The story behind this festival is that the god Krishna got jealous(妒忌的) of his wife’s white skin so he went to his mother crying about his dark skin. His mother advised him to color his wife’s face the color he wanted.

Magpie Festival

On the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, Chinese people celebrate an occasion that look like western Valentine’s Day. In this festival, girls who don’t marry pray to have good husbands They also embroider(刺绣) a piece of cloth show their skills because they think it is the most important skill a wife should have.

Day of Death

Day of Death is a festival held in Mexico on the second of November. This day is meant to remember dead family. Homes and streets are decorated in bright colors. People who are dressed in skeletons(骷髅) decorated with flowers and different colors go to visit the graves, dancing and singing here. The festival goes back to American Indians who were keeping their family’s skeletons to honor their memory.

Day of Silence

Day of Silence is the Indonesian new year, and this day is quite important in Indonesia. What features this festival is its unique activities. Everyone keeps silent. People don’t use cars. They don’t go to work and they stop doing anything joyful.

2 . Interesting Space Facts

As time goes by, technological advancements have made us learn more facts about space in the past century than in all time before that. We’ve already searched the universe for the most amazing space facts, including facts about the planets in our solar system, moons, the Milky Way and beyond!     1    

The highest mountain discovered is the Olympus Mons, which is located on Mars. It is 16 miles high, making it nearly 3 times higher than Mount Everest.    2     That’s the size of Arizona !

The sun weighs about 330,000 times more than Earth.    3     In fact, the sun is so huge that it contains 99.85% of all mass in our solar system.

Footprints left on the moon won’t disappear as there is no wind. But wait a minute.

    4     Well, it actually wasn’t blowing. That blowing you see is because of a telescopic horizontal rod (望远镜水平杆) that the astronauts were struggling to remove from the flag’s top.

    5     This is due to the lack of gravity in space causing the vertebrae (椎骨) to expand a little. However, this extra height is lost when they re-enter the earth’s atmosphere and are affected by the earth’s gravity again.

3 . If you live in a big city, you might see trees start budding even before spring officially arrives.

A new article published in the journal Science found that trees in urban areas have started turning green earlier than the rural trees due to cities being hotter and also having more lights.

“I found artificial light in cities acts as an extended daylight and causes earlier spring greening and later autumn leaf coloring,” author Lin Meng said. Meng is a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research collected observations and satellite data from 85 cities in the United States between 2001 and 2014.“ I found trees start to sprout new leaves and turn green six days earlier in cities compared to rural areas,” Meng said.

While the early appearance of spring and longer growing seasons may not seem like a big deal, Meng said there were serious effects on humans and wildlife. For one thing, early budding plants are at risk of spring frost. And changes in the growing season could also lead to an earlier and longer flower season, meaning a higher risk of allergies for humans. Meng also thought that this could lead to a bigger problem if the trees become out of sync with the insects.“ That may result in food shortage and may affect insect development, survival and reproduction,” she said.

Despite the concerns, Meng said it wasn’t all bad news.“ If we have a longer growing season, trees would absorb more carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere,” she said. “ They’d have a longer period to do the cooling effect that can help reduce the heating effect in cities.” In terms of solutions, Meng said that cutting artificial light would reduce harm done to trees and that if light pollution was removed, early tree greening could be changed.

4 . Scientists have created a kind of amazing battery. The paper-thin batteries could one day become an environmentally-friendly option for powering smartphones and wearable electronic devices. The Singapore-developed batteries are made up of electrodes printed on both sides of a piece of cellulose paper. Once the battery has run out, it can be buried in soil, where it breaks down completely within a month.

In an experiment, the Singapore team demonstrated how a 4cm x 4cm square of paper battery could power a small electric fan for at least 45 minutes. Bending or twisting the battery did not interrupt the power supply. In another experiment using a 4cm x 4cm battery to power an LED, the scientists showed that despite cutting away parts of the paper battery, the LED remained lit, indicating that cutting does not affect the function of the battery.

The scientists think their paper battery could be integrated into devices such as smart phones that are already on the market, or biomedical sensors for health monitoring.

Professor Fan Hongjin from the research team said,“ Traditional batteries come in a variety of models and sizes, and choosing the right type for your device could be a troublesome process. Through our study, we show a simpler and cheaper way of manufacturing batteries by developing a single large piece of battery that can be cut to desired shapes and sizes without loss of its function. These features make our paper batteries ideal for integration in the types of devices that are gradually being developed.”

Professor Lee Seok Woo from the research team said, “We believe the paper battery we have developed could potentially help with the electronic waste problem, given that our paper battery is friendly to environment and does not require aluminum or plastic. Avoiding the packaging also enables our battery to store a higher amount of energy within a smaller system.”

5 . When it comes to selecting a hiking companion, cats are usually far down on the list. Unless, of course, your name is JJ Yosh. JJ is an adventure filmmaker and social media influencer from Boulder, Colorado. He adopted a cat named Simon from his neighbor a year ago and they’ve been inseparable ever since !

When he adopted Simon, JJ had big plans. He immediately started training the cat to become his sidekick (伙伴) through countless adventures. Luckily, Simon proved to be a quick student who loves the great outdoors just as much as his owner!“ Simon’s favorite places are his backyard hiking spots in Boulder, Colorado,” JJ said.“ He loves exploring the nearby mountains where we have caves and rocks to climb.” While hiking, Simon chose between riding in a backpack and simply resting on JJ’s shoulder. When they camped overnight, they slept in a shared sleeping bag.

There’s nothing Simon wouldn’t do to stay close to his favorite human! Everywhere they go, JJ and Simon get plenty of attention from curious strangers.“ The reaction is usually amazement and surprise that I would be taking a cat into the back country, and that Simon would sit so gracefully on my shoulder like a parrot,” JJ said.

The cat’s owner hopes to encourage more people to train their pets to join them out in the world as well. “On top of getting outside, I want people to realize cats can be just as adventurous as dogs if given the proper training,” he said. This is one of the best romances we have ever seen! Simon and JJ are giving us serious goals. Somehow we think our lazy house cats are a bit too set in their ways to try this, but you never know !

Hello, my name is John Williams. I am an English teacher and I have started an English website that focuses     1     improving your listening and speaking skills.

Each of the online lessons     2     (take) just five to ten minutes each day to complete. You can also store the materials in your computer and study again     3     again at any time. So you’ll learn some new English vocabulary and phrases every day. You’ll also learn correct English     4     (pronounce) which can help you feel more     5     (confidence) in working and making friends in English. I always make sure my online English lessons are short,     6     (interest) and easy to remember. Last year, many people tried my website and     7     (make) rapid progress.

In short, my idea of learning English is that it is best for you     8     (learn) a little each day. I am sure I can help you to improve your English     9     quickly as possible and achieve your different English learning     10     (goal).