My favorite color is orange. It is a warm and bright color, and it makes me feel happy and safe. When I        (see) this color, I think of fall. When I go outside, I enjoy       (walk) through the dark orange leaves and listening to the sound they make under my feet. I also think of the smell of fire. It's great to be at home and sit by the warm fire with       (I) family. This warm and beautiful color should be everywhere this season!

    Last year the empty land across from my bus stop was a sad, empty, ugly space, with dead bushes and one short tree. Then some       (gardener) changed that. They were tired of looking at the sad space while they were waiting        the bus, so they made it into a beautiful garden. Now you can see colorful vegetable plants and sweet-smelling flowers. Yellow butterflies fly from plant to plant       (happy), and tiny birds sing in the green trees. I love taking the bus now.

    When the Spanish explorer Cortez reached Mexico in the sixteenth century, he found people there using a drink        was called chocolate. It tasted quite strong because it had pepper in it.        (make) it taste better, the Spanish added sugar. When chocolate first came to Europe in the seventeenth century, people        (start) to drink it with milk, instead of water. Nowadays, tons of chocolate        (deliver) to factories, where they are turned into many popular sweets and cakes.

    After working an inhuman 8-hour shift at a factory unloading(卸货) parts for cheap furniture, I got on the bus, dirty, tired and hot. I 1 that place every day looking like I worked in a coal mine. 2 I still felt a bit proud of myself as I had held this tiring job for 3 months, which was extremely rare. So when I took my seat on the bus going home, I decided my 3 life would not lower my spirit today.

    I was dreaming about a better and new life when I was 4 by our new passenger. She was a middle-aged woman with worn-out clothes and messy hair. She got on, aggressively and 5 pushed her way into a front seat, and then turned her glare and6 on whoever dared to look her way.

    All I could feel for this woman was 7. There was no disgust. Only pity and the familiar knowledge of being faceless, nameless, and 8 to no one. Suddenly, she turned her threatening eyes towards me and very loudly yelled, “Why you so 9 man?”

    With a smile, I said “I just came from work.” She then loudly asked if I worked in hell and broke out in laughter..., so I laughed too—10 her and told her that was funny. Then I asked her her name as I 11 why I was so dirty. Her name was Karen.

    In front of all of us on the bus that day, the power of 12 showed its beauty. In front of all of us this woman 13. Her language, her posture, the tone and lilt of her voice, —even the way she tilted her head when I spoke to her as a 14 changed.

    As Karen was getting off the bus, she touched me15 on the arm. With tear-filled eyes, she asked whether I'd be riding the bus the next day. I promised I 16 We waved to each other and then I got what my life had needed all along: affirmation(认可).

    Everyone on the bus had been watching us and then an old woman spoke to me: “Sir, you just changed that woman with your heart. She will never forget how you17 her. You are great.” Other passengers gave me thumbs-up signs showing their18.

    That day was the first day when I realized I am 19. People say I gave Karen something that day but actually she 20 me so much more. I now work in the field of mental health. I often tell the story of the power of kindness, and I talk about Karen and unlimited possibilities.

    Every month we look at a different artist. We think Haroshi is super cool—he makes sculptures(雕塑) from skateboards.

    Haroshi is in his late 30s. He's a skateboarder but he also makes things from wood. He began skateboarding when he was 15 years old and he loved it. He used to skate every day. Now, if you know anything about skateboarding, you'll know that skateboards don't last forever because they break. But Haroshi didn't throw his out because he was fond of them. Over time he built up a big collection and at the same time he learnt about all the different types of skateboard. Surprisingly, not all skateboards are of the same shape and actually they are often built in different ways. By the time he was 25, he had an enormous collection of old skateboards.

    He decided he had to do something with them so he started to cut them up. As he was doing that, he noticed some interesting patterns in the wood. He then cut more and stuck them on top of each other. The first thing he created from the wood was a piece of jewelry. He created something new from something old.

    Nowadays, however, he is known for his extremely large 3D wooden sculptures. His ideas generally come from skateboarding culture, ranging from skateboarding cats to cool trainers, but also everyday topics such as hurting yourself, getting better, being crazy about something and of course, growing up. All skateboarders will understand these. Haroshi has made over 40 pieces and each piece takes a very long time. There is no doubt that he is very talented but he's had no formal art training. He taught himself.

    Haroshi held an exhibition in London last month and three of us from @teenattack went along. As we entered the first room, we saw a huge bird that covered one wall. It was absolutely enormous! There was also a sculpture called Ordinary life. It looked like a broken leg—a very common problem, of course. It's incredible to think that these sculptures are all made from broken skateboards. But there's something else that is really interesting about Haroshi's work.

    In the twelfth century a sculptor called Unkei placed a glass ball in each of his works to show the heart of the piece. Haroshi also places something inside his sculptures—a piece of broken skateboard. In this way, he gives his sculptures life. We think that is just awesome!

    As global temperatures rise, trees around the world are experiencing longer growing seasons, sometimes as much as three extra weeks a year. All that time helps trees grow faster. For the past 100 years, trees have been experiencing fast growth in temperate regions from Maryland to Finland, to Central Europe, where the growth rate of some trees has even sped up nearly 77% since 1870. Assuming wood is just as strong today, those gains would mean more timber(木材) for building, burning, and storing carbon captured from the atmosphere. But is wood really as dense as it used to be?

    Hans Pretzsch, a forest scientist at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, and his colleagues wanted to find an answer. They carried out a study of the forests of Central Europe. They started with 41 experimental plots in southern Germany, some of which have been continuously monitored since 1870. Pretzsch and his team took core samples from the trees—which included Norway spruce, sessile oak, European beech, and Scots pine—and analyzed the tree rings using a high-frequency probe.

    They found that in all four species, wood density has decreased by 8% to 12%, they report online in Forest Ecology and Management. “We expected a trend of the wood density like this, but not such a strong and significant decrease,” Pretzsch says. Increasing temperatures, and the faster growth they spur, probably account for some of the drop. Another factor, Pretzsch says, is more nitrogen in the soil from agricultural fertilizer(化肥) and vehicle exhaust. Previous studies have linked increased fertilizer use to decreased wood density. Above all, the study suggests that the higher temperatures—combined with pollution from auto exhaust and farms—are making wood weaker, resulting in trees that break more easily and wood that is less durable.

    “I am getting worried,” says Richard Houghton, an ecologist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, who was not part of the new study. As the density of the samples dropped, so did their carbon content, by about 50%. That means forests may suffer more damage from storms and may be less efficient at soaking up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) than scientists had thought, Houghton says.

    The month of March was a milestone for supporters of renewable energy in the U.S. For the first time, wind and solar power accounted for more than 10% of the country's electricity—up from less than 1% at the turn of the century. And total wind and solar power-plant capacity(发电量) is expected to grow more than 30% over the course of this year and next, according to the Energy Information Administration.

    Such forecasts have led many scientists and policymakers to think that moving a large part of the nation's power supply to renewable sources—as cities from Miami Beach to Salt Lake City have promised to do—may not be as far-fetched as once thought. But like any debate, there are dissenters, including those inside the federal government. Their argument is that the nation demands an uninterrupted supply of electricity and cannot count on sun, wind and natural gas to provide it. “You need solid hydrocarbons(固体碳氢化合物) on-site for rising peak demand,” Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt said on Fox Business in May, referring to the importance of coal as a power source.

    Many experts say the government's concern fails to account for how the power grid(电网) has improved in recent decades. Utility companies(公共事业公司) have developed innovative ways to move electricity from place to place to account for variation in weather. Battery technology can store power for use when renewable sources cannot operate, meaning solar power can be used on days when the sun doesn't shine. And the nation's vast supply of natural gas can be turned into usable energy with the flick of a switch.

    “I don't think 5 or 10 years ago I'd be comfortable telling you we could not sacrifice reliability when we're going to have 35% of our energy come from wind,” said Ben Fowke, CEO of the utility company Xcel Energy, at a recent conference. “I'm telling you, I'm very comfortable with that today.”

    Indeed, many parts of the country are already close to that reality. In some regions, like Iowa and Kansas, renewable energy supplies more than 25% of the electricity. The market has shifted so far in favor of natural gas and renewable energy that even the most concerted federal effort is unlikely to stop its growth. Any attempt to slow the growth of wind and solar will face strong pushback. “If anyone wants to do away with it,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley told Yahoo News of the federal government's potential cuts to wind energy, “he'll do it over my dead body.”

    But the federal government could slow the acceleration—and with billions of dollars in private and public investments at risk, the pace of change matters. Decisions made today will shape the future of the nation's energy grid for decades to come.

    Perhaps you've heard the old saying “curiosity killed the cat.” It's a phrase that's often used to warn people—especially children—not to ask too many questions.       In fact, research has shown that curiosity is just as important as intelligence in determining how well students do in school.

    Curiosity can also lead us to make unexpected discoveries, bring excitement into our lives, and open up new possibilities.       For example, one day in 1831, Michael Faraday was playing around with a coil(线圈) and a magnet(磁铁) when he suddenly saw how he could produce an electrical current. At first, it wasn't clear what use this would have, but it actually made electricity available for use in technology, and so changed the world.

          On one level, this is because technology has become so advanced that many of us are unable to think too deeply about how exactly things work anymore. While it may be possible for a curious teenager to take a toaster apart and get some sense of how it works, how much do you understand about what happens when you type a website address into a browser? Where does your grasp of technology end and the magic begin for you?

    In addition to this, there's the fact that we all now connect so deeply with technology, particularly with our phones. The more we stare at our screens, the less we talk to other people directly.       Then we feel we know enough about a person not to need to engage further with them.

    The final—and perhaps most worrying—way in which technology stops us from asking more has to do with algorithms, the processes followed by computers. As we increasingly get our news via social media, algorithms find out what we like and push more of the same back to us.       Perhaps the real key to developing curiosity in the 21st century, then, is to rely less on the tech tools of our age.

A. It is still not known why learning gives us such pleasure.

B. We are always encouraged to challenge our pre-existing beliefs.

C. Yet it's widely agreed that curiosity actually makes learning more effective.

D. All too often we accept the images of people that social media provides us with.

E. However, curiosity is currently under the biggest threat, coming from technology.

F. In science, basic curiosity-driven research can have unexpected important benefits.

G. That means we end up inside our own little bubbles, no longer coming across new ideas.

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Dear Peter,

Yours,

Li Hua