Wintery world
Family activity/December 10, 2023
Free
Explore the winter in this exciting event, full of art, crafts and exploration. Experience an exciting journey, wandering through cold, beautiful landscapes, before returning to the warmth of light and color. We'll look at scenes of winter from across the world in our collection, with the opportunity to create a wintery masterpiece to take home and display.
Out-of-hours tour: life and death in ancient Egypt
December 11, 2023-December 19, 2023
£ 33, £ 30(Members), £16.50(Ages 5-15), free for under 5 and disabled visitors' assistant
Discover how people lived and died in ancient Egypt, and explore their hopes and aspirations for the afterlife. From painted coffins, statues and models of daily life, to spectacular wall paintings, investigate what tombs and burial goods tell us about the lives of ancient Egyptian people.
The World of Stonehenge
February 17, 2024-July 17, 2024
Tickets will go on sale in early December
Stonehenge is perhaps the world's most awe-inspiring ancient stone circle, and its image is famous around the globe. This major exhibition is the first of its kind in the U.K. It will bring the story of Stonehenge into sharper focus, showing that rather than a shadowy age of mystery, Britain and Ireland of four millennia ago were places of big ideas, commerce and travel.
Around the world in a 70-minute tour
December 10, 2023-December 19, 2023
Adults and children aged 12+, £ 14
Explore some of the most famous objects on display at the Museum on this guided highlight tour. Follow our knowledgeable tour guide on a journey of discovery around the galleries. See the complex detail of the characterful Lewis Chessmen, marvel at the ancient texts on the world-famous Rosetta Stone and get closer to many more highlights from the collection.
Every November, as Thanksgiving Day approaches, one memory comes to my mind. At my big Turkish family's get-togethers, baklava(果仁蜜饼)is the norm at the dessert table. There's rolled baklava, nut-filled baklava and chocolate-dipped baklava.
One year, though, back when I was in high school, my cousin Johnny decided to change things up a bit. He showed up at my parents' house for Thanksgiving with two items that had never been served before—apple pie and a can of cream.
Those two items caused one of the biggest arguments. I distinctly remember my mom and aunts whispering in the kitchen.
"Apple pie?"one of my aunts said."What to do with this?"
I can still recall my mom's puzzled expression at it all. If there's one thing in this world my mom distrusts, it's fruit-filled desserts, a no-no in our cuisine culture."Why would you bake fruits into a dessert when you can eat them fresh?"she often says.
The cream only made things worse. My mom didn't want to hurt Johnny's feelings. In a true act of love, she put the pie out on the dining room table, accompanied by the cream. It went mostly untouched.
Nowadays, things are different. We actually have pie at Thanksgiving—my mom regularly makes pie (the fear of fruit-filled sweets continues, but desserts topped with fruits or nuts have been given the okay). We still laugh about the drama caused by Johnny's apple pie. I'll never forget it. It wasn't just about the pie for me. Growing up, I sometimes felt like an outsider because of my culture. That Thanksgiving, though, was one of the first times I realized that my family's oddness was actually a good thing. It's what made us.
What about you? Which Thanksgiving sticks out as your most memorable one?
People often recommend planting trees to make cities greener, cleaner and healthier. But during heat waves, city trees can actually increase air pollution. Indeed, a new study has found, up to 60 percent of the smoggy ozone in a city's air on hot days may trace to chemicals emitted by trees. Galina Churkina, who works at Humboldt University of Berlin, and her team have confirmed it.
The findings might seem the opposite of what you would expect, notes Robert Young, an expert in city planting at the University of Texas at Austin. Indeed, he says, "Everything has multiple effects." The new findings do not mean cities should discourage tree planting. Instead, cities may need stricter controls on other sources of pollution, such as tailpipeemissions from cars and trucks.
City trees soak up carbon dioxide, and at the same time they release oxygen into the air. But oxygen is far from the only gas that trees and certain other green plants release into the air. One of these chemicals is a hydrocarbon known as isoprene(异戊二烯). It can react with combustion(燃烧)pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides(氮氧化物)emitted by cars and trucks in cities. The result is the formation of ozone, a component of smog, which can irritate the lungs and cause airway diseases.
Churkina says her team is not surprised to see the seemingly contrary relationship between plants and pollution. She adds that its importance is quite amazing. "The results," Churkina says, "suggest that city tree planting programs should not ignore the role this greenery may play in aggravating summer air pollution." "Adding more trees will improve quality of life only if those cities also undertake plans to sharply cut vehicle pollution in summer and to increase their reliance on clean energy sources for electric power," she says.
Technology is starting to give us superpowers once reserved only for comic book heroes like Spider-Man and Superman. We now live in an age of human enhancement and related technology has captured the attention of the media and investors.
Some of these new technologies achieve their effects by means of electronic devices that connect our brains to external sources of knowledge, sensory data or physical power. We may not get chips implanted in our brains any time soon, but think about Google Glass—who needs an inserted chip when you can wear a computer on your head?
Wearable technology doesn't only come in the form of a pair of glasses. A Japanese laboratory is working on a more practical prototype(雏形) of a muscle suit than lron Man's shiny armor(盔甲). The muscle suit, called an exoskeleton, enables the sick and elderly to move around more easily, New Scientist magazine reported. Coveting(觊觎)the powers of Spider-Man, the US military is working on a "Spider-Man suit" that not only lets wearers climb vertical walls, but also allows them to sense approaching objects without looking at or hearing them, according to an American military technology website.
But perhaps you favor more subtle powers like mind control or mind reading. This may one day come true as well. The most amazing human enhancement technologies that have come into reality are devices that interact directly with the human brain.
Q Sensor, created by scientists at MIT, is a wireless sensor that measures electricity conducted through the skin. It can detect whether people are bored, stressed or excited, and therefore has wide applications in research and therapy, the BBC reported.
Scientists envision neural implants that could allow humans to manipulate real-world objects with their mind—a power not unlike mind control. Slate magazine reported this might already be happening.
It is well-known that food which is full of fat isn't good for your heart. Australian researchers tested people with asthma(哮喘)before and after a high-fat meal or a low-fat meal. Then they found that the high-fat meal increased inflammation(炎症)and reduced the lung functions.
30 non-obese people with asthma took part in the study, as well as 16 obese adults. The non-obese volunteers received either a high-fat or low-fat meal, while the obese ones were all given a high-fat meal. The low-fat meal was 13 percent fat.
Four hours after the meal, the researchers found that the airway inflammation increased a lot and lung function was affected in those who had the high-fat meal. And these people saw just a 1 percent improvement in their lung function when they used their inhalers(吸入器)to treat asthma.
"If these results can be tested again by further research, this suggests that reducing the amount of fatty food one eats may be useful for managing asthma," said the study's lead author, Lisa Wood, at the Hunter Medical Research Institute in New Lambton. "The number of people in the world with asthma has increased greatly over the past few decades. "
Dr Thomas Leath, director at Scott & White Healthcare in Texas, said, "Eating fatty food can lead to obesity, and fat can certainly cause a small amount of inflammation. "He doubted whether the effect on lung function was great enough for people to notice, but said the study provided one more reason why people shouldn't have high-fat diets.
A. And one reason is the high-fat Western diet.
B. Inflammation can be either short-lived or long-lasting.
C. But now a new study suggests that fatty meals may affect the lung function too.
D. But I'm surprised that one meal could do this.
E. The high-fat meal was 50 percent fat.
F.People are generally considered obese when their body mass index is over 30 kg/㎡.
G. Those who ate the low-fat meal saw a 4.5 percent improvement.
I have grown up in a football-loving family. My elder sister Stevie1 with Crewe Alexandra Girls for a year or two as a left back just like our hero Jamie Carragher.
I remember the exact moment when I told my dad I was 2 in doing what my big sister did. I was watching the game with him in the living room and it just 3 : "It makes me 4 that I can' t be a footballer." He asked why not, and I answered, "Because I'm not a boy."
He 5 responded by telling me that women's football was "great" and that I could play if I wanted to. "Yeah, I suppose so," I responded, "but no one 6 women's football." Looking back, I can see exactly why I felt like that.
At school, there was an unwritten rule that sports like rugby and football were for the 7 . I'd never seen a women's football match on TV and the only 8 athletes I'd heard of were in the Olympics.
Today, the England Lionesses(英格兰母狮队)will 9 Scotland in the World Cup, and people across the world will tune in. 10 women's football has turned out to be one of FIFA's investments, the majority of female players in top tiers are earning under what anyone would consider a fair 11 , and only £24 million prize money was awarded to the women's World Cup victors in12 with £315 million to the men's. That's a vast 13 .
Today, I'll be 14 the Lionesses and the song "It's coming home" will mean more this time around, because it'll mean talented, skillful female footballers being 15 into millions of homes and maybe, just maybe, a little girl believing that she can also be a Lioness one day.
Huizhou enjoys a time-honored history. In 2000, Xidi and the nearby Hongcun village were declared World Heritage sites by UNESCO for their outstanding preservation of rural architecture (date) back to the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Huizhou houses are often wooden structures with brick walls, which require a lot of maintenance. Moreover, daylight is valued in Huizhou houses, which is reflected in the building of open interior courtyards, (allow) sunshine to enter the rooms. Now, walking along the bluestone streets there, visitors can appreciate the distinctive Huizhou-style houses featuring white walls, dark tiles(瓦片)and layered horse-head roofs, feel like they are immersed in a traditional Chinese ink painting.
The tourism boom helps to protect and breathe life into the ancient village. A (symbol) paifang, standing at the entrance to Xidi, (build) in the 16th century in memory of Hu Wenguang, Ming Dynasty official born in the village who made great (contribute) to local education and livelihoods. It is the local people's desire to protect the local historical characteristics that leads to the buildings (preserve) to this day. Besides ancient dwellings and paifang, there stand some ancestral halls clans(宗族，家族)will gather to make sacrifices to their ancestors. With their own unique and marketable value, all these old Huizhou buildings are giving full play their distinctive cultural charm.
Next to our house lived an old couple, who, accustomed to country life, were unwilling to move to the city to live with their son and stuck in a lonely existence for many years. It seemed that they didn't feel like making any new connections with others, including their next-door neighbours.
The neighborhood kids nicknamed the strange old couple Crazy Jack and Ruby Rednose. Rumor(流言，传言)was that they sat inside and drank tea all day. The only words we ever heard from them were "Keep out of our rosebushes!"The rosebushes crawled along the fence. Or rather, they served as a fence between our house and theirs, overgrowing the support.
I was eleven at the time and the oldest of our family girls. A suitable playing court was a headache problem for us when we felt like playing softball games, which was our favourite sport then. We should have played our softball games elsewhere to avoid hurting the roses, but we secretly enjoyed annoying Crazy Jack and Ruby Rednose.
One day,we had a softball game in our yard. Mary was trying to catch a fly ball. She stumbled(绊倒)over one of Ruby Rednose's rosebushes and fell on top of several more. Just at that moment, Ruby Rednose sprang out and ran toward Mary. She screamed angrily, "Look at what you've doneto our family's roses! You've always been a trouble. You have no idea what this rosebush means to me!"
Hearing this, my sisters and I ran into our house. Breathlessly, we told Mom what had happened."Girls, I have told you not to play softball near those bushes. Come outside right now and help me fix them.""Mom, we thought you didn't like the couple," we protested."They're mean to us." Mom just glared at us. We followed her outside to help repair the rose fence. While Mom was examining the damaged roses, Ruby slowly walked out. She looked sad. And it wasn't her nose that was red，but her eyes.
注意： 续写词数应为150字左右。2. 请按如下格式在答题卡相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
Ruby walked over to my mother, we girls holding our breath.
Paragraph 2:
A few weeks later, the plants all came back to life.
