鼹鼠大小姐
泰哥，我给你找了几个，必须采纳啊！ To Pull up the Seedlings to Help Them Grow “拔苗助长” Once upon a time, there was an old farmer who planted a plot of rice. After he planted the seedlings, every day he went to the field to watch the seedlings grow. He saw the young shoots break through the soil and grow taller each day, but still, he thought they were growing too slowly. Eventually he got impatient with the young plants and suddenly he hit upon an idea that one by one, he pulled up the young plants by half an inch. The next early morning, the young man couldn’t wait to check his “achievement”, but he was heart-broken to see all the pulled-up young plants dying. 从前，有个农夫，种了稻苗（seedlings）后，便希望能早早收成。每天他到稻田时，都发觉那些稻苗长得非常慢。他等得很不耐烦。想了又想，他终于想到一个“最佳方法”，他将稻苗全都拔高了几分。第二天，一早起身，他迫不及待地去稻田看他的“成果”。 哪知，却看到所有的稻苗都枯萎了。Plugging One’s Ears While Stealing a Bell “掩耳盗铃” Once upon a time, there was a man who wanted to steal his neighbor’s doorbell. However, he knew clearly that the bell would ring and catch the other people’s attention as long as he touched the bell. So he thought hard and suddenly hit on a clever “idea”. He plugged his ears with something, thinking that everything would go well when he stole the bell. Unfortunately to his disappointment, the bell still rang loudly and he was caught on the spot as a thief. 从前，有一个人想偷邻居门上的铃，但是他知道一碰到铃，铃就会响起来，被人发现。他想啊想，终于他想出一个“妙极”，他把自己的耳朵用东西塞起来，就听不见铃声了。但是当他去偷铃时，铃声仍旧响起来，他被别人当场抓住The Fox and the Crow “狐狸和乌鸦” One day a crow stood on a branch near his nest and felt very happy with the meat in his mouth. At that time, a fox saw the crow with the meat, so he swallowed and eagerly thought of a plan to get the meat. However, whatever the fox said to the crow, the crow just kept silent. Until the fox thought highly of the crow’s beautiful voice, the crow felt flattered and opened his mouth to sing. As soon as the meat fell down to the ground, the fox took the meat and went into his hole. 有一天,一只乌鸦站在窝旁的树枝上嘴里叼着一片肉，心里非常高兴。这时候，一只狐狸看见了乌鸦，馋得直流口水，非常想得到那片肉。但是，无论狐狸说什么，乌鸦就是不理睬狐狸。最后，狐狸赞美乌鸦的嗓音最优美，并要求乌鸦唱几句让他欣赏欣赏。乌鸦听了狐狸赞美的话，得意极了，就唱起歌来。没想到，肉一掉下来，狐狸就叼起肉，钻回了洞Draw a Snake and Add Feet to It “画蛇添足” Long long ago, several people had a jar of wine among them and all of them wanted to drink it by himself. So they set a rule that every one would draw a snake on the ground and the man who finished first would have the wine. One man finished his snake very soon and he was about to drink the wine when he saw the others were still busy drawing, so he decided to draw the feet to the snake. However, before he could finish the feet, another man finished and grabbed the jar from him, saying, "Who has ever seen a snake with feet?” The story of "Draw a snake and add feet to It.” tells us going too far is as bad as not going far enough. 古时几个人分一壶酒。他们都想独自喝完那壶酒，所以就定了一个规矩：每人在地上画一条蛇，谁画得最快，这壶酒就归谁。有一个人很快就把蛇画好了。他正打算喝这壶酒时，看见别人都还在忙着画，就决定给蛇再画上几只脚。结果，他的蛇脚还没加完，另一个人已经把蛇画好了。那人一下把酒壶夺了过去，说：“有谁见过长脚的蛇？”。这个故事告诉我们这样的道理：做得过分和做得不够都是不对的
亲爱的小慧慧
英语科普文章选——2004年十大科学发现 不久前，著名的《科学》杂志评选出2004年最重要的十大科学发现。这些发现中既有人类对神秘宇宙太空的探索，也有对身边熟悉事物的新发现。无论是何种的科学探索和发现，人类求知的愿望和动力永远都在推动社会的发展和进步。 Water and robots on Mars chosen as tops in 2004 by 'Science'WASHINGTON — The conclusive discovery by a pair of wheeled robots that Mars once had vast pools of water and possibly could have harbored life was chosen by the editors of the journal Science as the most important scientific achievement of 2004. Scientists announced in March that the Mars once played host to salty seas. This Mars Express image indicates water erosion. NASA's two Mars rovers（漫游者）Opportunity and Spirit, landed on the Red Planet early in 2004 and have since found clear and conclusive evidence that Mars was drenched with（浸透） water at some time in its history. The editors of Science, one of the world's leading publishers of peer-reviewed, original research, judged the robotic accomplishment as the top scientific "Breakthrough of the Year." "Inanimate, wheeled, one-armed boxes roaming another planet have done something no human has ever managed," Science reported in this week's edition. "They have discovered another place in the universe where life could once have existed." Nine other scientific achievements, including discovery of another species of human, were selected as runners-up, but Science editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy said "there wasn't much doubt about this year's winner." Opportunity and Spirit found unmistakable proof of Martian water: rippled sediments（沉积物） that were once at the bottom of a shallow sea, and rock that once was so water-soaked that "it had rotted," the journal said. "Their finds mark a milestone in humankind's search for life elsewhere in the universe," Science said. Kennedy said one of the most important messages from the remote exploration is "the extraordinary efficiency of these robot missions." He said it is clear that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration must not abandon its robotic exploration while gearing up for President Bush's program to send humans to the moon and later to Mars. "To do one at the expense of the other would be a mistake," Kennedy said. "It remains to be demonstrated what a human exploration could do that we can't do now or couldn't do in the next 10 years with robotic technology." The first runner-up for breakthrough of the year was the discovery on the Indonesian island of Flores of fossils from a species of tiny humans who stood about 3 feet tall and had a brain less than a third the size of modern humans. Yet, the diminutive（小的） hominid（原始人） lived about 18,000 years ago. This suggests that Homo floresiensis shared the Earth with Homo sapiens（人类）, or modern people. Science said some described the find as "the biggest discovery in half a century of anthropological research."Third on Science's list of 2004 breakthroughs was the cloning of human embryos by South Korean researcher Woo San Hwang and his colleagues. The work was not an attempt to genetically duplicate a human. Instead, the researchers hoped to make embryonic stem cells for research purposes. Although many other mammals have been cloned, the work was the first to demonstrate that cloning techniques would work with human cells. Following are the rest of Science's 2004 selections. 4. U.S. and Austrian scientists created a new form of condensate（冷凝物）, an ultracold gas that slips into a quantum state where a group of atoms act as a single superatom. The achievement was notable because it used fermions（费米子）, a class of atoms with a nuclear structure that makes it difficult to create a condensate.5. Scientists discovered that "junk DNA," the base pairs between known genes in the human genetic structure, play an important role. Several research teams have found that DNA between genes helps determine how vigorously and often the genes are activated and shapes the coding for protein production. 6. Astronomers discovered a pair of neutron stars（中子星） locked in orbit of each other and spewing out beams of radiation. Both objects are pulsars（脉冲星）, rapidly flickering on and off with pulses of energy. One object is pulsing at the rate of 44 times a second. By studying the radiation, astronomers hope for the first time to learn about the density of matter within a neutron star. 7. Naturalists tracking the fate of wild species worldwide reported bad news. A survey of amphibians（两栖动物） found that of 5,700 known species, about 30% were at risk of extinction. A survey in the United Kingdom found that butterflies, songbirds and native plant species are all losing ground in the battle for species survival. 8. It is one of the most common and universally known substances, but researchers are still learning more about water. Several teams of researchers made new discoveries about how water molecules（分子） bind together and how electrons（电子） and protons（质子） dissolve in water. Some of the findings are questioned and Science noted: "Water still gives researchers much to scratch their heads about." 9. A new form of research and aid is creating "a revolution in public health," said Science. The partnership of public and private organizations worldwide is changing the way drugs are developed, tested and distributed to the poorest nations on Earth, the journal said. Researchers tallied at least 92 public-private partnerships worldwide attacking such diseases as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV. 10. Researchers have developed techniques to identify genes in ocean water or in specimens recovered from deep underground. Thousands of new genes have been found. By sequencing these genes, researchers hope to identify news species and, perhaps, learn how organisms survive in harsh and forbidding locations on Earth.
