It all started with a group of friends and a simple bet. Twins Coby and Cory Cotton, and their friends Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones and Tyler Toney were roommates at Texas A&M University. One day Tyler bet Garret that he could make a crazy over-the-shoulder basketball shot. Tyler made the shot. Then the rest of the guys tried their own even crazier shots! Each of them was eager to perform better than the others. One of them set up a camera to capture the action, he looked through the lens(镜头) and commented, "Dude, perfect."
Little did the friends know that their video which they posted online would go viral. In just one week it hit 100,000 views. They decided to call their group "Dude Perfect" and began to try even harder trick shots. Soon they had American talk shows asking to air their videos on TV. Today, Dude Perfect tops the You Tube channel charts in the United States. In addition, the guys have their own TV series, The Dude Perfect Show, popular toys named after them, and an online store, selling things from T-shirts to backpacks. It is said that the group's yearly earnings from You Tube alone are about US$ 2 million a year. The Dude Perfect guys make most of their videos in a 25, 000-square-foot building in San Francisco.
Inside there is a full-size basketball court, soccer field, an area for golfing, cool cars they can drive around, lots of video-production equipment and more. While making their videos, they have spent time with some of the world's best athletes and broke several world records. The secret to the accuracy(精准) of their shots is no secret at all--a lot of practice and a spirit of never give up.
Since Dude Perfect started, all five of the guys have married, and three have children. Although all of them are now responsible adults, they are still kids at heart, and that comes through clearly in their video and TV show.
Nature shows itself in many ways. One of the most impressive(令人印象深刻的) forms is a kind of storm known as a hurricane, typhoon or tropical cyclone. These powerful weather events form over water. They are known as hurricanes in the central and eastern North Pacific and the North Atlantic Oceans, typhoons in the Northwest Pacific Ocean and tropical cyclones in the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The spinning(旋转的) round storms can become powerful, spreading over 900 kilometers across.
The winds inside the storms can reach speeds of more than 320 kilometers per hour. The storms also may reach a height of up to 15 kilometers. They spin around a center called the "eye", which is a calm area with low wind speed. When these storms reach the shore, they are sometimes strong enough to tear trees out of the ground. Heavy rains and large waves often cause flooding and great damage to buildings.
A new study shows that, during the last 70 years, the speed at which these storms move across water and land has been gradually slowing down. As a result, they have been putting more and more rain on land. This has caused increased flooding and loss of life. In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey moved so slowly across the U.S. state of Texas that it was able to put more than 30 inches of rain, leading to great damage.
According to scientists, the reason for these slower-moving storms is atmospheric(大气的) warming. Over the years, the Earth's atmosphere has been slowly warming up. This has caused air circulation(循环) in the Earth's atmosphere to weaken. As a result, the winds that push tropical storms along have gotten weaker, so the storms slowed down.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that lets machines do things that need "thinking." It is a hard term to define(下定义) because AI isn't actually one thing. Rather it's a group of technologies that help machines get, understand and use information to perform tasks. The range of technologies is one of the reasons people use so many different terms to describe AI. In addition to artificial intelligence, terms like machine learning, cognitive computing and deep learning are common.
No matter which term is used, recent developments have received a lot of public attention. Some have welcomed the technology because of things that AI makes possible. For example, AI will have a big effect on areas like medicine and engineering. But the public attention has also produced a lot of fear and caution. In particular, many are concerned about the effects AI could have on people's jobs.
According to a recent study, nearly five percent of jobs will disappear because of AI. High on the list are jobs in the producing and mining industries, where systems powered by AI are already performing tasks that people used to do, such as assembling(组装) cars, digging tunnels and loading materials. In the future, self-driving cars and trucks that depend on AI will also steal jobs for drivers. Moreover, AI systems will do many tasks now performed by legal assistants and accountants.
On the other hand, AI will also create many new Jobs. More people will be needed to write software for AI systems as well as to set up and operate them. Meanwhile, jobs that require emotional intelligence, excellent communication skills and interaction with people will not be replaced by Al. These include jobs in fields like teaching, nursing, hairdressing and personal training.
Curiosity( 好 奇 心 ) is part of human nature. Children are famous for wanting answers to tons of questions. Books and TV shows often rely on curiosity. People keep reading or watching because they want to find out what happens.
Learning is easier if you have a real desire for knowledge.Many of history's greatest discoveries were made by curious people. People wondered how processes worked or how certain tasks could be done more effectively, Thanks to their curiosity, people now know far more about the world and have useful technology to help them. Even if you don't plan to be an inventor or researcher, curiosity can still help you in the classroom. If you develop the joy of learning, classes will become more fun. And you'll excel because you will be fully engaged in the process of learning.
What do you do if you're not already curious?If you act like you're curious, you will quickly start to actually feel curious. Often, the more you learn about a topic, the more interesting it becomes.
As you learn about a topic, gather information from as many sources as possible. Read a variety of books, watch or listen to lectures and ask questions.Instead, learn to appreciate facts that different people know and the different opinions that they express.
Ask a lot of questions.Find out what that is, and ask about it. This lets you learn something and makes the other person happy by letting them show off their knowledge in the classroom or out of it, developing curiosity is sure to be worthwhile.
A. Search for different possibilities and points of view.
B. But curiosity also provides many practical benefits.
C. Fortunately, curiosity is a skill that can be improved.
D. Remember, everyone knows something that you don't.
E. Don't always get your information from the same source.
F. Curiosity will make you better informed and thus a more capable worker.
G. Curiosity can create that desire when you have a question you want an answer to.
In the 1800s, Johnny Appleseed traveled throughout the American Midwest and beyond. He must have been a1sight, traveling barefoot, wearing a coffee bag for clothes and a metal pan for a hat. Despite his unusual appearance, early settlers 2Appleseed because he brought them one thing he never traveled without. He went3 with a bag of apple seeds (种子).
How did Appleseed become4 with apples in the first place? Born in 1774 in
Massachusetts, he was given the name John Chapman. He had 11 brothers and sisters. Sometimes they were so noisy that he would often escape to the5 woods around the family farm.
As a young man, he learned how to successfully grow6. By 1812, he moved throughout America's wilderness( 荒 野 ), planting apple trees as he traveled. Actually, he had a 7. It was clear that the young country was moving west, so Appleseed carefully planted nurseries(苗圃) along the roads the settlers 8. He would then trade or sell his trees to these new arrivals. According to the law, settlers could declare 9 of a piece of land by planting 50 apple trees on it. With a selfless heart and no longing for material 10, Appleseed was very popular with the new settlers. Over those years, legends about him11, and people began calling him "Johnny Appleseed".
He also 12trees to poor settlers to help improve their lives. His apples were used 13for apple cider, a source of some Vitamins and minerals. It also helped provide water for people, especially when water sources were often14. Additionally, settlers could trade or sell apple products to increase their income.
Today Appleseed is praised for 15 the way for America's early pioneers to settle new territory( 领 土). He is also16 to actively help protect the environment.
In daily life, honesty can be difficult. Lying often seems like a good way (impress) people or avoid( 避 免) punishment for mistakes. Some people lie out of habit,even realizing they are doing it. But despite all this, honesty really is worth the effort.
One obvious reason for honesty is that lies are difficult to hide. If you make up story, you have to remember all the details. There is always a chance that the person you lied will find out the truth. Is the gain from lying really worth the risk? obvious reason to avoid lying is that lying can harm others. People believe your lies might make bad decisions because of them. On a personal level, if your friends find out you lied to them, their feelings (hurt).
Honesty,, doesn't mean that you have to say everything you think.means that when you speak, you tell the truth rather than hold some information back. When you do that, you will feel (relax) and enjoy stronger relationships.
When I was in primary school, I got into an argument with a boy in my class. I have forgotten what the argument was about, but I have never forgotten the lesson learned that day.
I was sure that I was right and he was wrong -- and he was just as sure that I was wrong and he was right. The teacher decided to teach us a very important lesson. She brought us up to the front of the class and placed him on one side of her desk and me on the other.
In the middle of her desk was a large, round object. I could clearly see that it was black. She asked the boy what color the object was. "White," he answered.
I couldn't believe he said the object was white, for it was obviously black! Another argument started between me and my classmates anytime, this time about the color of the object.
The teacher told me to go to stand where the boy had been standing and told him to come to stand where I had been. We changed places, and now she asked me what the color of the object was. I had to answer, "White." It was an object with two differently-colored sides, and from his viewpoint it was white. Only from my side was it black.
My teacher taught me a very important lesson that day: You must stand in the other persons' shoes and look at the situation through their eyes in order to truly understand their opinions.
