选择知识点

—No when and where does the story   ?

Satellites are an important part of our ordinary lives.For example, the information for weather forecasts is sent by satellite.Some satellites have cameras which take photographs of the Earth to show how clouds are moving.Satellites are also used to connect our international phone calls.

　　Computer connections of the World Wide Web and Internet also use satellites. Many of our TV programs come to US through satellites.Airplane pilots also sometimes use a satellite to help them find their exact location.

　　We use satellites to send television pictures from one part of the world to another.They are usually 35，880 kilometers above the equator.Sometimes we can see a satellite in the sky and it seems to stay in the same place.This is because it is moving around the world at 11，000 kilometers an hour—exactly the same speed that the earth rotates.A satellite must orbit the Earth with its antennae(天线)facing the earth.Sometimes, it moves away from its orbit，So there are little rockets on it which are used to put the satellite back in the right position.This usually happens about every five or six days.

　　Space is not empty! Every week, more and more satellites are sent into space to orbit the Earth.A satellite usually works for about 10-12 years.Satellites which are broken are sometimes repaired by astronauts or sometimes brought back to Earth to be repaired.Often，very old or broken satellites are left in space to orbit the Earth for a very long time.This is very serious because some satellites use nuclear power and they can crash into each other.

Goldfish have pretty boring lives, so maybe it’s a good thing they can only concentrate for nine seconds! But according to new research, humans are becoming like goldfish. Our attention span (时长) is getting shorter...and it’s all because of technology.

“We move quickly from one site to another on the web,” says Doctor Ted Selker, a computer scientist from Massachusetts, “and we are losing the ability to concentrate.” With millions of websites to choose from, the attention span of the average Internet user is just seconds. There are other digital distractions（分心）too: email, instant messaging and quickie movies on websites. Some people are worried about the effect on young people. “You need time to understand and think about what you read,” says Julia Wood, from London. “Young people search the net all the time and their brains become full of useless information but there is no time to make sense of it. I am trying to persuade my pupils to read more books, so that they concentrate on one subject for longer.”

Other teachers are trying more unusual methods to improve students’ concentration. Anne Savan, from Wales, was so worried about her students that she started playing Mozart during her science lessons. She says that it had an amazing effect: “The music made them calmer, and their concentration was much better.”　　

But not everyone believes that there is a problem. Ray Cole, an educational psychologist says: “On the web, young people learn to make quick decisions about what is and isn’t worth reading. They might look at five unhelpful websites very quickly, before stopping and reading a sixth useful website more carefully. In a world with so much information available, this is an important skill.”

B

Famous US columnist (专栏作家) George F. Will once wrote: “Baseball is a habit. The slow build to the end of each game, the rhythm of the long season – these are the essentials and they are remarkably unchanged over nearly a century and a half. Of how many American institutions (制度) can that be said?”

He is right. Baseball, only one word, is enough to make millions of people in the US think of many images – spring afternoons, cold beers and hot dogs.

As the USA Today newspaper put it, “A hot dog at the ballpark is always better than one out of the microwave.”

Delicious treats aside, baseball is also a game for fathers and sons to enjoy. They play catch with each other on lawns (草坪) and in parks for many years. Fathers pass down favorite teams to their sons. Grandfathers share stories of games played long ago.

Many US children try to collect trading cards with the pictures of their favorite players on them. In schools it is as likely for friends to trade baseball cards as it is for them to trade lunches.

Baseball players are known as “the boys of spring” because that is the time of year at which the sport is most often played; indeed, the new season of MLB (Major League Baseball) began on April 3. And the players come in all shapes and sizes. To play baseball you don’t have to be tall like a basketball player or strong like an American footballer. You just need to want to have fun.

Besides, baseball games are not as fast-paced (快节奏的) as basketball games so they allow viewers to relax, talk and get to know each other.

Today, baseball is not the US’ most-watched sport, but it is its most historical. It has gone past being simply a game and has become part of the fabric (构造) of US culture.

As The Telegraph newspaper noted, “Baseball is as American as apple pie, red, white and blue (the colors of the US national flag) and Grandma’s house.”