Mobile phones have become a part of everyone’s life. Most people have at least one mobile phone. And every month, new models appear in the stores. They offer exciting new features like cameras, MP3 players, and the ability to connect with the Internet. Now mobile phone users can do more on the Internet than ever before. They are able to do almost all the things on their mobile phones that they used to do on their computers. Moreover, some mobile phones now have voice recognition software, so people do not even have to use the buttons on their phones. They can simply tell their phones what they want to see or do. One problem with mobile phones is that they have small screens. However, this problem could be solved in the future by making phones that project pictures and movies onto a wall or a sheet of paper. Mobile phones will also be used with “e-paper” (large screens that can be folded and easily stored and carried) as well as personal video screens that look like pairs of sunglasses. As you can see, the mobile phone has a promising future, and its features will change in ways that we cannot even imagine.

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. For many centuries, Mars has also been called the “Red Planet”. Ancient Greeks and Romans thought of Mars as the god of war. Some people imagined that Mars was like the Earth and inhabited with many strange creatures. Galileo was the first person to view Mars through a telescope. As telescopes improve, astronomers find that the red planet is about half as big as the Earth. From 1965 through 1972, the American Mariner series of robot spacecraft took many close-up television images of Mars. In 1976 two American spacecraft arrived on the Martian surface. Each carried two color television cameras, a 3-meter-long retractable (可伸缩的) arm, a small laboratory, and other instruments. They helped scientists discover exciting new knowledge about Mars. Mars is mostly a vast desert with immense mountains, extremely deep canyons, and enormous dust storms. Ice covers the Martian polar-regions, and buried ice exists in other areas. Some regions can get warm, but a -60℃ is the average Martian temperature. Some scientists believe a global warming gas could be produced on Mars. This gas could help to warm the cold red planet and make it more like the Earth. The future is full of exciting changes, and some day Mars will have human explorers, colonists, and tourists hiking across its surface. Maybe one of these people will be you.

Many people believe that Sigmund Freud’s work marked the beginning of modern psychology. He developed new ways to study the human personality. Some people disagreed with his ideas, and others thought he was a genius. Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in Moravia, which is now the Czech Republic. His family moved to Vienna when Sigmund was four years old. He was the oldest of his mother’s eight children and her favorite. Sigmund loved to read and he was always at the top of his class. He had no interest in sports or outdoor activities, except walking. The family apartment had only four bedrooms, but Sigmund’s mother gave him his own room so he could study in peace. He rarely joined the family for meals. Instead, he ate alone in his room, surrounded by his favorite books. Sigmund first thought about studying law, but then he decided to study medicine. He enrolled at the University of Vienna in 1873. He loved working in the laboratory and studying the scientific side of medicine rather than helping the patients. In fact, he stayed in school for seven years instead of the usual five because he spent so much time working in the laboratory of a famous professor.

An early attempt to find a technological breakthrough for high speed rail travelling China was the Shanghai Maglev, which opened to the public in 2004. As the first commercial magnetic levitation (磁悬浮) train in the world, it connects Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport with the Shanghai subway system, traveling a distance of 30 kilometers in 8 minutes, at speeds as high as 430 kilometers per hour. It is the fastest commercially operated train anywhere in the world. China now has two more maglevs, one in Changsha and the other in Beijing. However, both of these only cover short distances and the trains travel at speeds of around 100 kilometers per hour, which is not much faster than trains on many conventional rail lines. Apart from the complex technical and safety issues involved with maglev trains, another big drawback with having a maglev line appears to be the high cost. Thus although maglev technology will continue to be used in the future - a train that is capable of reaching speeds of 600 kilometers per hour is being developed, the focus has been on more conventional, off-the-shelf technology in the development of China’s high speed rail network.