Lightning or a bolt of lightning is what we all call the bright flashes of light that come out of the clouds during a thunderstorm. 【小题1】

Three thousand years ago, the Greeks thought that lightning bolts came from an angry god. 【小题2】 Since then, scientists have learned that lightning is a discharge (释放) of static electricity (静电) hat forms when the water droplets making up the clouds rub together. The static charge tries to get to the ground or into another, and that is when we see lightning.

Typically, lightning travels from cloud to ground or cloud to cloud. The lightning you see during a summer thunderstorm is called cloud-to-ground. 【小题3】 That is indeed too fast for the human eye to see its path.

【小题4】 Skyscrapers and things that are tall may be hit many times during a single storm, and staying under a tall tree can be very dangerous. During a thunderstorm, you can find some safety in a car made from metal. Lying flat on the ground in an open area is another option that provides you with some safety.

Lightning bolts cause the greatest threat to life and property (财产). 【小题5】 In America, about 100 people are killed by lightning each year. It is true that your chance of being struck by lightning is very low, but you should still be careful because lightning is very dangerous.

English is full of colourful phrases to describe shyness. Someone shy might be called shrinking violet or a wallflower, while for especially nervous types we have the curious expression: they wouldn’t say “boo” to a goose.

None of these are traditionally seen as positive descriptions, even if you like geese. In a culture of go-getting high achievers, shy people don’t come first. Or that’s what the self-help industry would have you believe. Bookshops are filled with vital tomes (大部头书籍) that promise to help beat social fears and find success in life, love and business. That is why one book, Shrinking Violets: A Field Guide to Shyness, bucks the trend. It became a sudden success across English-language media recently for its new take-on shyness.

Author Joe Moran says that despite struggling with shyness and longing for loneliness all his life, being shy can also be “a gift”. Freed from the constant urge to participate and compete in social situations, people are liberated to look at the world in new ways, and gain fresh insights.

Indeed, many of the world’s great thinkers and artists are introverts (内向的人). Scientists Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein preferred their own company; actress Keira Knightley often finds herself tongue-tied at parties; and Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling claims she used to be too nervous to even borrow a pen.

Moran told BBC Future, “I think shyness probably does turn you into an amateur anthropologist (人类学家), really — you are more likely to be an observer. ”

So, while extroverts make all the noise, they don’t necessarily have the best ideas.

If you’re shy, you’ve probably known this for a long time. You just don’t shout about it.

Parents are an enormously powerful force in the lives of children. Whether Johnny can read, whether Johnny knows right from wrong, whether Johnny is a happy, well—adjusted kid, or shy and bad—tempered, has a whole lot to do with the kind of parenting Johnny has received. If Johnny’s mom and dad have been able to come through with lasting, determining, loving attention, the odds are Johnny is on track to become a productive, compassionate citizen. If they have not, Johnny is in trouble—and so is our nation.

Thirty years ago Chicago sociologist James S. Coleman showed that parental involvement mattered far more in determining school success than any quality of the formal education system. Across a wide range of subject areas, in literature, science and reading, Coleman estimated that the parent was twice as powerful as the school in determining achievement at age fourteen. Psychologist Lawrence Steinberg, who recently completed a six—year study of 20 ,000 teenagers in nine different communities, confirms the importance of parents. Steinberg shows that one out of three parents is “seriously disengaged” from his or her adolescent’s education, and this is the primary reason why so many American students perform below their potential—and below students in other rich countries.

A weight of evidence now demonstrates obvious links between absent parents and a wide range of behavioral and emotional problems in children. A 1997 study of 90 ,000 teenagers—the Add Health Project undertaken by the Carolina Population Center and the Adolescent Health Program at the University of Minnesota—found that youngsters are less likely get hopeless, use drugs or become involved in crime when they spent significant time with their parents. This study found that only the physical presence of a parent in the home after school, at dinner and at bedtime significantly reduces the incidence of risky behavior among teenagers.