Mr. Testtube has found three interesting articles at the website www. globalfun. com fort his students.

Cambridge University’s “doctor of chocolate”

Cambridge University is looking for someone to study the method of keeping chocolates in hot weather. It is a sweet job for a sweet tooth. However, the person needs to be good at maths. Chocolate has a melting (融化) point close to our body temperature. For that reason, chocolate melts easily in hot weather. You might think the advertisement from Cambridge University is funny, but if there is really a “doctor of chocolate”, he or she will help people a lot.

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One logo (商标) isn’t too expensive to print because it doesn’t need much ink, but printing a large number of logos could cost a lot. In order to save money and energy, an American design company made small changes to some famous brands, such as Nike, McDonald’s and Starbucks, to cut the cost. The design company remained the main body of these logos, but left an empty space inside. The logos look almost the same, but in this way, the famous brands could save 39 percent of the ink during the printing. Let’s hope other companies will take this advice. The way will save them money and use less energy, too.

Funny menu for children

Dining out with children can be an unpleasant experience for most parents, because kids are always running round the whole restaurant, saying “I don’t know what I want” or “I’m not hungry.” But now, a Maryland restaurant has created the “Kid Friendlies” menu. It translates children’s words into meals to help parents order for their kids. A father said, “As a dad, I think this is on the money.” Here is the menu.

A．

B．

C．

D．

Once upon a time carrots were purple, there were no pineapples in Asia or lemons in America, and many people thought potatoes were poisonous (有毒的). Many types of fruit and vegetables like chili grew only in one place. So why are they all over the world?

Five thousand years ago, carrots only grew in Afghanistan and most were purple. Only a few were orange as they look like today! Farmers in the Netherlands were looking for a fruit or vegetable to stand for their king, William of Orange, and orange carrots were just what they were looking for—they became the grandfather of all modern carrots.

Many plants only grow in certain places on Earth, often deep in the forest. The home of potatoes is in the mountains of the Andes in South America. Bananas come from Papua New Guinea and lemons grow wild in China. Corn isn’t from China, but South America.

But once people realized that many of these plants were good to eat, they took them far from the places where they grew. Fruit, especially, interested thirsty travelers. Arab businessmen transported different fruits and vegetables around the world, such as oranges, which they took from Asia to countries far away such as Spain. The Spanish returned from South America with many new types of food, including chocolate and chili.

People were not often sure what to do with these new fruits and vegetables, or used them for different purposes from today. Carrots were used not as food but as medicine to protect people from poison or even (it was believed) to make people fall in love. The first tomatoes and pineapples were grown not as food but to make the garden look pretty. And many people were worried about potatoes—although they are good for us, their leaves are poisonous and poorer people believed they could be used for black magic. In Germany, people only began eating potatoes when the king ordered that people who did not eat them would have their ears and noses cut off!

Today, we are so used to our different types of food that we don’t think about where they came from. But for each pineapple, potato or carrot we eat, there is a long history!

We can make our eyes healthy in many ways. Don’t read in the sun. Watch less TV. Do eye exercises every day. But do you know we can also have healthy eyes by eating some food that is good for eyes?

Kale	Kale is a dark green vegetable. It looks like a cabbage. There is vitamin (维生素) A in it. If you eat kale often, you will still have healthy eyes when you are old. And vitamin A can help you see well in the dark.
Salmon	Salmon is a kind of fish. It has a lot of Omega (脂肪酸). If you often feel you have dry eyes, Omega in salmon can help you. You don’t need to eat a lot each time. A little will be OK.
Bananas	Bananas are popular fruits for people. They are very good for eyes. There is Beta-carotene (β-胡萝卜素) in them. When you have sore eyes, Beta-carotene can make you feel better.
Sweet food	Kids like sweet food, such as candy, honey and ice cream. They are delicious. You may not know they are good food for short-sighted (近视), don’t eat too much. They are bad for teeth.