There are many deserts on the earth. And the following are some facts you may find interesting.

What are deserts like?   

Deserts can be hot and dry places. Rain may not fall there for months or years. Some deserts are sandy and stony（多石的）. Deserts can also be very windy places. The wind can change the shape of the deserts. It moves sand around from place to place.

Temperatures in the desert can be different so much. During the daytime, the temperature may reach 40℃ even in the shade（阴凉处）. At night deserts can become very cold. In winter there may even be a frost（霜冻）in the early morning.

Living in the desert

The camel is sometimes called “the ship of the desert”. It stores food in its hump（驼峰）and can go for days without water. It has large feet which help it not to fall into the soft sand. Its long eyelashes（睫毛）keep out the sand during sandstorms.

An oasis is an area of the desert where water may be found. The water may be in pools or under the ground. People and animals visit an oasis for water and food. Plants grow at an oasis. Some farmers are able to grow crops here.

The Arabian Desert

The Arabian Desert lies between the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf（海湾）. In some parts of the desert, it is too hot for people to live. Oil was discovered under parts of the desert and in the Arabian Gulf. This oil has made some countries in the area very rich. Much of the money has been spent building fine cities with lovely parks and lakes, and people live a comfortable life there.

Chinese New Year Painting, or nianhua in Chinese, is a kind of traditional paintings to be put up on walls and windows during the Spring Festival. Its bright colors and different subjects show the Chinese great expectation for happiness and wealth.

Chinese New Year Painting is an old handicraft. Its original(最初的)form was a picture of a door god during the Tang Dynasty. Later, more subjects such as the Kitchen God, women and babies were included. As the Chinese New Year arrives, every family puts up its New Year paintings in order to say goodbye to the past and welcome the future. One of the most famous woodblock New Year paintings comes from Yangjiabu of Shandong Province. It covers all kinds of themes and forms. They reflect people’s everyday life.

As time went by, people found New Year paintings old-fashioned. Besides, they considered the door god too scary to hang in their homes. They wanted something more artistic. So in the middle of the 1980s, the sales of New Year paintings dropped greatly.

Usually, colorful woodblock New Year paintings are produced in four steps. Firstly, artists draw a simple sketch(素描)on the paper. Secondly, they make the simple sketch on the wood board and print a few samples(样品). Thirdly, they add color to the sample. Lastly, when the preparation is finished, the printers paint color on the color board, and then put paper on the wood board and brush the paper. Then the colorful woodblock New Year paintings are ready.

There are four main themes in the Chinese New Year paintings…

Do you often listen to music at loud volumes (音量)? You should know that this habit is bad for your hearing, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Over 1 billion young people are at risk of hearing loss because of listening to loud noise for long periods of time. WHO said, “Listening to music or watching a TV show at loud volumes can harm your hearing.”

The United Nations has standards for safe listening. It is not safe to listen to sounds that are louder than 85 dB (分贝) for eight hours or 100 dB for 15 minutes. The sound of a busy road is about 85 dB and the sound of a rock concert can be about 100 dB .

Loud noise is harmful to the inner ear (内耳) . Most of us are born with about 16,000 hair cells (毛细胞) in our inner ears. These cells detect (探测) sounds. However, listening to loud noise for a long time can make these cells work too hard and cause some of them to die. This is what causes hearing loss.

Some people might think that their music isn’t all that loud. But this can depend on where you are. For example, if you are in a noisy place like the subway, you might turn up your music too loud without realizing it. Later, when you listen to it at the same volume in a quiet place, you might feel uncomfortable.

WHO said the “safe level” for most sound is below 80 dB for up to 40 hours a week. A level of 80 dB is roughly (大约) equal to the noise of a subway.