Animal migrations

A lot of animals travel from one place to another. We call this migration.

A lot of birds migrate to find food and better weather, too. They spend the summer in northern Europe, because there are lots of insects there. In the winter there aren't any insects, so the birds fly south to southern Europe and Africa. Some insects migrate, too. In North America, millions of butterflies fly south to spend the winter were it's warmer.

Fishes migrates to breed. Salmon for example swim over 20,000 km in their life. They are born in rivers in Ireland, Scotland and other places in northern Europe. The young fish swim down the river to the sea and into the Atlantic Ocean. They live in teh ocean until they are adults. Then they return to the river where they were born. They lay their eggs in the river because then other fish can't eat them, after they have done it they usually die.

Blue food

Nature's way of making food attractive is to colour it so that it looks delicious, so we expect our food to come in familiar colours.

Food companies sometimes need to add colour to their products to make them more natural-looking. We think that it tastes better, although the taste hasn't changed at all.

The colour blue isn't often found in natural food. THere aren't any blue vegetables and there isn't any blue meat. As a result, we don't have  an automatic desire to eat blue food. A million years ago, when our ancestors searched for food, vlue, plurple and black were 'warning' colours that the food may be poisonous.

However, as blue suppresses the appetite, it is used to help a lot of people who want to lose weight. Diet specialists advise people to eat off blue plates and to use knives, forks and spoons with blue handles.

THE PLAGUE

In 1348-49 a terrible disease broke out in Europe. People called it the Black Death. In two years nearly half of Europe's population died. The disease was bubonic plague. Fleas carried the plague. The fleas lived on black rats. These rats arrived in Europe on ships from Asia.

However, people didn't know what caused the plague and the disease spread quickly. Medieval towns were very different from today's cities. Most of the buildings were made of wood or mud. Streets were dirty and there where rats everywhere. A lot of people died of the plague in Europe during this period.

The plague continued to hit Europe until the end of the 17th century. One of the biggest outreaks was the Great Plague of London. The total number of deaths was about 70.000. Many people run away from London.

Later, the plague also broke out in the village of Eyem in Derbyshire. A tailor there there, bought some cloth from London. Unfortunately, when the parcel arrived, there were fleas in the cloth. The people of Eyam were very brave. They decided to close their village. Nobody entered or left the village. Other people put food and medicine near the village. The plague didn't spread to ogher villages, but at least 260 out of 350 people from Eyam died.

Celtic Woman - A New Journey - You Raise Me Up

Lies

Adults teach their children from a Young age that it is wrong to tell a lie. However, as adults they often find that they need to avoid telling the truth to avoid hurting somebody’s feelings.

Small lies to protect other people’s feelings are an everyday part of life. When friends ask for your opinion, they sometimes want reassurance, not honest criticism. Most people tell lies all the time, without feeling guilty or inmoral.

It is true that there are people whe refuse to lie, even if telling the truth is unpopular. These people always speak their mind, and they don’t matter how insensitive other people might find them. Their friends usually accept this as part of their personality, and maye ven admire it.

So, I think that for most of us, honesty is the best when it comes to important matters. However, lies are frequent and necessary part of our social life.