(1) When does history begin? It is tempting to reply "In the beginning", but like many obvious answers, this soon turns out to be unhelpful. As a great Swiss historian once pointed out in another connection, history is the one subject where you cannot begin at the beginning. If we want to, we can trace the chain of human descent back to the appearance of vertebrates, or even to the photosynthetic cells which lie at the start of life itself. We can go back further still, to almost unimaginable upheavals which formed this planet and even to the origins of the universe. Yet this is not "history". (2) Commonsense helps here: history is the story of mankind, of what it has done, suffered or enjoyed. We all know that dogs and cats do not have histories, while human beings do. Even when historians write about a natural process beyond human control, such as the ups and downs of climate, or the spread of disease, they do so only because it helps us to understand why men and women have lived (and died) in some ways rather than others. (3) This suggests that all we have to do is to identify the moment at which the first human beings step out from the shadows of the remote past. It is not quite as simple as that, though. We have to know what we are looking for first and most attempts to define humanity on the basis of observable characteristics prove in the end arbitrary and cramping, as long arguments about "apemen" and "missing links" have shown. Physiological tests help us to classify data but do not identify what is or is not human. That is a matter of a definition about which disagreement is possible. Some people have suggested that human uniqueness lies in language, yet other primates possess vocal equipment similar to our own; when noises are made with it which are signals, at what point do they become speech? Another famous definition is that man is a tool-maker, but observation has cast doubt on our uniqueness in this respect, too, long after Dr. Johnson scoffed at Boswell for quoting it to him. (4) What is surely and identiflably unique about the human species is not its possession of certain faculties or physical characteristics, but what it has done with them—its achievement, or history, in fact. Humanity's unique achievement is its remarkably intense level of activity and creativity, its cumulative capacity to create change. All animals have ways of living, some complex enough to be called cultures. Human culture alone is progressive: it has been increasingly built by conscious choice and selection within it as well as by accident and natural pressure, by the accumulation of a capital of experience and knowledge which man has exploited. Human history began when the inheritance of genetics and behavior which had until then provided the only way of dominating the environment was first broken through by conscious choice. Of course, human beings have always only been able to make their history within limits. These limits are now very wide indeed, but they were once so narrow that it is impossible to identify the first step which took human evolution away from the determination of nature. We have for a long time only a blurred story, obscure both because the evidence is poor and because we cannot be sure exactly what we are looking for.

(1) Joan of Arc would be proud. Edith Cresson, France's first woman Prime Minister, has taken office with a vow to lead the country into a battle whose outcome will be as fateful as any fought by the Maid of Orleans. "There's a world economic war going on, and France is not waging it," Cresson warned last year. Now the combative Prime Minister is preparing an offensive to create jobs at home, win markets abroad and keep France in the economic fight. "We are confronted," she says, "with the need to build a balanced Europe, where France is as strong as Germany." Turning to Japan, she warns, "I don't want hundreds of thousands of jobs to disappear, and to lose our technology and means of wealth." (2) Fighting words at a time when the French, more than ever before, are obsessed with their ability to compete in the global marketplace. Despite illustrations of daring technological progress, such as the TGV and, earlier, the Concorde, "the French really have an industrial inferiority complex," says Paul Gold-schmidt, head of Bain & Co., a consulting firm in Paris. Whether that complex is deserved or not, the French see the powerhouse of a united Germany looming large in a Europe destined to become the world's biggest single market in 1993. Glancing over their shoulders, they look at Italy advancing fast as an economic challenger, its industries quick to exploit market niche. Scanning the horizon, the French are aware of a U.S. reconquering lost export markets even as the Japanese continue their relentless drive for global economic preeminence. "We don't want to end up the Mezzogiorno (意大利南部地区) of Europe," frets Cresson. (3) There is little chance of that happening. The world's fourth largest economy, with a gross national product of $956 billion, is far from becoming an also-ran. Its companies sell nuclear power plants to Asia, high-speed train systems to the U.S. and Europe, and battle-tested military hardware like the Exocet missile worldwide. French firms are engaged in the gamut of aerospace activity, from missiles for space probes to computerized cockpits for commercial aircraft. They are inventive as well as innovative, patenting, among other things, the radial tire and the hydraulic suspension that makes every Citroen a four-wheeled water bed. They are proud that a Renault-built Formula One car can beat out the seemingly unstoppable Honda-powered McLaren of Ayrton Senna in Grand Prix racing. They are equally pleased that Airbus Industries, the French-led European consortium is giving American companies a run for their money in the competition to sell civilian airlines. (4) Still, Cresson & Co. are right to be concerned. Behind the upbeat economic factors and the prestige of many French products loom some numbers that point to disturbing weaknesses in the economic fabric. French industry is good at many things but maddeningly incapable of deciding where to focus its efforts, thanks to what the daily Liberation describes as a touche-a-tout economy-finger in every pie. Thus there are few areas of real dominance, such as the Germans have in luxury cars and machine tools.

(1) "IT is an evil influence on the youth of our country." A politician condemning video gaming? Actually, a clergyman denouncing rock and roll 50 years ago. But the sentiment could just as easily have been voiced by Hillary Clinton in the past few weeks as in saying video games is "a silent epidemic of media desensitization and stealing the innocence of our children". (2) The opposition to gaming springs largely from the neophobia that has pitted the old against the entertainments of the young for centuries. Novels were once considered too low-brow; Waltz music and dancing were condemned in the 19th century; rock and roll was thought to encourage violence. But what of the specific complaints—that games foster addiction and encourage violence? (3) There's no good evidence for either. On addiction, if the worry is about a generally excessive use of screen-based entertainment, critics should surely concern themselves about television rather than games. As to the minority who seriously overdo it research suggests that they display addictive behavior in other ways too. The problem, in other words, is with them, not with the games. (4) Most of the research on whether video games encourage violence is unsatisfactory, focusing primarily on short-term effects. In the best study so far, frequent playing of a violent game sustained over a month had no effect on participants' level of aggression. And, during the period in which gaming has become widespread in America, violent crime has fallen by half. Perhaps, as some observers have suggested, gaming actually makes people less violent, by acting as a safety valve. (5) So are games good, rather than bad, for people? Good ones probably are. Games are widely used as educational tools, not just for pilots, soldiers and surgeons, but also in schools and businesses. Games require players to construct hypotheses, solve problems, develop strategies, and learn the rules of the in-game world through trial and error. Gamers must also be able to juggle several different tasks, evaluate risks and make quick decisions. Playing games is, thus, an ideal form of preparation for the workplace of the 21st century, as some forward-thinking firms are already starting to realize. (6) Pointing all this out makes little difference, though, because the controversy over gaming, as with rock and roll, is more than anything else the consequence of a generational divide. Can the disagreements between old and young over new forms of media ever be resolved? Sometimes attitudes can change relatively quickly, as happened with the Internet. Once condemned as a cesspool of depravity, it is now recognized as a valuable new medium. Attitudes changed because critics of the Internet had to start using it for work, and then realized that, like any medium, it could be used for good purposes as well as bad. They have no such incentive to take up gaming, however. (7) Eventually, objections to new media resolve themselves, as the young grow up and the old die out. As today's gamers grow older—the average age of gamers is already 30—video games will ultimately become just another medium, alongside books, music and films. And soon the greying gamers will start tut-tutting about some new evil threatening to destroy the younger generation's moral fiber.

(1) The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 14th Century, tells the story of a group of medieval pilgrims travelling from London to Canterbury. Six hundred years later, the Star Wars movies were filmed on the same thoroughfare. This road is Watling Street—and there is no road in the English-speaking world more steeped in stories. (2) We now think of Watling Street as the A2 and the A5 motorways, which run diagonally across Britain from Anglesey in north-west Wales to Dover in south-east England. But the road has existed throughout all of British history. It is one of the few permanent fixtures of this island and one of the first lines on the map. It has been a Neolithic pathway, a Roman road, one of the four medieval royal highways, a turnpike in the age of coach travel and the traffic-choked "A road" of today. It is a palimpsest, always being rewritten. (3) Watling Street's origins are lost in the mists of prehistory, but it seems to already have been ancient when the Romans straightened and paved the stretch between Dover to Wroxeter. Even at the beginning, the road was entwined with stories: It was said that the route had been built by King Belinus, a mythical figure related to the pagan sun god Belenus. Today, the road also runs alongside Elstree Studios, on the outskirts of London, where thousands of movies and television series have been shot over the last 100 years. (4) For many years it was believed that William Shakespeare wrote a play called The Widow of Watling Street; it was included in early collections of his work. It is now thought that the real author of that play was Thomas Middleton. But Shakespeare can still be connected to the road. Before the Romans bridged the Thames, the original route of Watling Street forded the river where Westminster Palace now stands. The route would have run close to where Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in Southwark later stood. (5) In 1922 the French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin coined the term "noosphere", which refers to the realm of immaterial things. The noosphere is the place where you'll find all our stories, as well as our laws, culture and philosophy. The word arises from the biosphere, the realm of all living things. The biosphere, in turn, emerges from the geosphere, which is the solid physical world. De Chardin recognised that the world of myths, legends and stories are ultimately rooted in specific parts of the material world. They emerge from place just as much as they emerge from imagination. (6) In the 21st Century, the noosphere has been referred to as "ideaspace", a term coined by the English comics writer Alan Moore and his mentor Steve Moore. Alan and Steve Moore both spent their lives living close to Watling Street, and the road appears in the work of both. As they see it, each of us has our own private estate in ideaspace, where our private thoughts and dreams can be found. But other parts of ideaspace are shared and public, and it is in these communal areas that widely known characters, stories and legends reside. (7) For the Moores, a walk across a landscape was as much a walk through the fiction, histories and associations of the area as it was a walk across the physical, material world. Seen through their eyes, a road as old as Watling Street—which is still used by hundreds of thousands of people every day—is essentially a machine designed to accumulate story upon story. (8) Not long after the M6 Toll road opened in 2003, a family driving along it saw what they first thought were animals. Drawing nearer, they came to believe that they were looking at the ghosts of about 20 Roman soldiers. When the M6 Toll opened, the building supplies company Tarmac Group announced that its surface was made out of asphalt, tarmac and "two and a half million pulped Mills & Boon novels". Those Roman ghosts were not just wading through the physical accumulation of centuries, but the immaterial accumulation as well: The road is literally built out of stories. Populist, throwaway stories, admittedly—but then, romance is always the best genre to build roads from.

Innovation, the elixir (灵丹妙药) of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution hand weavers were 1 aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has 2 many of the mid-skill jobs that supported 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were.For those who believe that technological progress has made the world a better place, such disruption is a natural part of rising 3. Although innovation kills some jobs, it creates new and better ones, as a more 4 society becomes richer and its wealthier inhabitants demand more goods and services. A hundred years ago one in three American workers was 5 on a farm. Today less than 2% of them produce far more food. The millions freed from the land were not rendered 6, but found better-paid work as the economy grew more sophisticated. Today the pool of secretaries has 7, but there are ever more computer programmers and web designers.Optimism remains the right starting-point, but for workers the dislocating effects of technology may make themselves evident faster than its 8. Even if new jobs and wonderful products emerge, in the short term income gaps will widen, causing huge social dislocation and perhaps even changing politics.Technology's 9 will feel like a tornado (旋风), hitting the rich world first, but 10 sweeping through poorer countries too. No government is prepared for it.

(1) Louis Armstrong is rightly lauded as one of the most influential jazz artists of all time, but less frequently appreciated is the impact he had on ending segregation in the United States. In 1931, when Charles Black Jr. was a 16-year-old freshman at the University of Texas, he went to see Armstrong play at the Driskill Hotel in Austin, hoping, in his own words, that there would be "lots of girls there". Instead, he was struck by the music. "He was the first genius I had ever seen," Black wrote in 1986. "It had simply never entered my mind, for confirming or denying in conjecture, that I would see this for the first time in a black man… And if this was true, what happened to the rest of it?" (2) Black later became a constitutional lawyer, and in 1954 he wrote the legal briefs for Linda Brown, the 10-year-old plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education. That experience of being awed by an artist's genius ended up contributing to a landmark case declaring racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. The Harvard art history and African American studies professor Sarah Lewis cites this moment as an example of how culture enables people to see beyond their own blind spots. Art that gets us to pause, she argues, can lead us to a new vision of the world. (3) Last year, Lewis guest-edited an edition of Aperture magazine titled "Vision and Justice", which explored the intersection of photography and black American, and how the medium has contributed to social progress. She discussed the power of images and the political role of artists with the architect Michael Murphy on Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic. Acknowledging the role that culture plays in justice, Lewis said, is something people tend to do only in times of crisis. But even in the current moment, she argued, when more visuals are produced every two minutes than were created during the entire 19th century, images still wield great power when they force people to slow down. (4) One example Lewis cited wasn't an artwork at all, but a plaque unveiled at Harvard last year to commemorate slaves who worked at the university in the 17th century. She also referred to an instantly iconic photograph of President Barack Obama bending down to let a small boy touch his head. And she quoted President John Kennedy's 1963 speech at Amherst College, in which Kennedy considered the power of artists in society, stating: "We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. " (5) While that may be so, Murphy said, it doesn't mean art can't be weaponized. The co-founder and CEO of MASS Design Group, a non-profit firm advocating for " architecture that promotes justice and human dignity," reiterated the idea that forcing people to pause can enable them to restructure their thinking. Architecture is conceptually slow, he argued, since most buildings take at least five years to move from design to completion. He referred to MASS'S proposal for a Holocaust memorial in London, which would create a pile of six million individual stones in the middle of the city, each one inscribed with the name of a victim. Visitors would be encouraged to take the stones home. The end result, Murphy said, would be that " six million people… agree to participate, engage, take a stone, and embrace a more just and tolerant society. " (6) "There are images that are impossible to forget, searing themselves into our collective consciousness," my colleague Yoni Appelbaum wrote last year, after an extraordinary photo of a peaceful protester facing down two armed policemen went viral. As Lewis said, these are the visuals that prompt us to pause, and show us " not only the things we want to celebrate, but the things we need to remember. "

As far as migration patterns go, this one seems to make sense: leave your native country for a more economically prosperous one and ultimately work towards a better, happier life.But as new research suggests, immigrants who move to richer nations are unlikely to find greater economic 1—or greater happiness—in their adopted countries. In the journal Migration Studies, sociologist David Bartram from England's University of Leicester 2 data from the European Social Survey.Bartram compares the happiness of people who left Eastern European countries to live in Western European countries with the happiness of those who remained. The set of the data (which included 42,000 participants) did 3 that the migrants were, on the whole, happier than the stayers but not as a result of the migration. Instead, the migrants were already happier 4 to moving—and thus, the migration itself didn't appear to 5 anyone's happiness overall.Within the findings, here was some 6 from country to country. The study found that migrants who left Romania and Russia did see a higher level of happiness in their new countries, which the researchers 7 to the fact that average happiness in those countries is quite low. Migrants from Poland, on the other hand, experienced a decrease in happiness. But otherwise, happiness levels remained 8 the same.Of course, happiness can be difficult to 9. In an article published on Quartz, Bartram explains how happiness was defined for the purpose of this study. "In economic terms, what matters for happiness is the way one compares oneself to others. If one's income rises in line with the incomes of others, relative position does not change, and so happiness remains 10 as well."

(1) I had the pleasure and honor of serving as a Newport Beach ocean lifeguard for five seasons. Whenever I could, I got shifts working the Point, which was known for its massive, spontaneous rip currents (离岸流). (2) Late in a shift, I'm working Tower 15. Two blocks to my right is another guard named Mike, working Tower 17. He calls me over the phone, "Hey, I got a couple kids. I gotta go give 'em a warning. Keep an eye on us." (3) I say, "Sure," and hang up. (4) Anytime you get out of your tower, you're supposed to let somebody else know, in case a situation develops. As Mike hangs up the phone and grabs his buoy, a rip is snapped up under these two kids, and they're getting sucked out. Mike sees it before it's happening, and he's running at full tilt toward the ocean. I scan the water. All I see is two small noses up and down in the choppy water. (5) I drop my binos and I call in and say, "Double rescue 17—he's out, I'm going." Mike is already punching through the surf line. By now, the mother of the two kids realizes what's happening. She's on her feet and screaming. I start sprinting toward her, but before I'm even halfway there, Mike reaches the kids. Mike told me later that he had to reach down into the water to save them. (6) Mike swims sideways out of the rip current into the clear water and starts bringing them in. When I reach their mother, Mike's in waist-deep water. (7) I turn to their mom and say, "Hey, it's gonna be OK. They're safe." I see the terror start to drain out of her. (8) Then she glances back and gets her first good look at Mike. And a crazy thing happens. I see a new kind of panic wash over her as though there's some new, equally dangerous threat on her kids' lives. She rushes up to Mike and snatches her kids and turns up the beach. Not even a thank-you. (9) Now, Mike had a rough upbringing. You can tell just by looking at him. He has a number of really frightening tattoos, and his shaved head shows the scar he got from a broken beer bottle. Maybe he wasn't the friendliest guard on the beach. I admit, I didn't really get along with Mike. (10) But everything he lacked in public relations skills, he more than made up for in lifesaving ability. If any other guard had been working 17 that night, including me, there'd be a very real chance that that mother wasn't going home with both her kids. Maybe she didn't know anybody who looked quite like Mike. He wasn't her idea of a knight in shining armor. (11) That doesn't change the fact that he had just rescued her kids. It was hard to understand what had happened in her heart. (12) That was over ten years ago. If you asked Mike about it today, I doubt he'd even remember. But I won't forget. I promised myself I'd never let my own fear or prejudice prevent me from recognizing a hero.

Sign has become a scientific hot 1. Only in the past 20 years have specialists in language study realized that signed languages are unique—a speech of the hand. They offer a new way to 2 how the brain generates and understands language, and 3 new light on an old scientific 4: whether language, complete with grammar, is something that we are born with, or it is a learned behavior. The current interest in sign language has 5 in the pioneering work of one rebel teacher at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the world's only liberal arts university for deaf people.When Bill Stokoe went to Gallaudet to teach English, the school 6 him in a course in signing. But Stokoe noticed something 7: among themselves, students signed differently from his classroom teacher. Stokoe had been taught a sort of gesture code, each movement of the hands representing a word in English. But Stokoe believed the "hand talk" his students used looked richer. He wondered: Might deaf people actually have a(n) 8 language? And could that language be unlike any other on Earth? It was 1955, when even deaf people 9 their signing as "substandard". Stokoe's idea was academic heresy (异端邪说). It is 37 years later. Stokoe—now devoting his time to writing and editing books on ASL—is explaining how he started a 10. For decades educators fought his idea that signed languages are natural languages like English, French and Japanese.

(1) Just when Transport for London (TfL) thought the bike hire scheme provided an answer to London's carbon emissions problem, they found a snag—bikes cannot be provided without producing emissions. (2) TfL uses Serco contractors to move hire bicycles around London, so there are enough in each dock to meet demand, while ensuring there is space for users to drop theirs off. Included in the fleet of vehicles are Alke electricity-powered cars, used to tow trailers of bikes. (3) The vehicles are narrower than the trailers of bikes, which critics say has led to accidents involving cyclists. A Freedom of Information request by the bike blog reveals that 24 road accidents have involved Serco transport vehicles since the scheme's launch last summer, including four which also involved a cyclist. (4) In November, David Ellis, a 37-year-old cyclist was knocked off his bike by one of the vehicles. He said the trailers were a danger to cyclists because their width is greater than that of the tow truck. None of the recorded Serco/cyclist collisions were fatal. Compare this with 13 cyclist deaths caused by HGVs in London last year. (5) The vehicles used by Serco produce on average 1884g/km C02 a day in transporting the 862 bikes they're capable of moving daily, meaning around 431kg C02 has been emitted so far. (6) But what level of emissions has been prevented by the scheme? Not much so far, it seems. One of TfL's aims was to reduce overcrowding on the bus and tube networks, not to remove buses from the road, and there is no indication that the number of buses being used has dropped as a result of the scheme. (7) In a survey of bike scheme users it was found that 35％ are tube converts, 29％ used to walk and 23％ have switched from bus rides. That leaves only a possible 13％ who previously drove around the capital. TfL's target of 50,000 people a day using hire bikes should widen the gap between emissions caused by Serco vehicles and emissions abated (减少) by the onset of the scheme. (8) There are 5,000 bikes available, which at times have struggled to cope with the 94,500 bike hire members. For the 50,000 mark to be reached by March Serco will need a more organised pattern of distribution, to limit the number of their vehicles on the road. (9) The scheme's users have a role to play. If London's cyclists want to keep their journey down to within 30 minutes so as to pay just & 1 (which they do, TfL research has found) there will always be too many people trying to jam their two-wheeler into the busiest docks. But if attitudes changed and people became more flexible about paying slightly more, or walking a bit further to complete their journey, there would be less congestion around the hubs and, by default, fewer Serco vans would be needed to shift them from one to another. And that would mean fewer accidents and emissions too.

(1) Humanities departments in America are once again being axed. The reasons, one hears, are economic rather than ideological. It's not that schools don't care about the humanities—they just can't afford them. But if one looks at these institutions' priorities, one finds a hidden ideology at work. (2) Earlier this month, the State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook announced a plan to eliminate several of the college's well-regarded departments for budgetary reasons. Undergraduates will no longer be able to major in comparative literature, cinema and cultural studies or theater arts. (3) Three doctoral programs would be cut, and three departments (European languages and literature, Hispanic languages and literature, and cultural studies) would be merged into one. Not only students but faculty will be affected; many untenured teachers would lose their jobs, and doctoral candidates would have to finish their studies elsewhere. (4) This is happening at a time in which high salaries are awarded to college administrators that dwarf those of a junior or even senior faculty member teaching in at-risk departments. That discrepancy can only be explained through ideology. The decision to reduce education to a corporate consumer-driven model, providing services to the student-client, is ideological too. (5) SUNY Stony Brook is spending millions on a multiyear program entitled "Far Beyond" that is intended to "rebrand" the college's image: a redesigned logo and website, new signs, banners and flags throughout the campus. Do colleges now care more about how a school looks and markets itself than about what it teaches? Has the university become a theme park: Collegeland, churning out workers trained to fill particular niches? Far beyond what? (6) The threat of cuts that SUNY Stony Brook is facing is not entirely new. In 2010, SUNY Albany announced that it was getting rid of its Russian, classics, theater, French and Italian departments—a decision later rescinded. The University of Pittsburgh has cut its German, classics and religious studies program. (7) This problem has parallels internationally. In the UK, protests greeted Middlesex University's 2010 decision to phase out its philosophy department. In June 2015, the Japanese minister of education sent a letter to the presidents of the national universities of Japan, suggesting they close their graduate and undergraduate departments in the humanities and social sciences and focus on something more practical. (8) Most recently, the Hungarian government announced restrictions that would essentially make it impossible for the Central European University, funded by George Soros, to function in Budapest. (9) These are hard times. Students need jobs when they graduate. But a singular opportunity has been lost if they are denied the opportunity to study foreign languages, the classics, literature, philosophy, music, theater and art. When else in their busy lives will they get that chance? (10) Eloquent defenses of the humanities have appeared—essays explaining why we need these subjects, what their loss would mean. Those of us who teach and study are aware of what these areas of learning provide: the ability to think critically and independently; to tolerate ambiguity; to see both sides of an issue; to look beneath the surface of what we are being told; to appreciate the ways in which language can help us understand one another more clearly and profoundly—or, alternately, how language can conceal and misrepresent. They help us learn how to think, and they equip us to live in—to sustain—a democracy. (11) Studying the classics and philosophy teaches students where we come from, and how our modes of reasoning have evolved over time. Learning foreign languages, and about other cultures, enables students to understand how other societies resemble or differ from our own. Is it entirely paranoid (多疑的) to wonder if these subjects are under attack because they enable students to think in ways that are more complex than the reductive simplifications so congenial to our current political and corporate discourse? (12) I don't believe that the humanities can make you a decent person. We know that Hitler was an ardent Wagner fan and had a lively interest in architecture. But literature, art and music can focus and expand our sense of what humans can accomplish and create. The humanities teach us about those who have gone before us; a foreign language brings us closer to those with whom we share the planet. (13) The humanities can touch those aspects of consciousness that we call intellect and heart—organs seemingly lacking among lawmakers whose views on health care suggest not only zero compassion but a poor understanding of human experience, with its crises and setbacks. (14) Courses in the humanities are as formative and beneficial as the classes that will replace them. Instead of Shakespeare or French, there will be (perhaps there already are) college classes in how to trim corporate spending—courses that instruct us to eliminate "frivolous" programs of study that might actually teach students to think.

(1) Sitting in a corner sobbing may not be everyone's idea of a great start to the year, but learning how to feel your sad emotions could be the key to a happier year. People who cry typically experience fewer "negative aggressive feelings", such as rage and disgust, than people who don't, according to a piece of research. Similarly, another study found that American footballers who cried reported higher levels of self-esteem, and were less concerned about peer pressure than their non-crying counterparts. (2) "We now know that crying is something all humans are programmed to do, and that tears serve a purpose," says Ad Vingerhoets, an academic known as the "tear professor". "Cortisol (皮质醇) levels decrease in those who cry, since expressing sadness soothes us. " This is because sadness has a function. In numerous studies since the 1980s, researchers from the University of New South Wales have found that accepting and allowing for temporary sadness helps improve attention to detail, increases perseverance, promotes generosity and makes us more grateful for what we've got. (3) Aiming to avoid sadness or suppress negative thoughts can backfire. The Harvard University social psychologist Daniel Wegner led a thought experiment in 1987, where subjects were told not to think about white bears, inspired by the Russian writer Dostoevsky, who wrote: " Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute. " Wegner found that participants routinely thought about the thing they were attempting to avoid; further studies confirmed that thought suppression is futile, as well as exacerbating the very emotions we're hoping to swerve. (4) Having spent the past eight years researching happiness worldwide, I began to notice that many of the people I met were so obsessed with the pursuit of happiness that they had become phobic of feeling sad. I'd speak to people who had just lost loved ones and they would ask: "How can I be happy?" I'd meet people who'd recently been made redundant, or homeless, or had a bad breakup, who'd still ask: "Why aren't I happy?" I'd try to explain that, sometimes, we need to be sad. Sadness is what we're supposed to feel after a loss, and sorrow is the sane response when sad things happen. After a year in which all of our lives have been rocked by a global pandemic, for instance, it's OK to feel sad. But many of us have been conditioned to be so averse to "negative emotions" that we don't recognize them, much less acknowledge them or give ourselves permission to feel and process them. This can be isolating for those experiencing sadness and baffling for those trying to help loved ones through pain. (5) Fortunately, there are strategies that help, such as allowing time, managing our expectations, getting some perspective and engaging with culture—putting down our smartphones and sitting with sadness when it comes. We shouldn't apologize for our feelings or numb them with excesses (alcohol, drugs, shopping; whatever our crutch of choice) or deprivation (controlling food intake is a common unhealthy coping strategy in times of pain). To be sad better, we need to get active outdoors, daily—if only for a 20-minute walk. (6) There's also much to learn from cultures where people are more in touch with their emotions— "good" and "bad". In Bhutan, for example, crematoriums (火葬场) are located centrally, so children grow up with the idea that loss and death are inevitable. The Portuguese and Brazilians have the concept of saudade—meaning a melancholy for happiness that once was, or even the life we merely hoped for.

(1) Debates among candidates are rare in most countries. But they have become a staple of American politics. Americans like debates because the candidates can be compared in an unscripted, live performance. History indicates that a bad performance, particularly a telling gaffe, can badly damage a candidate in the polls. The debates are a "key test" of the strength and abilities of the candidates. (2) The unforgettable debate quip that can deflate a candidacy is the worst nightmare of any presidential hopeful. "There you go again", Ronald Reagan's memorable retort to President Jimmy Carter, was a line that stuck with both viewers and commentators in the 1980 presidential campaign. Carter went on to lose the election, polls showed mostly because of the economy. But Carter's debate performance didn't help. (3) The potential of debates to damage a vulnerable presidential hopeful is one reason why some candidates, particularly frontrunners, are reluctant to risk their chances in such an uncontrolled environment. But broadcast presidential debates, both in the primaries and in the general election, are now routine and expected by the American people. (4) It was not always so. Face-to-face presidential debates began their broadcast history in 1948 when Republicans Thomas Dewey and Harold Stassen faced each other in a radio debate during the Oregon Republican presidential primary. The first broadcast television debates between the two major party nominees were in 1960 when Senator John F. Kennedy faced Vice President Richard Nixon. The debates were considered crucial to Kennedy's narrow victory. Interestingly, Americans who heard the debate on radio thought Nixon had won. But the far larger television audience applauded Kennedy's performance, testimony to the importance—in the television age—of image as well as substance. The point is Americans are concerned not just with a leader's policies and ideology, but also with his character and temperament. In the contentious atmosphere of a debate, such personal attributes are easier for voters to judge than in pre-packaged campaign commercials or formal speeches. (5) Since 1987, the presidential debates have been organized by the bipartisan organization, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Its purpose is to sponsor and produce debates for the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the two major parties. In Election 2000, the commission set a threshold for the participation of third party candidates in the debates. They must show they have the support—as evidenced in a number of opinion polls—of at least 15 percent of the population. (6) Whatever the quality of the debates in Election 2000, they are unlikely to equal the most famous political debates in American history which occurred long before the invention of radio and television. In 1858, Stephen Douglas debated Abraham Lincoln for a U.S. Senate seat. Douglas, a pro-slavery Democrat, was the incumbent. Lincoln was anti-slavery. "Honest Abe," as he was endearingly called, lost the Senate race, but two years later was elected the first Republican president of the United States. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are still heralded for the quality of the discourse at a crucial time in the nation's history.

A. division B. sufficient C. constant D. depths E. exterior F. whereas G. stable H. proved I. external J. measuring K. environment L. inadequate M. making N. bottom O. characterizing For centuries it has been recognized that mammals and birds differ from other animals in the way they regulate body temperature. Ways of【C1】________the difference have become more accurate and meaningful over time, but popular terminology still reflects the old【C2】________into "warm blooded" and "cold blooded" species; warm blooded included mammals and birds,【C3】________all other creatures were considered cold blooded. As more species were studied, it became evident that this classification was【C4】________. A fence lizard usually has a body temperature only a degree or two below that of humans and so is not cold. Therefore the next distinction was made between animals that maintain a【C5】________body temperature and those whose body temperature varies with their environment. But this classification also【C6】________inadequate, because among mammals there are many that vary their body temperatures during hibernation. Furthermore, many invertebrates that live in the【C7】________of the ocean never experience a change in the chill of the deep water, and their body temperatures remain constant. The current distinction is between animals whose body temperature is regulated chiefly by internal metabolic processes and those whose temperature is regulated by the【C8】________. The latter do so mainly by moving to favorable sites or by changing their exposure to【C9】________sources of heat. Mammals and birds also regulate their temperature by choosing favorable environments, but primarily they regulate their temperature by【C10】________a variety of internal adjustments.

(1) Fifteen-hundred rubbish bins fill a room that stretches the length of an entire city block. Each one of the 60-gallon containers is neatly labelled and arrayed in a perfect line. Each holds the possessions of a homeless person or family. The facility, fittingly called The Bin, was set up by Chrysalis, a charity, to provide free storage for those living on the streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles. (2) There are few harsher vistas of America's homelessness problem than this neighbourhood, which adjoins a flourishing downtown and arts district. The city says that 4,800 homeless people live there, of whom 23％ have an addiction and 43％ have a mental illness. They are a fraction of the 50,000 homeless people estimated to live in the Los Angeles area, who are seen not just in Skid Row but also on the bustling pier (凸式码头) of Santa Monica and along Venice Beach, where a peaceful-looking woman in her 50s wears plastic bags for shoes and a young man clothed in too many layers gestures to himself on the sand. (3) Despite significant public efforts, such as a surcharge on sales tax directed entirely towards homeless services and a $1.2bn bond issue to pay for affordable housing, the problem of homelessness is worsening in Los Angeles. Though it can be found everywhere, homelessness, unlike other social pathologies, is not a growing national problem. Rather it is an acute and worsening condition in America's biggest, most successful cities. (4) On the surface the problem of homelessness looks tough. This prompts policy misadventures. The White House once intervened in California's homelessness problem. However, the suggestions they floated—more arrests, and warehousing those living on the streets in unused aeroplane hangars—would not have been helpful. The real aim seemed to be more to embarrass prominent Democrats than to help. Around the same time, the Council of Economic Advisors put out a report suggesting that spending on shelters would incentivise homelessness. (5) The pessimism is the result of three widely believed myths. The first is that the typical homeless person has lived on the street for years, while dealing with addiction, mental illness, or both. In fact, only 35％ of the homeless have no shelter, and only one-third of those are classified as chronically homeless. The overwhelming majority of America's homeless are in some sort of temporary shelter paid for by charities or government. Most imagine the epicentre of the American homeless epidemic to be San Francisco, where there are 6,900 homeless people, of whom 4,400 live outdoors, instead of New York, where there are 79,000 homeless, of whom just 3,700 are unsheltered. (6) The second myth is that rising homelessness in cities is the result of migration, either in search of better weather or benefits. Homelessness is a home-grown problem. About 70％ of the homeless in San Francisco previously lived in the city; 75％ of those living on the streets of Los Angeles, in places like Skid Row, come from the surrounding area. In Hawaii, a majority of the homeless are ethnic Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, suggesting that the problem is largely local. (7) The third myth is that nothing can be done about it. Much of this results from combining temporary, sheltered homelessness—the majority of cases—with chronic street homelessness. Most bouts (发作) are short and sheltered, driven chiefly by an inability to pay rent and likely to stabilise after rapid rehousing and time-limited housing vouchers. For the most challenging cases of homelessness, addiction and mental illness, more exhaustive interventions are needed. (8) One promising approach is the "housing first" model, which seeks to place people in supportive housing without preconditions, and to provide social services afterwards. Although America pioneered this approach, it has not been scaled up. Instead, the Finns have adopted it and nearly halved their homelessness rates in the past decade. A study of Denver's programme suggests that permanent supportive housing, though costly, ultimately saves public dollars because it avoids the huge costs of policing, hospitalisation and providing emergency shelter for the homeless. (9) All this obscures the chief reason, however, which is the cost of housing. An analysis by Chris Glynn and Emily Fox, two statisticians, predicts that a 10％ increase in rents in a high-cost city like New York would result in an 8％) increase in the number of homeless residents. High housing costs almost surely lurk. Fixing this means dealing with a lack of supply, created by over-burdensome zoning regulations and an unwillingness among Democratic leaders to overcome local interests. (10) Unaffordable rental markets make homelessness harder to fix, because housing vouchers go only so far. If the engine driving homelessness is left running, the problem in high-cost cities only gets worse. "We effectively remove 133 people from the streets each day, only to be met by an inflow of 150 people each day," says Mark Ridley-Thomas, of the Board of Supervisors for Los Angeles County. (11) The ideal way to get stable housing is a stable job. Chrysalis, the charity that runs The Bin, also maintains an entirely voluntary job-skills-and-placement programme, which they say helped put 2,100 people to work last year. One of them is Marshall May, who was recently promoted at The Bin after years of prison and homelessness. With the bigger pay cheque comes greater financial stability, but also a new source of angst. The rent, he says, is worryingly high.

A. height B. compensate C. whereas D. imbibe E. reflect F. degree G. strategy H. replenish I. further J. under K. stronger L. session M. devour N. fatal O. repel Large animals that inhabit the desert have evolved a number of adaptations for reducing the effects of extreme heat. One adaptation is to be light in color, and to【C1】________rather than absorb the sun's rays. Desert mammals also depart from the normal mammalian practice of maintaining a constant body temperature. Instead of trying to keep down the body temperature deep inside the body, which would involve the expenditure of water and energy, desert mammals allow their temperatures to rise to what would normally be fever【C2】________, and temperatures as high as 46 degrees Celsius have been measured in gazelles (瞪羚羊). Another【C3】________of large desert animals is to tolerate the loss of body water to a point that would be【C4】________for non-adapted animals. The camel can lose up to 30 percent of its body weight as water without harm to itself,【C5】________human beings die after losing only 12 to 13 percent of their body weight. An equally important adaptation is the ability to【C6】________this water loss at one drink. Desert animals can drink prodigious volumes in a short time, and camels have been known to【C7】________over 100 liters in a few minutes. A very dehydrated person, on the other hand, cannot drink enough water to rehydrate at one【C8】________, because the human stomach is not sufficiently big and because a too rapid dilution of the body fluids causes death from water intoxication. The tolerance of water loss is of obvious advantage in the desert, as animals do not have to remain near a water hole but can obtain food from grazing sparse and far-flung pastures. Desert-adapted mammals have the【C9】________ability to feed normally when extremely dehydrated; it is a common experience in people that appetite is lost even【C10】________conditions of moderate thirst.

(1) Although numbers of animals in a given region may fluctuate from year to year, the fluctuations are often temporary and, over long periods, trivial. Scientists have advanced three theories of population control to account for this relative constancy. (2) The first theory attributes a relatively constant population to periodic climatic catastrophes that decimate populations with such frequency as to prevent them from exceeding some particular limit. In the case of small organisms with short life cycles, climatic changes need not be catastrophic: normal seasonal changes in photoperiod (daily amount of sunlight), for example, can govern population growth. This theory—the density-independent view—asserts that climatic factors exert the same regulatory effect on population regardless of the number of individuals in a region. (3) A second theory argues that population growth is primarily density-dependent—that is, the rate of growth of a population in a region decreases as the number of animals increases. The mechanisms that manage regulation may vary. For example, as numbers increase, the food supply would probably diminish, which would increase mortality. In addition, as Lotka and Volterra have shown, predators can find prey more easily in high-density populations. Other regulators include physiological control mechanisms: for example, Christian and Davis have demonstrated how the crowding that results from a rise in numbers may bring about hormonal changes in the pituitary (垂体) and adrenal glands (肾上腺) that in turn may regulate population by lowering sexual activity and inhibiting sexual maturation. There is evidence that these effects may persist for three generations in the absence of the original provocation. One challenge for density-dependent theorists is to develop models that would allow the precise prediction of the effects of crowding. (4) A third theory, proposed by Wynne-Edwards and termed "epideictic", argues that organisms have evolved a "code" in the form of social or epideictic behavior displays, such as winter roosting aggregations or group vocalizing; such codes provide organisms with information on population size in a region so that they can, if necessary, exercise reproductive restraint. However, Wynne-Edwards' theory, linking animal social behavior and population control, has been challenged, with some justification, by several studies.

(1) We know the physical benefits exercise has on our bodies, but the wonders it can do for your brain aren't limited either. "If exercise were a pill, it would be one of the most cost-effective drugs ever invented," says Dr. Nick Cavill, a health promotion consultant. Aside from its ability to perhaps halve your risk of major illnesses such as heart disease and cancer, exercise also extends benefits to the mind, improving mental health and wellbeing. (2) In the early 80s, exercise was shown to increase endorphin (内啡肽) levels in the blood. Through triggering a positive feeling, these brain chemicals play a part in the brain-boosting effects of exercise, but the complete story is more complicated and still far from understood. Scientists at the Cochrane Library have asked whether a daily dose of exercise might help everything from schizophrenia (精神分裂症) to sleep disorders, tobacco addiction to anxiety, and have offered explanations as to how it might bring about its benefits. Here's what they (and others) have found. (3) " Individuals with schizophrenia can improve components of mental health by participating in regular exercise," write the authors of a review into exercise therapy for schizophrenia. Whether it's regular walking or specific strength training, it's thought that, aside from endorphin release, exercise might help by increasing social support and sense of autonomy, improving perceptions of competence, enhancing body image and by providing distraction. Definitive conclusions cannot yet be drawn though; more research is needed. The review included only 96 participants, with more men than women. (4) Mice are commonly used in medical research (but are not always the best fit since what works or doesn't work in mice does not necessarily translate to humans). In one study in the British Journal of Pharmacology, nicotine-treated, wheel-running mice displayed fewer signs of withdrawal (such as tremor) when compared with a sedentary group. (5) Exercise also seems to help people quit smoking, by reducing cravings and helping to manage weight gain. It's hard though to prove this with science, with results from more than 20 clinical trials finding no evidence that adding exercise to smoking cessation programs improves abstinence. An absence of scientific evidence is though just that, and it does not prove absence of effect. Real-life success stories abound. (6) Focusing especially on older people (since insomnia increases with age), one small study showed that people slept for about 42 minutes longer, and fell asleep about 11 minutes more quickly, when they had participated in a 16-week exercise program, consisting mainly of walking and low impact aerobics. Hard work, it seems, can pay off. (7) When scientists gathered data from more than 2,000 people in 39 small clinical trials, they found exercise perhaps to be as effective as drugs or talking therapy in reducing depression. Whilst awaiting results of larger, more robust studies they wonder whether the effects seen are down to elevation of brain chemicals or enhancement of self-image when mastering a new skill. Increased social contact and distraction can also help. In one case study, cold water swimming helped one woman with depression become medication-free. It is though important to realize that exercise alone is not enough to treat someone with severe depression. (8) "Whether wine is a food, a medicine or a poison depends on the dosage," stated Paracelsus, a philosopher in the 16th century, and the same is true for exercise. Writing in the British Journal of Pharmacology, Professor Jose Vina from the University of Valencia says that " dosing is extremely important to get the beneficial effects of exercise. In moderate doses, it causes very pronounced relaxing effects, but some may even become addicted to exercise". (9) In mild to moderate chronic fatigue syndrome, an individualized, person-centered program of exercise is needed; unsupervised or unstructured exercise may worsen symptoms. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is to publish new guidelines on this, stressing that different combinations of approaches are helpful for different people.

Read carefully the following excerpt on the revision of textbooks which increases the content of traditional Chinese culture and then write your response in NO LESS THAN 200 WORDS, in which you should: . summarize the main message of the excerpt, and then . comment on why such revision is necessary. You can support yourself with information from the excerpt. Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. Revised Textbook Turns to Traditional Chinese Culture Chinese language textbooks in China’s primary and secondary schools have been revised to focus more on traditional culture, according to an editor. Starting this autumn, more than four million first and seventh graders from Hunan, Henan, Guangdong, Liaoning and other provincial-level regions will use the new textbooks. Traditional material makes up 30 percent of the revised primary school textbooks, while it increases to about 40 percent for secondary school textbooks. " We did so to address the needs of parents, who want their children to learn more about traditional culture," said a senior editor surnamed Zhu in charge of the middle school textbooks. "Now many people cannot even understand the language in classical Chinese books, and parents compete to send their children to commercial training centers for traditional culture," she said. China has seen a renewed interest in traditional education. A report by the Southern Metropolitan Daily said that China has more than 3,000 Sishu, or traditional private schools, in addition to training centers teaching students classical essays. "Demand for private education grows when teaching of traditional culture in public schools is not enough. What’s more, the poetry and essays in the new textbooks were selected not only for students to learn the language, but also to instruct them on philosophy. " Zhu said. Primary and middle schools in China had uniform textbooks before an education reform in 2001, which allowed schools in different provinces to use different textbooks. More than ten publishers have released their own textbooks. This is the first revision the press has made in more than two decades. They have replaced some outdated articles. Write your response on ANSWER SHEET THREE.

There's a battle raging in the streets of America. Anyone who 1 rides a bicycle knows all about this. Some motorists have declared war on bikes as annoying 2 that lead to slow traffic. They honk(鸣笛), shout or curse at two-wheeled travelers. A few will do even worse. The New York Times reports that incidents of 3 toward bicycle riders appear to be growing, as bike riders take to the streets in order to save gas and money and fight global warming.In Denver, nearly 11,000 first-time bike 4 turned out for Bike to Work Day. The bicycle group, Transportation Alternatives 5 that the number of New Yorkers who cycle daily has risen 77 percent since 2000.Even though virtually every state grants bicyclists the same rights (and responsibilities) as motorists to use the streets, many drivers still refuse to accept this. They view themselves as Kings of the Road—an impression that has been strongly 6 by the transportation planning profession, which has designed our cities and suburbs as if people did not exist outside of their cars. But a big new idea to settle this 7 and improve life in the streets for everyone is now taking root among community activists, urban planners and traffic engineers. "Too many of our streets are designed only for speeding cars, or worse, creeping traffic jams. They're unsafe for people on foot or bike—and unpleasant for everybody.""Now, in communities across the country, a movement is growing to complete the streets. States, cities and towns are asking their planners, engineers and designers to build road networks that welcome all citizens," declares the website of a new organization 8 this idea. Complete the Streets—an 9 program of adding bike lanes, pedestrian 10 and traffic calming measures—is the best idea to hit our communities since pizza, or even the bicycle itself.