阅读理解 Children who spend more than two hours a day at a computer or watching television are more likely than others to have mental problems, scientists say. Researchers found that 11-year-olds who spent several hours in front of a screen each day did worse on mental health tests, no matter how much physical exercise they got. The University of Bristol study, published in Pediatrics, involved more than 1,000 children aged about 10. They also had the kids fill out questionnaires designed to gauge the kids' emotional well-being and behavior. The questionnaires contained 20 questions covering five sections—emotional difficulties, conduct problems, hyperactivity or inattention, friendships and peer groups and problems relating to friends and peer groups. The study found no direct evidence that sitting in front of a screen actually causes mental health problems. Instead, it suggests that children with difficulties, such as extreme shyness, are more likely to choose TV or computer games than sociable activities. In the study, children were asked whether they agreed, disagreed or somewhat agree with a list of statements, including, "I generally play alone or keep to myself and, "I am often unhappy or tearful". They were also asked how much exercise they took and how long they spent at a TV or computer screen. According to the study, children who spent more than two hours a day at a screen had a 60% higher risk of mental problems than children who spent fewer viewing hours. The risk was only slightly higher in children who did little or no exercise. "Physical activity is good for health in many ways, but it can't make up for long hours of screen viewing. Parents should consider limiting their children's screen viewing to no more than 2 hours a day," said the study organizer, Angie Page. Previous studies have raised concerns that watching too much television can affect children's behavior in later life. A Canadian study found that those who watched most TV as young children performed worse at school, ate more junk food and had more trouble concentrating.

阅读理解 The brain is truly a marvel. A seemingly endless library, whose shelves house our most precious memories as well as our lifetime's knowledge. But is there a point where it reaches capacity? In other words, can the brain be "full" ? The answer is a resounding no, because, well, brains are more sophisticated than that. A study published in Nature Neuroscience earlier this year shows that instead of just crowding in, old information is sometimes pushed out of the brain for new memories to form. Previous behavioral studies have shown that learning new information can lead to forgetting. But in this study, researchers used new neuroimaging techniques to demonstrate for the first time how this effect occurs in the brain. The paper's authors set out to investigate what happens in the brain when we try to remember information that's very similar to what we already know. This is important because similar information is more likely to interfere with existing knowledge, and it's the stuff that crowds without being useful. To do this, they examined how brain activity changes when we try to remember a "target" memory, that is, when we try to recall something very specific, at the same time as trying to remember something similar (a "competing" memory). Participants were taught to associate a single word (say, the word sand) with two different images—such as one of Marilyn Monroe and the other of a hat. They found that as the target memory was recalled more often, brain activity for it increased. Meanwhile, brain activity for the competing memory simultaneously weakened. This change was most prominent in regions near the front of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, rather than key memory structures in the middle of the brain, such as the hippocampus, which is traditionally associated with memory loss. The prefrontal cortex is involved in a range of complex cognitive processes, such as planning, decision making, and selective retrieval of memory. Extensive research shows this part of the brain works in combination with the hippocampus to retrieve specific memories. If the hippocampus is the search engine, the prefrontal cortex is the filter determining which memory is the most relevant. This suggests that storing information alone is not enough for a good memory. The brain also needs to be able to access the relevant information without being distracted by similar competing pieces of information. In daily life, forgetting actually has clear advantages. Imagine, for instance, that you lost your bank card. The new card you receive will come with a new personal identification number (PIN). Research in this field suggests that each time you remember the new PIN, you gradually forget the old one. This process improves access to relevant information, without old memories interfering. When we acquire new information, the brain automatically tries to incorporate it within existing information by forming associations. And when we retrieve information, both the desired and associated but irrelevant information is recalled. The majority of previous research has focused on how we learn and remember new information. But current studies are beginning to place greater emphasis on the conditions under which we forget, as its importance begins to be more appreciated.

阅读理解 Laziness is a sin, everyone knows that. We have probably all had lectures pointing out that laziness is immoral, that it is wasteful, and that lazy people will never amount to anything in life. But laziness can be more harmful than that, and it is often caused by more complex reasons than simple wish to avoid work. Some people who appear to be lazy are suffering from much more serious problems. They may be so distrustful of their fellow workers that they are unable to join in any group task for fear of ridicule or fear of having their ideas stolen. These people who seem lazy may be paralyzed by a fear of failure that prevents fruitful work. Or other sorts of fantasies may prevent work; some people are so busy planning, sometimes planning great deals or fantastic achievements that they are unable to deal with whatever "lesser" work is on hand. Still other people are not avoiding work; strictly speaking, they are merely procrastinating—rescheduling their day. Laziness can actually be helpful. Like procrastinators, some people may look lazy when they are really thinking, planning, contemplating, researching. We should all remember that great scientific discoveries occurred by chance. Newton wasn't working in the orchard when the apple hit him and he devised the theory of gravity. All of us would like to have someone "lazy" were caused by the worker's taking time to check each step of his work and to do his job right. And sometimes, being lazy that is, taking time off for a rest is good for the overworked students or executive. Taking a rest can be particularly helpful to the athlete who is trying too hard or the doctor who's simply working himself overtime too many evenings at the clinic. So be careful when you're tempted to call someone lazy. That person may be thinking, resting, and planning his or her next book.

阅读理解 Two friends have an argument that breaks up their friendship forever, even though neither one can remember how the whole thing got started. Such sad events happen over and over in high schools across the country. In fact, according to an official report on youth violence, "In our country today, the greatest threat to the lives of children and adolescents is not disease or starvation or abandonment, but the terrible reality of violence". Given that this is the case, why aren't students taught to manage conflict the way they are taught to solve math problems, drive cars, or stay physically fit? First of all, students need to realize that conflict is unavoidable. A report on violence among middle school and high school students indicates that most violent incidents between students begin with a relatively minor insult. For example, a fight could start over the fact that one student eats a peanut butter sandwich each lunchtime. Laughter over the sandwich can lead to insults, which in turn can lead to violence. The problem isn't in the sandwich, but in the way students deal with the conflict. Once students recognize that conflict is unavoidable, they can practice the golden rule of conflict resolution: stay calm. Once the student feels calmer, he or she should choose words that will calm the other person down as well. Rude words, name-calling, and accusation only add fuel to the emotional fire. On the other hand, soft words spoken at a normal sound level can put out the fire before it explodes out of control. After both sides have calmed down, they can use another key strategy for conflict resolution: listening. Listening allows the two sides to understand each other. One person should describe his or her side, and the other person should listen without interrupting. Afterward, the listener can ask non-threatening questions to clarify the speaker's position. Then the two people should change roles. Finally, students need to consider what they are hearing. This doesn't mean trying to figure out what's wrong with the other person. It means understanding what the real issue is and what both sides are trying to accomplish. For example, a shouting match over a peanut butter sandwich might happen because one person thinks the other person is unwilling to try new things. Students need to ask themselves questions such as these: How did this start? What do I really want? What am I afraid of? As the issue becomes clearer, the conflict often simply becomes smaller. Even if it doesn't, careful thought helps both sides figure out a mutual solution. There will always be conflict in schools, but that doesn't mean there needs to be violence. After students in Atlanta started a conflict resolution program, according to Educators for Social Responsibility, "64% of the teachers reported less physical violence in the classroom; 75% of the teachers reported an increase in student cooperation; and 92% of the students felt better about themselves". Learning to resolve conflicts can help students deal with friends, teachers, parents, bosses, and coworkers. In that way, conflict resolution is a basic life skill that should be taught in schools across the country.

阅读理解 The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop' s Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than stealing from, human beings. Aesop's fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. The fable' s lesson, that we often play down that which we can't achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. The mythology of other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop's fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environment in which those culture existed.

阅读理解 Frenchmen attach great importance to education. They regard the cultivation of children as a social obligation. French education mixes warm romantic humor into its careful and severe education. I have ever heard such a story: It took place in an ordinary French family. One day, when the boy was playing basketball, the ball hit a vase off the shelf with its mouth knocked off a large piece. The vase was an antique handed down through generations from Bourbon Dynasty. To cover the great trouble, the boy glued the pieces together and put the vase back to its place panic-stricken. That evening his mother noticed the change on it. At dinnertime, she asked her boy if he had broken the vase. Being scared of punishment, the boy said by a sudden inspiration that a cat jumped in from the window and knocked the vase off the shelf. His mother was quite clear that her son was lying, for all the windows were closed before her leaving. However, she just said that it seemed it was her carelessness not to have the window tightly closed. Before going to bed, the boy found a note on his bed, on which he was asked to go to the study. The boy had thought he had gotten by under false pretences, but then felt he couldn't dodge the misfortune. Now that he had already lied, he made up his mind no matter what his mother said, he would disavow to the end. On seeing her son enter in fear, his mother took out a chocolate box and gave one piece of the chocolates to her son. "Baker, this chocolate is a reward for you, for you created a cat with your special imagination." Then, she put another chocolate in his hand. "This chocolate is a reward for your ability to restore. But the glue you used is for restoring paper materials; to restore a vase needs higher special technique. Tomorrow, let's bring the vase to the artists to see how they make a craftwork intact as it was." With that, she took the third chocolate, "The last chocolate stands for my apology. I shouldn't have laid a vase in a place where it could so easily fall down. I wish you hadn't been scared, my little sweetheart." "But, Mom, I..." The boy tried to make something clear, but he awkwardly uttered nothing but some words. "Our talk is over. Good night, Baker!" She gave a soft kiss on his forehead and walked out of the study. The following days were the same as before. The only change was that the boy had never told a lie since then. No scolding. It looks unimaginably queer. In fact, the three chocolates are the alarm in the boy's heart all the time. Sometimes, no punishment itself is a kind of punishment.

阅读理解 Paper money is used every day but people do not often think of money as just paper. This is because people agree that it has value, and paper money is supported by the government. People have used paper money for only a few hundred years, but what did people do before printed money was invented? In Medieval England, a stick was the official representation of money. The common system that was used involved counting debt on a piece of wood called a "tally stick". The tally stick was marked with a knife. Each mark, or tally, indicated an amount of money. The tally stick acted as a contract. No one really knows who invented the tally stick, but King Henry I of England is credited as the first to use the stick in a widespread fashion. In England, the tally stick was used from 1100-1826. Marks were made on a tally stick to represent the amount of service or goods that were exchanged. The tally stick was cut in half lengthwise into two parts, and one stick was longer than the other. The person giving services or goods received the longer end of the stick, called the "stock", and the person paying for the service or goods received the shorter end. Once the stick was cut, it could not be altered. When put together, the two halves fit perfectly together. Medieval England was not the only country to use the tally stick system. In 1960, Belgian scientist Jean de Heinzelin de Braucourt discovered an extremely old tally stick made of baboon bone in Africa. At first, he determined the stick to be between about 8,000 to 10,000 years old. This surprised many people because it proved that the tally stick system had been in use for much longer than everyone had previously thought. Further research has shown that this stick is actually much older: now, scientists believe it is 20,000 years old. The tally stick system may no longer be in use today, but its influence is still apparent. People still make contracts and people still borrow and lend money. People still trust that "things"— whether they are sticks, paper, or coins—have value. The next time paper money is used, just remember: it is only paper!

阅读理解 Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recently years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising their thinking on this educational ritual. Unfortunately, L.A. Unified has produced an inflexible policy which mandates that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student' s academic grade. This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework. But the policy is unclear and contradictory. Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot complete on their own or that they cannot do without expensive equipment. But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children. District administrators say that homework will still be a part of schooling; teachers are allowed to assign as much of it as they want. But with homework counting for no more than 10% of their grades, students can easily skip half their homework and see very little difference on their report cards. Some students might do well on state tests without completing their homework, but what about the students who performed well on the tests and did their homework? It is quite possible that the homework helped. Yet rather than empowering teachers to find what works best for their students, the policy imposes a flat, across-the-board rule. At the same time, the policy addresses none of the truly thorny questions about homework. If the district finds homework to be unimportant to its students' academic achievement, it should move to reduce or eliminate the assignments, not make them count for almost nothing. Conversely, if homework matters, it should account for a significant portion of the grade. Meanwhile, this policy does nothing to ensure that the homework students receive is meaningful or appropriate to their age and the subject, or that teachers are not assigning more than they are willing to review and correct. The homework rules should be put on hold while the school board, which is responsible for setting educational policy, looks into the matter and conducts public hearings. It is not too late for L.A. Unified to do homework right.

阅读理解 Do who choose to go on exotic, far-flung holidays deserve free health advice before they travel? And even if they pay, who ensures that they get good, up-to-date information? Who, for that matter, should collect that information in the first place? For a variety of reasons, travel medicine in Britain is a responsibility nobody wants. As a result, many travellers go abroad prepared to avoid serious disease. Why is travel medicine so unloved? Partly there's an identity problem. Because it takes an interest in anything that impinges on the health of travellers, this emerging medical specialism invariably cuts across the traditional disciplines. It delves into everything from seasickness, jet lag and the hazards of camels to malaria and plague. But travel medicine has a more serious obstacle to overcome. Travel clinics are meant to tell people how to avoid ending up dead or in a hospital when they come home, but it is notoriously difficult to get anybody pay out money for keeping people healthy. Travel medicine has also been colonized by commercial interests; the vast majority of travel clinics in Britain are run by airlines or travel companies. And while travel concerns are happy to sell profitable injections, they may be less keen to spread bad news about travellers' diarrhea in Turkey, or to take time to spell out preventive measures travellers could take. "The NHS finds it difficult to define travellers' health, " says Ron Behrens, "the only NHS consultant in travel and director of the travel clinic of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London." Should it come within the NHS or should it be paid for? "It's Gary area, and opinion is spilt. No one seems to have any responsibility for defining its role, " he says. To compound its low status in the medical hierarchy, travel medicine has to rely on statistics that are patchy at best. In most cases we just don't know how many Britons contract diseases when abroad. And even if a disease linked to travel there is rarely any information about where those afflicted went, what they are, how they behaved, or which vaccinations they had. This shortage of hard facts and figures makes it difficult to give detailed advice to people, information that might even save their lives. A recent leader in British Medical Journal argued. "Travel medicine will emerge as credible disciplines only if the risks encountered by travellers and the relative benefits of public health interventions are well defined in terms of their relative occurrence, distribution and control." Exactly how much money is wasted by poor travel advice. The real figure is anybody's guess, but it could easily run into millions. Behrens gives one example. Britain spends more than ￡1 million each year just on cholera vaccines that often don't work and so give people a false sense of security. "Information on the prevention and treatment of all forms of diarrhea would be a better priority, " he says.

阅读理解 Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?" Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son, mentally and physically disabled, were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence. Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play, not expecting much. The boy looked around and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the final inning. Shay struggled over to the team's bench and put on a team shirt with a broad smile and his father had a small tear in his eye and warmth in heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the final inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously joyful just to be in the game and on the field. In the bottom of the final inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. Would they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was almost impossible. The first pitch came and Shay missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to throw the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The pitcher could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman and Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the head of the first baseman, beyond the reach of all teammates. The audience and the players from both teams started screaming, "Shay, run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever run that far but made it to first base, wide-eyed and shocked. Everyone shouted, "Run to second!" Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the smallest guy on their team, who had a chance to be the hero for his team for the first time, could have thrown the ball to the second baseman, but he understood the pitcher's intentions and he too intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head. All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the way Shay." Shay reached third base when one opposing player ran to help him and shouted, "Shay, run to third." As Shay rounded third, all were on their feet, crying, "Shay, run home!" Shay ran to home, stepped on the home base and was cheered as the hero who won the game for his team. That day, the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world. Shay didn't make it to another summer and died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy and coming home and seeing his mother tearfully hug her little hero of the day!

阅读理解 The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop's Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than stealing from, human beings. Aesop's fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. The fable's lesson, that we often play down that which we can't achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. The mythology of other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop's fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environment in which those culture existed.

阅读理解 Americans don't like to lose wars. Of course, a lot depends on how you define just what a war is. There are shooting wars—the kind that test patriotism and courage—and those are the kind at which the U.S. excels. But other struggles test those qualities too. What else was the Great Depression or the space race or the construction of the railroads? If American indulge in a bit of flag—when the job is done, they earned it. Now there is a similar challenge—global warming. The steady deterioration of the very climate of this very planet is becoming a war of the first order, and by any measure, the U.S. is losing. Indeed, if America is fighting at all, it's fighting on the wrong side. The U.S. produces nearly a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases each year and has stubbornly made it clear that it doesn't intend to do a whole lot about it. Although 174 nations approved the admittedly flawed Kyoto accords to reduce carbon levels, the U.S. walked away from them. There are vague promises of manufacturing fuel from herbs or powering cars with hydrogen. But for a country that tightly cites patriotism as one of its core values, the U.S. is taking a pass on what might be the most patriotic struggle of all. It's hard to imagine a bigger fight than one for the survival of a country's coasts and farms, the health of its people and stability of its economy. The rub is, if the vast majority of people increasingly agree that climate change is a global emergency, there's far less agreement on how to fix it. Industry offers its plans, which too often would fix little. Environmentalists offer theirs, which too often amount to native wish lists that could weaken America's growth. But let's assume that those interested parties and others will always bent the table and will always demand that their voices be heard and that their needs be addressed. What would an aggressive, ambitious, effective plan look like—one that would leave the U.S. both environmentally safe and economically sound? Halting climate change will be far harder. One of the more conservative plans for addressing the problem calls for a reduction of 25 billion tons of carbon emissions over the next 52 years. And yet by devising a consistent strategy that mixes short-time profit with long-range objective and blends pragmatism with ambition, the U.S. can, without major damage to the economy, help halt the worst effects of climate change and ensure the survival of its way of life for future generations. Money will do some of the work, but what's needed most is will. "I'm not saying the challenge isn't almost overwhelming, " says Fred Krupp. "But this is America, and America has risen to these challenges before."

阅读理解 Teaching children to read well from the start is the most important task of elementary schools. But relying on educators to approach this task correctly can be a great mistake. Many schools continue to employ instructional methods that have been proven ineffective. The staying power of the "look-say" or "whole-word" method of teaching beginning reading is perhaps the most flagrant example of this failure to instruct effectively. The whole-word approach to reading stresses the meaning of words over the meaning of letters, thinking over decoding, developing a sight vocabulary of familiar words over developing the ability to unlock the pronunciation of unfamiliar words. It fits in with the self-directed, "learning how to learn" activities recommended by advocates of "open" classrooms and with the concept that children have to be developmentally ready to begin reading. Before 1963, no major publisher put out anything but these "Run-Spot-Run" readers. However, in 1955, Rudolf Flesch touched off what has been called "the great debate" in beginning reading. In his best-seller Why Johnny Can't Read, Flesch indicted the nation's public schools for miseducating students by using the look-say method. He said—and more scholarly studies by Jeane Chall and Rovert Dykstra later confirmed—that another approach to beginning reading, founded on phonics, is far superior. Systematic phonics first teaches children to associate letters and letter combinations with sounds; it then teaches them how to blend these sounds together to make words. Rather than building up a relatively limited vocabulary of memorized words, it imparts a code by which the pronunciations of the vast majority of the most common words in the English language can be learned. Phonics does not devalue the importance of thinking about the meaning of words and sentences; it simply recognizes that decoding is the logical and necessary first step.

阅读理解 The common cold is the world's most widespread illness, which is plague that flesh receives. The most widespread fallacy of all is that colds caused by cold. They are not. They are caused by viruses passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by coming into contact, directly or indirectly, with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expect the Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in isolated arctic regions explorers have reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected people from the outside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes. During the First World War soldiers who spent long periods in the trenches, cold and wet, showed no increased tendency to catch colds. In the Second World War prisoners at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp, naked and starving, were astonished to find that they seldom had colds. At the Common Cold Research Unit in England, volunteers took part in Experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts of being cold and wet for long stretches of time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits, allowed themselves to be with cold water, and then stood about dripping wet in drafty room. Some wore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of the volunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose. If, then, cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in the winter? Despite the most pains-taking research, no one has yet found the answer. One explanation offered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at other times, and this makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on. No one has yet found a cure for the cold. There are drugs and pain suppressors such as aspirin, but all they do is relieve the symptoms.

阅读理解 Everyone knows that English departments are in trouble, but you can't appreciate just how much trouble until you read the new report from the Modern Language Association. The report is about Ph.D. programs, which have been in decline since 2008. These programs have gotten both more difficult and less rewarding: today, it can take almost a decade to get a doctorate, and, at the end of your program, you're unlikely to find a tenure-track job. The core of the problem is, of course, the job market. The M.L.A. report estimates that only sixty per cent of newly-minted Ph.D.s will find tenure-track jobs after graduation. If anything, that's wildly optimistic: the M.L.A. got to that figure by comparing the number of tenure-track jobs on its job list (around six hundred) with the number of new graduates (about a thousand). But that leaves out the thousands of unemployed graduates from past years who are still job-hunting—not to mention the older professors who didn't receive tenure, and who now find themselves competing with their former students. In all likelihood, the number of jobs per candidate is much smaller than the report suggests. That's why the mood is so dire—why even professors are starting to ask, in the committee's words, "Why maintain doctoral study in the modern languages and literatures—or the rest of the humanities—at all?" Those trends, in turn, are part of an even larger story having to do with the expansion and transformation of American education after the Second World War. Essentially, colleges grew less elite and more vocational. Before the war, relatively few people went to college. Then, in the nineteen-fifties, the G.I. Bill and, later, the Baby Boom pushed colleges to grow rapidly. When the boom ended, colleges found themselves overextended and competing for students. By the mid-seventies, schools were creating new programs designed to attract a broader range of students—for instance, women and minorities. Those reforms worked: as Nate Silver reported in the Times last summer, about twice as many people attend college per capita now as did forty years ago. But all that expansion changed colleges. In the past, they had catered to elite students who were happy to major in the traditional liberal arts. Now, to attract middle-class students, colleges had to offer more career-focused majors, in fields like business, communications, and health care. As a result, humanities departments have found themselves drifting away from the center of the university. Today, they are often regarded as a kind of institutional luxury, paid for by dynamic, cheap, and growing programs in, say, adult-education. These large demographic facts are contributing to today's job-market crisis: they're why, while education as a whole is growing, the humanities aren't. Given all this, what can an English department do? The M.L.A. report contains a number of suggestions. Pride of place is given to the idea that grad school should be shorter: "Departments should design programs that can be completed in five years." That will probably require changing the dissertation from a draft of an academic book into something shorter and simpler. At the same time, graduate students are encouraged to "broaden" themselves: to "engage more deeply with technology"; to pursue unusual and imaginative dissertation projects; to work in more than one discipline; to acquire teaching skills aimed at online and community-college students; and to take workshops on subjects, such as project management and grant writing, which might be of value outside of academia. Graduate programs, the committee suggests, should accept the fact that many of their students will have non-tenured, or even non-academic, careers. They should keep track of what happens to their graduates, so that students who decide to leave academia have a non-academic alumni network to draw upon.

阅读理解 In the 2006 film version of The Devil Wears Prada , Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, scolds her unattractive assistant for imagining that high fashion doesn't affect her, Priestly explains how the deep blue color of the assistant' s sweater descended over the years from fashion shows to departments stores and to the bargain bin in which the poor girl doubtless found her garment. This top-down conception of the fashion business couldn't be more out of date or at odds with the feverish world described in Overdressed, Elizabeth Cline's three-year indictment of "fast fashion". In the last decade or so, advances in technology have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara, HM, and Uniqlo to react to trends more quickly and anticipate demand more precisely. Quicker turnarounds mean less wasted inventory, more frequent release, and more profit. These labels encourage style-conscious consumers to see clothes as disposable—meant to last only a wash or two, although they don't advertise that—and to renew their wardrobe every few weeks. By offering on-trend items at dirt-cheap prices, Cline argues, these brands have hijacked fashion cycles, shaking an industry long accustomed to a seasonal pace. The victims of this revolution, of course, are not limited to designers. For HM to offer a $5.95 knit miniskirt in all its 2,300-pius stores around the world, it must rely on low-wage overseas labor, order in volumes that strain natural resources, and use massive amounts of harmful chemicals. Overdressed is the fashion world' s answer to consumer-activist bestsellers like Michael Pollan' s The Omnivore's Dilemma. "Mass-produced clothing, like fast food, fills a hunger and need, yet is non-durable and wasteful," Cline argues. Americans, she finds, buy roughly 20 billion garments a year—about 64 items per person—and no matter how much they give away, this excess leads to waste. Towards the end of Overdressed, Cline introduced her ideal, a Brooklyn woman named Sarah Kate Beaumont, who since 2008 has made all of her own clothes—and beautifully. But as Cline is the first to note, it took Beaumont decades to perfect her craft: her example can't be knocked off. Though several fast-fashion companies have made efforts to curb their impact on labor and the environment—including HM, with its green Conscious Collection line—Cline believes lasting change can only be effected by the customer. She exhibits the idealism common to many advocates of sustainability, be it in food or in energy. Vanity is a constant: people will only start shopping more sustainably when they can' t afford not to.

阅读理解 It's no surprise that Jennifer Senior's insightful, provocative magazine cover story, "I love My Children, I Hate My Life," is arousing much chatter—nothing gets people talking like the suggestion that child rearing is anything less than a completely fulfilling, life-enriching experience. Rather than concluding that children make parents either happy or miserable, Senior suggests we need to redefine happiness: instead of thinking of it as something that can be measured by moment-to-moment joy, we should consider being happy as a past-tense condition. Even though the day-today experience of raising kids can be soul-crushingly hard, Senior writes that "the very things that in the moment dampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification and delight." The magazine cover showing an attractive mother holding a cute baby is hardly the only Madonna-and-child image on newsstands this week. There are also stories about newly adoptive— and newly single—mom Sandra Bullock, as well as the usual "Jennifer Aniston is pregnant" news. Practically every week features at least one celebrity mom, or mom-to-be, smiling on the newsstands. In a society that so persistently celebrates procreation, is it any wonder that admitting you regret having children is equivalent to admitting you support kitten-killing? It doesn't seem quite fair, then, to compare the regrets of parents to the regrets of the childless. Unhappy parents rarely are provoked to wonder if they shouldn' t have had kids, but unhappy childless folks are bothered with the message that children are the single most important thing in the world: obviously their misery must be a direct result of the gaping baby-size holes in their lives. Of course, the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and People present is hugely unrealistic, especially when the parents are single mothers like Bullock. According to several studies concluding that parents are less happy than childless couples, single parents are the least happy of all. No shock there, considering how much work it is to raise a kid without a partner to lean on: yet to hear Sandra and Britney tell it, raising a kid on their "own" (read: with round-the-clock help) is a piece of cake. It' s hard to imagine that many people are dumb enough to want children just because Reese and Angelina make it look so glamorous: most adults understand that a baby is not a haircut. But it' s interesting to wonder if the images we see every week of stress-free, happiness-enhancing parenthood aren' t in some small, subconscious way contributing to our own dissatisfactions with the actual experience, in the same way that a small part of us hoped getting "the Rachel" might make us look just a little bit like Jennifer Aniston.

阅读理解 Consumers are being confused and misled by the hodge-podge (大杂烩) of environmental claims made by household products, according to a "green labeling" study published by Consumers International Friday. Among the report' s more outrageous (令人无法容忍的) findings, a German fertilizer described itself as "earthworm friendly" a brand of flour said it was "non-polluting" and a British toilet paper claimed to be "environmentally friendlier". The study was written and researched by Britain's National Consumer Council (NCC) for lobby group Consumer International. It was funded by the German and Dutch governments and the European Commission. "While many good and useful claims are being made, it is clear there is a long way to go in ensuring shoppers are adequately informed about the environmental impact of products they buy," said Consumers International director Anna Fielder. The 10-country study surveyed product packaging in Britain. Western Europe, Scandinavia and the United States. It found that products sold in Germany and the United Kingdom made the most environmental claims on average. The report focused on claims made by specific products, such as detergent (洗涤剂) insect sprays and by some garden products. It did not test the claims, but compared them to labeling guidelines set by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in September, 1999. Researchers documented claims of environmental friendliness made by about 2,000 products and found many too vague or too misleading to meet ISO standards. "Many products had specially-designed labels to make them seem environmentally friendly, but in fact many of these symbols mean nothing," said report researcher Philip Page. "Laundry detergents made the most number of claims with 158. Household cleaners were second with 145 separate claims, while paints were third on our list with 73. The high numbers show how very confusing it must be for consumers to sort the true from the misleading." he said. The ISO labeling standards ban vague or misleading claims on product packaging, because terms such as "environmentally friendly" and "non-polluting" cannot be verified. "What we are now pushing for is to have multinational corporations meet the standards set by the ISO." said Page.

阅读理解 It's no surprise that Jennifer Senior's insightful, provocative magazine cover story, "I love My Children, I Hate My Life", is arousing much chatter—nothing gets people talking like the suggestion that child rearing is anything less than a completely fulfilling, life-enriching experience. Rather than concluding that children make parents either happy or miserable, Senior suggests we need to redefine happiness: instead of thinking of it as something that can be measured by moment-to-moment joy, we should consider being happy as a past-tense condition. Even though the day-today experience of raising kids can be soul-crushingly hard, Senior writes that "the very things that in the moment dampen our moods can later be sources of intense gratification and delight." The magazine cover showing an attractive mother holding a cute baby is hardly the only Madonna-and-child image on newsstands this week. There are also stories about newly adoptive— and newly single—mom Sandra Bullock, as well as the usual "Jennifer Aniston is pregnant" news. Practically every week features at least one celebrity mom, or mom-to-be, smiling on the newsstands. In a society that so persistently celebrates procreation, is it any wonder that admitting you regret having children is equivalent to admitting you support kitten-killing? It doesn't seem quite fair, then, to compare the regrets of parents to the regrets of the childless. Unhappy parents rarely are provoked to wonder if they shouldn't have had kids, but unhappy childless folks are bothered with the message that children are the single most important thing in the world: obviously their misery must be a direct result of the gaping baby-size holes in their lives. Of course, the image of parenthood that celebrity magazines like Us Weekly and People present is hugely unrealistic, especially when the parents are single mothers like Bullock. According to several studies concluding that parents are less happy than childless couples, single parents are the least happy of all. No shock there, considering how much work it is to raise a kid without a partner to lean on; yet to hear Sandra and Britney tell it, raising a kid on their "own" (read: with round-the-clock help) is a piece of cake. It's hard to imagine that many people are dumb enough to want children just because Reese and Angelina make it look so glamorous: most adults understand that a baby is not a haircut. But it's interesting to wonder if the images we see every week of stress-free, happiness-enhancing parenthood aren't in some small, subconscious way contributing to our own dissatisfactions with the actual experience, in the same way that a small part of us hoped getting "the Rachel" might make us look just a little bit like Jennifer Aniston.

阅读理解 Traffic lights are crucial tools for regulating traffic flow. They are not, however, perfect. Drivers exchange the gridlock that would happen at unmanaged junctions for a pattern of stop-go movement that can still be frustrating, and which burns more fuel than a smooth passage would. Creating such a smooth passage means adjusting a vehicle' s speed so that it always arrives at the lights when they are green. That is theoretically possible, but practically hard. Roadside signs wired to traffic lights may help, but they have not been widely deployed. Now scientists have an idea that could make the process cheaper and more effective. Instead of a hardwired network of signs, they propose to use mobile-phone apps. For a driver to benefit, he must load a special software, dubbed SignalGuru, into his phone and then mount it on a special bracket attached to the inside of his car's windscreen, with the camera lens pointing forwards. SignalGuru is designed to detect traffic lights and track their status as red, amber or green. It broadcasts this information to other phones in the area that are fitted with the same software, and—if there are enough of them—the phones thus each know the status of most of the lights around town. Using this information, SignalGuru is able to calculate the traffic-light schedule for the region and suggest the speed at which a driver should travel in order to avoid running into red lights. Tests in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where five drivers were asked to follow the same route for three hours, and in Singapore, where eight drivers were asked to follow one of two routes for 30 minutes, revealed that SignalGuru was capable of predicting traffic-light activity with an accuracy of 98.2% and 96.3% respectively, in the two cities. This was particularly impressive because in Cambridge the lights shifted, roughly half-way through the test, from their off-peak schedule to their afternoon-traffic schedule, while in Singapore lights are adaptive, using detectors embedded under the road to determine how much traffic is around and thus when a signal should change. Fuel consumption fell, too—by about 20%. SignalGuru thus reduces both frustration and fuel use, and makes commuting a slightly less horrible experience.