The time may soon come when we say goodbye to most of the world’s languages. Today humans

express themselves in over 6,000 different languages. But that is quickly changing. Many scientists say that over half of these languages will disappear within the next 50 years. After 100 years, the languages

used in the world will not be more than 20.

     Why? It is because people from different cultures live and work together much more often than before. This brings changes. The languages of the world’s main cultures are replacing the languages of the smaller cultures. Most international trade takes place in world languages such as English. People respect their own cultures and traditions, but when it comes to getting a job, knowing a world language is often necessary. It may mean the difference between success and failure.

    People in different cultures think it good for them to share a popular language. They can quickly share ideas and work together. Knowing the same language means easier communication and is a basis for trust.

     Is the death of a small local language such a terrible thing? The answer is maybe. Many cultures may have words for many useful things we know nothing about. If their languages die, their valuable wisdom may be lost forever. The future of the world’s language depends on our actions now. Will we protect endangered languages or allow them to quietly disappear?  

Time will have the last word.

Like all big cities, Paris has a traffic problem: lots of cars, lots of traffic jams and lots of pollution from exhaust fumes (废气). So the city began a scheme (计划) to improve the situation.

Under the Velib scheme (‘Velib’ comes from vélo liberté, or ‘bicycle freedom’) people can take a bicycle, use it for as long as they want, and then leave it at the same or another bicycle station. The first half-hour on the bike is free, but if you don’t return it after 30 minutes, you have to pay. But it’s only −1 a day or −29 a year! The bicycles are heavy (25 kg), and they are all grey and have baskets. There are about 20,000 of them in the city, and around 1,450 bicycle stations. So there are a lot more Velib stations than the 298 subway stations!

Paris is not the first city to have a scheme like this. But not everybody thinks it’s a great idea. One Parisian said, “These bicycles are only for short journeys. If people want to travel across the city, they won’t use a bicycle — they’ll still use their cars.”

A city spokesman said, “The bicycle scheme won’t solve all our traffic problems, of course. But it might help reduce air pollution. Traffic, together with factory fumes, is a big problem. There aren’t any simple answers to traffic problems and pollution in cities. But unless we do something now, there will be more traffic jams and temperatures will continue to rise, so the problems in our environment will get worse. The bikes might help people to lead a healthier life, too.”

It is interesting to see that the force of only 6 or 7 people pushing in the same direction can cause up to 1,000 pounds of force-enough to break brick walls. During a deadly stampede(逃奔), people can even die standing up. People die when pressure is put to their bodies in a front to back direction, causing them not to be able to breathe.

If you are in a crowd, the first and most important thing is to make yourself familiar with your surroundings and find different exits. No matter where you are, make sure you always know how to get out. Make yourself aware of the type of the ground you are standing on, and know that in a crowd of moving people wet ground can cause you to fall.

When in danger, a few seconds can make a difference, giving you the possibility of making use of your escaping route. Always stay closer to the escape route. If you find yourself in the middle of a moving crowd, do not fight against the pressure, do not stand still or sit down, because you can easily get trampled（踩踏）. Instead, move in the same direction of the crowd; make use of any space that may open up to move sideways to the crowd movement where the flow is weaker.Keep your hands up by your chest, like a boxer-it gives you movement and protects your chest. If you fall, get up quickly. If you can’t get up because you are injured, get someone to pull you up. If you have kids, lift them up.

If you fall and cannot get up, keep moving in the same direction of the crowd, or if that is not possible, then cover your head with your arms; do not lie on your stomach or back.

 Chinese Language and Culture Summer Camp in China

Shanghai is the city which will present you how modernization meets tradition, and how western culture dances with eastern civilization. So it offers a best place for you to participate in Chinese language and culture summer camp.

Interactive Chinese Lessons

Our Chinese courses focus on developing speaking, listening, reading and writing skills in a well-balanced way, while each has its own focus. The teaching materials we use, offering 12 levels of classes, are written specially for our program. For beginners, speaking and listening abilities will be stressed while for advanced level students, the course will develop in depth their skills on Chinese characters recognition, long paragraph reading and writing, as well as fluent conversation.

Small Size Classes

Our students come from all over the world, mostly between 11 and 17 years old, having different Chinese levels. They will accept level assessment（评估） on the first day of camp, and be placed into different groups according to their language fluency. In a small-class setting each student can receive individual attention from teachers and achieve best studying result.

Traditional Culture Courses

We provide various culture courses to help students to develop interest in traditional Chinese culture, which will benefit their language learning. The culture courses include: Calligraphy, Traditional brush painting, Chinese Kong-fu, Tai-chi, Paper-cutting.

Day Camp

Day camp is designed for participants who have a host family in Shanghai. Day camp runs from Monday to Sunday, between 8:30 and 17:00.

Day camp package includes:  Chinese classes in the mornings;Lunch; Culture courses, field trip and sports activities in the afternoons;Others: Textbooks, studying materials, camp life souvenir

Day camp package NOT includes:Accommodation;Daily pick up and drop off;Breakfast, dinner

Field trip is optional.

Noise-cancelling audio instruments have been around for a while now，but one Berlin-based designer believes that blocking “visual noise” is as important，if not more so，as cancelling out unwanted sounds．To this end he has created a simple accessory（配件） called the Focus Cap．

Open work spaces definitely have their benefits，but they come with the drawback of offering employees little to no control over visual distractions(干扰)．With so many people around and so much going on，some of us can easily get disturbed by this information overload and lose focus in what’s really important．That’s where the Focus Cap comes into play．

“As we are still cavemen or mammals kept in an unnatural environment，I believe that only by reclaiming(收回) the normal，stress-free human state through simple tools and techniques can we finally release our actual creative potential and create our meaningful work for a brighter future，”says German designer Hannes Greblin，inventor of the Focus Cap．

After looking at other products designed at minimizing visual distractions，Greblin decided that most of them were either too expensive or too uncomfortable to become mainstream，so he decided to go with something much simpler —a simple cap with a retractable visor (可伸缩的帽沿)．

Greblin’s Focus Cap is really straightforward．You just wear it like a regular cap with the sides of the visor retracted，and just collapse the sides whenever you need to focus on what’s ahead of you．Whether you’re trying to focus on a task in an open work office, trying to study at university，or practicing yoga in a park and trying to ignore stares from strangers，the Focus Cap can help．

To be honest，this whole project sounds like a joke，but the Focus Cap does have its own website where people interested in this unusual accessory can actually sign up for updates on when it will go on sale．Greblin claims it will cost 30 euros($37) plus shipping．

Batteries can power anything from small sensors to large systems. While scientists are finding ways to make them smaller but even more powerful, problems can arise when these batteries are much larger and heavier than the devices themselves. University of Missouri(MU) researchers are developing a nuclear energy source that is smaller, lighter and more efficient.

“To provide enough power, we need certain methods with high energy density(密度)”，said Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU. “The radioisotope(放射性同位素) battery can provide power density that is much higher than chemical batteries.”

Kwon and his research team have been working on building a small nuclear battery, presently the size and thickness of a penny, intended to power various micro / nanoelectromechanreal systems (M/NEMS). Although nuclear batteries can cause concerns, Kwon said they are safe.

“People hear the word ‘nuclear’ and think of something very dangerous,” he said, “However, nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pace-makers, space satellites and underwater systems.”

His new idea is not only in the battery’s size, but also in its semiconductor(半导体). Kwon’s battery uses a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor.

“The key part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure(晶体结构) of the solid semiconductor,” Kwon said, “By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem.”

Together with J. David Robertson, chemistry professor and associate director of the MU Research Reactor, Kwon is working to build and test the battery. In the future, they hope to increase the battery’s power, shrink its size and try with various other materials. Kwon said that battery could be thinner than the thickness of human hair.

Modern life can be stressful. It’s full of pressure and hardships, worries and annoyances. But after years of being dosed up by doctors and seeking solutions on the self-help shelves, can most common complaints be cured through your next holiday?

The festival doctor will see you now.

Next time a customer comes to your office, offer him a cup of hot coffee. And when you’re doing your holiday shopping online, make sure you’re holding a large glass of iced tea. The physical feelings of warmth encourages emotional warmth, while a cold drink in hand prevents you from making unwise decisions—those are the practical lesson being drawn from recent research by psychologist John A. Bargh.

Psychologists have known that one person’s feelings of another’s “warmth” is a powerful determiner in social relationships. Judging someone to be either “warm” or “cold” is a primary consideration, even supporting evidence that a “cold” person may be more capable. Much of this is rooted in very early childhood experiences, Bargh argues, when babies’ understanding of the world around them is shaped by physical feelings, particularly warmth and coldness. Classic studies by Harry Harlow, published in 1958, showed monkeys preferred to stay close to a cloth “mother” rather than one made of wire, even when the wire “mother” carried a food bottle. Harlow’s work and later studies have led psychologists to stress the need for warm physical contact from caregivers to help young children grow into healthy adults with normal social skills.

Feelings of “warmth” and “coldness” in social judgments appear to be universal. Although no worldwide study has been done, Bargh says that describing people as “warm” or “cold” is common to many cultures, and studies have found those feelings influence judgment in dozens of countries.

To test the relationship between physical and psychological warmth, Bargh did an experiment which included 41 college students. A research assistant who was unaware of the study’s hypotheses (假设), handed the students either a hot cup of coffee, or a cold drink, to hold while the researcher filled out a short information form. The drink was then handed back. After that, the students were asked to rate the personality of “Person A” based on a particular description. Those who had briefly held the warm drink regarded Person A as warmer than those who had held the iced drink.

“Our thoughts are based on our physical experiences even when we think abstractly (抽象地),” says Bargh.

Terrafugia Inc. said Monday that its new flying car has completed its first flight, bringing thecompany closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The vehicle-named the Transiti– has two seats，four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car. The Transition, which flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes last month, can reach around 70 miles per hour on the road and 115 in the air. It flies using a 23-gallon tank of gas and bums 5 gallons per hour in the air. On the ground, it gets 35 miles per gallon.

Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit（存款）to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will likely rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show. But don’t expect it to show up in too many driveways（汽车道）. It’s expected to cost $279,000.And it won’t help if you’re stuck in traffic. The car needs a runway.

Inventors have been trying to make flying cars since the 1930s, according to Robert Mann, an airline industry expert. But Mann thinks Terrafugia has come closer than anyone to making the flying car a reality. The government has already permitted the company to use special materials to make it easier for the vehicle to fly. The Transition is now going through crash tests to make sure it meets federal（联邦的）safety standards.

Mann said Terrafugia was helped by the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision five years ago to create a separate set of standards for light sport aircraft, which are lower than those pilots of larger planes Terrafugia says an owner would need to pass a test and complete 20 hours of flying time to be able to fly the Transition（会飞的汽车）, a requirement pilots would find relatively easy to

meet.

Sooner or later, most students are to take some form of English examinations. Often the more successful students are better prepared. However, sometimes students who do well have better test taking skills. These abilities really have nothing to do with understanding English better. They are skills that make taking the test easier, and therefore provide better results.

   Here are some very important—and often ignored—guidelines to taking a test successfully.

   Do not insist on completing each question before going to the next. This is extremely important. Remember one question may only be worth one point! You will become nervous when you fail to find out its answer, making you lose your concentration and leading to worse results. However, answering the questions you are sure you know results in your being more relaxed and feeling more confident.

   Go through the test a second time working out the answers to more difficult questions. Sometimes questions asked are answered in later questions asking for different things.

   Usually(but not always) a strong first impulse(冲动) means we know the answer and we don’t really have to think about it too much. Going back to think about it usually makes you unsure and often causes a mistake. This is very common, so be very careful!

If you don’t know the answer, write something. If you are answering a 4 possibility multiple choice question you will still have a 25% chance of being correct!

   Taking a test is as much for you as is for your teacher, so never cheat. If you cheat, you don’t help yourself in the long run.