There have been claims that warming on Mars(火星) and Pluto(冥王星) is proof that the recent warming on Earth is caused by an increase in solar activity, and not by greenhouse gases. But we can say with certainty that, even if Mars, Pluto or any other planet has warmed in recent years, it is not due to changes in solar activity.

The Sun’s energy output has not increased since direct measurements began in 1978. If increased solar output really was responsible, we should be seeing warming on all the planets and their moons, not just Mars and Pluto.

    Our solar system has eight planets, three dwarf planets and quite a few moons with at least a thin atmosphere, and thus a climate of sorts. Their climates will be affected by local factors such as orbital variations, changes in reflectance and even volcanic eruptions, so it would not be surprising if several planets and moons turn out to be warming at any one time.

    One theory is that winds have recently swept some areas of Mars clean of dust, darkening the surface, warming the Red Planet and leading to further increases in windiness --- a positive feedback effect.

Observations of the thickness of Pluto’s atmosphere in 2002 suggested the dwarf planet was warming even as its orbit took it further from the Sun. The finding confused astronomers at the time, and the cause had yet to be determined.

It has since been suggested that this is due to a greenhouse effect: As it gets closer to the Sun, Pluto may warm enough for some of the methane ice on its surface to turn into a gas. This would cause further warming, which would continue for a while even after Pluto’s orbit starts to take it away from the Sun.

In China, there are usually two reasons why people receive messages from friends and relatives from whom they haven’t heard for a while. The first is about New Year greetings, which are always welcome. The second reason is often less pleasant, however; people are increasingly contacting long lost friends, or even casual acquaintances(泛泛之交), and urging them to cast online votes for their children or grandchildren in competitions.

The practice, which has been growing rapidly, has now reached the point where people are becoming tired and may even feel annoyed.

The results of a recent survey conducted by the Jinhua Evening News in East China’s Zhejiang Province show that 94 percent of 384 interviewees were once asked by friends or relatives to cast votes online for their children. The contests range from the cutest baby to dancing competitions. Most people receiving the messages haven’t heard from the sender for a long time and have never met the child involved.

Although the competitions may appear to be fun, some education professionals are concerned that they could have a negative effect on children.

Tang Sulan, a member of the CPPCC’s National Committee (全国政协)，proposed a ban on online competitions featuring children to prevent future psychological issues. She was also concerned that publicdisclosureof a child’s personal information and publication of photos cause a potential(潜在的) risk to the child’s safety.

Li Hongyan, the mother of an l1-year-old girl and an 18-month-old boy in Beijing, said she has never urged others to vote for her children. Although on the surface the children are competing among themselves via(通过) their parents’ social networks, the competitions are also about parents seeking a “sense of victory” for themselves, she said. “It feels as though parents are using their babies as tools to win glory for themselves, rather than truly respecting their kids’ dignity and nature.” However, despite her dislike of the contests, she has twice voted for the babies of close friends because “it would be embarrassing to say no”.

Snow and ice make winter driving a dangerous game, in which motorists can get stuck in the snow—for who knows how long. Not everyone knows what to do when they get stuck in the snow, though some manage to survive through a combination of wits and good luck.

   So what to do?

   Outdoor survival expert Brian Brawdy joined Good Morning America to explain what to do if you get stuck with your vehicle in freezing, snowy weather.

   One of the key questions is whether to stay in the car or go get help. Brawdy says it is better to stick with the car, unless it is an easy walk to safety.

   "It'll help block the wind and keep you warm and dry," Brawdy said.

   But you should also be aware that staying in the car can be deadly, too. Motorists who are stuck in the snow should step out of the car and quickly check to make sure that their car's tailpipe isn't blocked by a chunk of ice, or a pile of snow. If it is, deadly fumes can get into the vehicle.

   "Carbon monoxide will kill you in a heartbeat," Brawdy said.

   He also suggests wiping snow off the taillights or the headlights so that searchers will be able to see the vehicle from a distance.

   But don't waste time outside the shelter of your car. Stay inside the vehicle, and buckle up.

   "Even though you are parked, you will want to apply your seat belt, just in case you get hit from behind, "Brawdy said.

   You can run the car's heater, but you should do it only about 15 minutes every hour to conserve fuel in the car. When the heater is running, crack the back window—whichever one is out of the wind—ever so slightly just to make sure that those poisonous gasses aren't wandering inside the car.

With its incredibly long neck, giraffe looks like no other animal on Earth. But how did this mammal come to get its famously huge neck? Well, scientists have been asking themselves this question for centuries.

The most commonly believed answer is that the massive neck – which measures on average 180 centimeters and weighs about 270 kilograms – evolved to allow the animal to reach the leaves of tall trees. British scientist Charles Darwin was one of the first people to propose this idea in the 1800s.

Yet, there are other theories.

According to a paper published in September in the Journal of Arid Environments, the giraffe’s neck evolved to increase its surface-area-to-volume ratio (表面积—体积比). Because the animal’s neck increases its body’s surface area, it makes it easier for it to keep cool, the paper’s authors wrote.

This phenomenon can be seen everywhere in nature. For example, this is why elephants have such large ears.

Meanwhile, some believe that competition is the answer.

A 1996 study by two South African zoologists argued that the male giraffes with the biggest necks are the ones who “win” access to females to reproduce, as they are better at fighting, meaning that their long necks are passed down through the generations.

So, it seems like there’s still no definite answer to the question.

With the Chinese language growing in popularity, the UK government plans to invest(投资) 10 million pounds to help more kids learn Mandarin(普通话). Do you think it is necessary for the UK pupils to learn Mandarin? Some people share their opinions online.

Ted (UK): The learning of any language can be valuable and rewarding, but it is not suitable for everyone. Chinese is a difficult language to learn and the UK is poor in teaching foreign languages. Why should they learn Chinese when most people in the world speak English?

Mark (US): I studied French for 2 years in high school and German for 4 years in college. I studied Mandarin informally for about 4 months before moving to China. Now I speak Mandarin every day as my wife doesn’t speak English. But it is far from being fluent. Learning additional languages is a great thing, which offers a different view on the world around us. Nowadays, it’s almost necessary to be able to speak more than just your native tongue.

George (UK): No, unless they’re taught from a very early stage of childhood. Mandarin is so difficult. If China really is going to dominate(支配) the world, it’ll have to do so by speaking the world’s dominant language---English.

Sam (UK): I don’t think Chinese will become as widely spoken throughout the world as English. It is too difficult to learn as a second language. To learn Chinese you completely have to devote yourself to learning how to write and read it. If you have to learn it besides other subjects you can’t be good at it. But Chinese will become more popular, and that is a good thing.

Shoppers could soon use their mobile phones to check how ripe fruit and vegetables are with an “X－ray vision” camera.

    The HyperCam, based on hyper spectral (高光谱的)imaging, can assess ripeness with 94 percent accuracy and could also be used to check for rotting produce in the fridge at home. Scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle managed to create a portable hyper spectral imaging camera that would cost $ 800 (£520).

     Hyper spectral imaging uses a broader range of the electromagnetic spectrum(电磁波)than an ordinary camera. The researchers are now working on a version of the technology that shoppers could download on to a mobile phone for about $ 50. The technology is already used in satellite imaging, building safety inspection, but is a highly costly process.

    Professor Shwetak Patel, of the University of Washington, said: “It’s not there yet but you can probably imagine putting it in a mobile phone. With this kind of camera you could go to the grocery store and know what produce to pick by looking underneath the skin and seeing if there’s anything wrong inside. It’s like having a food safety app in your pocket.”

    Neel Joshi, a Microsoft researcher, said: “Existing systems are costly and hard to use so we decided to create an inexpensive hyper spectral camera and explore these uses ourselves. After building the camera we just started pointing it at everyday objects, really anything we could find in our homes and offices, and we were amazed at all the hidden information it revealed.”

    Other potential uses for the technology include analyzing blood vessels and identifying individual people by the unique texture (纹理) of their skin.

Most of us don’ t know the reasons anymore but people today follow them because they are good fun.

Today the bride (新娘) carries flowers but long ago she carried strong-smelling grass. This was to frighten away the evil spirits and to cover the smell of people who do not wash often. People also used to believe that the bride brought good luck, so they would try to get something from her. Today, the bride will offer the guests some good luck by throwing the flowers to them after the wedding. It is said that if you catch the flowers, you will be the next one to get married. Of course, many of the single girls at a wedding try to catch the flowers.

In early times, the bridesmaids (伴娘) and the bride all wore similar dresses. This was to confuse the evil spirits. Now bridesmaids still wear similar dresses but the bride wears a different dress that is often white. Many brides wear veils (面纱) over their faces. This comes from a time when the young couple was not allowed to see each other before the wedding. The families were afraid that the bridegroom might not like the bride. So he was only allowed to lift her veil just before the wedding. By this time it was too late to refuse to marry her.

Brides often wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”. In earlier times, if the bride did’t do this, she felt she would be in danger from the evil spirits. Wearing “something old” represents the journey between being single and being married. “Something new” represents the change from being a child to being an adult. “Something borrowed” means if you borrow something from a happily married couple, it will bring you good luck. And “something blue” comes from a time when the edge of the bride’ s dress was blue which represented purity.

    A new commodity brings about a highly profitable, fast-growing industry, urging antitrust（反垄断）regulators to step in to check those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital age. The most valuable firms are Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. All look unstoppable.

    Such situations have led to calls for the tech giants to be broken up. But size alone is not a crime. The giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without search engines or a quick delivery. Far from charging consumers high prices, many of these services are free (users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). And the appearance of new-born giants suggests that newcomers can make waves, too.

    But there is cause for concern. The internet has made data abundant, all-present and far more valuable, changing the nature of data and competition. Google initially used the data collected from users to target advertising better. But recently it has discovered that data can be turned into new services: translation and visual recognition, to be sold to other companies. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. So they have a “God’s eye view” of activities in their own markets and beyond.

    This nature of data makes the antitrust measures of the past less useful. Breaking up firms like Google into five small ones would not stop remaking themselves: in time, one of them would become great again. A rethink is required — and as a new approach starts to become apparent, two ideas stand out.

    The first is that antitrust authorities need to move form the industrial age into the 21st century. When considering a merger(兼并), for example, they have traditionally used size to determine when to step in. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets(资产) when assessing the impact of deals. The purchase price could also be a signal that an established company is buying a new-born threat. When this takes place, especially when a new-born company has no revenue to speak of, the regulators should raise red flags.

    The second principle is to loosen the control that providers of on-line services have over data and give more to those who supply them. Companies could be forced to consumers what information they hold and how many money they make form it. Governments could order the sharing of certain kinds of data, with users’ consent.

    Restarting antitrust for the information age will not be easy But if governments don’t wants a data economy by a few giants, they must act soon.

The world is filled with smart，talented and gifted people．We meet them every day．A few days ago，my car was not running well．I pulled it into a garage，and the young mechanic had it fixed in just a few minutes．He knew what was wrong by simply listening to the engine．I was amazed．The sad truth is，great talent is not enough．

I am constantly shocked at how little talented people earn．I heard the other day that less than 5 percent of Americans earn more than $100，000 ayear．A business consultant who specializes in the medical trade was telling me how many doctors and dentists struggle financially．It was this business consultant who gave me the phrase，“They are one skill away from great wealth．”

There is an old saying that goes，“Job means ‘just over broke”．And unfortunately，I would say that the saying applies to millions of people．Because school does not think financial intelligence is intelligence，most workers“ live within their means”．They work and they pay the bills．Instead I recommend young people to seek work for what they will learn，more than what they will earn．

When I ask the classes I teach，“How many of you can cook a better hamburger than McDonald’s?” almost all the students raise their hands．I then ask，“So if most of you can cook a better hamburger，how come McDonald’s makes more money than you?” The answer is obvious: McDonald’s is excellent at business systems．The reason why so many talented people are poor is that they focus on building a better hamburger and know little or nothing about business systems．The world is filled with talented poor people．They focus on perfecting their skills at building a better hamburger rather than the skills of selling and delivering the hamburger．

The English test will be removed from China’s college entrance exam by 2020, according to the Ministry of Education.The national college entrance exam, known as the “Gaokao” has been used to evaluate Chinese students for three decades. The Ministry of Education has worked out a plan for reforming exams and enrollment. Tests will be held several times a year to allow students to choose when and how often they sit the exam so as to reduce study pressure and change China’s once-in-a-lifetime exam system.

The decision has aroused a heated discussion among Shanghai educators and parents who doubted the reform would reduce the burden of learning English or if the substitute test could reflect a student’s English skills and help students learn English better. Cai Jigang, a professor from Fudan University said, “The reform shows China is to give students more test-taking chances. But more chances might become more of a burden since Chinese students are likely to repeat the test until they get the highest score.”

“In my opinion, the reform doesn’t mean English is no longer important for Chinese students after it will be excluded from the unified college entrance exam,” said Yu Lizhong, chancellor of New York University Shanghai, “In a way, English is even more important than before since the test would only serve as reference, while every college and university, even every major, can have different requirements of a student’s English skills under a diverse evaluation system.”Yu said some students will have their study pressure reduced if the major they choose doesn’t need excellent English while others still need to study hard if they want to be among the best students.

The education ministry said the reform would not affect students attending the college entrance exam over the next three years. But parents with younger children are concerned. Zhang Hui, the mother of a fourth-grade girl at Pudong Zhuyuan Primary School, said English was her daughter’s strength, so canceling the English test would not favor her child.