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      The meaning of silence varies among cultural groups. Silences may be thoughtful, or they may be empty when a person has nothing to say. A silence in a conversation may also show stubbornness, or worry. Silence may be viewed by some cultural groups as extremely uncomfortable; therefore attempts may be made to fill every gap(间隙)with conversation. Persons in other cultural groups value silence and view it as necessary for understanding a person's needs.

        Many Native Americans value silence and feel it is a basic part of communicating among people, just as some traditional Chinese and Thai persons do. Therefore, when a person from one of these cultures is speaking and suddenly stops, what maybe implied(暗示) is that the person wants the listener to consider what has been said before continuing. In these cultures, silence is a call for reflection.

        Other cultures may use silence in other ways, particularly when dealing with conflicts among people or in relationships of people with different amounts of power. For example, Russian, French, and Spanish persons may use silence to show agreement between parties about the topic under discussion. However, Mexicans may use silence when instructions are given by a person in authority rather than be rude to that person by arguing with him or her. In still another use, persons in Asian cultures may view silence as a sign of respect, particularly to an elder or a person in authority.

Nurses and other care-givers need to be aware of the possible meanings of silence when they come across the personal anxiety their patients may be experiencing. Nurses should recognize their own personal and cultural construction of silence so that a patient's silence is not interrupted too early or allowed to go on unnecessarily. A nurse who understands the healing(治愈) value of silence can use this understanding to assist in the care of patients from their own and from other cultures.

    TED is a non-profit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, and Design. Since then it has stepped into more and more fields. It includes two annual ( 年度的) conferences-the TED Conference on the North American West Coast each spring, and the TED Global Conference in Edinburgh UK each summer, which bring together the world's most excellent thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives ( in 18 minutes or less).

    On ted.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 1, 200 TED talks are now available,' with more added each week, which cover almost all topics from science to business to global issues- in more than 110 languages. They really help share ideas in communities around the world.

    We believe in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and eventually, the world. So we' re building here a clearinghouse (信息交流中心 ) that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. Have an idea? We want to hear from you.

    Today, TED is best thought of as a global community. It's a community welcoming people from every field and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world.

    Want to follow TED? Here are the ways to connect:

    Get TED news and conference coverage ( 新闻报道) on the TED Blog.

    Follow TED on Twitter:

    @TED News for all TED news and information

    @TED Talks for daily TED Talk release only

    See photos from TED events on Flicker.

    Healthy, convenient and increasingly popular over the past few years, sushi has become as common a dish in the UK as in India or China. It's a popular lunch-choice for city-workers all over the country and you're never far from a restaurant or supermarket selling the traditional Japanese dish. But it turns out sushi may not be as healthy a choice as we thought — leading biologists have warned that it is in fact harming both the environment and our health.

    The UK sushi market is worth £69 million a year, but because we're eating so much of it, the tuna (金枪鱼) population in the oceans is dwindling. According to Professor Daniel Pauly and Dr Dirk Zeller, the leaders of British Columbia, Bluefin and yellowfin tuna populations have reached dangerous levels.

    Bluefin tuna is often served in high-end, excellent sushi restaurants, while yellowfin is more common in high-street sushi bars and supermarkets. Increasing global need means tuna populations are being overfished. Most of the UK's sushi comes from the Indian Ocean, but according to Professor Pauly we now only have 2-3 percent of what we had 200 years ago.

    Professor Pauly and Dr Zeller believe it is our love of healthy tuna that's causing the problems in our oceans. The fish is popular not just for its taste but for its health benefits. But while sushi has earned popularity for being low in calories and high in nutrients (营养物), we may have overestimated (高估) its health value.

    In advance of a lecture at the Zoological Society of London lately, Professor Pauly said he believes most high-street restaurants serve sushi that contains plastic microbeads (塑料微珠). “Microbeads are poison pills which take in all the pollutants and they are eaten by little fish which are then eaten by tuna.”

    So what should we eat instead? Dr Zeller and Professor Pauly are asking the public to step away from sushi and eat more fish like anchovies (凤尾鱼) — less attractive, but better for your health and the environment.

    I stopped to watch my little girl busy playing in her room. In one hand was a plastic phone; in the other a toy. I listened as she was speaking to her make-believe little friend and I'll never forget the words she said, even though it was imagined.

    She said, "Suzie's in the corner because she's not been very good. She didn't listen to a word I said or do the things she should." In the corner I saw her baby doll well dressed. It was obvious that she'd been put there to sit alone and think.

    My daughter continued her "conversation", as I sat down on the floor. She said, "I'm all fed up and I just don't know what to do with her any more. She cries whenever I have to work and wants to play games too. She tries to help me with the dishes, but her arms just cannot reach... And she doesn't know how to fold towels. I don't have the time to teach. I have a lot of work to do and a big house to keep clean. I don't have the time to sit and play - don't you know what I mean?"

    And that day I thought a lot about making some changes in my life, after listening to her innocent words cut me like a knife. I hadn't been paying enough attention to what I hold most dear. I'd been caught up in responsibilities that increased throughout the years.

    But now my attitude has changed because in my heart I realize that I've seen the world in a different light through my little darling's eyes. So let the cobwebs (蜘蛛网) cut the corners and the dust bunny rabbit rule the floor. I'm not going to worry about keeping up with them any more.

    I'm going to fill the house with memories of a child and her mother, for we have only one childhood and we will never get another.

    Scientists around the world are striving for effective detection of cancer in the early stages, which is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body, and a Chinese scientist may have found a quick way of knowing whether malignant tumors (恶性肿瘤) exist in a patient's body, with just one drop of blood.

    Malignant tumors in early phases can be cured. However, it's extremely difficult to be aware of cancer in its early stages, as patients don't show obvious symptoms and thus it can only be found in its later stages, which is already too late, so to detect cancer early remains a global challenge for scientists.

    Back in 1989, scientists have found a kind of heat shock proteins (HSP), named Hsp90α, which existed in human bodies and can be used as a cancer biomarker detection kit. Scientists around the globe have been working on it since then, and more than 10, 000 journals have been published on accredited magazines, yet no one has actually turned their research results into medical products.

    However, Luo Yongzhang and his team in Tsinghua University's School of Life Sciences in Beijing seemed to have cracked the code, after working on the problem since 2009.The team has produced an artificial Hsp90α protein for clinical use that gains structural stability by regrouping proteins. The test kit can diagnose multiple kinds of cancer by analyzing a drop of human blood. This means they are able to "create" the protein, in any quantity, and at any time they wish to.

    The kit has since been used in clinical trials involving 2, 347 patients at eight hospitals in China. It was the first clinical trial in the world to test if the protein could be a useful tumor biomarker for lung cancer, and it succeeded. Now, the kit has been approved to enter the Chinese and European markets, 24 years after Hsp90α was discovered.

    ①An increasing number of young people tend to rent clothes recently. Clothing rental is a hot new industry and retailers are entering this in hopes of attracting newly conscientious shoppers. This past summer alone, Urban Outfitters, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, American Eagle, and Banana Republic have all announced rental services—a sure sign of changing times.

    ②But is renting fashion actually more environmentally-friendly than buying it, and if so, how much more? Journalist and author Elizabeth Cline explored into this question and she concluded that it's not as sustainable as it seems.

    ③Take shipping, for example, which has to go two ways if an item is rented—receiving and returning. Cline writes that consumer transportation has the second largest carbon footprint(碳足迹)of our collective fashion habit after manufacturing.

    ④She writes, "An item ordered online and then returned can emit(排放)20 kilograms of carbon each way, and up to 50 kilograms for rush shipping. By comparison, the carbon impact of a pair of jeans purchased in physical stores and washed and worn at home is 33.4 kilograms, according to a 2015 study by Levi's."

    ⑤Then there's the burden of washing, which has to happen for every item when returned, regardless of whether or not it was worn. For most rental services, this usually means dry-cleaning, a high-impact and polluting process. 70 percent of US dry cleaners used perchloroethylene, a carcinogenic(致癌的)air pollutant, which can produce harmful waste and air pollution .

    ⑥Le Tote is the only service that uses 'wet cleaning' for 80 percent of its items and strives to avoid dry cleaning unless absolutely necessary.

    ⑦Lastly, Cline fears that rental services will increase our appetite for fast fashion, simply because it's so easily accessible. There's something called ‘share-washing' that makes people engage in more wasteful behaviors precisely because a product or service is shared and thus is perceived as more eco-friendly.

    ⑧Renting clothes is still preferable to buying them cheap and pitching them in the trash after a few wears, but we shouldn't let the availability of these services make us complacent(自鸣得意的). There's an even better step --and that's wearing what is already in the closet.