People are being lured(引诱)onto Facebook with the promise of a fun and free service without realizing they're paying for it by giving up large amounts of personal information. Facebook then attempts to make money by selling their data to advertisers that want to send targeted messages.

    Most Facebook users don't realize this is happening. Even if they know what the company is up to, they still have no idea what they're paying for Facebook, because people don't really know what their personal details are worth.

    The biggest problem, however, is that the company keeps changing the rules. Early on, you could keep everything private. That was the great thing about Facebook—you could create your own little private network. Last year, the company changed its privacy rules so that many things—your city, your photo, your friends' names—were set, by default(默认), to be shared with everyone on the Internet.

    According to Facebook's vice-- president Elliot Schrage, the company is simply making changes to improve its service, and if people don't share information, they have a “less satisfying experience.”

    Some critics think this is more about Facebook looking to make more money. Its original business model, which involved selling ads and putting them at the side of the page, totally failed. Who wants to look at ads when they're online connecting with their friends?

    The privacy issue has already landed Facebook in hot water in Washington. In April, Senator(议员) Charles Schumer called on Facebook to change its privacy policy. He also urged the Commission to set guidelines for social-networking sites. “I think the senators rightly communicated that we had not been clear about what the new products were and how people could choose to use them or not to use them,” Schrage admits.

    I suspect that whatever Facebook has done so far to invade our privacy, it's only the beginning, which is why I'm considering deactivating(撤销)my account. Facebook is a handy site, but I'm upset by the idea that my information is in the hands of people I don't know. That is too high a price to pay.

    In 1869, the Smiley family purchased an area of land about 100 miles north of New York City. Over time, some of their property and much of the surrounding landscape became the Mohonk Preserve, which has since grown to 8,000 acres and attracts visitors and rock climbers.

    But the Mohonk Preserve also has a long scientific legacy. In the 1930s, Dan Smiley, a descendent of the original owners, began keeping track of the plants and animals that lived in the area.

    Megan Napoli is a research ecologist with the Mohonk Preserve in New York. She thinks Smiley's efforts produced a rare long-term data set of observations, which is useful for studying the impacts of climate change. For instance, other research has shown that songbirds are migrating north earlier and earlier in the spring.

    It's important for the birds to arrive at the proper time in the spring, because they need to time their arrival with the insect emergence. So they need to be here to establish their nesting sites, lay their eggs. Once the eggs hatch, they have their baby birds, so they need to time it when the insects are most abundant.

    Napoli has begun analyzing about 76,000 observations of songbird migration dates collected by Smiley and his team to see if they, too, show that climate change has altered the timing of migrations. Her results suggest that they do.

    Napoli found that short-distance migrants that spend their winters in the southern U. S. now arrive an average of eleven days earlier than they did in the 1930s. Long-distance migrants that overwinter in the tropics arrive roughly a week earlier. Napoli presented her results at a recent Ecological Society of America meeting in Portland, Oregon.

    Meanwhile, who knows how many other long-term, personal data collections like Smiley's are out there, waiting to be discovered and to help improve official attempts to track the planet's changes.

    It seems that no one can live a happy life without friendship. While a great number of people expect others to be their friends, they don't give friendship back. That is why some friendships don't last long. To have a friend, you must learn to be one. You must learn to treat your friend the way you want your friend to treat you. Learning to be a good friend means learning three rules: be honest; be generous; be understanding.

    Honesty is where a good friendship starts. Friends must be able to trust one another. If you do not tell the truth, people usually find out. If a friend finds out that you haven't been honest, you may lose your friend's trust. Good friends always depend on one another to speak and act honestly.

    Generosity means sharing and sharing makes a friendship grow. You do not have to give your lunch money or your clothes. Naturally you will want to share your ideas and feelings. These can be very valuable to a friend. They tell your friend what is important to you. By sharing them, you help your friend know better.

    Sooner or later everyone needs understanding and help with each other. Something may go wrong at school. Talking about the problem can make it easier to solve. Turning to a friend can be a first step in solving the problem. So to be a friend you must listen and understand. You must try to put yourself in your friend's place so that you can understand the problem better.

    No two friendships are exactly alike. But all true friendships have three things in common. If you plan to keep your friends, you must practice honesty, generosity and understanding.

    Dolphins, African gray parrots and some other animals understand the idea of “zero,” but researchers were surprised to find that honeybees also comprehend this abstract concept, considering the insects' tiny brains, according to a new study. Honeybees have fewer than one million neurons (神经元), compared with the 86 billion neurons in humans—and yet, they grasp a concept that humans, by some measures, don't start to understand before preschool.

    The researchers set up two cards, each of which had a set of symbols on them, like triangles or circles. Then, they trained a group of the bees to fly to the card with the lower number of symbols. The bees quickly learned what the humans wanted them to do to get their delicious, sweet rewards. The trained bees were then shown a card that was empty and one that had symbols on it. There is no need for the bees to be trained to fly more often to the empty card—thus showing that they understood that “zero” was a number less than the others.

    Although they flew more often to an empty card than to one that had one symbol on it, it became easier for them to distinguish when the symbols on the card increased in number. For example, they more often flew to the zero when the other card had four symbols than when it had one.

    Perhaps these findings will explain the brain mechanism (机制) behind what allows us to understand the concept of “nothing,” Adrian Dyer, a researcher said. This understanding, in turn, could help in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) that also understands this concept. “If bees can understand 'zero' with a brain of less than a million neurons, it suggests there are simple, efficient ways to teach AI new tricks,” Dyer said in the statement.

    In my memory, winters always used to be really unpleasant. You had to bundle up just to keep warm when you went outside. You were often cold, wet, slip on the ice, and you'd arrive home to an ice-cold house. And that would mean turning on the heating and waiting. It's a miracle you didn't get cold to the bone.

    Fortunately, things don't have to be so challenging any more. Technology, engine ring and design have advanced giving us new solutions to old problems. It means dealing with winter needn't be like skating on thin ice.

    With a smart thermostat (温度自动调节器), our homes can be warm when we need them to be. Many models feature smartphone apps that allow you to control temperature remotely, so we can warm up the house before we arrive home. According to techradar.com, Tado's model features voice control, while the Nest 'leans' your habits and automatically heats the home for you.

    Clothes have been given an upgrade, too. Electronic thermal jackets, sweaters and coats heat up when you turn them on. What better way to keep warm in the dead of winter? At the touch of a button, or through an app on our phones, the clothing generates heat from elements placed inside. Many models offer three levels of heating which stay warm for over 12 hours. .

    Finally, there is the clothing for the head, beanie s and Earmuff, that feature speakers included in the fabric using Bluetooth technology so we can listen to our favourite music or, in some cases, have a phone callusing the in-built microphone. All while keeping the head warm and avoiding a cold.

    For many, the thought of winter used to be enough to make their blood run cold. But using technology, life needn't freeze up. With the right solutions, there's no reason why winter can't be really, really cool.

    Being "young is associated with all the good things in life - beauty, hope, and energy. But youth also has negative associations - impulsiveness, trouble -making, and irresponsibility. This negative side seems to be what society focuses on more, which is why young people have mostly been considered as idle and difficult.

    But when it comes to Generation Z - those born between 1996 and 2010 - this stereotype doesn't seem to apply anymore.

    In Japan, for example, Gen Z-ers are less likely to buy on impulse, but take into consideration more a product's true value. They're looking at the companies, not just the products, "Masahiko Uotani, CEO of Japanese cosmetics company Shiseido, told Bloomberg. They're asking, 'Are they really delivering value to the society? Are they promoting diversity and inclusion?"

    Gen Z-ers are also more grounded than we've expected them to be. According to a recent survey by Bank of America, more than half of young adults aged between 18 and 23 said they were planning to buy a house within five years. And they're not just saying it - they are willing to make sacrifices for it, including getting a second job and saving money for down payment instead of spending it on a vacation.

    "Despite their young age, this group is pragmatic and actively planning for their future," D.Steve Boland, head of Consumer Lending at Bank of America, told USA Today. "They have a clear vision how they are willing to help themselves in order to make it happen."

    Social issues are also at the center of concern of Gen Z-ers, who take themselves as a changing force of the world. In India, for example, young people who have just reached the voting age are eager to vote for a new leader who is capable of solving problems that matter the most to them, including pollution, unemployment and women's safety.

    As a Gen-Zer yourself, what is your plan for the future?