Have you ever noticed what happens to an idea once you express it?Just talking about it or writing it down causes you to make it clear in your own mind.How can you use this to increase your brain power?Start writing.

    By putting thoughts into words,you are telling yourself the logic behind what you think,feel,or only partly understand.Often,explaining a thought is the process of understanding.In other words,you increase your brain power by exercising your “explain power”.

    Another benefit of writing is that it helps you remember.Many,if not most,highly productive people are always taking notes.You can try keeping it all in your head,but if you keep a journal of your ideas,the next time you're working on a big project,you'll probably have more success.

    Want to understand a topic?Write a book about it.That's an extreme example,but if you are learning something new,write a letter to a friend about it,and you will understand it better.Want to invent something?Write an explanation of the problem—why you want to solve it,and why it is worth solving,and you're halfway there.

    Writers don't always write because they clearly understand something beforehand.Often,they write about something because they want to understand it.You can do the same.Writing will help bring you to an understanding. Give it a try.

    A minister was on a long flight from China to London. The first warning of the approaching problems came when the sign on the airplane flashed on: Fasten your seat belts. Then, after a while, a calm voice said, "We shall not be serving the drinks at this time as there is going to be something unexpected. Please be sure seat belt is fastened."

    Soon the storm broke out. One moment the airplane was lifted on terrific currents of air. The plane dropped as if it were about to crash.

    The minister believed that he shared the discomfort and fear of those around him. As he looked around the plane, he could see that nearly all the passengers were upset and alarmed. The future seemed ominous and many were wondering if they would make it through the storm. Then he suddenly saw a little girl. Apparently the storm meant nothing to her. She was reading a book and everything within her small world was calm orderly. Sometimes she closed her eyes and then she would read again. Then she would straighten her legs, worry and fear were not in her world. The minister could hardly believe his eyes.

    It was not surprising therefore that when the plane finally reached its destination and all the passengers hurried to leave, the minister walked up to the girl he had watched for such a long time. Having commented about the storm and the behavior of the plane, he asked why she had not been afraid. The girl replied, "Because my dad is the pilot, and he's taking me home."

    If a diver surfaces too quickly, he may suffer the bends. Nitrogen(氮) dissolved(溶解) in his blood is suddenly liberated by the reduction of pressure. The consequence, if the bubbles (气泡)accumulate in a joint, is sharp pain and a bent body—thus the name. If the bubbles form in his lungs or his brain, the consequence can be death.

    Other air-breathing animals also suffer this decompression(减压) sickness if they surface too fast: whales, for example. And so, long ago, did ichthyosaurs. That these ancient sea animals got the bends can be seen from their bones. If bubbles of nitrogen form inside the bone they can cut off its blood supply. This kills the cells in the bone, and consequently weakens it, sometimes to the point of collapse. Fossil (化石)bones that have caved in on themselves are thus a sign that the animal once had the bends.

    Bruce Rothschild of the University of Kansas knew all this when he began a study of ichthyosaur bones to find out how widespread the problem was in the past. What he particularly wanted to investigate was how ichthyosaurs adapted to the problem of decompression over the 150 million years. To this end, he and his colleagues traveled the world's natural-history museums, looking at hundreds of ichthyosaurs from the Triassic period and from the later Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

    When he started, he assumed that signs of the bends would be rarer in younger fossils, reflecting their gradual evolution of measures to deal with decompression. Instead, he was astonished to discover the opposite. More than 15% of Jurassic and Cretaceous ichthyosaurs had suffered the bends before they died, but not a single Triassic specimen(标本) showed evidence of that sort of injury.

    If ichthyosaurs did evolve an anti-decompression means, they clearly did so quickly—and, most strangely, they lost it afterwards. But that is not what Dr Rothschild thinks happened. He suspects it was evolution in other animals that caused the change.

    Whales that suffer the bends often do so because they have surfaced to escape a predator (捕食动物) such as a large shark. One of the features of Jurassic oceans was an abundance of large sharks and crocodiles, both of which were fond of ichthyosaur lunches. Triassic oceans, by contrast, were mercifully shark- and crocodile-free. In the Triassic, then, ichthyosaurs were top of the food chain. In the Jurassic and Cretaceous, they were prey(猎物) as well as predator—and often had to make a speedy exit as a result.

    I can hear the sound of insects and feel autumn is nearing. This means my year of study at Nara University of Education is coming to an end.

    The time I've spent here has flown by so quickly. It seems as if I came here a month ago, but in reality I have to go home soon. When I came here, I missed my family and friends back home and found it hard to overcome loneliness, but on the other hand, I was interested in the new environment and had a lot of fun.

    I had visited Japan three times before coming to study at this university, but when I started living in Japan, many days were filled with a mixture of anxiety and excitement. I sometimes made silly mistakes, but I thought this was the best way to learn about Japanese culture. I was not the only one that was not accustomed to the different customs of Japanese people.

    My plan before coming to Japan was to make friends with some Japanese students in universities. However, I found my best friends were those who came from other countries. I didn't know much about other countries but I came to be more interested in them through making friends from different places, which made me aware of many different and sometimes hard-to-understand customs. Furthermore, I was surprised to see myself thinking more about my own culture and realized I should come to know it better.

    I am really happy that I came to Nara. During my stay, I felt the closer connection between humans and nature here than in Europe.

    A while back I caught a news report on something called -couch surfing‖ and the network of trusting souls who make this phenomenon possible. They offer to put up travelers free of charge and help them on their ways. At first, it sounded unbelievable. I mean, inviting strangers into one's home for one or two nights? Give me a break.

    However, I was intrigued. I decided to investigate. The only way to truly learn about this phenomenon was to dive in. So I planned a trip to Finland, a country I've always wanted to explore. I would couch surf at every stop there.

    If ever any anxiety existed when stepping into the unknown, it disappeared when my first host met me at the train station. Ari looked like my idea of a typical Finn: tall and blue-eyed. Finns were also supposed to be famously reserved (寡言少语的). Ari was anything but. He was a live wire, giving me an enthusiastic welcome and hiking with me to his apartment, where he showed me the sleeper sofa, served me tea, and engaged me in warm conversations. He also handed me a key to come and go as I pleased.

    If this was what couch surfing was all about－trust and friendship－then I had gotten off to a good start. As I boarded my next train to continue my journey, I began to think about this couch-surfing idea. What urged these people to open their homes to strangers? I concluded that there was a desire to lend a hand to like-minded folks who might enrich their own lives.

    Seven cities in 14 days. Seven hosts. Seven new friends. If couch surfing taught me anything, it's this: Most people are good and generous. Where will couch surfing take me next? Who knows? But I can't wait to find out.

    As a young adult, Noah Webster was a teacher. At that time, the colonies were fighting for independence from Britain. Yet the books that American children used in school all came from Britain. The books were all about British people and British places. Webster wanted books that would mean more to American children. So he wrote three books that used American examples—a grammar book, a spelling book, and a reader. These books were very popular, and millions of them were sold.

    Webster was interested in changing the spellings of words. He wanted words to be spelled the way they were pronounced. For example, he thought the word "head" should be spelled "hed", and the word "laugh" should be spelled "laf". People liked Webster's suggestions.

    However, few words were actually changed. One group of words that were changed were words in which an unpronounced "u" followed an "o". That is why Americans write "color" and "labor", and the British write "colour" and "labour".

    With the money he made from his books, Webster was able to write. It was the first American English dictionary, published in 1828.Webster's dictionary had over 70，000 words and gave the meaning and origin of each. To this day, Webster's work is the example that most dictionaries of American English follow.