Modern man has cleared the forests for farmland and for wood, and has also carelessly burned them. More than that, though, he has also interfered(干预) with the invisible bonds between the living things in the forests. There are many examples of this kind of destruction. The harmfulness of man's interference can be seen in what happened many years ago in the forest of the Kaibab plateau （凯亚巴布高原） of northern Arizona. Man tried to improve on the natural web of forest life and destroyed it instead.

    The Kaibab had a storybook forest of large-sized pine, Douglas fir, white fir, blue and Engelmann spruce. In 1882 a visitor noted, "We, who have wandered through its forests and parks, have come to regard it as the most enchanting（迷人的）region it has ever been our privilege to visit. "This was also the living place of the Rocky Mountain mule deer. Indians hunted there every autumn to gather meat and skins. The forest also had mountain lions, timber wolves and bobcats that kept the deer from multiplying too rapidly.

    Then, in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt made the Kaibab a national game preserve. Deer hunting was forbidden. Government hunters started killing off the deer's enemies. In 25 years' time, 6,250 mountain lions, wolves and bobcats were killed. Before the program, there were about 4,000 deer in the Kaibab, by 1924, there were about 100,000.

    The deer ate every leaf and twig they could reach. But there was not nearly enough food. Hunting of deer was permitted again. This caused a slight decrease in the deer herd，but a far greater loss resulted from starvation and disease. Some 60 percent of the deer herd died in two winters. By 1930 the herd had dropped to 20,000 animals. By 1942 it was down to 8,000.

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    The most widespread fallacy (谬论)of all is that colds ire caused by cold. They are actually caused by viruses passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by coining into contact, directly or indirectly, with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expect the Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in the isolated Arctic Regions explorers have reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected people from the outside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes.

    During the First World War soldiers who spent long periods in the trenches(战壕), cold and wet, showed no increased tendency to catch colds.

    In the Second World War prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp，naked and starving, were astonished to find that they seldom had colds. At the Common Cold Research Unit in England, volunteers took part in experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts of being cold and wet for long stretches of time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits, allowed themselves to be with cold water, and then stood about dripping wet in drafty rooms. Some wore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of the volunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose.

    If then, cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in the winter. Despite the most pains-taking research, no one has yet found the answer. One explanation offered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at other times, and this makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on.

    London's newest skyscraper (摩天大楼)is called the Shard and it cost about 430 million pounds to build. At a height of almost 310 metres, it is the tallest building in Europe. The Shard has completely changed the appearance of London. However, not everyone thinks that it is a change for the better.

    The Shard was designed by the famous Italian architect Renzo Piano. When he began designing the Shard for London, Piano wanted a very tall building that looked like a spire (尖顶)• He wanted the glass surfaces to reflect the sky and the city. The sides of the building aren't regular. So the building has an unusual shape. It looks like a very thin，sharp piece of broken glass. And that is how the building got the name: the Shard. Piano says that the spire shape of the Shard is part of a great London tradition. The shape reminds him of the spires of the churches of London or the tall masts (桅杆）of the ships that were once on the river Thames.

    The Shard has 87 floors. At the top, there is an observatory. At the moment the building is empty, but eventually there will be a five-star hotel. There will also be top quality restaurants, apartments and offices.

    Before building work began, a lot of people didn't want the Shard though the plans were approved. Now they are still unhappy about the Shard. Some critics say that such a tall skyscraper might be good in a city like New York, but not in London. They say that the best thing about the Shard is its spire shape. But that is the only thing. There is no decoration, only flat surfaces. The Egyptians did that 4,500 years ago. They also think the Shard is too big for London. It destroys the beauty of the city.

    Other critics don't like what the Shard seems to represent. They say that the Shard shows how London is becoming more unequal. Only very rich people can afford to buy the expensive private apartments and stay in the hotel. But the people who live near the Shard are among the poorest in London. So the Shard seems a symbol of the division in society between the very rich and the poor.

    The Shard now dominates the London skyline. It is not certain, however, that ordinary London citizens will ever accept it as a valuable addition to the city.

    Living and dealing with kids can be a tough job these days, but living and dealing with parents can be even tougher.

    If I have learned anything in my 16 years, it is that communication is very important, both when you disagree and when you get along. With any relationship, you need to let other person know how you are feeling. If you are not able to communicate, you drift apart. When you are mad at your parents, or anyone else, not talking to them doesn't solve anything.

    Communication begins with the concerns of another. It means that you can't just come home from school, go up to your room and ignore everyone. Even if you just say “Hi”, and see how their day was for five minutes, it is better than nothing.

    If you looked up the word “communication” in a dictionary, it would say “the exchange of ideas, the conveyance （表达）of information, correspondence （通信）, means of communication: a letter or a message”. To maintain (保持) a good relationship, you must keep communication strong. Let people know how you feel, even if it's just by writing a note.

    When dealing with parents, you always have to make them feel good about how they are doing as a parent. If you are trying to make them see something as you see it, tell them that you'll listen to what they have to say, but ask them politely to listen to you. Yelling or walking away only makes the situation worse.

    This is an example: one night, Sophie went to a street party with her friends. She knew she had to be home by midnight after the fireworks, but she didn't feel she could just ask to go home. That would be rude. After all, they had been nice enough to take her along with them. Needless to say, she was late getting home. Her parents were mad at first, not when Sophie explained why she was late, they weren't as mad and let the incident go. Communication is the key factor here. If Sophie's parents had not been willing to listen, Sophie would have been in a lot of trouble.

    Communication isn't a one-way deal: it goes both ways. Just remember: if you get into a situation like Sophie's, telling the other person how you feel-listening is the key factor to communication.

    Self-driving vehicles will rely on cameras, sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize and respond to road and traffic conditions, but sensing is the most effective for objects and movement in the neighborhood of the vehicle. Not everything important in a car's environment will be caught by the vehicle's camera. Another vehicle approaching at high speed on a collision (碰撞) track might not be visible until it's too late. This is why vehicle-to-vehicle communication is undergoing rapid development. Our research shows that cars will need to be able to chat and cooperate on the road, although the technical challenges are considerable.

    Applications for vehicle- to-vehicle communication range from vehicles driving together in a row, to safety messages about nearby emergency vehicles. Vehicles could alert each other to avoid collisions or share notices about passers-by and bicycles.

    From as far as several hundred meters away, vehicles could exchange messages with one another or receive information from roadside units (RSUs) about nearby incidents or dangerous road conditions through 4G network. A high level of AI seems required for such vehicles, not only to self-drive from A to B, but also to react intelligently to messages received. Vehicles will need to plan, reason, strategize and adapt in the light of information received in real time and to carry out cooperative behaviors. For example, a group of autonomous vehicles might avoid a route together because of potential risks, or a vehicle could decide to drop someone off earlier due to messages received, a foreseen crowding ahead.

    Further applications of vehicle- to-vehicle communication are still being researched, including how to perform cooperative behavior.

I'm a standup comic. One day, a woman from The Daily News called and said she wanted to do an article on me. When she had finished interviewing me for the article, she asked, "What are you planning to do next?" Well, at the time, there was absolutely nothing I was planning on doing next, so I asked her what she meant, pausing for a moment. She told me she was interested in me! So I thought I'd better tell her something. What came out was, "I'm thinking about breaking the Guinness Book of World Records for Fastest-Talking Female."

The newspaper article came out the next day, and the writer had included my parting remarks about trying to break the world's Fastest-Talking Female record. At about 5: 00 p.m. that afternoon I got a call from Larry King Live, which I had never heard of, asking me to go on the show. They wanted me to try to break the record, and they told me they would pick me up at 8: 00—because they wanted me to do it that night!

Then I sat down to figure out what on earth I was going to do on the show. I called Guinness to find out how to break a fast-talking record. They told me I would have to recite something either Shakespeare or the Bible. Shakespeare and I had never really gotten along, so 1 figured the Bible was my only hope. I began practicing and practicing, over and over again. I was both nervous and excited at the same time.

Then I decided just to give it my best shot, and I did. I broke the record, becoming the World's Fastest-talking Female by speaking 585 words in one minute in front of a national television audience. I broke it again two years later, with 603 words in a minute. My career took off.

People often ask me how I did that. I tell them I live my life by this simple philosophy: I always say yes first; then I ask, "Now, what do I have to do to accomplish that?" Then I ask myself, "What is the worst thing that can happen if I don't succeed? The answer is, I simply don't succeed! And what's the best thing that can happen? I succeed!

What more can life ask of you? Be yourself, and have a good time!