Nowadays airfare isn't getting any cheaper with fuel costs rising every day. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to find the most affordable fares and also avoid paying as many extra charges as possible when you plan ahead.

    I climbed Kilimanjaro with Lava Expeditions (探险队) during the rainy season.

    I flew to Nairobi in Kenya and spent several days there. At my hotel in Nairobi I met the rest of the group with whom I would spend the next week. We all travelled on the bus together for a 6-hour journey into Tanzania and then Arusha, a quiet town.

    After we arrived at our hotel in Arusha, we had dinner and a few drinks. Then we were introduced to more members including Taddeus Minja, the main guide, who was very experienced — climbing Kilimanjaro runs through the generations (代) of his family.

    The next day the Lava Expeditions members checked if we had the correct and enough clothing for our expedition on Kilimanjaro. Only one person needed to bring more clothes.

    After that we set off, walking in the rain through the beauty of the rainforest, all the way to the first camp. I was happy the next few days as the view was so wonderful and changed every day. I suffered a little during the trip and I felt so tired. But the members of Lava Expeditions provided me with lots of encouragement, which was one of the best memories. Finally we reached the top of Kilimanjaro in bright blue skies.

I felt excited about climbing Kilimanjaro and the feeling didn't change during my trip. Lava Expeditions looked after me so well that I was deeply thankful for their help.

Show rooming

    One of the biggest challenges facing brick-and-mortar retailers(实体零售店) in recent years has been the "show rooming". Driven by the desire to get the best prices, many shoppers are now visiting brick-and-mortar stores to personally check on products that interest them, only to leave and then buy the items online. The new trend is forcing retailers to find out new ways to keep consumers from leaving their store for cheaper prices online.

    Recent research found that 40 percent of U.S. shoppers have shown roomed previously, with big-box retailers suffering the most. Specifically, the study shows that Best Buy, Walmart and Target are the most likely brick-and-mortar stores to have shoppers test out a product in-store and then purchase it online later, while Amazon is benefiting most from the practice, with nearly 60 percent of shoppers using the online retail giant(巨人) most often to make their show rooming purchases.

    Smart phones have pushed show rooming into the front. Shoppers no longer have to wait until they get home to see if they can find a cheaper price for the products they're considering buying. With smart phones, consumers can now compare virtual prices, at both other brick-and-mortar stores and online ones while still inside a retail store. If they can find what they're seeking for less online, the majority will be seeking the first exit. A recent study showed that 45 percent of customers shopping at brick-and-mortar stores walk out and buy their purchase online for a discount of as little as 2.5 percent.

    This puts pressure on retailers to provide both an in-store experience worth staying for and an online presence that can attract shoppers who are show rooming in other businesses.

    To cut down on show rooming, many retailers are adopting new methods to keep shoppers in their stores. Among the steps they're taking are price-matching guarantees that allow shoppers to pay a discounted price if they find it cheaper online. This ensures that even a show rooming shopper can make the purchase in the store—regardless of whether they find the cheaper price online.

    Another popular method to fight against show rooming is to give shoppers the ability to buy something online and pick it up at the store. This reduces shipping costs and gets customers in the store, where they may be encouraged to make an additional purchase.

    It is also important for businesses to take into consideration what makes shoppers purchase something in-store rather than online, and meet those needs. Research has found that more than 8 in 10 Americans consider being able to take the goods home immediately and the ability to touch and feel them—the most important aspects when deciding to purchase in a store rather than online.

    Are some people born clever, and others born stupid? Or is intelligence developed by our environment and our experiences? Strangely enough, the answer to both these questions is yes. To some extent our intelligence is given to us at birth, and no amount of special education can make a genius out of a child born with low intelligence. On the other hand, a child who lives in a boring environment will develop his intelligence less than one who lives in rich and varied surroundings. Thus the limits of a person's intelligence are fixed at birth, but whether or not he reaches those limits will depend on his environment. This view, now held by most experts, can be supported in a number of ways.

    It is easy to show that intelligence is to some extent something we are born with. The closer the blood relationship between two people, the closer they are likely to be in intelligence. Thus if we take two unrelated people at random (随机地) from the population, it is likely that their degrees of intelligence will be completely different. I f on the other hand we take two identical (完全相同的) twins they will very likely be as intelligent as each other. Relations like brothers and sisters, parents and children, usually have similar intelligence, and this clearly suggests that intelligence depends on birth.

    Imagine now that we take two identical twins and put them in different environments. We might send one, for example, to a university and the other to a factory where the work is boring. We would soon find differences in intelligence developing, and this indicates that environment as well as birth plays a part. This conclusion is also suggested by the fact that people who live in close contact with each other, but who are not related at all, are likely to have similar degrees of intelligence.

    When men and women take personality tests, some of the old Mars-Venus stereotypes(定式)keep reappearing. On average, women are more cooperative, kind, cautious and emotionally enthusiastic. Men tend to be more competitive, confident, rude and emotionally flat. Clear differences appear in early childhood and never disappear.

    What's not clear is the origin of these differences. Evolutionary psychologists think that these are natural features from ancient hunters and gatherers. Another school of psychologists argues that both sexes' personalities have been shaped by traditional social roles, and that personality differences will shrink as women spend less time taking care of children and more time in jobs outside the home.

    To test these hypotheses(假设), a series of research teams have repeatedly analyzed personality tests taken by men and women in more than 60 countries around the world. For evolutionary psychologists, the bad news is that the size of the gender gap in personality varies among cultures. For social-role psychologists, the bad news is that the change is going in the wrong direction. It looks as if personality differences between men and women are smaller in traditional cultures like India's or Zimbabwe's than in the Netherlands or the United States. A husband and a stay-at-home wife in a patriarchal(男权的)Botswanan clan(部族)seem to be more alike than a working couple in Denmark or France. The more Venus and Mars have equal rights and similar jobs, the more their personalities seem to separate.

    These findings are so unbelievable that some researchers have argued they must be due to cross-cultural problems with the personality tests. But according to new data from 40.000 men and women on six continents, David P. Schmitt and his colleagues conclude that the trends are real. Dr. Schmitt, a psychologist at Bradley University in Illinois and the director of the International Sexuality Description Project, suggests that as wealthy modern societies level(使平等)the barriers between women and men, some ancient internal differences are being developed.

    The biggest changes recorded by the researchers involve the personalities of men, not women.

    Men in traditional agricultural societies and poorer countries seem more cautious and anxious, less confident and less competitive than men in the most progressive and rich countries of Europe and North America.

    To explain these differences, Dr. Schmitt and his partners from Austria and Estonia point to the hardships of life in poorer countries. They note that in some other species, environmental stress tends to extremely affect the larger sex. And, they say, there are examples of stress decreasing biological sex differences in humans.

    As Artificial Intelligence(AI) becomes increasingly sophisticated(复杂的), there are growing concerns that robots could become a threat. This danger can be avoided, according to computer science Professor Stuart Russell, if we figure out how to turn human values into a programmable code.

    Russell argues that as robots take on more complicated tasks, it's necessary to translate our morals into AI language.

    For example, if a robot does chores around the house, you wouldn't want it to put the pet cat in the oven to make dinner for the hungry children. "You would want that robot preloaded with a good set of values," said Russell.

    Some robots are already programmed with basic human values. For example, mobile robots have been programmed to keep a comfortable distance from humans. Obviously there are cultural differences, but if you were talking to another person and they came up close in your personal space, you wouldn't think that's the kind of thing a properly brought-up person would do.

    It will be possible to create more sophisticated moral machines, if only we can find a way to set out human values as clear rules.

    Robots could also learn values from drawing patterns from large sets of data on human behaviour. They are dangerous only if programmers are careless.

    The biggest concern with robots going against human values is that human beings fail to so sufficient testing and they've produced a system that will break some kind of taboos(禁忌).

    One simple check would be to program a robot to check the correct course of action with a human when presented with an unusual situation.

    If the robot is unsure whether an animal is suitable for the microwave, it has the opportunity to stop, send out beeps(嘟嘟声), and ask for directions from a human. If we humans aren't quite sure about a decision, we go and ask somebody else.

    The most difficult step in programming values will be deciding exactly what we believe in moral, and how to create a set of ethical rules. But if we come up with an answer, robots could be good for humanity.