The United States is a country of immigrants. It is a place where people from all over the world come to build a better life. Some immigrants bring their families. Some bring a few of their favorite things. Others come alone with nothing but determination. One thing that every immigrant brings with them is their culture.

    American immigration began in 1607 with the colony (殖民地) of Jamestown. In 1620, another group of people left England to build a settlement in America. They wanted to go to a place where they could practice their religion freely. Then many more people left their homes in Europe to build a better life in America. Many also came to America from Africa. By 1770, more than two million people had moved to America. Later on, more people came to the United States than ever before.

    In cities all over America, you can see different cultures that formed this country. Many things that you may think of as being “American” are actually from a foreign culture. Some of the best examples of this are the foods people eat. Pizza and spaghetti are foods that all Americans know and love. But both of them are from Italy. Baseball is an all-American sport. But the hot dogs that people eat during the game are a type of food that was brought to America by German immigrants.

    Over time, pizza and hot dogs have become a part of what is considered to be American food. In the same way, different groups of people have come together to define what an American is. An American can be a person of any background. An American can be of any faith. An American can be of any skin color. They can speak English clearly. They can speak English with an accent. Each new immigrant adds something new to American culture. It will keep changing as more people come to this country.

    Next time a customer comes to your office, offer him a cup of coffee. And when you're doing your holiday shopping online, make sure you're holding a large glass of iced tea. The physical sensation（感觉）of warmth encourages emotional warmth, while a cold drink in hand prevents you from making unwise decisions—those are the practical lesson being drawn from recent research by psychologist John A. Bargh.

    Psychologists have known that one person's perception（感知）of another's “warmth” is a powerful determiner in social relationships. Judging someone to be either “warm” or “cold” is a primary consideration, even trumping evidence that a “cold” person may be more capable. Much of this is rooted in very early childhood experiences, Bargh argues, when babies' conceptual sense of the world around them is shaped by physical sensations, particularly warmth and coldness. Classic studies by Harry Harlow, published in 1958, showed monkeys preferred to stay close to a cloth “mother” rather than one made of wire, even when the wire “mother” carried a food bottle. Harlow's work and later studies have led psychologists to stress the need for warm physical contact from caregivers to help young children grow into healthy adults with normal social skills.

    Feelings of “warmth” and “coldness” in social judgments appear to be universal. Although no worldwide study has been done, Bargh says that describing people as “warm” or “cold” is common to many cultures, and studies have found those perceptions influence judgment in dozens of countries.

    To test the relationship between physical and psychological warmth, Bargh conducted an experiment which involved 41 college students. A research assistant who was unaware of the study's hypotheses（假设）, handed the students either a hot cup of coffee, or a cold drink, to hold while the researcher filled out a short information form: The drink was then handed back. After that, the students were asked to rate the personality of “Person A” based on a particular description. Those who had briefly held the warm drink regarded Person A as warmer than those who had held the iced drink.

    “We are grounded in our physical experiences even when we think abstractly,” says Bargh.

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Summer Activities

    Students should read the list with their parents/carers, and select two activities they would like to do. Forms will be available in school and online for them to indicate their choices and return to school. Before choices are finalised, parents/carers will be asked to sign to confirm their child's choices.

    If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven't you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?

    According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey mater. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.

    The study also found the effect is greater when the younger people learn a second language. A team led by Dr. Andrea Mechelli, from University College London, took a group of Britons who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of bilinguals who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.

    Scans showed that grey mater density(密度) in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language.

    “Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language,” said the scientists. It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.

    Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales, has researched the link between bilingualism and maths skills. “Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible,” he said. “You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas.”

    The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and thirty-four. Reading, writing, and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. “Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world,” explained the scientists.

    A handsome man can earn a fifth more than a plainer colleague (同事) but a beautiful woman is not paid a penny more than her average-looking colleague, new research has shown.

    The study by senior economists (经济学家) found that being good-looking meant male workers could earn 22 percent more than average-looking colleagues. Researchers said good looks did not give women a similar advantage.

    Andrew Leigh, the former economics professor at the Australian National University who co-authored the report, said: "Beauty can be a double-edged sword for women."

    "Some people still believe good looks and intelligence (智慧) are incompatible (矛盾的) in women so a good-looking woman can't be that productive, but it doesn't affect men's pay."

He said that although he believed good-looking women may also earn more, the research did not support his theory.

    The research found that handsome men in all jobs, from manual labour to highly-paid professional careers, can earn 22 percent more than their colleagues doing the same work.

    Men with below-average looks face a battle in the office, with ugliness reducing a man's earnings by 26 percent compared to an average-looking worker.

    Former male model Ian Mitchell, 28, who has a first class degree in history from Edinburgh University and now works for a cosmetics (化妆品) company, told the Sunday Times: "It gives you confidence, and I suspect people tend to warm to you more quickly."

    The study, named Unpacking the Beauty Premium, was the largest exercise of its kind and repeated a survey from 1984 to see if the beauty premium had changed.

    Leigh said the research showed people in the workplace were "lookist (以貌取人的) " and he hoped the findings would encourage employers to remove their prejudice(偏见).

    Many leading AI researchers think that in a matter of decades, artificial intelligence will be able to do not merely some of our jobs, but all of our jobs, forever transforming life on Earth.

    The reason why many regard this as science fiction is that we've traditionally thought of intelligence as something mysterious that can only exist in biological organisms, especially humans. But such an idea is unscientific.

    From my point of view as a physicist and AI researcher, intelligence is simply a certain kind of information-processing performed by elementary particles (基本粒子) moving around, and there is no law of physics that says one can't build machines more intelligent than us in all ways. This suggests that we've only seen the tip of the intelligence iceberg and that there is an amazing potential to unlock the full intelligence that is potential in nature and use it to help humanity.

    If we get it right, the upside is huge. Since everything we love about civilization is the product of intelligence, amplifying (扩大) our own intelligence with AI has the potential to solve tomorrow's toughest problems. For example, why risk our loved ones dying in traffic accidents that self-driving cars could prevent or dying of cancers that AI might help us find cures for? Why not increase productivity through automation (自动化) and use AI to accelerate our research and development of affordable sustainable (可持续的) energy?

    I'm optimistic that we can develop rapidly with advanced AI as long as we win the race between the growing power of our technology and the knowledge with which we manage it. But this requires giving up our outdated concept of learning form mistakes. That helped us win the race with less powerful technology: We messed up with fire and then invented fire extinguishers (灭火器), and we messed up with cars and then invented seat belts. However, it's an awful idea for more powerful technologies, such as nuclear weapons or superintelligent AI—where even a single mistake is unacceptable and we need to get things right the first time.