Before I studied psychology, I used to think that people would laugh when funny things occurred. While I was right about that, I discovered there are lots of other psychological factors that make people laugh other than the funny part of a joke. When someone laughs at a joke, there will usually bemore than one reason that makes him laugh—and the more reasons there are, the more powerful the joke will be.

    I was attending a stand-up comedy show in Egypt, and when the man started to make fun of pedestrians crossing streets, everyone laughed their hearts out. The main reason those people strongly laughed was that almost allof them felt angry towards pedestrians who crossed streets carelessly. The joke wasn't only funny, it also made the audience feel that they were right about being angry at those pedestrians. That is, people were laughing both because ofthe funny joke and because of the happiness experienced as a result of the psychological support they got.

    The better a joke makes a person feel, and the more it includes other psychological factors, the more the person will like it. For example, if you envy one of your friends, and someone tells a joke that is funny and, at the same time, makes your friend seem stupid, then you will probably laugh atit louder than if you weren't jealous of him.

    In short, we don't laugh only when we hear something funny; we also laugh when we experience some kind of happiness that results from the other psychological factors involved in the joke. I strongly discourage making fun of anyone or belittling someone to make someone else laugh. All Iwant to explain is that if your joke supports a person's emotions, he will certainly like it a lot.

    The discussion on renewable energy has been going on for at least a decade and people have relied on fossil fuels almost entirely for more than a century. However, the situation when fossil fuels were the most efficient and the cheapest source of energy has been left far in the past. Many countries such as Germany and Sweden have already made significant efforts to fix this situation, employing numerous power plants working on the renewable resources of energy. The most effective among these resources is geothermal（地热的）energy.

    Geothermal energy does not depend on the world's economic and political situation as strongly as fossil fuels do. Besides, extracting（提炼）fossil fuels adds to the price of energy produced from them. Therefore, geothermal energy is much cheaper than traditional ones, saving up to 80% of the costs over fossil fuels.

    Being a renewable resource, geothermal energy produces less waste and pollution than traditional energy sources. In geothermal systems, carbon dioxide makes up about 10% of air produced. Overall, in order to produce the electricity that can be used for one hour, the geothermal systems produce 0.1 pound of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases. For a comparison, a power plant producing from gas produces up to 2 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and those power plants that work on coal（煤）produce an astonishing 3.6 pounds of greenhouse gases.

    Low costs is another reason why using geothermal power plants should be the first choice for many countries. Geothermal heat systems require 25% to 50% less energy for work compared with the traditional systems for heating or cooling. Besides, geothermal equipment is less big: due to the very nature of geothermal energy, geothermal power plants have only a few moving parts, all of which can be easily sheltered inside a relatively small building. What's more, the life span of geothermal equipment is rather long. All these make geothermal power stations easy to build and keep.

    Nightlife Downtown Crested Butte is home to some fun adventure nightlife! With many different options for enjoying a night, you're sure to have a great time! Enjoy the free bus system between the mountain and town to get around.

Kids' Night Out

    On vacation, kids and parents deserve a special night out. But sometimes; what's special for the kids isn't quite what you have in mind. We created Kids' Night Out so you can all have the night you're looking for. Our fun-loving kids' instructors host your kids for a Visit to the Adventure Park, followed by dinner and games while you head out of the town. Ages 8~12 are welcome, 75 per child. Kids' Night Out takes place nightly in the coldest

Majestic Fun

    It is small and personal and it offers a wide range of movies, from new releases to classics, action etc. All natural snacks and alcoholic drinks are available. For movie show times and more information, call 970-349-8955 or visit our website.

Princess Wine Bar

    Escape the ordinary and experience the Princess Wine Bar in downtown Crested Butte. Enjoy the coffeehouse featuring Belgian snacks, baked eggs, apple-wood smoked bacon, and coffee drinks. Live entertainment makes the Princess Wine Bar the perfect choice. Open daily from 8:00 pm to midnight, but advance reservations are required. For more information you can call 970-349-0210.

    Talk of the Town

    If you are looking for a good time, the Talk offers football, pinball, video games, good music, and pool tables any night of the week. Located in the center Of Crested Butte on Elk Avenue, open daily at 3: 00 pm, the Talk's Happy Hour is from 3:00 to 8:00 pm. For further information, you can call 970-349-6809.

    We hope you've finally made your peace with Pluto being downgraded from a planet to an ice dwarf (冰矮星)，because we have some more jarring news for you : It seems your teachers may have been wrong about the number of continents on the earth, too.

    Earlier this year, scientists published a report in the journal of the Geological Society of America detailing an eighth continent called Zealandia, roughly the size of India and almost completely hid itself under the Pacific Ocean east of Australia. Covering all of New Zealand as well as several nearby islands, Zealandia likely spent the best of its above-water days as part of the supercontinent Gondwana before fragmenting off Australia and Antarctica some 80 million years ago. This lost, underwater continent is just beginning to reveal its secrets, making for one of the most promising scientific discoveries this year.

    While researchers have been aware of the 1. 9 million-square-mile mass for two decades, Zealandia has only recently become the object of serious study since the Geological Society paper argued that it fits all the criteria for a proper continent, including a continental crust (地壳)that's distinctly separate from the seabed in terms of elevation, thickness, and geology. A team of 32 scientists from 12 countries just completed their first visit to six dig sites around Zealandia, where they drilled up more than 8,000 feet of sediment cores (沉积物岩心)that will help explain the lost continent's 80-million-year history.

    Because there is no official body that formally recognizes continents, whether or not Zealandia ends up in future geography textbooks will come down to its acceptance by the scientific community at large, possibly with a little help from travelers like you.

    The largest genetic study of mosquitoes has found their ability to resist insecticides(杀虫剂) is evolving rapidly and spreading across Africa, putting millions of people at higher risk of contracting malaria(疟疾).

British scientists who led the work said mosquitoes' growing resistance to control tools such as insecticide-treated bed nets and insecticide spraying, which have helped cut malaria cases since 2000, now threatens "to disturb malaria control" in Africa.

    "Our study highlights the severe challenges facing public efforts to control mosquitoes and to manage and limit insecticide resistance," said Martin Donnelly of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who worked on the study with a team from Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

    Latest World Health Organization (WHO) data show that 216 million people were infected last year with the malaria parasite(寄生虫), which is transmitted by blood-sucking Anopheles mosquitoes. The disease killed 445,000 people in 2016, and the majority of them were children in sub-Saharan Africa.

    To understand how mosquitoes are evolving, the researchers sequenced the DNA of 765 wild Anopheles mosquitoes taken from 15 locations across eight African countries. Their work, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, created the largest data resource on natural genetic variation for any species of insect.

    Analyzing the data, the scientists found that the Anopheles gamblae mosquitoes(冈比亚疟蚊)were extremely genetically diverse compared with most other animal species. This high genetic diversity enables rapid evolution, they said, and helps to explain how mosquitoes develop insecticide resistance so quickly.

    The data also showed the rapid evolution of insecticide resistance appeared to be due to many previously unknown genetic variants(变体)within certain genes. The scientists said these genetic variants for insecticide resistance were not only emerging independently in different parts of Africa, but were also being spread across the continent by mosquito migration.

    Michael Chew, an expert at Britain's Wellcome Trust global health charity which helped fund the research, said the finds underlined the importance of pushing scientific research ahead to control malaria.

Global efforts to control malaria through effective vaccine, insecticides and the best drug combinations require urgent, united action by scientists, drug companies, governments and the WHO.

Lizzie's diary from Antarctica (南极洲)

Day 3: Tuesday   December 2

    We planned to go to Rothera that morning. We'd be staying there for the next two weeks. Because Antarctica is the windiest place on earth, sometimes you can't fly at all.

    We had a nervous wait over breakfast to find out if we'd be leaving that day. People have to stay in Stanley for weeks while the pilots wait for good weather.

    It turned clear at 9:30 and we took off at 10:30 on a little red plane called a Dash-7. But even when we were in the air, there was still a chance we wouldn't be able to fly the whole day.

Day 4: Wednesday   December 3

    After waking up in the Antarctic for the first time today I can understand why everybody who comes here falls in love with the place. It is really beautiful.

    We're staying at Rothera Survey base with mountains of ice all around. It is about minus 2⁰C today, which for me is very cold, but the regulars(常客) here are often seen walking around in T-shirts !

Day 5: Thursday   December 4

    I woke up to another beautiful sunny day here in the Antarctic. I'm told it's a bit colder today, about minus 5⁰C, but it's not very windy so it feels warmer. Those of us who are new to the base have to do a special training course before we're allowed to go off base to other stations or to go snowboarding over the nearby hill.

Day 7:  Saturday   December 6

    Not a cloud in the sky and it's warm enough to sit outside (in a jacket).

    The most amazing thing about this place is how the scenery (风景) changes every day.

    At first I thought I was going mad. I'd step outside in the morning and think, "I'm sure that big mountain of ice wasn't there yesterday." It's because the sea ice is always moving—slowly thankfully !