In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what “keeping up with the Joneses” is about. It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbors.

    The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbors.

    It was like a race, but one could never finish his race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment in New York City.

    Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbors. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series of short stories. He called it “Keeping up with the Joneses” because “Jones” is a very common name in the United States. “Keeping up with the Joneses” came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand's series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.

    People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are “Joneses” in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.

    Bad news sells. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news. Those are the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers. But now that information is being spread and monitored(监控) in different ways, researchers are discovering new rules. By tracking people's e-mails and online posts, scientists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.

    “The 'if it bleeds' rule works for mass media,” says Jonah Berger, a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “They want your eyeballs and don't care how you're feeling. But when you share a story with your friends, you care a lot more how they react. You don't want them to think of you as a Debbie Downer.”

    Researchers analyzing word-of-mouth communication—e-mails, Web posts and reviews, face-to-face conversations—found that it tended to be more positive than negative, but that didn't necessarily mean people preferred positive news. Was positive news shared more often simply because people experienced more good things than bad things? To test for that possibility, Dr. Berger looked at how people spread a particular set of news stories: thousands of articles on The New York Times' website. He and a Penn colleague analyzed the “most e-mailed” list for six months. One of his first findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list than non-science articles. He found that science amazed Times' readers and made them want to share this positive feeling with others.

    Readers also tended to share articles that were exciting or funny, or that inspired negative feelings like anger or anxiety, but not articles that left them merely sad. They needed to be aroused(激发) one way or the other, and they preferred good news to bad. The more positive an article, the more likely it was to be shared, as Dr. Berger explains in his new book, “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.”

    For centuries people have hunted animals for food and pleasure.The invention of the gun made it so easy for humans to hunt that some animals were lolled by the thousands and even became extinct（绝种的）.This brings up some serious problems since breaks in the food chain upset the balance of nature.

    Large animals like tigers are being killed by the hundreds every year in India.The Royal Bengal tiger is the only type that exists in India and their number is greatly reduced every year because of poaching（偷猎）.The present number is about 2,000, all of which live in tiger reserves.Two hundred years ago the population was 23,000 or more.

    During the British rule of India,many of the so-called English gentlemen killed tigers for pleasure and to show their bravery.This seems stupid because killing an innocent（无辜的）creature with a gun is not a brave deed.

    Today the tiger skin is very popular.Rich people and fashion designers have no idea what they are doing. Competition between the rich to show off makes them blind to the serious effects.People persuade villagers to kill tigers to get money,and they do it because they are poor and need to feed their families.We must educate them,and the government should give them proper jobs to help solve this problem.

    The people to blame are those who buy animal products like ivories,furs,tiger bones for medicine and handbags made of animal skins.They must be put behind bars to stop this kind of trade.The earth is home for everyone on it. The trees,animals,birds,and fish of all kinds belong here as much as we do.Only we have the power to change their fate.

    Like people, plants experience stress. And also, like people, the response to that stress can determine success.

    Bad environmental conditions, such as drought, flood, heat and other stresses, affect yields (产量) more than crop pests and diseases. We are trying to find a way to equip plants with the ability to tolerate environmental stress and maintain high yields, said Stephen Howell, a professor of genetics and cell biology.

    Plant cells produce proteins (蛋白质) and ship them to different parts of the cell. Under normal conditions, these proteins are folded into their normal, healthy structures as they are produced. When a plant is under stress, its cells produce poorly folded or unfolded proteins. Then a built-in system senses this and “sets off an alarm in the cell,” said Howell.

    In response to the alarm, another protein (IRE1) starts working and creates a different process which activates (激活) the stress response genes whose products bring about defensive measures that help the plant survive.

    “As it turns out, responses that are activated under stress conditions actually inhibit the growth of plants,” said Howell. “This allows them to preserve their energy to survive the stress conditions.”

    For plants in the wild, this response is a help for survival, he said. In production of agriculture crops, however, this response reduces yields.

    “You don't want crop plants to stop growing,” Howell said. “You want them to continue to grow and produce even though they are under stress.”

    With the new understanding of this stress response, the next step may be to silence the alarm system, said Howell. “What may be important is to disable some of these stress responses. That may make the plant more productive under stress conditions.”

    For Chinese, it's a time for dragon boat racing and Zongzi (粽子). But across the Yellow Sea, South Korea, wrestling (摔跤) and swing play are the highlights. However, both events go by the same name—the Dragon Boat Festival—which falls on May5 of the lunar calendar.

    One festival, two cultures: does one nation have the right to call its own? It has been reported that South Korea will apply (申请) to the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO联合国教科文组织) to make the celebration its cultural heritage (文化遗产). If successful, people from other countries may see the Dragon Festival as a Korean creation.

    As the birthplace of the yearly event more than 2, 000 years ago, China is not happy with the situation. "It would be a shame if another country successfully made a traditional Chinese festival part of its own cultural heritage ahead of China," said Zhou Heping, deputy culture minister. The Ministry of Culture is even thinking of making its own application to UNESCO, covering all traditional Chinese festivals, including the Dragon Boat event.

    Over the years, the Dragon Boat Festival has spread throughout the world. In Japan and Viet Nam, as well as South Korea, the festival has mixed with and become part of local culture. With this in mind, some experts say that it is meaningless to argue about which country the festival belongs to. "No one can deny that it came from China," said Long Haiqing, an expert from Hunan Province. "But if all the countries involved can protect culture heritage together, they will all benefit."

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