The Colonel（上校） asked Ashenden a good many questions and then suggested that he had particular qualifications for the Secret Service. Ashenden knew several European languages and the fact that he was a writer provided excellent cover: on the pretext（借口） that he was writing a book he could, without attracting attention, visit any neutral country.

    It was while they were discussing this point that the Colonel said, "You know you might get material that would be very useful to you in your work. I'll tell you an incident that occurred only recently. Very dramatic. A foreign government minister went down to a Mediterranean resort to recover from a cold and he had some very important documents with him that he kept in a dispatch case（公文箱）. A day or two after he arrived, he picked up a beautiful blonde at some restaurant or other, and he got very friendly with her . He took her back to his hotel, and when he came to himself in the morning, the lady and the dispatch-case had disappeared. They had one or two drinks up in his room and his theory is that when his back was turned the woman slipped a drug in his glass.

    "Do you mean to say that happened the other day?" said Ashenden.

    "The week before last ."

    "Impossible," cried Ashenden. "Why! We've been putting that incident on the stage for sixty years, we've written it in a thousand novels. Do you mean to say that life has only just caught up with us?"

    "Well, I can guarantee the truth of the story." said the Colonel, "And believe me, the government has been put to no end of trouble by the loss of the documents."

    "Well sir, if you can't do better than that in the Secret Service," sighed Ashenden, " I'm afraid that as a source of inspiration to the writer of fiction, it's washout（失败）."

    I log onto a computer at the doctor's office to say I have arrived and then wait until a voice calls me into the examination room.

    There, a robotic nurse directs me onto a device and then takes my blood pressure. Some time later, in steps the doctor, who is also a robot. He notes down my symptoms and gives me a prescription (处方). I pay for my visit using a credit card machine and return home without having met another human being.

    When I call my dentist's office and actually get a human being on the line, I am thrilled. And when I see the introduction of yet more self-service checkout stations at the grocery store, I feel like shouting, “When it comes to cashiers, make mine human, please!”

    After all, human cashiers sometimes give you a store coupon (优惠券) for items you are buying. Even more than that, real-life cashiers often take an interest in particularly cute children, which can brighten a young mother's day. A cashier may also show compassion (同情) for an elderly person struggling to get that last penny out of her purse.

    What technological device would do any of this? I don't want to go back to the Stone Age, but I'm also worried about a world run by machines. Sometimes when you're chatting with someone, you discover things you need to know. Maybe a receptionist needs prayers said for a sick child. Maybe a salesperson can offer a bit of encouragement to a customer who is feeling tired.

Machines can be efficient and cost-effective and they often get the job done just fine. But they lack an element so important to everyday life.

    Call it the spirit, the soul or the heart. It is something no machine will ever have. It is being human that prompts us to smile at others, which may be what they need at that moment.

    Many people trying to sell homes find that an increase in home prices has turned the market in their favor. But sellers can still get the short end of the deal if they aren't careful. Here are a few tips for you:

    Don't test your luck. Of course you think anyone who moves into your lovely home should be willing to pay top dollars, especially if you've recently invested in some improvements. But listing a home at a price that's too high above the market price could turn away some buyers.

    Buyers noticing that the home which still hasn't been sold may begin to assume there's something wrong with the house and use that as a reasonable excuse for offering a lower price. And if a home hasn't received any offers after two weeks, it might be time to reset the price.

    A price that's too low can bring about an undesired outcome. Listing your home at or slightly below the market price can have the effect of drawing in a large group of buyers and increase the chances that a home will receive multiple offers. But setting the price too low comes with several risks. One possibility is that buyers will get skeptical of the home that is listed for $15,000 to $20,000 less than similar homes in the area, especially if it's not properly marketed. Once again, people might assume there is something wrong with the home and may not bother to look at it.

    Spy on the competition. Going to other people's open houses can give you a better sense of how your home compares with others on the market. Check out the decoration in their kitchens, the size of their backyards and use the information to figure out where your home should fit in the range of the price. But don't set your pricing just on what you see elsewhere.

    Bees in a colony work with each other to gather food, and they try to find the most nectar (花蜜)in the least amount of time possible. A small number of bees work as searchers, but when a good flower patch (花丛) is found, how do they tell other bees where to find it?

    Bees communicate flower location using special dances inside the hive, where bees live. One bee dances while the other bees watch. The dancing bee smells like the flower patch, and also gives the watching bees a taste of the nectar she has gathered. Smell and taste helps other bees find the correct flower patch. Bees use two different kinds of dances to communicate information: the waggle (摇摆) dance and the circle dance.

    Waggle dance

    The waggle dance tells the watching bees two things about a flower patch's location: the distance and the direction away from the hive.

A. Distance

    The dancing bee waggles back and forth as she moves forward in a straight line, then circlesaround to repeat the dance. The length of the middle line, called the waggle run, shows roughly how far it is to the flower patch.

B. Direction

    Bees know which way is up and which way is down inside their hive, and they use this to show direction. How? Bees dance with the waggle run at a specific angle away from straight up. Outside the hive, bees look at the position of the sun, and fly at the same angle away from the sun.

    Circle dance

    The circle dance tells the watching bees only one thing about the flower patch's location: that it is somewhere close to the hive.

    In this dance, the bee walks in a circle, turns around, then walks the same circle in the opposite direction. Sometimes, the bee includes a little waggle as she's turning around. The duration of this waggle is thought to indicate the quality of the flower patch.

    The United States will introduce a new and comprehensive(综合的) exam for students who seek to study in American and other English-speaking countries, Xinhua News Agency reported from New York.

    The exam, which stands for a great change from the current English level test, was disclosed by Theresa Chang Wei Jen, associate director of the International Service of the US College Board, America's leading educational organization.

    The Advanced Placement International English Language (APIEL) will be offered for the first time throughout the world on May 10, 2002, said Jen.

    However, the APIEL is a strange title to most Chinese students, and it is unlikely to soon gain the similarity of other already existing exams, such as the TOEFL(Test of English as a Foreign Language), the GRE(Graduate Record Examination), or the IELTS(International English Language Testing System).

    "I have never heard of such a test and I would prefer the IELTS if I need another exam," said Xu Jingyan, a graduating student from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who wants to study in England and has already taken the TOEFL.

    Most of Xu's classmates have never heard of the APIEL. "The APIEL is designed for international students who wish to get university studies in English-speaking countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia." said Jen.

    The APIEL has been adopted, said Jen, because the TOEFL can no longer accurately reflect the abilities of students of using the English language comprehensively in an academic environment. Xinhua reported that a fairly large number of foreign students who earned high scores in TOEFL exam turned out to be very ordinary educational performers after admission.

    Compared with the TOEFL, the APIEL measures a student's ability to read, write, speak and understand English through testing his or her skills in listening comprehension, speaking with accuracy(精确) and resourcefulness, and writing with clarity(清晰) and fluency, Jen said.

    Barbara McCintock was one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century. She made important discoveries about genes(基因) and chromosomes (染色体).

    Barbara McClintock was born in 1902 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her family moved to Brooklyn area of new York City in 1908.Barbara was an active child with interests in sports and music. She also developed an interest in science.

    She studied science at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Barbara was among a small number of undergraduate students to receive training in genetics in 1921. Years later, she noted that few college students wanted to study genetics.

    Barbara McClintock decided to study botany, the scientific study of plants, at Cornell University. She completed her undergraduate studies in 1923. McClintock decided to continue her education at Cornell. She completed a master's degree in 1925. Two years later, she finished all her requirements for a doctorate degree.

    McCintock stayed at Cornell after she completed her education. She taught students botany. The 1930s were not a good time to be a young scientist in the United States. The country was in the middle of the great economic Depression. Millions of Americans were unemployed. Male scientists were offered jobs. But female geneticists were not much in demand.

    An old friend from Cornell, Marcus Rhoades, invited McClintock to spend the summer of 1941 working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It is a research center on Long Island, near New York City. McClintock started in a temporary (临时的) job with the genetics department. A short time later, she accepted a permanent (永久的) position with the laboratory. This gave her the freedom to continue her research without having to teach or repeatedly ask for financial aid.

    By the 1970s, her discoveries had had an effect on everything from genetic engineering to cancer research. McClintock won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1983 for her discovery of the ability of genes to change positions on chromosomes. She was the first American woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize.