Earlier this year, the social media website Facebook announced that it would work with several news organizations — including The New York Times, The Guardian, and the BBC — to place news stories directly into users' personal Facebook webpage.  Stories published using Facebook Instant will load more quickly and keep the style of the original publisher, who will keep all the advertising income the stories earn — at least for now. The deal shows how important social media has become to news organizations, and is a clear sign of how the world of news is changing — and has been for a while.

    When Google News began in 2002, many saw it as the death of the newspaper. It had no human editor. Instead Google used, and still uses, a secret computer program that selects and displays news stories according to the reader's personal interests. More recently, Associated Press and Yahoo! have been publishing computer-written articles. Both use special software to automatically produce stories about company financial results and sports reports — areas where the quality of writing is felt to be of secondary importance to the accuracy of the data.

    Should we be worried about such developments? I think we should. One concern is that facebook, Google and other social media websites see journalism as a sideline, a way of putting people in front of advertisements. It isn't their primary function — so if it stops making them lots of money, they're likely to stop doing it.

    There's also a concern that computer-written articles are not actually journalism at all, because what a human news team produces is actually quite complex. A well-written news story puts information in context, offers a voice to each side of an argument and brings the public new knowledge.

    Though economics and speed of delivery mean readers will probably choose a computer-written story over a carefully shaped article — at least for daily news — I don't think the computers will be writing any in-depth articles for a while yet.

    Shopping is a big part of the holiday season,when families and friends gather together and exchange gifts.While the popularity of shopping online has grown,such practices are not always eco-friendly or timely,as gifts bought online must be packaged and shipped,wasting valuable resources and time.

    The benefits of shopping locally go beyond convenience and reduce your carbon footprint.The following are a few ways that shopping locally this holiday season can directly benefit your community and the people who call it home.

    When men and women shop locally,they are putting money back into their local communities.Local businesses may be owned by your neighbors,and it can be comforting to know that your holiday shopping dollars are going to support a neighbor instead of a large company.Local businesses also employ your neighbors,so shopping locally can strengthen the local economy by creating jobs.

    Local businesses go a long way toward creating a neighborhood identity,and that identity can create a stronger sense of community among you and your neighbors.In addition,a unique community    identity can make your town more attractive to outsiders,and can also attract more people to local businesses in your neighborhood.

    The gifts you buy when shopping locally can also benefit your community.Gifts purchased from small local businesses tend to be more unique than items bought from national chains,as smaller retailers tend to sell more home-made items than their national competitors.Recipients of such items may find such gifts more thoughtful than mass produced items bought from national chains.

    The accessibility of customer service is another benefit of shopping locally.When you buy something from national chains,especially during the holiday season when such businesses may have to deal with orders,making contact with customer service departments can be a test of patience.A long wait on the phone or online can make the process of contacting customer service departments extremely frustrating.But such frustration is rare when shopping from local businesses,as consumers can simply buy their products in the store.In addition,shopping locally makes it more convenient for friends and family members who also live in your community to return their gifts.

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    We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices (装置) well after they go out of style. That's bad news for the environment – and our wallets – as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

    To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life – from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

    As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones."The Living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kid's room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices-we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TV's with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions(排放) more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

    So what's the solution(解决方案)?The team's data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tables instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

    Surgery that can improve the way a person looks is being more and more popular in the United Stated. This kind of surgery is called cosmetic surgery, and both men and women are turning to this treatment as a way of keeping their appearance young as well as keeping competitive in their jobs. Men especially are beginning to turn to face-lifts, liposuction, and implants to help them look younger. As companies downsize and move younger employees into higher positions, older employees in their late forties and early fifties feel the need to look and act younger in order to stay competitive. A younger look through cosmetic surgery may give an older employee a few more years on the job.

    These operations are not without dangers, however. One young woman had an eye operation to get rid of the bags under her eyes. She described her experience as terrible. She said, "When he started cutting, I was fully awake. Even though he'd given me an injection(注射) near my eyes, I saw everything. "She went on to explain, "I knew I had to keep still because of what he was doing. He was removing fat under my eyes. It took about ten minutes. After he finished I felt I couldn't walk. I was so weak." Her troubles did not end after the operation. For two weeks, her eyes were swollen and almost completely closed, and even dark glasses could not hide the side effects of the operation.

    Liposuction is probably the most popular cosmetic operation in the United States. It seems simple enough. First, a small cut is made over the places where the patient wants the fat removed. Next, a small pipe is put into the cut. A machine is then turned on, and the fat is taken right out of the body. However, as one doctor explained, some problems can happen after the operation. He warned, "Irregular lumps(块) and loose skin can result from this operation. If it is not completely done, liposuction can produce a very lumpy result." Patients often must have more liposuctions to correct the problem.

In life, once on a path, we tend to follow it, for better or worse. What's sad is that even if it's the latter, we often accept it anyway because we are so used to the way things are that we don't even recognize that they could be different. This is a phenomenon psychologist call functional fixedness.

This classic experiment will give you an idea of how it works and a sense of whether you may have fallen into the same trap: People are given a box of tacks (大头钉) and some matches and asked to find a way to attach a candle to a wall so that it burns properly.

Typically, the subjects try tacking the candle to the wall or lighting it to fix it with melted wax. The psychologists had, of course, arranged it so that neither of these obvious approaches would work. The tacks are too short, and the paraffin (石蜡) doesn't stick to the wall. So how can you complete the task? The successful technique is to use the tack box as a candle-holder. You empty it, tack it to the wall. and stand the candle inside it. To think of that, you have to look beyond the box's usual role as a receptacle just for tacks and re-imagine it serving an entirely new purpose. That is difficult because we all suffer to one degree or another from functional fixedness.

The inability to think in new ways affects people in every corner of society. The political theorist Hannah Arendt coined the phrase" frozen thoughts" to describe deeply held ideas that we no longer question but should. In Arendt's eyes, the self- content reliance on such accepted "truths" also made people blind to ideas that didn't fit their worldview, even when there was plenty of evidence for them.

Frozen thinking has nothing to do with intelligence. She said," It can be found in highly intelligent people."

The best places to see giant pandas are, of course, in Chengdu, hometown of giant pandas. But there are zoos/parks in other China cities where you can see giant pandas if you can't get to Chengdu.

Dujiangyan Panda Base

● Location: Dujiangyan Prefecture, 67 km (41 mi) or 

● 1.5 hours from Chengdu

● Pandas: about 20

● Activities: panda viewing, and panda keeper program

● Suitable for: those who want a less-crowded panda base or to join in a one-day volunteer program

● Time needed: half a day

Dujiangyan Panda Base focuses on breeding, wilderness training, and releasing pandas into the wild.

Only 1.5 hours from Chengdu, it is the most easily-accessible panda base offering a panda keeper program.

Wolong Panda Base

● Location: 121 km (175 mi) west of Chengdu, 3 hours' driving

● Pandas: about30

● Activities: seeing pandas, panda keeper program, hiking in wild panda habitat

● Best for: taking part in a volunteer program in a peaceful environment

● Time needed: 2 days

Compared with Dujiangyan, Wolong Panda Base is much further away from Chengdu. Thus, it is less frequented by visitors. Besides, Wolong National Nature Reserve is considered to be the real hometown of wild pandas.

Chongqing Zoo

● Location: Chongqing City, conveniently on subway line 2

● Pandas: about 16

● Activities: Seeing pandas only

● Time needed: 2 hours

● Best for: travelers who visit Chongqing or take a Yangtze Cruise

Chongqing Zoo boasts 16 pandas, which is second to Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Center among the city zoos. Located in the "Mountain City", Chongqing Zoo is built on the mountain slopes. The panda house utilizes the mountainside and includes a rock cave. So, you have to climb up a little for a panda visit there.