A chip inserted in a young quadriplegic's (四肢麻痹患者) brain is already improving his quality of life. Soon the benefits may be more widespread.

    A 25-year-old man unable to move from the neck down recently did what many assumed impossible. After a knife attack that had left him paralyzed, all he could move was his head, which he used to push a switch and call for a nurse. And he could turn his wheelchair by blowing into a straw near his face. That was it.

    Then last June, a Foxborough (Mass.) company called Cyber Kinetics opened the man's skull and inserted a special chip no larger than a baby aspirin. That insert has given him a few additional and precious abilities. When connected to a special computer via a cable, the chip translates the young man's thoughts into commands that let him move a cursor across a PC screen and open e-mail. He can draw a circle with a computer painting program. And he can use a robotic hook(钩) to perform simple tasks like picking up a candy and sliding it across a table.

    All he has to do is to think.

    Several new studies have begun or been completed in the past year. In fact, more than half of the scientific papers in this field, called brain-to-computer interaction (BCI), have been published in the past two years, notes Jonathan Wolpaw, a research physician at Wadsworth Center, the New York State Health Dept.'s research laboratory.

    Brain surgeries (手术) are no longer rare: Thousands of Parkinson's disease patients have had special devices inserted in their brains to ease uncontrollable shaking and other symptoms. The inserts themselves have improved, so the body doesn't reject them as furiously(猛烈地). And significant development has been achieved in software used to interpret the brain's signals and change them into commands understood by computers.

    But increased demand for thought technology remains the biggest reason for the field's progress. Today, 4 million Americans live with paralysis according to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

    Scientists hope that thought technology will reduce the impact of such disabilities. People with spinal-cord injuries, for example, often lose their ability to walk because the communications network between their brain and their legs has been interrupted. The brain still commands the leg muscles to move, but they don't hear its orders.

    Thought technology, scientists hope, will bridge this communications gap. "Our goal is for you to see paralyzed people eating at a restaurant and for you not to know that they are paralyzed," says John Donoghue, founder and chief scientific officer at Cyber Kinetics.

Question: Why is it so hard for some people to apologize after they've done something wrong? I have made efforts to persuade my uncle to be nice to people that he's hurt. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} How I wish things would be better if he'd just say he's sorry and ask them to forgive him.

Answer: {#blank#}2{#/blank#} It's just easier for him to pretend nothing happened than to face the embarrassment (尴尬) of admitting he was wrong. You've probably done the same thing yourself at some time. In fact, most of us have. Furthermore, what if others won't forgive him even if he apologizes?

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Pride blinds us to our mistakes or faults. Or at least it makes us pay less attention to their seriousness.

    Pride also makes us unwilling to admit to others that we were wrong. Perhaps we're afraid they will look down on us if we admit it. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} 

    But others see through our pride. And things would be far better if we admitted our faults and asked for forgiveness. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} 

    Now you know why your uncle refuses to apologize, talk to him again. Help him to learn how to apologize and ask for forgiveness from others.

A. But a deeper reason is pride.

B. But he just refuses to do that.

C. We may even hope that somehow they will overlook it.

D. As a result, you would offend others and hurt their feelings.

E. There are a variety of reasons for your uncle's refusal to apologize.

F. Otherwise our pride would only hurt us and cause conflict with others.

G. One reason your uncle finds it hard to apologize could be embarrassment.

    Arriving in Sydney on his own from India, my husband, Rashid, stayed in a hotel for a short time while looking for a house for me and our children.

    During the first week of his stay, he went out one day to do some shopping. He came back in the late afternoon to discover that his suitcase was gone. He was extremely worried as the suitcase had all his important papers, including his passport.

    He reported the case to the police and then sat there, lost and lonely in the strange city, thinking of the terrible troubles of getting all the paperwork organized again from a faraway country while trying to settle down in a new one.

    Late in the evening, the phone rang. It was a stranger. He was trying to pronounce my husband's name and was asking him a lot of questions. Then he said they had found a pile(堆) of papers in their trash can(垃圾桶) that had been left out on the footpath.

    My husband rushed to their home to find a kind family holding all his papers and documents(文件). Their young daughter had gone to the trash can and found a pile of unfamiliar(不熟悉的) papers. Her parents had carefully sorted them out, although they had found mainly foreign addresses on most of the documents. At last they had seen a half-written letter in the pile in which my husband had given his new telephone number to a friend.

    That family not only restored the important documents to us that day but also restored our faith and trust in people. We still remember their kindness and often send a warm wish their way.

    Girls who lack confidence in school have a new champion. She is only 10 years old. Alice Tapper, a fifth - grader says, that her goal is to encourage girls of all ages to “be more confident in raising their hands”. Alice cared so much about the issue (问题) that she helped create a Girl Scout badge (徽章).

    The pink badge—Alice chose her favorite color—shows three hands reaching for the sky. It says, “Be brave. Raise your hand.”

    Alice's idea came during a fourth - grade field trip to Jamestown, Virginia. She found that boys raised their hands to answer questions even though they weren't sure of the answers. The girls just listened quietly.

    “Girls are afraid to raise their hands because they get shy. They have to be 90 percent sure, while boys just raise their hands and say, 'I know it,'” Alice said during a recent interview. She added that girls should have confidence, step up, and become leaders by raising their hands for women are equal to men.

    Alice's “Raise Your Hand” badge has become wildly popular, and not just in the United States. “People in Japan and China want to use the badge,” she said. “We sold out the badge quickly, but we're making more.”

    Alice wants to be a teacher when she grows up. But first, she wants to see a revolution in confidence for girls of all ages. She knows that won't happen overnight. “ It takes time,” Alice said, “but I can speed up the process.”

    That cold January night, I was growing sick of my life in San Francisco. There I was walking home at one in the morning after a tiring practice at the theatre. With opening night only a week ago, I was still learning my lines. I was having trouble dealing with my part-time job at the bank and my acting at night at the same time. As I walked, I thought seriously about giving up both acting and San Francisco. City life had become too much for me.

    As I walked down empty streets under tall buildings, I felt very small and cold. I began running, both to keep warm and to keep away from any possible robbers. Very few people were still out except a few sad-looking homeless people under blankets.

    About a block from my apartment, I heard a sound behind me. I turned quickly, half expecting to see someone with a knife or a gun. The street was empty. All I saw was a shining streetlight. Still, the noise had made me nervous, so I started to run faster. Not until I reached my apartment building and unlocked the door did I realize what the noise had been. It had been my wallet falling to the sidewalk.

    Suddenly I wasn't cold or tired anymore. I ran out of the door and back to where I'd heard the noise. Although I searched the sidewalk anxiously for fifteen minutes, my wallet was nowhere to be found. Just as I was about to give up the search, I heard the garbage truck(垃圾车) pull up to the sidewalk next to me. When a voice called from the inside, "Alisa Camacho?" I thought I was dreaming. How could this man know my name? The door opened, and out jumped a small red-haired man with an amused look in his eye. "Is this what you're looking for?" he asked, holding up a small square shape.

    It was nearly 3 a.m. by the time I got into bed. I wouldn't get much sleep that night, but I had gotten my wallet back. I also had gotten back some enjoyment of city life. I realized that the city couldn't be a bad place as long as people were willing to help each other.

    A new study suggests climate conditions in the Sahara Desert, one of hottest, driest and most deserted areas in the world, have changed from wet to dry a about every 20,000 years.

    But previous evidence has suggested the Sahara did not always experience such extreme heat and dry conditions. At times, the Sahara Ranged to a very wet climate. This permitted plants and animals to develop and grow and led to the creation of human settlements. Now, they have discovered more evidence, which, the lead researcher David Mc Gee says, supports the idea that the Sahara's climate kept changing between wet and dry about every 20,000, years.

    McGee reported these climate changes were mainly driven by changes in the Earth's(地轴)as the planet travels round the sun .This process affects the amount of sunlight between seasons. Every 20,000 years the Earth receives more strong summer sunlight. When the Earth's axis changes again, the amount of sunlight is reduced. This season change happened continuously every 20,000 years. The other part of the season produced rainy conditions, resulting in a wetter, greener, plant-rich environment. When the rainy activity weakens, the climate becomes hot and dry, like the Sahara remains today.

    The scientists based their research on dust collected from ocean sediment(沉积物)in the Atlantic Ocean bottom off the coast of West Africa. The dust contained layers (层)of ancient sediment built up over millions of years. Each layer could contain traces of Saharan dust as well as the remains of life forms. This information was used to assess over what time period the dust had built up. This led to the overall finding that the Saharan changes from wet to dry climates happened every 20,000 years.

David McGee said that today we only see the Sahara Desert as an extremely deserted and "inhospitable" place. The new study suggests that the area's climate has changes between grasslands and a much wetter environment, and back to dry climates, even over the last quarter million years. McGee says he thinks the latest research can be valuable in studying the Sahara's history as it relates to human settlement.