The deadliest Ebola(埃博拉病毒) outbreak inrecorded history is happening right now. The outbreak is unprecedented(空前的) both in the number of people who have gotten sick and in the geographic scope. And so farit's been a long battle that doesn't appear to be slowing down.

    Ebola is both rare and very deadly. Since the first outbreak in 1976, Ebola viruses have infected thousands of people and killed roughly killed 60 percent of them. Symptoms can come on quickly and kill fast.

    The current outbreak started in Guinea sometime in late 2013 orearly 2014. It has since spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia, including somecapital cities. And one infected patient traveled on a plane to Nigeria, where he spread the disease to several others and then died. Cases have also popped up in various other countries throughout the world, including in Dallas and NewYork City in the United States.

    The Ebola virus has now hit many countries, including Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, and the United States. The virus, which starts off with flu-like symptoms and sometimes ends with bleeding, has infected about 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000 since this winter, according to the World Health Organization on September 30, 2014.

    There are some social and political factors contributing to the current disaster. Because this is the first major Ebola outbreak in WestAfrica, many of the region's health workers didn't have experience or trainingin how to protect themselves or care for patients with this disease.

    Journalist David Quammen put it well in a recent New York Timesarticle, “Ebola is more dangerous to humans than perhaps any known virus on Earth, except rabies(狂犬病) and HIV. Andit does its damage much faster than either.”

    Hopefully, researchers are working to find drugs, including a recent $50 million push at the National Institutes of Health. And scientists are working on vaccines(疫苗), including looking into ones that might be able to help wild chimpanzees, which are also susceptible to the disease. The first human Ebola vaccine trial is scheduled to start in the spring of 2015.

    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 strange city, thinking of the terrible troubles of getting all the paperwork organized again from a distant 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 of papers in their trash can 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. Their young daughter had gone to the trash can and found a pile of unfamiliar 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.

    Dolphins (海豚) live in a dark underwater world. It's often impossible to see each other or anything else around them, so sound plays an important role in their survival. To communicate with each other, dolphins produce all kinds of sounds.

    Only other dolphins understand what the sounds mean. Scientists haven't uncovered their secret communication, except for one kind of whistle. It might last less than a second, but this whistle is a big deal. Why? Because these whistles are actually names of dolphins — and every dolphin has one. Scientists call these sounds a “signature whistle.” When other dolphins hear the whistle, they know which dolphin is calling.

    Dolphins often hunt by themselves but still need to stay connected to the group. Since they can't always see each other, dolphins use their signature whistles to check in with other dolphins hundreds of yards away. “In coastal areas, dolphins exchange whistles even when they're a third of a mile apart,” says Greg Campbell, who studies animals. That means dolphins shout out to group members that might be nearly five football fields away.

    What's amazing is who names the baby dolphin. Not the mother. Not an auntie dolphin or another group member. Scientists believe the baby dolphin itself comes up with the signature whistle. Like human babies, a baby dolphin plays with sounds throughout its first year. While testing its sound skills, a baby dolphin is doing something amazing. It's creating or figuring out its signature whistle. How or why it chooses its signature whistle is not clear. Studies show that most of the time the signature whistle is nothing like its mother's or group members' whistles.

    When the baby dolphin is about a year old, its signature whistle is set. It repeats it often so the other dolphins learn to recognize it.

    Deciphering(破译) dolphin names is just the beginning of figuring out what dolphins communicate about. Do they chat about sharks? Discuss the tides? Maybe they even have a name for people. Someday scientists are to decipher the rest of dolphins' communication.

    When seeing the doctor, you feel better to know you will get some medicine. But the doctor knows that medicine is not always needed. Sometimes all a sick person needs is some reassurance (安想) that all will be well. In such cases the doctor may prescribe a placebo.

    A placebo is a sugar pill, a harmless shot, or an empty capsule. The patient thinks it is medicine and begins to get better. How does this happen?

    The study of the placebo opens up new knowledge about the way the human body can heal itself. It is as if there was a doctor in each of us. The doctor will heal the body for us if we let it. But it is not yet known just how the placebo works to heal the body. Some people say it works because the human mind fools itself. These people say that if the mind is fooled into thinking it got medicine, then it will act as if it did, and the body will feel better.

    Placebos don't always work. The success of this treatment seems to rest a lot with the relationship between the patient and the doctor. If the patient has lots of trust in the doctor and if the doctor really wants to help the patient, then the placebo is more likely to work. So in a way, the doctor is the most powerful placebo of all.

    A placebo can also have bad effects. If patients expect a bad reaction to medicine, then they'll also show a bad reaction to the placebo. Some doctors still think that if the placebo can have bad effects it should never be used. They think there is still not enough known about it.

    The strange power of the placebo does seem to suggest that the human mind is stronger than we think it is. There are people who say you can heal your body by using your mind. And the interesting thing is that even people who swear this is not possible have been healed by a placebo.

    The baby monkey is much more developed at birth than the human baby. Almost from the moment it is born, the baby monkey can move around and hold tightly to its mother. During the first few days of its life the baby will approach and hold onto almost any large, warm, and soft object in its environment, particularly if that object also gives it milk. After a week or m, however, the baby monkey begins to avoid newcomers and focuses its attentions on “mother" the real mother or the mother-substitute(母亲替代).

    During the first two weeks of its life warmth is perhaps the most important psychological(心理的)thing that a monkey mother has to give to its baby. The Harlows, a couple who are both psychologists, discovered this fact by offering baby monkeys a choice of two types of mother substitutes one covered with cloth 4nd one made of bare wire. If the two artificial mothers were both the same temperature, the little monkeys always preferred the cloth mother. However, if the wire model was heated, while the cloth model was cool, for the first two weeks after birth the baby monkeys picked the warm wire mother-substitutes as their fuvorites. Thereafter they switched and spent most of their time on the mw comfortable cloth mother.

    Why is cloth preferable to bare wire? Something that the Harlows called contact(触摸)comfort seems to be the answer, and a most powerful influence it is. Baby monkeys spend much of their time rubbing against their mothers' skins, putting themselves in as close contact with the parent as they can. Whenever the young animal is frightened, disturbed, or annoyed, it typically rushes to its mother and rubs itself against her body. Wire doesn't “rub" as well as does soft cloth. Prolonged(长时间的)“contact comfort" with a cloth mother appears to give the babies confidence and is much more rewarding to them than is either warmth or milk.

    According to the Harlows, the basic quality of baby's love for its mother is trust. If the baby is put into an unfamiliar playroom without its mother, the baby ignores the toys no nutter how interesting they might be. It screams in terror and curls up into a furry little ball. If its cloth mother it now introduced into the playroom, the baby rushed to it and holds onto it for dear life. After a few minutes of contact comfort, it obviously begins to feel more secure. it then climbs down from the mother-substitute and begins to explore the toys, but often rushes back for a deep embrace(拥抱)as if to make sure that its mother is still there and that all is well. Bit by bit its fears of the new environment are gone and it spends more and more time playing with the toys and less and less time holding onto its “mother.”

    Plan your dream vacation to one of these excellent destinations.

    St. Lucia

    Abundant rainforests and splendid mountains are all reasons to visit this Caribbean island. St. Lucia offers the perfect mix of relaxation and adventure. To take in the breathtaking scenery, plan to hike the Piton Mountains or dive in the waters of Anse Chastanet.

    Banff. Alberta

    This Canadian destination will bring out the explorer in anyone who visits. From hiking and whitewater rafting to skiing and snowboarding, Banff offers travelers an abundance of year-round outdoor activities. The Lake Louise Ski Resort is one of the largest in North America and the striking photo opportunities of the Canadian Rockies from Moraine Lake can't be underestimated (低估).

    Machu Picchu

    According to travelers, a visit to this Peruvian UNESCO World Heritage (遗产) site is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Located in the Andes Mountains, it is the most familiar icon (象征物) of Inca civilization. Spend a few days accustoming yourself to the altitude in the neighboring city of Cusco, where you can experience a mix of Incan and Spanish cultures.

    Great Barrier Reef

    It's easy to see why the Great Barrier Reef is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World – it stretches nearly 1,500 miles along the eastern coastline of Australia and features about 3,000 reefs, 900 islands and more than 1,500 species of fish. Travelers can see these amazing natural structures from the air or underwater. However, large amounts of coral bleaching (褪色) caused by rising ocean temperatures put this place's continued existence at risk, so plan your visit soon to see this awesome sight up close.