The Enigma (谜）of Beauty

    The search for beauty spans centuries and continents. Paintings of Egyptians dating back over 4,000 years show both men and women painting their nails and wearing makeup. In 18th-century France, wealthy noblemen wore large wigs (假发）of long, white hair to make themselves attractive. Today, people continue to devote a lot of time and money to their appearance.

    There is at least one good reason for the desire to be attractive：beauty is power. Studies suggest that good-looking people make more money, get called on more often in class, and are regarded as friendlier.

    But what exactly is beauty? It's difficult to describe it clearly, and yet we know it when we see it. And our awareness of it may start at a very early age. In one set of studies, six-month-old babies were shown a series of photographs. The faces on the pictures had been rated for attractiveness by a group of college students. In the studies, the babies spent more time looking at the attractive faces than the unattractive ones.

    The idea that even babies can judge appearance makes perfect sense to many researchers. In studies by psychologists, men consistently showed a preference for women with larger eyes, fuller lips, and a smaller nose and chin while women prefer men with large shoulders and a narrow waist. According to scientists, the mind unconsciously tells men and women that these traits —the full lips, clear skin, strong shoulders —equal health and genetic well-being.

    Not everyone thinks the same way, however. " Our hardwiredness can be changed by all sorts of expectations —mostly cultural, " says C. Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan. What is considered attractive in one culture might not be in another. Look at most Western fashion magazines：the women on the pages are thin. But is this "perfect" body type for women worldwide? Scientists' answer is no; what is considered beautiful is subjective and varies around the world. They found native peoples in southeast Peru preferred shapes regarded overweight in Western cultures.

    For better or worse, beauty plays a role in our lives. But it is extremely difficult to describe exactly what makes one person attractive to another. Although there do seem to be certain physical traits considered universally appealing, it is also true that beauty does not always keep to a single, uniform standard. Beauty really is, as the saying goes, in the eye of the beholder.

    Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to warrant(保证；授权) time in front of the television have been invented in the UK.

    The shoes — named Square Eyes — contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter(传话器) passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day's efforts.

    The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University to London, UK. “We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. “And I wanted to deal with that with my design.”

    Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.

    Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals exactly one minute of TV time.

    Existing pedometers(计步器) normally clip(夹在) onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”

                                                                        Bangkok Transportation Public buses

    The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) is charged with providing bus service to people living and working in Bangkok and the nearby provinces. As of February, 2005, the BMTA operated a total of 113 routes, served by 3,526 buses, of which 1,665 were regular buses and 1,861 air-conditioned buses. There were also privately-owned buses operated under the BMTA with a total of 3,535 regular and air-conditioned buses and 1, 067 minibuses including 2,325 small buses which provide services in lanes. An average of 3.4 million people use these services daily.

    Types of Buses and Fares

Fare Exemptions

The following passengers are eligible for bus fare exemptions：

⒈BMTA bus inspectors

⒉Mailmen in uniform while on duty

⒊Holders of BMTA employee ID cards

    Half-Price Concessions

    The following passengers are eligible for half-price fares when using the service of regular buses.

⒈The blind with a certificate from the Association of the Blind

⒉Soldiers and policemen in uniform

⒊Holders of official certificates or medals as specified by the Regulation on Bus Fare

    Fare Concessions for Air-conditioned Buses

    Holders of the following official certificates and medals are eligible for air-conditioned bus fare reductions.

⒈Victory Medal(Off-spring of this medal are also entitled)

⒉Border Service Medal

⒊Free-Mall Protection Medal

⒋European Royal War Medal

⒌Non-active War Veterans Classes 1 2 3 and 4

⒍BTMA Employee ID cards

    Search for bus route here

    @Bangkok Tourism Division

    They hide in trees, hang from helicopters, even follow people down on motorcycles—all so that they can snap a shot of a celebrity. They are paparazzi—photographers who make a living by taking pictures of the rich and famous.

    This September, California, a state with plenty of celebrities, passed a law aimed at taking action against paparazzi. The law forbids photographers from entering private property to take pictures, from using high-tech devices to take pictures of people on private property, and from "persistently following in order to take a picture." Violators can be fined or spend time in prison. The United State Congress is considering passing a similar law.

    Supporters of the California law say it will protect the privacy of celebrities, whom paparazzi have been bothering for years. Opponents (反对者) say the law restricts photojournalists from doing their job.

    Most celebrities seem to like having their pictures taken when they are in public at award shows or other events. After all, it's free publicity. But when they're not in public, they say, photographers should leave them alone. Yet paparazzi have been known to secretly look in windows and worse. Actor Michael J. Fox said that paparazzi have even "tried to pretend to be medical personnel at the hospital where my wife was giving birth to our son."

    Celebrities have as much right to their privacy as anyone else, supporters of the law state. Supporters further argue that the California law is a fair way to keep the press at bay, because the law still allows photographers to do their job. It only punishes them, supporters say, when they violate celebrities' privacy.

    Opponents of the law say it violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (美国宪法第一修正案), which guarantees that no laws will be made to limit "the freedom of speech, or of the press." Although some people might not consider paparazzi a part of the legal press, the California law does not single out paparazzi. It applies to photographers working for any publication.

    Opponents of the law are also concerned about its wording. "Does 'persistently' mean following someone for six minutes, six seconds, or six days?" asked lawyer Douglas Mirell. The wording of the law is too vague, critics complain, and could be used to punish almost any news photographer.

    The United States needs a free press to keep the public informed about important news, paparazzi law opponents say. Limiting the press in any way, they argue, limits the freedom of all.

    One day when I was 5, my mother scolded (责骂) me for not finishing my rice and I got angry. I wanted to play outside and not to be made to finish eating my old rice. When angrily opening the screen door with my foot, I kicked back about a 12-inch part of the lower left hand corner of the new screen door. But I had no remorse, for I was happy to be playing in the backyard with my toys.

    Today, I know if my child had done what I did, I would have scolded my child, and told him about how expensive this new screen door was, and I would have delivered a spanking (打屁股) for it. They never said a word. They left the corner of the screen door pushed out, creating an opening, a breach (裂缝) in the defense against unwanted insects.

    For years, every time I saw that corner of the screen, it would constantly make me think about my mistake. For years, I knew that everyone in my family would see that hole and remember who did it. For years, every time I saw a fly buzzing (嗡嗡) in the kitchen, I would wonder if it came in through the hole that I had created with my angry foot. I would wonder if my family members were thinking the same thing, silently blaming me every time a flying insect entered our home, making life more terrible for us all. My parents taught me a valuable lesson, one that a spanking or stern (严厉的) words perhaps could not deliver. Their silent punishment for what I had done delivered a hundred stern messages to me. Above all, it has helped me become a more patient person and not burst out so easily.

Tunnels are passageways that are built under the ground. They can also be made under a sea or a river. Some tunnels are dug through high mountains.

For hundreds of years, tunnels have been built all over the world. People use these tunnels to travel from one place to another. Some tunnels are used as waterlanes. Coal and gemstones are also brought from under the ground through long tunnels.

In the past, people dug tunnels using picks and shovels. Rocks and soil were loaded into one-wheel barrows and then onto horses and carts. This work was very tiring.

Today, engineers do a lot of planning before they start to build a tunnel. They use computers to check the level of the water and the types of rock under the ground. When they are sure the area is safe, huge machines are used to dig out the soil.

These machines have an enormous cutting wheel at the front. The wheel slowly grinds (磨碎) through the rock and soil to make the tunnel. Soil that is not needed is carried away in large trucks. As the tunnel becomes longer, it is lined with huge pipes so the walls and roof do not callapse.

Long tunnels have powerful lights to help drivers see the road ahead. Water sprinklers (洒水装置) are fitted to help keep people safe if a fire breaks out in the tunnel.

In large cities, tunnels are built under very busy roads. , People can drive through these tunnels. This makes it quicker to travel to different parts of the city.

Some trains have to wind slowly and carefully over steep mountain slopes. But, in places where there are tunnels, trains can travel quickly through the mountain to reach the other side.