A European Union program is letting blind people experience famous paintings for the first time. It uses three dimensional(3-D) printing to re-create famous paintings so they can be touched.

    One painting printed with the new technology is Gustav Klimt's “The Kiss.” It is a popular attraction at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, Austria. The painting shows a man and a woman standing in a field filled with flowers. They are wearing gold robes and have their arms around each other. The man leans down to kiss the woman.

    Klimt finished the painting in 1908. Until now, people who had trouble seeing could not appreciate the artwork. But thanks to the reproduction they can touch the piece and feel the ridges and depressions. Andreas Reichinger started making 3-D versions of artwork in 2010. He said this reproduction was his most difficult project because the couple's robes are so detailed.

    Dominika Raditsch is a blind museum visitor. She touched the reproduction. As she moved her hands around it she said, “Exactly, can you see these? There are so many details.” Raditsch said she can imagine what the original painting looks like when she touches the reproduction. “It's somehow round. You can feel it. You can feel it. It comes with it. And in many places it's so smooth. And then I think to myself: it probably shines too!” Raditsch said.

    The Belvedere is not the only museum to have 3-D versions of its artwork. Some of the pieces at the Prado, in Madrid, Spain, have reproductions that can be touched. But the piece in Vienna has one special part: It is made with widely available 3-D printing technology. That means one day, blind art fans anywhere in the world could download the source files and print the reproductions themselves.

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    It is reported that conservation groups in North America have been arguing about the benefits and dangers of wolves. Some groups believe wolves should be killed. Other people believe wolves must be protected so that they will not disappear from the wilderness(荒野).

For Killing Wolves

    In Alaska，the wolf almost disappeared a few years ago，because hunters were killing hundreds of them for sport. However, 1aws were established to protect the wolves from sportsmen and people who catch the animals for their fur．So the wolf population has greatly increased. Now there are so many wolves that they are destroying their own food supply.

    A wolf naturally eats animals in the deer family. People in the wilderness also hunt deer for food. Many of the animals have been destroyed by the very cold winters recently and by changes in the wilderness plant life．When the deer can't find enough food，they die.

    If the wolves continue to kill large numbers of deer, their prey(猎物) will disappear some day. And the wolves will, too. So we must change the cycle of life in the wilderness to balance the ecology. If we killed more wolves, we would save them and their prey from dying out. We'd also save some farm animals.

    In another northern state, wolves attack cows and chickens for food. Farmers want the government to send biologists to study the problem. They believe it necessary to kill wolves in some areas and to protect them in places where there is a small wolf population．

Against Killing Wolves

    If you had lived long ago，you would have heard many different stories about the dangerous wolf．According to most stories，hungry wolves often kill people for food．Even today，the stories of the “big bad wolf” will not disappear．

    But the fact is wolves are afraid of people, and they seldom travel in areas where there is a human smell．When wolves eat other animals，they usually kill the very young, or the sick and injured. The strongest survive. No kind of animal would have survived through the centuries if the weak members had lived. And has always been a law of nature.

    Although some people say it is good sense to kill wolves，we say it is nonsense! Researchers have found wolves and their prey living in balance．The wolves keep the deer population from becoming too large, and that keeps a balance in the wilderness plant life.

    The real problem is that the areas where wolves can live are being used by people. Even if wilderness land is not used directly for human needs, the wolves can't always find enough food. So they travel to the nearest source, which is often a farm. Then there is danger. The “big bad wolf” has arrived! And everyone knows what happens next.

    Recently I read the Human Development Report. I couldn't help thinking about another problem which the world is facing--hunger. According to the report, 2,400 people are dying from hunger every day; nearly 13 million in southern Africa will be worried about their food supply because of earthquakes, floods or wars.

    In a word, hunger remains the biggest problem of the world today. It's strange to see that man can travel to the moon, but still doesn't know how to feed himself. You may ask, “Who steals our bread? The first thieves should be population growth, poverty and loss of rich farmland.

    In less developed areas like South Africa, the population grows faster than the crops. It is almost impossible for its government to feed so many people and provide education for them. So it is very important to control the population growth and protect their farmland in countries whose people are suffering from hunger.

    According to the report, the world's food production is enough to feed everyone if it is given away well. But the problem is that the developed countries are eating food that should be given to the poor. Although they are just using their own earning, the fact is that they are coldly watching others starving away.

    Luckily, some developed countries such as Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have done a lot to help those hungry people in African countries. We hope other developed countries will follow them.

    The key to effective cross-cultural communication is knowledge. First, it is essential that people understand the potential problems of cross-cultural communication, and make a conscious effort to overcome these problems. Second, it is important to assume（假定）that one's efforts will not always be successful, and adjust one's behavior appropriately.

    For example, one should always assume that there is a great possibility that cultural differences are causing communication problems. One should respond slowly and carefully in cross-cultural exchanges, not jumping to the conclusion that you know what is being thought and said.

    William Ury's suggestion for heated conflicts is to stop, listen, and think, or as he puts it "go to the balcony" when the situation gets tense（紧张的）. This helps in cross-cultural communication as well. When things seem to be going badly, stop or slow down and think. What could be going on here? Is it possible that I misinterpreted what they said?

    Active listening can sometimes be used to check this out—by repeating what one thinks he/she heard, one can confirm that he/she understands the communication accurately.

    Often intermediaries（调解人）can be helpful in cross-cultural communication situations. They can translate both the essential meaning and the manner of what is said. For example, they can tone down strong statements that would be considered appropriate in one culture but not in another, before they are given to people from a culture that does not talk together in such a strong way. They can also adjust the timing of what is said and done. Some cultures move quickly to the point; others talk about other things long enough to establish a relationship with the other person. If discussion on the primary topic begins too soon, the group that needs a "warm up" first will feel uncomfortable. An intermediary who understands this can explain the problem, and make appropriate adjustments.

    Summer's here and it won't be long before school-aged kids across America start complaining that they're tired of riding their bikes, playing at the park, swimming in the pool...and all the other awesome activities their parents hoped would keep them pleasant for the next 10 weeks. Well, if it's any comfort, such rapid boredom could suggest that the kids have amazing powers of memory. A new study shows that the better your short-term memory is, the faster you fed sated (过饱的）and decide you've had enough.

    "Though satiation can be physical, like when you feel full after eating too much, we were interested in the psychological (心理学的）side of satiation. Like when you're just tired of something," Noelle Nelson, assistant professor of marketing and consumer behavior. She and her colleague Joseph Redden at the University of Minnesota tried to think outside the lunch box." Something that was interesting to me is that some people get tired of same things at very different speeds. So if you think about pop songs on the radio, some people must still be enjoying them and requesting them even after hearing them a lot. But a lot of other people are really sick of those same songs."

    The difference, the researchers thought, might have to do with memories of past experiences. For example, studies show that people push away from the dinner table sooner when they're asked to describe in detail what they ate earlier for lunch.

    So the researchers tested the memory capacity (能力） of college students, The students then viewed a repeating series of three classic paintings…like The Starry Night, American Gothic, and The Scream...or listened and re-listened to a series of three pop songs...or three pieces of classical music. Throughout the test, the students were asked to rate （定等级） their experience from zero to tan. And the better a participant scored in the memory test, the faster they got bored." We found that people with larger capacities remembered more about the music or art, which led to them getting tired of the music or art more quickly. So remembering more details actually made the students feel like they'd experienced the music or art more often."

    The findings suggest that marketers could control our desire for their products by figuring out ways to keep us from fully remembering our experiences. We could also trick ourselves into eating less junk food by putting ourselves in the memory of a previous (之前的) snack. As for kids easily bored, just tell them to forget about it—it might help them have more fun.

Once upon a time, science fiction was just a style among other styles. There were crime stories, there were horror stories, there was literary fiction, and there was science fiction. But today science themes dominate these other styles. It's difficult to think of much modern crime, horror or "serious" fiction that doesn't involve science.

And its not just books. With every second movie and computer game having a sci-fi element, science fiction seems to have controlled our entire entertainment culture. It's clear that if we want to define science fiction, we should relate it to the role that science plays in our lives.

Although some experts have claimed to be able to trace sci-fi back to ancient times, it is more reasonable to find it in initial form in the 19^th century, when industrial societies arose. One of the features that set industrial societies apart from other kinds was the increasing part that science played in everyday life. Factories with vast machines turned out huge quantities of goods, which were transported by trains, motor vehicles and ships all over the world. Cities were built on the back of technology, with electricity in homes and hospitals helping everyone to lead healthier, more convenient lives. All of these changes had great effects not only on people's real lives, but on their imaginative ones.

Writers began to describe these changing physical and mental landscapes, eventually giving science fiction a large and devoted fan base of especially young readers, who found that it spoke to their curiosity about the future that science would create.

But sci-fiction reflected fears about science more than it did hopes. These typical early science fiction novels might be a UK novel like H. G. Wells' The War of the worlds (1897). With great skill, Wells played upon the fears of technology by imagining Earth under threat by a civilization-that of men from Mars.

The science fiction of today expresses the impact of the computing revolution, robotics and our environmental challenges, while it is less concerned with "little green men from Mar" and other themes of past sci-fiction.

Given that science, technology and polities are always intertwined, contemporary science fiction often has a great deal to say about power. Many recent novels-like American Cory Doctorow's Little Brother (2008)-are concerned with government and security service "conspiracies (阴谋)" against the people, particularly as the revelations of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden sink in. This can give sci-fi writing a "skeptical (怀疑的)" feel.

This underlines one of the features that remains constant between the beginnings of the empire of science fiction and its state today.

As then, so now: We want to read about how fearful the future will be, not how it will be a paradise.