Facebook is an Internet-based social network site that lets people get in touch with family and friends and reach out to people with common interests around the world, all through computer. It is very popular, with more than 900 million users. If Facebook were a country, it would have about three times the population of the United States.

    Documents filed with US. financial regulators say Facebook has hundreds of millions of active users who send billions of messages each day and upload 250 million photographs on their personal pages. Facebook users have registered 100 billion “friends.”

    On Facebook, “Friending” someone means you add the person to your list of people you can communicate with directly, which often allows the person to see more information about you than you share with the general public.

    Facebook was started by Mark Zuckerberg and other students at Harvard University in 2004, and has grown at an amazingly fast pace.

    Facebook makes money when advertisers pay to get access to hundreds of millions of Facebook users. Advertisers can often direct their messages to the people most interested in their products because Facebook computers keep track of information that users place on their pages. For example, a person interested in diving, planning a wedding, looking for work, or suffering from diabetes(糖尿病) may see advertisements related to those topics.

    Facebook has become so much a part of the culture of the United States and other nations that it has been the subject of a Hollywood movie. It is a key marketing tool for many businesses, and its users' content has been used as evidence in some divorce or criminal cases.

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    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.

    Last week the British university system offered a record number of places. That sounds like good news—but do we really need more people to go to university? For that matter, does the world need more universities?

    The answer feels like it should be yes.

    Education is good, is it not? But everything has a cost.

    Education takes time. We could insist that everyone study full-time until the age of 45 but that would surely be too much. And perhaps half the population studying until they're 21 is also too much. As for universities, they consume financial and intellectual resources—perhaps those resources might be better spent elsewhere.

    My own personal opinion is strongly in favor both of going to university, and of simply having universities around.

    The main skill I learnt at university was to write about economics, and I use that skill every day of my professional life, even an abstract education seems practical to me. And I now live in Oxford, one of the world's most celebrated (著名的) university cities. Oxford's experience certainly suggests that universities have much to offer.

    The city's architecture and green spaces have been shaped—greatly for the better, on balance —by the 900-year-old institution at its heart. The beauty attracts tourists and locals too.

    But these are samples of one. Many people do not find themselves using the skills and knowledge they accumulated at university. And Oxford's dreaming spires (尖顶) aren't terribly representative of global universities as a whole.

    Teachers' Day is, interestingly, not celebrated on the same day all over the world. In some countries it is marked by a holiday, in others it is a working day.

    International Teachers' Day is celebrated on October 5. Being held ever since 1994, it is in honor of teachers' organizations worldwide. Its aim is to encourage supports for teachers and to meet the needs of students.

    China In 1939, Teachers' Day was set for August 27, Confucius' birthday. In1951, the celebration was stopped. However, it was founded again in 1985, and the day was changed to September 10.

    India   Teachers' Day is celebrated on September 5 in honour of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second president of India, whose birthday falls on that day.

    Russia ― In Russia, Teachers' Day was celebrated on the first Sunday of October between 1965 and 1994. Since 1994, the day is observed on the October 5, just the same day as World Teachers Day.

    The US   In the US, Teachers' Day is non-official holiday. It is celebrated on the Tuesday of the first full week of May. A number of activities are organized in schools to honor teachers. The celebrations can continue for the whole week of May.

    Thailand   In Thailand, National Teachers' Day is celebrated every year on January 16. The first Teachers' Day was held in 1957. The day is a holiday in schools.

    A 27-year-old inventor, Joco Paulo Lammoglia, has come up with a new device ( 设 备 ) named the AIRE mask, which is capable of transforming the wind energy provided by the wearer's breath into electrical energy. This means breathing has become a source of renewable energy. The inspiration for the invention came from his watching children blowing on pinwheels (纸风车).

    The device is worn like a mask equipped with tiny wind turbines (涡轮) and it can work its magic even while people are sleeping, running or hanging around, since energy is created from one's breath. The principle of this AIRE mask is simple. The invention uses the wind flow created by breathing and changes it into energy that can charge mobile phones and iPods. Simply put this mask connected to your mobile phone on your face. The rest takes place naturally through your breath that provides power to run turbines which produce electricity.

    Lammoglia explained how useful he hopes the AIRE will become. He said, "I hope to bring the concept into production and reduce the carbon footprint. It can be used indoors or outdoors, while you're sleeping, walking, running or even reading books." Apart from saving energy and contributing to environmental protection, it also encourages the practice of physical exercise. This is an entirely all time renewable energy source. Its energy is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

    Lammoglia explained why he thought the AIRE was so useful, saying, "Though many of our modern devices offer benefits, they tend to consume a high amount of electrical energy. This may cause problems for the environment, especially if the energy used by these devices is produced by non-renewable sources.

    The AIRE mask will be future's cheaper source of charging mobile phones. It would save energy and allow people to never have to worry about their phone dying unless they stop breathing.

When we learn to drive, we need to learn basic skills such as how to switch on the engine, turn on the wipers, operate the brakes, etc. before we actually take to the road. Once the lower order operations and skills listed above have been automatized or at least routinized to the extent that we do not have to pay attention to them (by­pass Working Memory's attentional systems), we can actually be safe in the assumption that we can wholly focus on the higher order skills which will allow us to take the split seconds decisions that will prevent us from getting lost, clash with other cars, break the traffic laws while dealing with our children messing about in the back seats.

This is what the brain does, too, when learning languages. Because Working Memory has a very limited space available when performing any task, the brain has learnt to automatize lower order skills so that, by being performed "subconsciously" they free up cognitive(认知)space. So, for instance, if I am an advanced speaker who has routinized accurate pronunciation, grammar and syntax to a fairly high degree, I will be able to devote more conscious attention (Working Memory space) to the message I want to put across. On the other hand, if I still struggle with pronunciation, word order, irregular verb forms and tenses most of my attention will be taken up by the mechanics of what I want to say, rather than the meaning; this will slow me down and limit my ability to think through what I want to say due to cognitive overload.

In language teaching this important principle translates as follows: in order to enable our students to focus on the higher order skills involved in comprehension and production we need to ensure that the lower­order ones have been acquired or performance will be reduced.