In 1974, after filling out fifty applications, going through four interviews, and winning one offer, I took what I could get —- a teaching job at what I considered a distant wild area: western New Jersey. My characteristic optimism was alive only when I reminded myself that I would be doing what I had wanted to do since I was fourteen —— teaching English.

    School started, but I felt more and more as if I were in a foreign country. Was this rural area really New Jersey? My students took a week off when hunting season began. I was told they were also frequently absent in late October to help their fathers make hay on the farms. I was a young woman from New York City, who thought that “Make hay while the sun shines” just meant to have a good time.

But, still, I was teaching English. I worked hard, taking time off only to eat and sleep. And then there was my sixth-grade class — seventeen boys and five girls who were only six years younger than me. I had a problem long before I knew it. I was struggling in my work as a young idealistic teacher. I wanted to make literature come alive and to promote a love of the written word. The students wanted to throw spitballs and whisper dirty words in the back of the room.

    In college I had been taught that a successful educator should ignore bad behavior. So I did, confident that, as the textbook had said, the bad behavior would disappear as I gave my students positive attention. It sounds reasonable, but the text evidently ignored the fact that humans, particularly teenagers, rarely seems reasonable. By the time my boss, who was also my taskmaster, known to be the strictest, most demanding, most quick to fire inexperienced teachers, came into the classroom to observe me, the students exhibited very little good behavior to praise.

    My boss sat in the back of the room. The boys in the class were making animal noises, hitting each other while the girls filed their nails or read magazines. I just pretended it all wasn't happening, and went on lecturing and tried to ask some inspiring questions. My boss, sitting in the back of the classroom, seemed to be growing bigger and bigger. After twenty minutes he left, silently. Visions of unemployment marched before my eyes.

    I felt mildly victorious that I got through the rest of class without crying, but at my next free period I had to face him. I wondered if he would let me finish out the day. I walked to his office, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

He was sitting in his chair, and he looked at me long and hard. I said nothing. All I could think of was that I was not an English teacher; I had been lying to myself, pretending that everything was fine.

    When he spoke, he said simply, without accusation, “You had nothing to say to them.”

     “You had nothing to say to them”. he repeated.” No wonder they are bored. Why not get to the meat of literature and stop talking about symbolism. Talk with them, not at them. And more important, why do you ignore their bad behavior”? We talked. He named my problems and offered solutions. We role-played. He was the bad student, and I was the forceful, yet, warm, teacher. 
       As the year progressed, we spent many hours discussing literature and ideas about human beings and their motivations. He helped me identify my weaknesses and strengths. In short, he made a teacher of me by teaching me the reality of Emerson's words: “The secret to education lies in respecting the pupil.”

    Fifteen years later I still drive that same winding road to the same school. Thanks to the help I received that difficult first year, the school is my home now.

    The Chicago Fine Chocolate Show took place in November. Pastry chefs (面包师) from around the country handed out samples of their very best work. Chef Scott Green, a chocolate sculptor, impressed the attendees at the show. Not only did he bring his work for all to see，but he also made chocolate sculptures right then and there.

    Green talked to TFK about his job as a chocolate sculptor. He explained that he thinks of himself as an artist who just happens to work with chocolate rather than wood or stone. “I have been around chocolate so long that it isn't chocolate anymore,” he said. To learn more about the job of a chocolate sculptor, read on.

    TFK: What was the hardest thing that you have ever carved, and what was it made of?

    GREEN: In 2017, I did the U.S. Pastry Championship, and I had to carve it castle out of white chocolate for the competition. I didn't have a lot of experience, and white chocolate is hard to carve. That was the hardest thing I have ever carved.

    TFK: How long does it take to make an average sculpture?

    GREEN: For me, it takes a couple of days. Most of that time is getting all the pieces ready. The easiest part is gluing it all together. Chocolate is used for glue. It holds together very well.

    TFK: How much chocolate do you use per sculpture?

    GREEN: It depends on the sculpture. For a show piece, I maybe use 20 to 60 pounds of chocolate. You have to be really strong to lift it. I always ask for help.

    TFK: Is it easier to work with sugar or chocolate?

    GREEN: They are very different. Generally speaking, it is easier to work with chocolate. Chocolate likes being poured into molds (模具), and it sets at room temperature. Sugar is much more fragile. It is very hot when you work with it and not as easy.

    Tiny microbes(微生物)are at the heart of a new agricultural technique to manage harmful greenhouse gas. Scientists have discovered how microbes can be used to turn carbon dioxide into soil-enriching limestone(石灰石), with the help of a type of tree that grows in tropical areas, such as West Africa.

    Researchers have found that when the Iroko tree is grown in dry, acidic soil and treated with a combination of natural fungi(霉菌)and other bacteria, not only does the tree grow well, it also produces the mineral limestone in the soil around its root.

    The Iroko tree makes a mineral by combining Ca from the earth with CO2 from the atmosphere. The bacteria then create the conditions under which this mineral turns into limestone. The discovery offers a new way to lock carbon into the soil, keeping it out of the atmosphere. In addition to storing carbon in the trees, leaves and in the form of limestone, the mineral in the soil makes it more suitable for agriculture.

    The discovery could lead to reforestation(重新造林)projects in tropical countries, and help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the developing world. It has already been used in West Africa and is being tested in Bolivia, Haiti and India.

    The findings were made in a three-year project involving researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Granada, Lausanne and Delft University of Technology. The project examined several microbiological methods of locking CO2 as limestone, and the Iroko-bacteria way showed best results. Work was funded by the European Commission under the Future Emerging Technologies (FET) scheme.

    Dr Bryne Ngwenya of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the research, said: "By taking advantage of this natural limestone-producing process, we have a low-tech, safe, readily employed and easily operating way to lock carbon out of the atmosphere, while improving farming conditions in tropical countries?

BKLYN House Hotel

    This hotel features works by Brooklyn artists. The 116 rooms are good value and Manhattan is only 20 minutes away by taxi or subway. The immediate surroundings feel urban — the hotel is by a high-rise public housing project while the nearest commercial street is under elevated (高的) subway tracks — but Bushwick's best bars and cafes / restaurants are nearby.

    Doubles from $99, room only. Tel: 718 388 4433

Archer Hotel

    Visitors eager to stay in the heart of Manhattan should try one of the bargain-priced rooms at this hotel. Rates differ from great value to expensive; some start from as low as $179 a night (if prepaying in full). Rooms are small but tasteful, with nice touches such as exposed brick. Some have close-up views of the Empire State Building.

    Doubles from $199, room only. Tel: 212 719 4100

CitizenM New York Times Square

    This is the first US location for a Netherlands-based concept hotel chain — CitizenM. The hotel features self check-in at its 230 little but comfortable rooms via touch screen "MoodPads". There's a rooftop bar, a 24-hour grab-and-go cafeteria and an area with public iMac workspaces. Although New Yorkers avoid nearby Times Square, all the lights, cameras and action can make it a fun tourist experience.

    Doubles from $170, room only. Tel: 212 319 7000

Foldable phones are once again facing questions about their durability(耐久性).The Galaxy Z Flip and the Motorola Razr are now both available to buy in the US-but early reports suggest the screens are easily damaged.

One media published photos of two layers of the Razr's display separating, affecting the touch screen. The Galaxy flip, meanwhile, boasts(自夸)a "flexible glass" display—but tests appear to show it scratching(刮擦)as easily as plastic.

In a statement, Samsung said the display had a protective layer, and had undergone extensive testing. "While the display does bend, it should be handled with care, "it said.

The Z Flip's "pretty thin glass" is one of Samsung's primary marketing messages for the new phone. But a durability test conducted by popular Zack Nelson, a regular buyer, suggested it was no more durable than soft plastic screen, and could even be dented(痕)by fingernail.

Nelson said Samsung's screen scratched exactly how plastic screen would react. "I don't know what material this is, but Samsung definitely shouldn't be calling it glass," he said. He found that the screen of the Motorola Razr scratched as easily but it is not marketed as "glass".

The Motorola Razr was put on sale 13 days ago in the US, but Raymond Wong, an editor says the flexible screen on his handset has already broken. The upper layer of the Razr's screen separated from the bottom, creating "a giant horizontal air bubble" for no apparent reason. He wrote that the fault appeared after 45-minute train ride during which the phone was in his pocket. The screen was completely warped from hinge-to-hinge with the top layer raised like a poorly applied screen protector. But Mr. Wong said that apart from the visual problem, the damage has affected the responsiveness of the touchscreen.

A new study reveals that pigeons (鸽子) can tackle some problems just like artificial intelligence, enabling them to solve difficult tasks that might challenge humans. Previous research has theorized that pigeons employ a problem-solving strategy, involving a trial-and- error approach, which is similar to the approach used in AI models but differs from humans' reliance on selective attention and rule use. To examine it, Brandon Turner, a psychology professor at the Ohio State University, and his colleagues conducted the new study. 

In the study, the pigeons were presented with various visual images, including lines of different widths and angles, and different types of rings. The pigeons had to peck (啄) a button on the right or left to indicate the category to which the image belonged. If they got it correct, they received food; if they were wrong, they received nothing. Results showed that, through trial and error, the pigeons improved their accuracy in categorization tasks, increasing their correct choices from about 55% to 95%. 

Researchers believed pigeons used associative learning, which is linking two phenomena with each other. For example, it is easy to understand the link. between "water" and "wet". "Associative learning is frequently assumed to be far too primitive to. explain complex visual categorization like what we saw the pigeons do," Turner said. But that's exactly what the researchers found. 

The researchers' AI model tackled the same tasks using just the two simple mechanisms that pigeons were assumed to use: associative learning and error correction. And, like the pigeons, the AI model learned to make the right predictions to significantly increase the number of correct answers. For humans, the challenge when given tasks like those given to pigeons is that they would try to come up with rules that could make the task easier. But in this case, there were no rules, which upsets humans. 

What's interesting, though, is that pigeons use this method of learning that is very similar to AI designed by humans, Turner said. "We celebrate how smart we are that we designed artificial intelligence: at the same time, we regard pigeons as not clever animals," he said.