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.

Pacing and Pausing

    Sara tried to befriend her old friend Steve's new wife, but Betty never seemed to have anything to say. While Sara felt Betty didn't hold up her end of the conversation, Betty complained to Steve that Sara never gave her a chance to talk. The problem had to do with expectations about pacing and pausing.

    Conversation is a turn-taking game. When our habits are similar, there's no problem. But if our habits are different, you may start to talk before I'm finished or fail to take your turn when I'm finished. That's what was happening with Betty and Sara.

    It may not be coincidental that Betty, who expected relatively longer pauses between turns, is British, and Sara, who expected relatively shorter pauses, is American. Betty often felt interrupted by Sara. But Betty herself became an interrupter and found herself doing most of the talking when she met a visitor from Finland. And Sara had a hard time cutting in on some speakers from Latin America or Israel.

    The general phenomenon, then, is that the small conversation techniques, like pacing and pausing, lead people to draw conclusions not about conversational style but about personality and abilities. These habitual differences are often the basis for dangerous stereotyping (思维定势). And these social phenomena can have very personal consequences. For example, a woman from the southwestern part of the US went to live in an eastern city to take up a job in personnel. When the Personnel Department got together for meetings, she kept searching for the right time to break in — and never found it. Although back home she was considered outgoing and confident, in Washington she was viewed as shy and retiring. When she was evaluated at the end of the year, she was told to take a training course because of her inability to speak up.

    That's why slight differences in conversational style — tiny little things like microseconds of pause — can have a great effect on one's life. The result in this cause was a judgment of psychological problems — even in the mind of the woman herself, who really wondered what was wrong with her and registered for assertiveness training.

    If Confucius (孔子) were still alive today and could celebrate his September 28 birthday with a big cake, there would be a lot of candles. He'd need a fan or a strong wind to help him put them out.

While many people in China will remember Confucius on his special day, few people in the United States will give him a passing thought. It's nothing personal. Most Americans don't even remember the birthdays of their national heroes.

    But this doesn't mean that Americans don't care about Confucius. In many ways he has become a bridge that foreigners must cross if they want to reach a deeper understanding of China.

    In the past two decades, the Chinese studies programs have gained huge popularity in Western universities. More recently, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes in more than 80 countries. These schools teach both Chinese language and culture. The main courses of Chinese culture usually included Chinese art, history and philosophy (哲学). Some social scientists suggest that Westerners should take advantages of the ancient Chinese wisdom to make up for the drawbacks of Western philosophy. Students in the United States, at the same time, are racing to learn Chinese. So they will be ready for life in a world where China is an equal power with the United States. Businessmen who hope to make money in China are reading books about Confucius to understand their Chinese customers.

So the old thinker's ideas are still alive and well.

    Today China attracts the West more than ever, and it will need more teachers to introduce Confucius and Chinese culture to the West.

    As for the old thinker, he will not soon be forgotten by people in the West, even if his birthday is.

    A Swiss airplane powered only by energy from the sun left from Abu Dhabi early on March 9. Its creators hope the plane will make the first around-the-world journey without any fuel. The plane is called Solar Impulse 2. It has one seat and is made from carbon fiber. The plane weighs only as much as a car but its wings are wider than a Boeing 747. The plane's wings stretch 72 meters across. Those wings include 17,000 solar units, or cells, which capture the sun's energy. The energy allows the plane to fly day and night.

    Two Swiss scientists built the plane. Bertrand Piccard is also an explorer who made the first non-stop flight around the world in a balloon. Andre Borschberg is an engineer and trained fighter pilot. The scientists say they are not trying to alter the airplane industry. Instead, they want to show that new energy sources and technologies can achieve what some say is impossible. “We want to show we can fly day and night in an aircraft without a drop of fuel.” Mr. Piccard said.

    Some parts of the trip will require the pilots to be in the tiny plane for five to six days and nights in a row. So it is good that the pilot's seat is also a toilet.

    The plane's route begins in the United Arab Emirates. The pilots also plan stops in Oman, India, and China. They will cross the Pacific Ocean, stop in the United States, and continue over southern Europe or North Africa. They plan to arrive back in the United Arab Emirates in late July or early August.

    Internet viewers can go to the Solar Impulse website to see the plane's location and listen to broadcasts from the pilots.

    In Canada, rights come with responsibilities. These include:

Obeying the law—one of Canada's founding principles is the rule of law. Individuals and governments are regulated by laws and not by arbitrary actions. No person or group is above the law.

    Taking responsibility for oneself and one's family—getting a job, taking care of one's family and working hard in keeping with one's abilities are important Canadian values. Work contributes to personal dignity and self -respect, and to Canada's prosperity.

    Serving on a jury—when called to do so, you are legally required to serve. Serving on a jury is a privilege that makes the justice system work as it depends on impartial juries made up of citizens.

    Voting in elections—the right to vote comes with a responsibility to vote in federal provincial or territorial and local elections.

    Helping others in the community—millions of volunteers freely donate their time to help others without pay -helping people in need assisting at your child's school volunteering at a food bank or other charity, or encouraging newcomers to integrate. Volunteering is an excellent way to gain useful skills and develop friends and contacts.

    Protecting and enjoying our heritage and environment—every citizen has u role to play in avoiding waste and pollution while protecting Canada's natural, cultural and architectural heritage for future generations.

    Moving flight times from night to day could reduce air travel's contributions to global warming, a new study suggests. Scheduling more (lay time flights may reduce the influence of contrails ——the visible lines of white steam that many planes leave behind them in the sky.

    The role of contrails in climate change is still being studied, but some scientists believe they contribute to the greenhouse effect by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

    Nicola Stuber, first author of the study, suggests that contrails' overall impact on climate change is almost as big as that of aircraft^? s carbon dioxide emissions (排放)over a hundred-year period. Aircraft are believed to be responsible for 2-3% of human carbon dioxide emissions. Like other high, thin clouds, contrails reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet. However, they also trap energy in the atmosphere and increase the warming effect.

    Stuber and other scientists believe that the effect of the contrails is big. "On average, the green-house effect controls the effects of contrails, said Stuber, a meteorologist at England's University of Reading." The warming effect is far greater for contrails left by night flights," Stuber added. "The cooling effect only happens (luring the day when the sun is up. During the night the greenhouse warming is no longer balanced and that is why the contribution of night-flight is so large."

    Most commercial airline traffic occurs during daylight hours. For example, only one in four United Kingdom flights is a night flight, but those flights create some 60% of the warming created by contrails, the study reports.