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.

There's a song by the great Jamaican singer Bob Marley called So Much Trouble In The World. Marley understood that part of the reason why there are so many problems in the world is the lack of tolerance between people. The UN understands this too — that's why it made Nov 16th "International Day for Tolerance".

But first of all, what is tolerance? According to French philosopher Voltaire, tolerance "s the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty (脆弱) and error; let us pardon each other's fool — that is the first law of nature."

    Very often, people don't realize that they're intolerant. This is because intolerance has a lot to do with ignorance. For example, the UN's campaign is in part about the treatment of females by males. But often, the behavior of men toward women is intolerant because men don't put themselves in the shoes of women.

    It's worth thinking a little about the words "tolerance" and "intolerance". Are they the best words to describe the evils of which we're speaking here? To agree to be "tolerant" of someone isn't necessarily a very respectful thing. When someone is tolerated, it implies that there's something wrong with them.

    Still, what Voltaire said stands: We humans are not perfect and this weakness is something that we all share. That's the reason we should be tolerant. It's a little like generosity. We can give things to another person, and we can also give our forgiveness.

    The third week of SEAL training means Hell Week. It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats（泥滩） and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing-cold mud, the howling wind and the increasing pressure from the instructors to quit. As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having broken the rules, was ordered into the mud. The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the extreme cold.

    Looking around the mud flat, it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up--eight more hours of freezing cold. The chattering teeth and shivering moans (呻吟）of the trainees were so loud that it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo (回荡）through the night--one voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing. We knew that if one man could rise above the great suffering then others could as well. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing—but the singing went on. And somehow, the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little less bitter and the dawn not so far away.

    If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world it is the power of hope. The power of one person, Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala, can change the world by giving people hope.

    So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud.

A Brief Introduction to Some Dictionaries

Norman Merriam Webster BES—1850 Dictionary

    This handy translator provides you with 5,000,000 total translation to and from Spanish and English! This dictionary is specially designed for all levels of language skill from beginner to advanced.

Brand V7 Dictionary / Translator

    This special model features the largest and most complete Russian-English dictionary. Advanced English speech, accent correction function and specialized terms database will help you communicate. Business organizers will allow you to stay in touch with the world through all kinds of advanced features.

Seiko WP1500 Rogets III Thesaurus Dictionary

    It is the nearest word finder. It is also great for cross word puzzles. It will show you the time, day and date of local time zone and the same for over 100 cities throughout the world by simply entering the first letter of the name of the city.

Ectaco KD-800 Dictionary / Translator

    This advanced talking handheld translator features the following dictionaries: the general English-Korean dictionary for 215,905 entries（词条）；popular Korean-English dictionary for 183,279 entries, and the dictionary of Chinese traditional characters for 7,744 entries.

The Lingo Traveler 18

    It is a great value as well as an International translator. Draw on over 96,000 words and 8,000 useful phrases. Equipped with a powerful databank, The Lingo Traveler 18 allows you to store all of your appointments, telephone numbers, and addresses.

Volunteer Day

    What better way is there to enjoy your own hobbies while helping others at the same time? Come to Volunteer Day and choose which activity you'd like to join for the day. See below for a schedule of events on Volunteer Day.

    Volunteer Day schedule:

    7:30a.m.: Meet at the Community (社区) Center for juice and bagels.

    8:00—8:30 a.m.: Choose which activity you'd like to help with for the day.

    8:30 a.m.: Board the bus to your activity site.

    9:00 a.m.—3:30 p.m.: Work as a volunteer.

    3:30 p.m.: Board the bus that will take you back to the Community Center.

    See below for a list of volunteer opportunities for Volunteer Day so you can begin thinking about which activity you might want to join.

    A list of volunteer activities:

    Paint houses: Do you enjoy making art? If so, this volunteer opportunity might be just right for you! Happy Homes is a local organization that provides home repairs for needy people in the form of painting. For elderly or physically disabled people who cannot do repairs to their homes, Happy Homes provides volunteer painters to repaint old homes; outside or in. Happy Homes also provides painters to create beautiful wall paintings inside schools or community centers.

    Plant flowers: Do you enjoy being outside in nature? City Parks Association has many great opportunities for people who love to be outdoors. Help plant flowers and bushes in city parks; help lay paths at Cave Springs Park, or help pick up rubbish around the river banks. These activities are very active, so remember to be prepared with plenty of drinking water!

    Read to children: Do you enjoy working with young children? Do you like books? Love and Learning is an organization that provides volunteers to help children with learning disabilities. Read books out loud to groups of children four to six years old, or read one-on-one with struggling readers seven to eight years old.

    Play with animals: Do you love animals? Lovely Friends is an organization that visits local animal shelters and provides volunteers to spend time with the animals while their cages are being cleaned. Play with puppies, snuggle with cats, or hand-feed rabbits.

Singapore researchers say they have developed a form of electronic skin that can create a sense of touch. They hope their invention will give people with prosthetic hands (假肢手) the ability to identify different objects.

The skin device measures 1 square centimeter. The system contains 100 small sensors that attempt to recreate things like texture (质地), temperature and even pain. The researchers call the device Asynchronous Coded Electronic Skin, or ACES, which can process information faster than humans' nervous system. Machine learning methods trained the device to recognize 20 to 30 different textures. It can even correctly read Braille letters most of the time, the researchers say.

The system does not require the users' movement to work. Humans need to slide to feel texture. But in this case the skin, with just a single touch, is able to detect textures of different roughness.

A demonstration showed that the device could identify the difference between a soft ball and a solid plastic one. "When you lose your sense of touch, you essentially become numb and prosthetic users face that problem, " said Benjamin Tee, leader of the research team. "So by recreating an artificial version of the skin, for their prosthetic devices, they can hold a hand and feel the warmth and feel that it is soft."

Tee said his idea for the device came from the movie Star Wars, when character Luke Skywalker loses his right hand and it is replaced with a robotic one. In the film, the new hand is able to experience touch sensations just like the real one.

The artificial skin technology is still going through experiments and development. But Tee said there had already been a lot of interest in the system, especially from the medical community. Tee said similar inventions that his team has developed include see-through skin that can repair itself when torn and a material for wearable electronic devices that gives off light.