Cold weather has a great effect on how our minds and our bodies work. Maybe that is why there are so many expressions that use the word cold. For centuries, the body's blood has been linked closely with the emotions. People who show no human emotions or feelings, for example, are said to be cold –blooded. Cold –blooded people act in merciless ways. They may do cruel things to others, and not by accident. For example, a newspaper says the police are searching for a cold-blooded killer. The killer murdered someone, not in self-defense. He seemed to kill with no emotion.

    Cold can affect other parts of the body, the feet, for example. Heavy socks can warm your feet, if your feet are really cold. But there is an expression—to get cold feet –that has nothing to do with cold or your feet. The expression means being afraid to do something you had decided to do. For example, you agree to be president of an organization. But then you learn that all the other officers have given up the position. All the work of the organization will be your responsibility. You are likely to get cold feet about being president when you understand the situation.

    Cold can also affect your shoulder. You give someone the cold shoulder when you refuse to speak to them. You treat them in a distant, cold way. The expression probably comes from the physical act of turning your back toward someone, instead of speaking to him face-to-face. You may give a cold shoulder to a friend who has not kept a promise he made to you. Or, to someone who has lied about you to others.

    A cold fish is not a fish. It is a person. But it is a person who is unfriendly, unemotional and shows no love or warmth. A cold fish does not offer much of himself to anyone.

    Out in the cold is an expression often heard. It means not getting something that everybody else got. A person might say that everybody but him got a pay raise. He was left out in the cold. And it is not a pleasant place to be.

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    In the famous fairy tale, Snow White eats the Queen's apple and falls victim to a curse（诅咒）;in Shakespeare's novel, Romeo drinks the poison and dies; some ancient Chinese emperors took pellets（药丸）that contained mercury（水银）, believing that it would make them immortal, but they died afterward.

    Poison has long been an important ingredient in literature and history, and it seems to always be associated with evil, danger and death. But how much do you really know about poison?

    An exhibition, The Power of Poison, opened last month at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, intended to give the audience a more vivid understanding of poison.

    The museum tour starts in a rainforest setting, where you can see live examples of some of the most poisonous animals: caterpillars（毛毛虫）, frogs and spiders. Golden poison frogs, for instance, aren't much bigger than a coin, but their skin is covered with a poison that can cut off the signaling power of your nerves, and a single frog has enough venom to kill 10 grown humans.

    "Poisons can be bad for some things," Michael Novacek, senior vice president of the museum, told NBC News. "Yet they can also be good for others."

    A poisonous chemical found in the yew tree is effective against cancer, which is what led to the invention of a cancer-fighting drug called Taxol.

    The benefits from natural poisons are not limited to just medicine. Believe it or not, many substances（物质）that we regularly ingest（摄入）-chili, coffee and chocolate-owe their special flavors or stimulating（提神的）effects to chemicals that plants make to poison insects.

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    A mouse looked through the hole in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a pckage, and he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Returning to the farmyard, he warned everyone. “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap inthe house! There is a mousetrap inthe house! ”

    The chicken raised her head and said, “Thanks for your warning. Mr. Mouse, but why should I be bothered by a mousetrap?” the pig sympathized, but said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse, I'm sorry for you I can tell this is a great concern to you, but it is none of my business.” The mouse returned to the house, head down and depressed, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.

The very night a sound was heard throughthe house—-like that of a mouse trap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a snake whose tailwas caught by the trap, and it bit her. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.

    The farmer killed the chicken to make fresh chicken soup for his wife, but her sickness continued. Frineds and neighbors came to visit her, and to feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. Then she died. So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow cooked to provide enough meat for all of them.

    The mouse looked upon it all from his hole in the wall with great sadness.

    Since 50 years ago, scientists have been searching for ways to link the brain with computers. Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology could help people with disabilities send commands to machines.

    Recently, two researchers, Jose Millan and Michelle Tavella from the Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne, Switzerland, demonstrated (展示) a small robotic wheelchair directed by a person's thoughts.

    In the laboratory, Tavella operated the wheelchair just by thinking about moving his left or right hand. He could even talk as he watched the vehicle and guided it with his thoughts.

    "Our brain has billions of nerve cells. These send signals through the spinal cord (脊髓) to the muscles to give us the ability to move. But spinal cord injuries or other conditions can prevent these weak electrical signals from reaching the muscles," Tavella says, "Our system allows disabled people to communicate with external world and also to control devices."

    The researchers designed a special cap for the user. This head cover picks up the signals from the scalp (头皮) and sends them to a computer. The computer interprets the signals and commands the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair also has two cameras that identify objects in its path. They help the computer react to commands from the brain.

    Prof. Millan, the team leader, says scientists keep improving the computer software that interprets brain signals and turns them into simple commands. "The practical possibilities that BCI technology offers to disabled people can be grouped in two categories: communication, and controlling devices. One example is this wheelchair." He says his team has set two goals. One is testing with real patients, so as to prove that this is a technology they can benefit from. And the other is to guarantee that they can use the technology over long periods of time.

October 15th is Global Handwashing Day. Activities are planned in more than twenty countries to get millions of people in the developing world to wash their hands with soap.

Experts say people around the world wash their hands but very few use soap at so-called extremely important moments. These include after using the toilet, after cleaning a baby and before touching food.

Global Handwashing Day is the idea of the Public Private Partnership for handwashing with soap. The goal, they say, is to create a culture of handwashing with soap. The organizers say all soaps are equally effective at removing disease-causing germs. They say the correct way to wash is to wet your hands with a small amount of water and cover them with soap. Rub it into all areas, including under the fingernails.  Then, wash well under running water. Finally, dry your hands with a clean cloth.

The Partnership says soap is important because it increases the time that people spend washing. Soap also helps to break up the dirt that holds most of the germs.  And it usually leaves a pleasant smell, which increases the chances that people will wash again.

It also says that washing hands with soap before eating and after using the toilet could save more lives than any medicine. It could help reduce cases of diarrhea, which is the second leading cause of child deaths, killing more than one and a half million children a year, by almost half.