Would it surprise you to learn that, like animals, trees communicate with each other and pass on their wealth to the next generation?

    UBC Professor Simard explains how trees are much more complex than most of us ever imagined .Although Charles Darwin thought that trees are competing for survival of the fittest, Simard shows just how wrong he was. In fact, the opposite is true: trees survive through their co-operation and support, passing around necessary nutrition “depending on who needs it”.

    Nitrogen（氮） and carbon are shared through miles of underground fungi（真菌） networks, making sure that all trees in the forest ecological system give and receive just the right amount to keep them all healthy. This hidden system works in a very similar way to the networks of neurons（神经元）in our brains, and when one tree is destroyed, it affects all.

    Simard talks about “mother trees”, usually the largest and oldest plants on which all other trees depend .She explains how dying trees pass on the wealth to the next generation, transporting important minerals to young trees so they may continue to grow .When humans cut down “mother trees” with no awareness of these highly complex “tree societies” or the networks on which they feed, we are reducing the chances of survival for the entire forest.

    “We didn't take any notice of it .” Simard says sadly. “Dying trees move nutrition into the young trees before dying, but we never give them chance.” If we could put across the message to the forestry industry, we could make a huge difference towards our environmental protection efforts for the future.

    A new study shows students who write notes by hand during lectures perform better on exams than those who use laptops(笔记本电脑)．

    Students are increasingly using laptops for note­taking because of speed and legibility(清晰度)．But the research has found laptop users are less able to remember and apply the concepts they have been taught.

    Researchers performed experiments that aimed to find out whether using a laptop increased the tendency to make notes “mindlessly” by taking down word for word what the professors said.

    In the first experiment，students were given either a laptop or pen and paper. They listened to the same lectures and were told to use their usual note­taking skills. Thirty minutes after the talk，they were examined on their ability to remember facts and on how well they understood concepts.

    The researchers found that laptop users took twice as many notes as those who wrote by hand. However，the typists performed worse at remembering and applying the concepts. Both groups scored similarly when it came to memorizing facts.

    The researchers' report said，“While more notes are beneficial，if the notes are taken mindlessly，as is more likely the case on a laptop，the benefit disappears.”

    In another experiment aimed at testing long­term memory，students took notes as before but were tested a week after the lecture. This time，the students who wrote notes by hand performed significantly better on the exam.

    These two experiments suggest that handwritten notes are not only better for immediate learning and understanding，but that they also lead to superior revision in the future.

    Most people know that listening to music when they are feeling down or depressed can encourage their spirits.

    However studies have also shown that music, especially certain tones can reduce stress. Music can change brainwave patterns, deepen breathing, and bring on a totally stress-free and more open mindset（心态）. Using music to relax when considering a particular problem may not only raise your mood, but also could help you reach that "a-ha"moment and find a solution.

    Music has also been shown not only to make you feel good, but also, to be a great motivator. For example, during exercise, listening to music can keep you going, or get you to exercise more by helping you to ignore negative feelings of tiredness and focus on the pleasurable feelings you get from being absorbed in the music.

    Music is mainly used to record emotion. When we listen to a piece of music we share the artist's feelings on a visceral（本来的）level. That can be sad, and who among us hasn't put on a painful love song to share in the misery after a bad break-up? On the contrary, we can share in the delight of songs of joy and happiness, or any song or piece of music that reminds us of a particular happy time in our past.

    So next time you are feeling down, put on Beethoven' s Ode to Joy, I bet you will feel a lot better about whatever it was that was bothering you!

    Even before my father left us, my mother had to go back to work to support our family. Once I came out of the kitchen, complaining, "Mum, I can't peel (去皮)potatoes. I have only one hand. "

    Mum never looked up from sewing. "You get yourself into that kitchen and peel those potatoes," she told me. "And don't ever use that as an excuse for anything again!"

    In the second grade, our teacher lined up my class on the playground and had each of us race across the monkey bars, swinging from one high steel rod to the next. When it was my turn, I shook my head. Some kids behind me laughed, and I went home crying.

    That night I told Mum about it. She hugged me, and I saw her determined look. The next afternoon, she took me back to school. At the deserted playground, Mum looked carefully at the bars.

    "Now, pull up with your right arm," she advised. She stood by as I struggled to lift myself with my right hand until I could get the bar with my other elbow (月寸）.Day after day we practiced, and she praised me for every rung (梯级）I reached.

    I'll never forget the next time, crossing the rungs； I looked down at the kids who were standing with their mouths open.

    One night, after a dance at my new junior high, I lay in bed crying. I could hear Mum came into my room. "Mum," I said, weeping, "None of the boys would dance with me."

    For a long time, I didn't hear anything. Then she said, "Oh, honey, someday you'll be beating those boys off with a bat." Her voice was slight and cracking. I looked out from my covers to see tears running down her cheeks.

    Then I knew how much she suffered on my behalf. She had never let me see her tears.

    On the eve of our daughters' weddings, I gave both of them what I considered to be excellent marital advice: never leave your husband unsupervised （无人监督的） with pruning shears （修枝剪）.

    If only I had taken my own advice. I recently let my guard down. Thirty﹣some years of marriage can do that to a woman. Give a man pruning shears and electric trimmers （电动修剪器） and he will give new meaning to "armed and dangerous."

One day earlier this year, my husband said that the crab apple tree was dead.

    "Why do you think it is dead?" I asked.

    "Look at it. There's not a leaf on it."

    "There's not a leaf on anything. It's March," I said.

    "It looked sick last fall and with this bitter winter we had, I'm convinced it's dead."

    The truth is he's never liked the crabapple. Sure, it has beautiful blooms in the spring, but then it gets a disease, the leaves curl, and it drops those little apples that sit on the driveway.

    Each passing week he pronounced the tree dead. Eventually I began to believe him. Though he agreed it would be a regrettable loss, there was a twinkle in his eye. He armed himself a couple of weeks ago and began trimming. A branch here, a branch there, a small limb, then a large limb. I watched and then decided to check the wood on some of the branches closer to the trunk. I broke one off and saw green.

    The crabapple was not dead. It just hadn't had time to leaf out. The tree was now falling to one side, but it was not dead. I would have told him so, but he had moved on to a maple. Once the man starts, he can't stop. One trim leads to another.

    "Please, stop!" I called.

    He smiled and nodded, but he couldn't hear because he had started the hedge （树篱） trimmers and was getting ready to fix a line of hedges.

    Zip （飕飕声）, zip, zip.

    "What do you think?" he shouted.

    "It's supposed to be a privacy hedge; now all that will be private are our ankles."

    He started the trimmers again.

    "Stop!" I called, "Come back!"

    "Why?" he shouted.

    "You're in the neighbor's yard."

    The United States of America is mainly an English-speaking country. The majority of the population speak English as their native language. Besides, education, social activities, etc. are conducted in English. Across but for the most part, Americans speak one common language. This language is sometimes called American English.

    However, not everyone in the USA is a native speaker of English. Most immigrants (移民)are speakers of other languages. There are hundreds of communities around the USA where English is not the most commonly used languages. Chinese, Italian, German, Greek, Spanish and French are all spoken in various communities in the USA. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language after English. It is widely spoken in New York and across the southern part of the country. For speakers of other languages, learning English is important, but teaching people to speak English as a second language was given little attention. Non-English speakers were expected to "pick up" the language by meeting with others in public. Recently, this has changed.

    Today, most large public schools and community colleges have ESL(English as a Second Language )programs; American English teachers feel that English students should learn the language the way they will use it. Therefore, ESL programs offer different English lessons to different students. Some programs teach students to communicate in English in public. Other programs teach the kind of English people who will need for their jobs. American ESL instructional methods do not lay emphasis on grammar or translation, but on the importance of communication. The goal is to get the English learners to learn by using the language.