People aren't walking any more-if they can figure out a way to avoid it.

    I felt superior about this matter until the other day I took my car to mail a small parcel. The journey is a matter of 281 steps. But I used the car. And I wasn't in any hurry, either. I had merely become one more victim of a national sickness: motorosis.

    It is an illness to which T had thought myself immune(免疫的), for I was bred in the tradition of going to places on my own two legs. At that time, we regarded 25 miles as a good day's walk and the ability to cover such a distance in ten hours as a sign of strength and skill. It did not occur to us that walking was a hardship. And the effect was lasting. When I was 45 years old I raced—and beat-a teenage football player the 168 steps up the Statue of Liberty.

    Such enterprises today are regarded by many middle-aged persons as bad for the heart. But a well-known British physician, Sir Adolphe Abrahams, pointed out recently that hearts and bodies need proper exercise. A person who avoids exercise is more likely to have illness than one who exercises regularly. And walking is an ideal form of exercise-the most familiar and natural of all.

    It was Henry Thoreau who showed mankind the richness of going on foot. The man walking can learn the trees, flowers, insects, birds and animals, the significance of seasons, the very feel of himself as a living creature in a living world. He cannot learn in a car.

    The car is convenient means of transport, but we have made it our way of life. Many people don't dare to approach Nature any more; to them the world they were born to enjoy is all threat. To them security is a steel river thundering on a concrete (混凝土) road. And much of their thinking takes place while waiting for the traffic to turn green.

    I say that the green of forests is the mind's best light. And none but the man on foot can evaluate what is basic and everlasting.

    The health of millions could be at risk because supplies of medicinal plants are being used up. These plants are used to make traditional medicine, including drugs to fight cancer. “The loss of medicinal plants is a quiet disaster,” says Sara Oldfield, secretary general of the NGO Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

    Most people worldwide rely on herbal (药草制的) medicines which are got mostly from wild plants. But some 15,000 of the 50,000 medicinal species are under threat of dying out, according to report from the international conservation group Plantlife. Shortages have been reported in China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda.

    Over-harvesting does the most harm, though pollution and competition from invasive species (入侵物种) and habitat destruction all contribute. Businessmen generally harvest medicinal plants, not caring about sustainability (可持续性),” the Plantlife report says, “damage is serious partly because they have no idea about it, but it is mainly because such collection is unorganized”. Medicinal trees at risk include the Himalayan yew (紫衫) and the African cherry, which are used to treat some cancers.

    The solution, says the report's author, Alan Hamilton, is to encourage local people to protect these plants. Ten projects studied by Plantlife in India, Pakistan, China, Nepal, Uganda and Kenya showed this method can succeed. In Uganda, the project has kept a sustainable supply of low-cost cancer treatments, and in China a public-run medicinal plant project has been created for the first time.”

    “Improving health, earning an income and keeping cultural traditions are important in encouraging people to protect medicinal plants,” says Hamilton, “You have to pay attention to what people are interested in.”

Ghillean Prance, the former director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, agrees that medicinal plants are in need of protection. “Not nearly enough is being done,” he told New Scientist. “We are destroying the very plants that are of most use to us.”

For some people, music is no fun at all. About four percent of the population is what scientists call "amusic". People who are amusic are born without the ability to recognize or reproduce musical notes (音调). Amusic people often cannot tell the difference between two-songs. Amusics can only hear the difference between two notes if they are far apart on the musical scale.

As a result, songs sound like noise to an amusic. Many amusics compare the sound of music to pieces of metal hitting each other. Life can be hard for amusics. Their ability to enjoy music sets them apart from others. It can be difficult for other people to identify with their condition. In fact, most people cannot begin to grasp what it feels like to be amusic. Just going to a restaurant or a shopping mall can be uncomfortable or even painful. That is why many amusics intentionally（故意地）stay away from places where there is music. However, this can result in withdrawal and social isolation. "I used to hate parties," says Margaret, a seventy-year-old woman who only recently discovered that she was amusic. By studying people like Margaret, scientists arc finally learning bow to identify this unusual condition.

    Scientists say that the brains of amusics are different from the brains of people who can appreciate music. The difference is complex, and it doesn't involve defective hearing. Amusics can understand other nonmusical sounds well. They also have no problems understanding ordinary speech. Scientists compare amusics to people who just can't sec certain colors.

Many amusics are happy when their condition is finally diagnosed. For years. Margaret felt embarrassed about her problem with music. Now she knows that she is not alone. There is a name for her condition. That makes it easier for her to explain. "When people invite me to a concert, I just say, 'No thanks. I'm amusic,'" says Margaret. "I just wish I had learned to say that when I was seventeen and not seventy."

    Navarathri, which is celebrated throughout India, falls in September or October. On the first three days, people pray (祈祷) to the goddess Durga, the protector who destroys all evil. The next three days they pray to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Then, also for three days, they look to Saraswathi, the goddess of wisdom and knowledge. The tenth and final day of the festival is for the goddess Durga. On this day many years ago, Durga killed the evil buffalo-headed monster, Mahishasura.

    My daughter and I took out the models of the gods and goddesses that we had stored away last year. Soon the room was littered with all kinds of dolls. We usually buy at least one new doll every year. On the tenth day, the dolls are carefully put away. If a doll is too damaged to be shown, it is never thrown away. Instead, it is put deep into the seas.

    In our hallway six long wooden steps are set up. First, we spread a thick white cloth over the steps. Now it's time to put the dolls on the steps carefully. Every year, the gollu is different. Sometimes — as the collection grows — there is no space to fit all of the dolls on the steps. Smaller dolls can also be placed on the floor.

    Every night there are prayers, music, dancing, and a large meal for many people. In northern India, the children sing songs while doing the dandiya raas, a traditional dance. Every dancer also has two wooden sticks — called dandiya — that he or she uses to make a sound in time to the lovely music. Dancing the dandiya raas helps people think of the true meaning of Navarathri — togetherness, laughter, and fun!

    Most groups of plants and animals are richer in species and more plentiful near the equator. In the ocean, that holds true for cold-blooded predators(掠食者). But warm-blooded predators are more diverse toward the poles and noticeably missing from several warm hot spots. Why?

    John Grady, an ecologist, and his team considered the possibility—warm-blooded animals need a lot to fuel their metabolism(新陈代谢). Perhaps colder waters are just richer in small fish? But they found that at higher, colder places, there isn't actually much more food around. It's more that warm-blooded animals are eating a much bigger share of it than their cold-blooded competitors.

    The real explanation is simple. An animal's speed, swiftness, and intelligence depend on its metabolism, which in turn depends on its temperature. Since birds and mammals can keep heating their bodies in icy conditions, they remain fast and attentive. By contrast, the fish they hunt become slower and duller. At some tipping point of temperature, seals, dolphins, and penguins start out swimming their prey(猎物). They become more likely to come upon targets and outpace the cold-blooded predators of their own.

    In Grady's words, "Warm-bodied predators are favoured where preys are slow, stupid and cold." That's why sharks and other predatory fish dominate near the equator, but colder waters are the kingdom of whales and seals. By keeping food to themselves in the poles, these creatures can then specialize on specific types of prey, which makes them more likely to split into separate species. The killer whales of the North Pacific, for example, include mammal-eating transients and fish-eating, year-round residents.

    But the world is changing. It's likely that the surface of the oceans will warm by 2 to 3℃ within this century. Grady's team estimates that every time the ocean's surface warms by 1℃, populations of sea mammals will fall by 12%, and populations of seals and sea lions will fall by 24%.

    But "predictions are hard," Donna Hauser from the University of Alaska Fairbanks notes. "Polar bears are losers of a warming world, but some populations are still doing well. Some groups of whales have changed the timing of their migrations; others are hunting in deeper, colder waters. These changes might make sea mammals more adaptable to changing climates. Maybe they just need to find the places where fish remain slow, stupid and cold."

Every profession or trade, every art, and every science has its technical vocabulary, the function of which is partly to name things, or processes which have no names in ordinary English, and partly to secure greater exactness in terminology (术语). Such special dialects are necessary in technical discussion of any kind. Being universally understood by those engaged or interested in the particular science or art, they have the accurateness of a mathematical formula (公式）. Besides，they save time in these kinds of discussions, for it is much more economical to name a process than to describe it. Thousands of these technical terms are very properly included in every large dictionary, yet, as a whole, they are rather in the suburbs of the English language.

Different occupations, however, differ widely in the character of their special vocabularies. In trades and handicrafts, and other professions, like farming and fishery, which have occupied great numbers of men from remote times, the technical vocabulary is very old. It consists largely of native words, or of borrowed words that have worked themselves into the very central part of our language. Thus, though highly technical in many particulars, these vocabularies are more familiar in sound, and more generally understood, than most other technical terms. In law, medicine, and philosophy, the special dialects have also become pretty familiar to cultivated persons and have contributed much to the popular vocabulary. Yet among these professions, each one still possesses a large body of technical terms that remain essentially foreign, even to educated speech. And the proportion has increased in the last fifty years, particularly in the various departments of natural and political science and in the mechanic arts. Here new terms are coined with the greatest freedom, and abandoned when they have served their turn. Most of the newly-invented terms are restricted to special discussions, and seldom get into general literature or conversation.

Yet no profession is nowadays, as all professions once were, a close combination. Lawyers, doctors and men of science all communicate freely with others, not in a merely professional way. Furthermore, what is called "popular science" makes everybody familiar with modem views and recent discoveries. Any important experiment, though made in a remote or provincial laboratory, is at once reported online, and everybody is soon talking about it-as in the case of AI.