Two recent studies have found that punishment is not the best way to influence behavior.

    One showed that adults are much more cooperative if they work in a system based on rewards. Researchers at Harvard University in the United States and the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden did the study.

    They had about two hundred college students play a version of the game known as the Prisoner's Dilemma. The game is based on the tension between the interests of an individual and a group. The students played in groups of four. Each player could win points for the group, so they would all gain equally. But each player could also reward or punish each of the other three players. Harvard researcher David Rand says the most successful behavior proved to be cooperation. The groups that rewarded the most earned about twice as much in the game as the groups that rewarded the least. And the more a group punished itself, the lower its earnings. The study appeared last month in the journal Science.

    The other study involved children. It was presented last month in California at a conference on violence and abuse（虐待）. Researchers used intelligence tests given to two groups. More than eight hundred children were aged two to four the first time they were tested. More than seven hundred children were aged five to nine. The two groups were retested four years later, and the study compared the results with the first test. Both groups contained children whose parents used physical punishment and children whose parents did not.

    The study says the IQs of the younger children who were not spanked were five points higher than those who were. In the older group, the difference was almost three points. The more they are spanked, the slower their mental development.

Learning a second language

    Nowadays, more and more people are learning a second language. So why should we spend time learning a second language?{#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Let us see.

    Career

    If your work involves regular contact with speakers of foreign languages, being able to talk to them in their own language will help you to communicate with them better.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} Knowledge of foreign languages may also increase your chances of finding a new job, getting a promotion or a transfer overseas, or of going on foreign business trips.

    Travel

    Being able to speak a foreign language, for example, the Japanese language, would benefit you greatly should you be traveling to Japan.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} If you are fond of tourism, then knowledge of the local language is a must-have to avoid bad experiences or discomfort.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}If you are a high school student who is interested in going abroad for further education, then you will have to learn the language of the country which you wish to move to. In some countries, being able to speak that country's national language is a must for students wishing to pursue (继续) education there.

    Personal growth

    Learning a second language can help in broadening one's horizons(视野). It can help in learning about the culture of that particular country{#blank#}5{#/blank#} Not only can you enjoy different forms of art and literature relating to the new language, but you can also meet new people, make new friends and develop long-lasting relationships.

A. Education

B. Challenge.

C. Is it really worth it?

D. This will save you a lot of trouble.

E. It can help you to make sales and get good deals.

F. And it can open the way for new interests and hobbies.

G. Could you be required to study a particular language at school?

Electric Cars

    Where do cars get their energy from? For most cars, the answer is petrol. But some cars use electricity. These cars have special motors that get their power from large batteries.

    Most people tend to think of electric cars as a new invention, but they have been around for a long time. They were popular when the technology for petrol engines was not very advanced. Recently, electric cars have again become popular because people want cars that pollute less.

    Electric cars are better than petrol cars in several ways. The biggest benefit is reduced pollution. In areas where there is a high percentage of electric cars, there is less pollution. But it is important to understand that electric cars still cause pollution. Remember that the electricity to power electric cars has to come from somewhere, which is most likely a power station. Unless these power stations run on solar or wind energy, they are most likely burning coal and oil to make electricity. The second benefit of electric cars is a reduction in the dependence on foreign oil.

    There are several countries, including the United States, which don't want to rely on oil coming from other countries to power their transportation systems. They want the power to come from within their country, and since electric cars can run on electricity from coal or nuclear power stations, there is less of a need to import oil.

    Despite the benefits of electric cars, there are some problems with them as well. One disadvantage is that electric cars are more expensive than petrol cars. This is mostly due to the high cost of the batteries these cars need. Electric cars run on batteries, just like a mobile phone does. But unlike a mobile phone, you cannot charge your electric car's battery by plugging it into a wall. They need to be charged in special places. Now, there is a lack of places where people can charge the batteries. Another problem is that electric cars cannot travel as far as petrol cars. Some people are afraid that the battery will run out of electricity (and the car will stop) before they reach their destination.

    Despite these problems, many people, including automobile industry experts, believe that the percentage of electric cars will increase in the future.

    Memory, they say, is a matter of practice and exercise. If you have the wish and really make a conscious(自觉的) effort, then you can quite easily improve your ability to remember things. But even if you are successful, there are times when your memory seems to play tricks on you.

    Sometimes you remember things that really did not happen. One morning last week, for example, I got up and found that I had left the front door unlocked all night, yet I clearly remember locking it carefully the night before.

    Memory “tricks” work the other way as well. Once in a while you remember not doing something, and then find out that you did. One day last month, for example, I was sitting in a barber(理发师) shop waiting for my turn to get a haircut, and suddenly I realized that I had got a haircut two days before at the barber shop across the street from my office.

    We always seem to find something funny and amusing in incidents caused by people's forgetfulness or absent-mindedness. Stories about absent-minded professors have been told for years, and we never get tired of hearing new ones. Unfortunately, however, absent-mindedness is not always funny. There are times when “tricks” of our memory can cause us great trouble.

    Shark nets in place across Australia, specifically in New South Wales(NSW) and Queensland, to protect beachgoers should be dropped as they have caused more harm than good, a study has found.

    The measures was carried out by some governments, including nets and traditional drum lines, and provided beachgoers with a false sense of safety. The study found the effectiveness if nets was difficult to evaluate, while the significant damage they cause to other marine(海生的)wildlife was clear. Researches desire for non-deadly shark control measures such as eco barriers, sonar(声呐)technology, and various shark-spotting techniques.

    Researchers said while the risk coming across a shark was rare, any shark-related deaths and injuries caught huge public and media attention.

    One of the arguments in support of using shark nets is that just one shark-related death has been reported in Queensland since the 1960s. Similarly, since the 1930s, NSW has had only one shark-related death. But there have been at least 13 people killed by sharks at beaches without nets in the NSW north coast over the past two years.

    The Human Society International' head of campaigns, Nicola Beynon, said the government needed to move away from outdated methods. Deadly shark nets and drum lines are more than 50 years behind scientific and animal welfare standards for dealing with marine wildlife,” said Beynon.

    The NSW Greens' marine spokesman, Justin Field, said, People are 100 times more likely to drown at the beach than to be killed by a shark in Australia. Therefore, millions of dollars going into the shark net program should be directed to observation towers for our lifeguards and improving the beach devices.”

    Japanese researchers made a botanical announcement on Monday that quickly circled the world. They had developed a banana with an eatable peel (皮)—the Mongee banana.

    The technique used by scientists at D&T Farm is called "freeze thaw awakening". The process involves starling banana trees out in an environment that's nearly minus-80 degrees Fahrenheit, then moving the trees with their still-ripening bananas to a climate of around 80 degrees - an environment banana trees typically grow in the entire time. The extreme temperature change puts the banana's growth into a superfast-speed mode. In this case, the fruit ripens before the skin can catch up. The result is soft and thin skin that hasn't fully developed.

    The banana has been produced only in small amount so far, so customers face a steep bill to save themselves the bother of peeling their banana: it is currently priced at 648 yen ($6) a piece. There's also the question of whether a banana peel is actually worth eating and whether regular banana peels had, rather suddenly, become too big a problem for people who slip on them to bear anymore.

    And what about shipping? For most of the fruit's history, the peel has provided protection, allowing it to travel long distances from where it's grown to nearly every country on Earth. A softer banana would be a step back from regular banana varieties that travel thousands of miles.

    But the banana in the news is arguably good, particularly for a fruit that rarely receives its share of attention. Bananas are the most  consumed fruit in Japan, and also in the U.S. So even if eatable-peel bananas don't ensure plentiful bananas, or even necessarily nutritious bananas, they still look great on Instagram, which probably ensures them a future in Japan's famous luxury (奢侈) fruit markets.