It's generally believed that people act the way they do because of their personalities and attitudes.They recycle their garbage because they care about the environment.They pay $5 for a caramel brulee latte because they like expensive coffee drinks.

    It's undeniable that behavior comes from our inner dispositions（性情）,but in many instances we also draw inferences about who we are,as suggested by the social psychologist Daryl Bern,by observing our own behavior.We can be strangers to ourselves.If we knew our own minds,why would we need to guess what our preferences are from our behavior?If our minds were an open book,we would know exactly how much we care about the environment or like lattes.Actually,we often need to look to our behavior to figure out who we are.

    Moreover,we don't just use our behavior to learn about our particular types of character—we infer characters that weren't there before.Our behavior is often shaped by little pressures around us,which we fail to recognize.Maybe we recycle because our wives and neighbors would disapprove if we didn't.Maybe we buy lattes in order to impress the people around us.We should not mistakenly believe that we always behave as a result of some inner disposition.

    Whatever pressures there can be or inferences one can make,people become what they do,though it may not be in compliance（符合）with their true desires.Therefore,we should all bear in mind Kurt Vonnegut's advice:"We are what we pretend to be,so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

    The year 3700, Earth is far too hot for any human to call it home. On this planet at least, man is nothing more than a memory--if there is anything left to remember the "wise man". But what about our wisdom--will any of it survive us?

    The conventional answer is no. Knowledge requires a knower, and there will be no knowing minds around then. But if information survives, perhaps in books or hard drives, maybe the knowledge isn't quite dead but dormant(休眠), ready to become alive with the help of other minds that develop over time or come to visit Earth in the distant future.

    At first sight, that seems to be reasonable: after all, we have done similar things with past knowledge. For example, we saved an ancient computer from a ship destroyed at sea off the southern coast of Greece, and succeeded in finding the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphics(象形文字). Careful work can bring previously lost wisdom back to life.

    However, the key point is that there is a certain cultural continuity with those ancient times that allows us to reason and make progress in the dark: we know we are dealing with the legacy(遗产)of other humans. Without that link, the survival of objects and raw data doesn't guarantee the survival of knowledge. And a lack of continuity in language with any future intelligence would be a barrier. Knowledge is closely connected with language. When a language dies out, we can lose systems of reasoning that they contain. If that's lost, then it can't be recovered.

    All this means that other minds might not be able to fully make human knowledge alive when we are gone. It is better to concentrate on not dying out in the first place.

    We all know what a brain is. A doctor will tell you that the brain is the organ of the body in the head. It controls our body's functions, movements, emotions and thoughts. But a brain can mean so much more.

    A brain can also simply be a smart person. If a person is called brainy, he is smart and intelligent. If a family has many children but one of them is super smart, you could say, “He's the brains in the family.” And if you are the brains behind something, you are responsible for developing or organizing something. For example, Bill Gates is the brains behind Microsoft.

    Brain trust is a group of experts who give advice. Word experts say the phrase “brain trust” became popular when Franklin D. Roosevelt first ran for president in 1932. Several professors gave him advice on social and political issues（问题）facing the U.S. These professors were called his “brain trust”.

    These ways we use the word “brain” all make sense. But other ways we use the word are not so easy to understand. For example, to understand the next brain expression, you first need to know the word “drain”. As a verb, to drain means to remove something by letting it flew away. So a brain drain may sound like a disease where the brain flows out of the ears. But, brain drain is when a country's most educated people leave their countries to live in another. The brains are, sort of, draining out of the country.

    However, if people are responsible for a great idea, you could say they brainstormed it. Here, brainstorm is not an act of weather. It is a process of thinking creatively about a complex topic. For example, business leaders may use brainstorming to create new products, and government leaders may brainstorm to solve problems.

    If people are brainwashed, it does not mean their brains are nice and clean. To brainwash means to make some accept new beliefs by using repeated pressure in a forceful or tricky way. Keep in mind that brainwash is never used in a positive way.

On Monday, a scientist and doctor Robert Winston is to formally ask a question in congress about what assessments the government has made "for requiring adults riding bicycles in city centres to heave a licence and third-party insurance". The letter below is the entirely imagined response I would like the government to make to him.

Dear Robert,

You ask what assessments we've made for your proposal about obliging cyclists to have licences and insurance. The brief answer is: none. Nor do we have any plans to do so.

Why? Again, the short answer is this: it's a silly and pointless thing to suggest, as evidenced by the fact that practically no countries or territories anywhere in the world require cyclists to be licensed, or to have compulsory insurance.

I suppose it's only fair if I explain why I think it is such a non-issue. It's pretty simple: such a plan would achieve pretty much nothing, while causing significant problems. More widely, any sensible governments will do everything in their power to get more people cycling, not to put pointless obstacles in their way.

Let's just take one example. As I'm sure you know as a doctor, one of the problems facing our nation is that the National Health System is likely to collapse under the caring for an increasingly overweight population. Inactive living is central to this. Even a fairly brief daily bike trip can have miraculous benefits for people's health.

Next, how would such rules even work? Would the licensing and insurance be just for adults, or also children? How would the system even be enforced-would it also require all bikes to be registered with number plates?

Finally, what would you hope to achieve by this? If you believe licensing transport users stops wrongdoing, can I point to you the data showing how a third of drivers admit to using handheld phones while driving, despite the law forbidding it.

So, to summarize：your plan would be to introduce a hugely new administrative scheme that would most likely have limited effect on the behaviour of averagely law-abiding (守法的) transport users who rarely harm others, while putting people off from this beneficial type of transport.

I'm afraid I just don't get it.

When Zhi Yueying,then 19,went to the remote Niyang village in Yichun City,Jiangxi Province,to work as a village teacher in 1980,villagers were doubtful if she was going to stay long.

Over the past four decades,Zhi has devoted herself to rural education.She is a recipient of Touching China awards that recognize the most inspiring role models in 2016.She was also awarded as a model poverty fighter by the government.Zhi has a profound understanding of the importance of education in the mountains.Over the years,she has taught the students and cared for them,since many of them were "left-behind" children whose parents migrated to other places to work.More than 1,000 students of hers have left the mountain area,and created a better life for themselves.

Located amid the mountains,the village was very poor and far from any town.Villagers had to hike in the mountains."I arrived at the school in an early evening,and was shocked.I had known the conditions were poor,but the reality was worse." Moreover,local people needed to go downhill to buy daily necessities,and transport them back in their hands or balanced across their shoulders."I had never walked uphill on a mountain road before,so I walked much more slowly than others;sometimes I walked slowly behind too much and was scared to tears," says Zhi.Sometimes she had to walk uphill by herself with a flashlight at night.The wild boars and rabbits sometimes frightened her and she enhanced her courage by singing loudly.

But she gradually got used to her life there.At the beginning,she found many local people valued their sons far more than their daughters,and would not like to let them attend school.Zhi went to their homes repeatedly and gradually persuaded them to send all their children to school.For those who could not afford the tuition,she spared her own money to help.

Zhi says seeing her students do well beyond the mountains is deeply rewarding."My dream,the same as before,is to stay by the side of more children.I know poverty will forever say goodbye to the mountainous villages,to my students,and to myself," says Zhi.

Landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom has designed a new green roof on the Rangsit Campus of Thammasat University, about 25 miles north of central Bangkok, Thailand. Her imaginative work challenges the common thinking that urbanization has a negative impact on the planet, whether flooding, excess（过度的） energy use, disrupted biodiversity or the heat island effect.

The 236,806-square-foot structure, which opened in December 2019, includes a flood water management system and Asia's largest rooftop organic farm. It combines modern landscape architecture with traditional agricultural knowledge, creating a green and friendly environment.

The green roof, containing an H-shaped landscape, looks like a futuristic hill with a brick building beneath it. The hill features a complex pattern of zigzagging terraces（之字形梯田） of planted beds, leading all the way down to the bottom. When rainwater hits the roof, it flows down the zigzags while being absorbed by the soil in the beds. The excess water is directed into four storage ponds—with a capacity of up to 3 million gallons. The process slows down the flow speed of rainwater runoff compared to a normal concrete rooftop. This keeps the area from flooding during heavy rains.

The roof's terraces are filled with organically grown crops, including a drought tolerant variety of rice, many local vegetables and herbs. The farm can supply the canteens on campus with a large amount of rice, herbs and vegetables a year. The food waste is composted （把……制成堆肥） to make the soil of the farm richer, and water from the storage ponds is used to water plants, creating an entirely localized and circular system.

 The farm serves as an outdoor classroom and a source of local jobs, too. Farmers offer workshops on sustainable agriculture and nutrition as part of the university's sustainability course. "Students and community members are invited to participate in seasonal seeding, harvesting, and soon," says Voraakhom. "The urban farm is training a new generation of organic farmers with real-world skills. It also promotes a sense of community."