Many of us still tend to think that emotions can affect reasonable thought，and sometimes land us in trouble. But in recent years psychologists have taken quite a different view. Keith Oatley，Professor of Psychology at Glasgow University，is involved in the research which shows the fundamental importance of emotions.

    He believes we are very ambivalent about them：we think of our emotions as being unreasonable，but we also consider them as essential to being human. For example，Mr. Spock，a character in the television series Star Trek，is super­intelligent and he has no emotions at all. However，he is never made captain of the spaceship. Maybe，this is because Mr Spock is not the kind of person you can share your feelings with—a person who shows his emotions.

    As Professor Oatley points out，our emotions have very important functions，for example，fear. If we cross the road and a car approaches，we usually stop moving or step back. We stop what we are doing，check what we have done and pay very careful attention to the environment. The emotion of fear makes us take this small series of actions which,on average, help protect our safety.

    On the other hand，if things are going well and small problems come up，we find we can solve them with the resources we have to hand. As a consequence, we tend to feel happy and usually continue doing the job.

    Anger is an emotion that tends to occur when someone is preventing us from doing something. Then this small “kit” of reactions enables us to prepare ourselves to be quite aggressive to that person，or to try harder，and so on.

    Professor Oatley believes emotions generally occur at these important moments in actions. With fear and anger our emotions make us decide to start doing something else, while with happiness they “suggest” we continue what we are already doing.

    A ground-based system that uses much stronger signals than GPS can find your location in cities and indoors. It is a new positioning system that could compete with GPS to make sure you never lose your directions again.

    Instead of satellites, Locata uses ground-based equipment to send a radio signal over a localized area that is a million times stronger on arrival than GPS. It can work indoors as well as outdoors, and the makers claim that the receivers can be shrunk(缩小) to fit inside a regular cell phone. Even the US armies, which invented GPS technology, signed a file last month agreeing to a test of Locata at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

    “This is one of the most important technology developments for the future of the positioning industry,” says Nunzio Gambale, CEO and co-founder of the firm Locata, based in Griffith, Australia.

    As for the Locata's correctness, Christopher Morin of the US Air Force tested it recently at White Sands, and it worked to within 18cm along any axis(轴). Morin said it should be possible to get the exactitude down to 5cm.

    The tests were performed in an open desert where GPS also worked beautifully, but its signal was weak—like a car headlight from 20,000 kilometers away—and easily cut off by solid objects(实心的物体). Locata's signal was far stronger, though not guaranteed to work in a complex urban environment, said David, speaker of the UK' s General Lighthouse Authorities.

    Locata's technology will face competition in the race to transform indoor navigation. But it could shine in specific areas, Gambale said. Robots with Locata could easily navigate inside buildings without the complex optical(视觉的) systems they need at the moment. And the process that handles correct location data could not only guide you around a mall, railway station or airport, but also take you to the exact shelf in a shop for the product you want. It would be small and cheap enough for smart phones and it should be available within five years—a similar path to the one GPS took on its way towards the world, he said.

    A serious problem for today's society is who should be responsible for our elderly and how to improve their lives. It is not only a financial problem but also a question of the system we want for our society. I would like to suggest several possible solutions to this problem.

    First, employers should take the responsibility for their retired employees. To make this possible, a percentage of profits should be set aside for this purpose. But when a company must take life-long responsibility for its employees, it may suffer from a commercial disadvantage due to higher employee costs.

    Another way of solving the problem is to return the responsibility to the individual. This means each person must save during his working years to pay for his years of retirement. This does not seem a very fair model since some people have enough trouble paying for their daily life without trying to earn extra to cover their retirement years. This means the government might have to step in to care for the poor.

    In addition, the government could take responsibility for the care of the elderly. This could be financed through government taxes to increase the level of pensions. Furthermore, some institutions should be created for senior citizens, which can help provide a comfortable life for them. Unfortunately, as the present situation in our country shows, this is not a truly viable answer. The government can seldom afford to care for the elderly, particularly when it is busy trying to care for the young.

    One further solution is that the government or social organizations establish some working places especially for the elderly where they are independent.

    To sum up, all these options have advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that some combination of these options may be needed to provide the care we hope to give to our elderly generations.

    Many Chinese people have awakened their interest in classical Chinese poetry recently thanks to a popular TV show that aims to “appreciate classical Chinese poetry, explore cultural genes and enjoy the beauty of life” by combining traditional literary form with light-hearted TV quizzes.

    The ten-episode “Chinese Poetry Competition”, since its broadcast, has been praised for injecting vitality(活力) into TV programs with fantastic performances of contestants, impressive comments from judges as well as its innovative interactive mode. In the show, poems can be adapted into songs or depicted(描绘) through artistic pictures. Any contestant who can memorize the largest number of poems may not necessarily be the final winner, while fast reaction and usage of poems matter a lot more in the competition.

    Wu Yishu, a 16-year-old student from the High School Attached to Fudan University in Shanghai, is the champion of this season. Her rich knowledge of classical poetry impressed everyone and she rose to become famous online. In an earlier episode, Wu wowed the audience when performing in a section. She amazingly recited lines from the Classic of Poetry(《诗经》), the earliest collection of poems in China.

    “Learning poems isn't about winning or losing. The power of poetry lies in shaping one's view of life and developing one's inner world,” said Li Bo, an expert guest at the Chinese Poetry Competition's second season.

    When it comes to teaching people about poetry, Li Dingguang, the show's academic advisor, suggested that teachers should explain more about the beauty of the poetry from both the aesthetic(审美的) and emotional sides, and guide students to lose themselves in the poems' rhythmic and rhyming(押韵的) lines.

    “Although the proportion（比例) of ancient Chinese poems in the textbooks of primary and secondary schools has increased, many students still learn them for exams,” Li Dingguang said.“ Therefore, it's important to help students truly appreciate the artistry and fun of poetry.”

    Mother Teresa (August 26, 1910-September 5, 1997) was a great woman, who did a lot to improve the social condition of mankind. Due to her contribution in serving the society, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize aged 69.

    She was brought up in a Catholic family. When she was only seven, she lost her father. Even as a young child, she was interested in the life of missionaries (传教士). At the age of 18, she decided that she would become a nun. She left her home and went to join the Sisters of Loreto. It was the first step that she made towards providing services for mankind.

    On the 7th of October in the year 1950, Mother Teresa received Vatican permission to start the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, the mission of which would be to take care of the needy, the homeless, and people who were shunned by the society. Then it had a number of branches all over the country. The journey of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity started with the setting up of homes for "the Dying".

    In the year 1983, Mother Teresa suffered from a serious heart attack, while she was in Rome. However, she recovered. But, later in 1989, she again got an attack. Her health went worse and in the year 1991, she suffered from pneumonia. Taking her health problems into consideration, Mother Teresa decided to resign (辞职) from the post of head of the order.

    A secret vote was conducted in which all the nuns voted for the stay of Mother Teresa except herself. So, she agreed to continue serving as head of the Missionaries of Charity. Day by day her health was getting worse. On September 5, 1997, exactly nine days after her 87th birthday, this great soul departed for heaven.

    British children generally learn how to ride a bike at a young age. I am an exception to that rule. It's not my dad's fault—he tried to teach me. I remember cycling around the neighborhood. To be honest, though, I never saw the appeal. One of my earliest memories is falling from my bike and into some spiny(多刺的) plants. I definitely didn't want to repeat that.

    So I stopped learning. My dad wasn't going to waste his time teaching someone who didn't want to be taught. Time passed and I accepted that I couldn't ride a bike. It never affected my life in high school because I lived close enough to walk.

    I never felt like I was missing out until I couldn't go on a bike ride with friends in Byron Bay because I was only confident that I could go on a flat surface in a generally straight line. So when the opportunity came up to bike the wall of Xi'an, I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and make up for missed time. So, with a friend who is very patient, I got on the bike. Instantly nothing came flooding back to me, I had absolutely no idea how to start! "Push off with one foot hard" was my instruction. It sounded simple enough but it just would not happen. Until something clicked and suddenly I was off, going in a straight line on a flat surface and managing to avoid the Chinese tourists who obviously found exaltation on my face.

    At 22 years old, I finally learnt how to ride a bike, and nothing can hold me back.