Current Culture: Is Common Culture Alive?

    The digitizing and globalizing world is changing the working of culture. As some see it, cities and nations are losing their common culture and their general spirit: people can no longer count on those around them valuing any of the same music or films. Others argue that a common culture is not dying so much as changing forms: it is less and less attached to a particular area and ever more linked to global networks.

    The facts lead to the change that anyone can become a cultural producer today, that the culture is increasingly available everywhere you want it, and whenever you want it, not just in the two months after the movie or book came out. Cultural possibilities have multiplied as a result, but the change also means fewer cultural moments. It is easy to find the change in terms of loss of diversity of society. So what will it mean if globalization turns us into one wide world culture?

    For the enthusiasts of these changes, culture is not about popular artists or books, but centers on platforms like Google and Wikipedia, where every variety of culture brings about the exchange of knowledge and ideas, and makes connections across boundaries. It is perhaps debatable whether two people who have participated in such websites, but in totally different corners of them, have had a cultural experience in common. In fact, these platforms become very successful with a large crowd of people, who build things together, share information, and forward articles back and forth. Here are still more questions. What does it mean for the future of countries that culture now goes beyond the limits of the nation? Is there anything to defend and preserve in the passing cultural world, or is that merely to favor pen over printing press, horse over automobile?

    Up to now a growing quantity of culture has been globally spreading and developing. More individuals (个人) than ever have the chances to be makers of culture, even if that means more to choose from and fewer standards to be reached in common. What it means is this strange feeling: that of being more connected than ever, with one-click access to so much of the cultural harvest around the world, and yet, of being starved for having similar interests and opinions with others, concerned only with ourselves.

    In ancient Egypt, the pharaoh(法老) treated the poor message runner like a prince when he arrived at the palace, if he brought good news. However, if the exhausted runner had the misfortune to bring the pharaoh unhappy news, his head was cut off.

    Shades of that spirit spread over today's conversations. Once a friend and I packed up some peanut butter and sandwiches for an outing. As we walked light-heartedly out the door, picnic basket in hand, a smiling neighbor looked up at the sky and said, ”Oh boy, bad day for a picnic. The weatherman says it's going to rain.”I wanted to strike him on the face with the peanut butter and sandwiches. Not for his stupid weather report, for his while!

    Several months ago I was racing to catch a bus. As I breathlessly put my handful of cash across the Greyhound counter, the sales agent said with a broad smile ,”Oh that bus left five minutes ago.” Dreams of head-cutting!

    It's not the news that makes someone angry. It's the unsympathetic attitude with which it's delivered. Everyone must give bad news from time to time, and winning professionals do it with the proper attitude. A doctor advising a patient that she needs an operation does it in a caring way. A boss informing an employee he didn't get the job takes on a sympathetic tone. Big winners know, when delivering any bad news, they should share the feeling of the receiver.

    Unfortunately, many people are not aware of this. When you're tired from a long flight, has a hotel clerk cheerfully said that your room isn't ready yet? When you had your heart set on the toast beef, has your waiter mainly told you that he just served the last piece? It makes you as traveler or diner want to land your fist right on their unsympathetic faces.

    Had my neighbor told me of the upcoming rainstorm with sympathy, I would have appreciated his warming .Had the Greyhound salesclerk sympathetically informed me that my bus had already left, I probably would have said, ”Oh, that's all right. I'll catch the next one.” Big winners, when they bear bad news ,deliver bombs with the emotion the bombarded(被轰炸的)person is sure to have.

    More than 20 years ago, a skeleton called Little Foot turned up in a South African cave. The nearly complete skeleton was a member of the human family. Now researchers have freed most of the skeleton from its stony shell and analyzed the fossils (化石) and they say 3.67-million-years-old Little Foot belonged to a unique species.

    Researcher Ronald Clarke and his colleagues think Little Foot belonged to A. Prometheus (普罗米修斯南猿). Clarke works at the university of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa. He studies fossilized humans and our relatives. Their foundings, published in four papers, have suggested the species A.Prometheus might have existed. Clarke has believed in that species for more than a decade, he found the first Little Foot's remains in a storage box of fossils in 1994. People began digging out the rest of the skeleton in 1997.

    Many other researchers instead argue that Little Foot likely belonged to a different species, which is known as A.africanus (南方古猿非洲种). Researcher Raymond Dart first identified A.africanus in 1924. He was studying the skull (头颅骨) of an ancient youngster called the Taung Child. Since then, people have turned up hundreds more A. africanus fossils in South African caves. Those include Sterkfontein, where Little Foot was found.

    The braincase is the part of the skull that holds the brain. And researchers found a partial braincase that Dart thought belonged to a different species in Makapansgat, one of those other caves. In 1948, Dart called this other species A. Prometheus, but he changed his mind after 1955. Instead, he said that braincase and another fossil at Makapansgat belonged to A.africanus. There was no A. Prometheus after all, he concluded.

    Clarke and his colleagues want to bring back the rejected species. They say Little Foot's distinctive skeleton, an adult female that is at least 90 percent complete, is solid evidence for it.

    If you ask most people what water tastes like, they'll probably tell you that water has no taste and they may give you a funny look. But if you were a fruit fly, asking another fruit fly, that question might have a different answer.

    To a fruit fly, water has a taste. Scientists want to know how the fruit fly knows water because this information may help in learning how other animals — or even individual cells — manage to use water in the right way. Water is vital to life, but too much or too little can be deadly to a living creature. So by understanding how the fruit fly tastes water, researchers may learn more about other living things.

    According to the new study, a protein(蛋白质) called PPK28 makes it possible for a fly to taste water. Proteins build cells and tissues, fight disease and carry messages between cells. It's not surprising that a protein is responsible for the fruit fly's ability to taste water.

    The PPK28 protein is part of a larger family of similar proteins. One of these related proteins is used by mammals (including humans) to taste salt. Scientists have not found a protein that enables humans to "taste" water.

    In the experiment, Cameron and his team compared normal fruit flies with fruit flies whose taste cells had been disabled. The fruit flies were given a special chemical that would glow(发光) when the fly used the PPK28 protein. Then the scientists led the flies to water. When the normal flies tasted the water, the PPK28 protein lit up — showing that it was in use.

    The fruit fly in particular is so interesting that some scientists are hard at work creating a complete map of the fruit fly brain. This map will show all of a fly's neurons and help scientists understand how the neurons work together.

The Tokyo Olympics have been postponed until 2021. That delay offers a chance for reflection. The International Olympic Committee wants to make the games more popular with young people. To that end, it is introducing new events, such as skateboarding, surfing and climbing. Why not go further and let national teams compete at video games? Electronic sports such as "Fortnite", are vastly more popular than strange Olympic sports like curling (冰壶). In fact, they are more appealing than most mainstream sports. Only 28% of British boys aged 16-19 watch any traditional live sports; 57% play video games.

Some may complain that e-sports are not proper sports. Many parents, observing their teenagers sitting on the sofa all day shouting "Quick, pass me the shotgun!" at a screen, would agree. Yet video games are highly competitive, with professional teams that play to packed stadiums. There are perhaps only 200 tennis stars in the world who can make a living from playing in major competitions. By contrast, "League of Legends", a fantasy game played by teams of five, supports over 1,000 on good wages. Its World Championship final last year was watched by 44 million people.

Those against e-sports offer moral objections, too. They are addictive. Prince Harry has called for "Fortnite" to be banned for this reason. They are violent. At a time of global disharmony, it is bad idea to make virtual (虚拟的) killing an Olympic sport. The Olympics aim to promote peace.

Neither of these arguments is convincing. The idea that an activity, rather than material, can be addictive is controversial among doctors, as is the existence of a causal (因果的) link between gaming and violence. And the belief that warlike sports have no place in the Olympics is hard to agree with history. Wrestling was introduced in 708 BC. It is still there.

I was cutting up lettuce in the kitchen when I suddenly remembered watching a video about soaking the lettuce stub (莴苣残余部分) in water to grow a whole new vegetable. So I took out a wide-mouthed cup and placed the stub into it, gave it a little water, and placed it by the window. 

On a snowy morning I noticed the first sign. A first small leaf from its heart spread out. A tiny green flag of hope. Beaten, but not defeated. This lettuce was not done living! Within days, it was impossible to see the cuts where I had removed the leaves. The growth was explosive. And when I lifted the blossoming head out of the cup, tiny root threads fell down, seeking for the earth. 

What is growing here? Lettuce or hope? 

If I were a lettuce in a similar condition, I'd want to skeptically assess where I found myself before committing to full growth. Yet for this lettuce, my inadequate offering of water and a place by a window was enough for it to decide to reclaim itself again. It grew in a cup of water, in faith. This is the heart of this lettuce: alive, strong and fearless. It deserved a name. I decided to call it Monty. 

Monty wanted to grow, as we all do. I think I gave him a little love and freedom. Those two were all he needed to return to himself. I see joy in this lettuce. The return to self is always an expression of joy, which is life itself. This is the tendency of all living things. 

Monty still lives in a cup, but I'm going to transplant him outside. He deserves to become his full self. The only problem I see now is my ability to support Monty. I hope I have enough of a green finger. 

I'm surprised to find myself where I am. Maybe Monty is, too. I have the same choice as he does: give in or start again. The prospect of starting again is discouraging. But my lettuce-friend, Monty, leads the way. I can only hope to be as brave.