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.

    The loud continuous noise of the cars or the sound of a plane can force its way into the deepest forest, yet it's not only humans that ere bothered by the noise.

    Bioacoustician Bernie Krause has been studying the effect of noise pollution on wildlife, and has come across some interesting behaviors, especially among animals that communicate by vocalization（发声）, like humans. Birds use sound to communicate, but in noisy places, these animals have to shout over the natural noise to be heard.

    Krause mentions a study of nightingales to clarify what he means. The birds responded to traffic noise by singing louder and louder until they actually went beyond noise pollution standards in the city. To belt out (sing loudly) their songs, they increased their lung pressure fivefold, but scientists state that this is not dangerous for the birds themselves.

    Studies show that sudden noise can cause certain birds to leave their nests, exposing the young to their enemies. One study also showed that songbirds that nested close to busy motorways were much less productive than those that nested farther away. Mammals（哺乳动物）too are affected. A recent study showed that nursing caribou responded to plane noise by not producing enough milk to feed their young.

    In some cases noise pollution can actually help some animals while harming others. Toads（蟾蜍）and frogs are known to vocalize in synchrony（同步；同步方式）so that no predator (their enemies) can zero in on them. Krause found that when planes flew overhead and disturbed the toad's song, they lost their synchronicity, and it took them 45 minutes to get it back again. That gave their natural enemies plenty of time to find and catch individual toads by sound.

    According to Kruse, “Not only will noise pollution bother wildlife, but it won't help our lives either.”

    Sheffield

    Lincoln College of English

    Classes for foreign students at all levels.

    3 months, 6 months, 9 months and one year course.

    Open all year.

    Small class (at most 12 students).

    Library, language laboratory and listening center.

    Accommodation (住宿) with selected families.

    25 minutes from London.

    Course fees for English for one year are ￡ 1,380 with reduction for shorter periods of study.

    The world is too big to take in all at once. To make sense and beauty of it, you have to look at a small part at a time.

    In using a camera, you choose a small part through he view finder. You move the camera, "framing" pictures until you see one that pleases you. Then-click! If you make a good choice, your picture will please others, as well as yourself.

    "Wherever you are," says photographer Ernst Haas, "you are surrounded by pictures. The trick is to recognize them." His photograph of a twist of barbed wire shows what he means.

    Mr. Haas tells us of ways to practice seeing. Make a simple frame of black cardboard. Take it out of the doors and look through it at everyday things, large or small, far away or near.

    At first you may see nothing to interest you. But soon pictures seem to leap (跳) at you through the frame. Oil floating on water makes a picture in rainbow colors. Three people on the steps of an old house form a picture that seems to tell a story.

    Did you notice such things before you used the frame? Perhaps not. But, with practice, you soon do not need its help. You see things as artists do. Everywhere, shapes and colors catch your eye. Your mind takes "snapshots (快照)" of their patterns. Then, if you wish, you can share what you see by taking a photograph or by making a drawing or a painting.

    Sometimes it's fun to "see small". Did you ever notice the design of the seeds in sliced bananas? Have you looked deep inside a lily? Or seen the starburst in the center of a wet ice cube?

    Do you see colors as they really are? When you paint tree trunks, you would make them brown or black. But tree trunks are really gray, purple, yellow-green—almost any color except brown or black!

    Do you notice detail? Doing so can be in many ways. Remembering what you see is often useful, too. Practice can help you.

    A trick for helping you to remember detail is the double take. Look—don't look—then look again.

    The Honors Program (美国大学荣誉课程) in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (HPBMB) is offered to high school seniors with strong academic ability and achievement who seek careers in biological or biomedical science. Students can earn both a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree (Ph.D.) in approximately 6 years.

    Applicants to the Honors Program in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology must be in their last year of high school.

    Undergraduates will have the opportunity to work with top-level research scientists in Biochemistry& Molecular Biology and also in clinical laboratories with scientists that are associated with the department. They will conduct intensive laboratory work in the areas of biochemistry, molecular biology or nutritional biochemistry starting in the summer before their first fall semester starts. By spring of their junior year, students will prepare an undergraduate thesis (本科毕业论文) as preparation for their entry into graduate school (研究生院). At that time they will start taking graduate courses and continue to do research with a graduate faculty member.

    To be considered students must:

     have a combined SAT I score of 1400 (combined Math and Critical Reading scores)

    meet the SAT II score requirement of at least 600 in Math, and one science (Biology, Chemistry or Physics)

    have completed eight semesters of English and mathematics and two semesters each of biology and chemistry by the time they graduate from high school

    complete all components of your Common Application for undergraduate admission by November 1 of your senior year

    complete a supplemental application form for the Honors Program in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

    include a counselor (辅导老师) recommendation, three letters of recommendation from teachers in support of your application to the Honors Program and a personal statement

    Send all Dual Admission Honors Program application materials to:

    Dual Admission Honors Programs

    Office of Admission

    University of Miami

    P.O. Box 248025

    Coral Gables, FL 33124-4616 

    Fax number: (513) 529-7592 (513) 529-1950 

    For more information on the HPBMB, contact:

    Dr. Thomas K. Harris

    Director, Undergraduate and Medical Education

    Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

    Office: Gautier Building, Room 111

    Phone: 305-243-3358

    E-Mail: tkharris@miami.edu 

    Reading books and looking at pictures is great, but nothing facilitates (促进) learning like travel, especially for teenagers. Not only do they get to see a world beyond their neighborhood, they also get to experience it, feel it, taste it, hear it and better understand the world around them.

    After nearly four decades in the classroom and traveling the world, Phyllis Duvall Bailey knew this perhaps better than anyone else.

    Becoming involved in the work in AKA Sorority Inc in US, she worked to educate children about the United Nations. There was no doubt in Bailey's mind that the lessons would mean so much more if the students could see things for themselves.

    Starting in 2015, Bailey, 82, set out to take her students to the UN Headquarters in New York City to give them a "Window Seat to the World", and thus transformed them into global citizens.

    Indeed, it is a great opportunity to give students national and international exposure. Since Bailey saw the students as future leaders, she was desperate to expose them to the UN, its mission, its agendas (议程) and its supporting organizations.

    She decided to give $10, 000 of her own money to pay for the late June trip, enough to take 10 students aged 14-17 on a four-night stay in New York. There, they had guided tours of the UN Headquarters and the New York City Harbor (海港).

    It was Quenyaun Payne's first trip to the city and Taylor Sappington's second. Payne, 17, is a senior at Mceachem High School in the state of Georgia, US. Sappington, 15, is a junior at Therrell High School in Atlanta, Georgia, US. Both said their visit to the UN was inspiring.

    "I like not only how countries are working together but they're focused on common goals like global warming and keeping peace," Sappington said.

Payne commented, "The trip was amazing. I'm so thankful Mrs. Bailey made it possible."

    Actually, there are a lot of people grateful for the retired teacher's effort. The United Nations Association of Atlanta recently gave Bailey its Humanitarian Award, and the United Nations Association of the US-awarded her with the National Education Award.

    But Bailey wasn't looking for recognition or even gratitude. Over those four days in New York, she'd already felt it and seen it in the eyes of those 10 teenagers, Payne and Sappington included, who made the trip.

    "It has been a real joy to get to see and watch their reaction to new experiences," she said.