The Renaissance，considered by modern scholars to have been the time between 1,300 and 1,600，was a period of European history when many new inventions and beliefs came into being.

    The Renaissance is traced back to rich Italian cities such as Florence，Milan，and Venice.In these cities businessmen started to spend their extra money on things like painting and education，and to consider new techniques of banking and systems of government.A new type of scholar，the humanist(人文主义者)arose.Humanism was concerned with humankind and culture.Latin and Greek，literature and philosophy，music and mathematics were among the subjects humanists studied.

    The Renaissance gave rise to new forms of painting and  sculpture.During  the  Renaissance，artists were no longer regarded as mere artisans(工匠)．Many artists drew on mathematics in order to become more accurate in their measurements(度量)and to make sure an object was presented in realistic proportions.They also studied the way light hits objects and the ways our eyes perceive it.A new kind of paint，called oil paint，was invented.

    The Renaissance affected all of the society.Many people became interested in politics，and the world outside their towns.They became explorers，businessmen，etc.The effect on religion was especially strong.In the Middle Ages people were primarily concerned with serving the church and getting to heaven.But the increase in arts  and education gave  people things to look forward to in life，and made them lose interest in the church.

    The  Renaissance  produced  many  great minds.Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest，although he was not regarded that way at the time.Among his many works of art were Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.He is also regarded as a great inventor，and is credited for coming up with the idea of the helicopter.

    While all cultures share the same basic emotions, the body language used throughout different countries of the world varies（变化）greatly. What can mean one thing in one country can often mean something completely different in another.

    For example, in North America and Europe people tend to prefer direct eye contact（接触）. But in some Asian countries longer eye contact is considered rude.

    So when communicating with people, always be aware of different cultural customs that may exist.

    A V sign in the US could mean victory, but in England, it stands for a rude challenge, which has the same meaning as showing the middle finger in the US.

The OK gesture（手势）in America and England is given to mean everything is good or well. But in Latin America is looked on as a rude sign.

    The thumbs（拇指）up sign in America and most of Europe means that something is good or well done, but it is considered rude in many Asian countries.

    Putting your feet on the table is generally not thought to be rude in America and England. However, in Thailand（泰国）it is really rude.

    Telling someone to come to you by curling your index finger（食指）is acceptable in America and England, but this gesture signifies death in Singapore.

    Raising your hand up means stop in America and England. In some Asian countries this gesture is used when asking for permission to speak.

    In most westernized countries it is considered normal for two men to shake hands. In some Asian countries it is quite normal for men to kiss each other, while in most westernized countries men kissing in public would be viewed as homosexual（同性恋）behavior.

    If you would like more information on different cultural gestures all over the world, see this site on non-verbal （口头的）communication.

    Bamboo is one of the world's most useful plants. For thousands of years, bamboo has been used in many different ways-from food to medicine to clothing and, in small ways, as a building material.

    However, bamboo is not often used as a building material in the developed world. A professor at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania is trying to change that. The professor and his students are testing the strength of bamboo.They are testing how much pressure or weight it can take before breaking.

    Kent Harries is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Harries says that testing methods for bamboo need to be the same for all. They need to be standardized. Standardizing test methods for bamboo will help to bring the plant into common use. It will also give engineers and builders around the world a dependable standard.

    Harries says that bamboo is strong in nature. The strength of at least three species of bamboo is similar to steel.Besides its strength, bamboo has other features that make it very useful in building. He says it is resilient(有弹力的), meaning it keeps its shape and strength even under pressure.

    Bamboo also grows quickly. Bamboo that is suitable for construction needs much less resources than wood. The harvest cycle of bamboo is about 3 years. Softwoods such as cedar, pine and spruce have a harvest cycle of about 10 years. And hardwoods that come from flowering plants such as oak and walnut need more than 30 years.

    Bamboo is widely used as food for panda bears. It is also used for flooring and window covers. However, for building, bamboo is not used much outside its native growing area. This is mostly because of its round shape. But there are other reasons too. People think -- or have the mentality--that bamboo is a low quality building material.

    When Oliver Sacks, 82, died on Aug 30 at his home in New York City, the world was saddened by the loss of a brilliant neurologist (神经学者)and a truly beautiful mind.

     London-born Sacks was most famous for his writing. A Forbes obituary (讣告)calls him "one of the greatest writers of science of the past 50 years. Maybe the greatest".

    In his best-selling 1985 book The Man Who Mistook His Wife far a Hat, Sacks described man who could not tell the difference between his wife's face and his hat, because his brain had difficulty telling what he saw.

    In 2006, Discover magazine ranked it among the 25 greatest science books of all time, declaring, "Lots of neuroscientists now looking into the mysteries of the human brain cite (列举)this book as their greatest inspiration."

     His 1973 book. Awakenings, is about a group of patients who were frozen in a decades-long sleep until Sacks tried a new treatment The book led to a 1990 movie in which Sacks by Robin Williams. It was nominated (提名)for Academy Awards.

    Another book. An Anthropologist on Man、published in 1995, described cases like that of a painter who lost his color vision in a car accident but found new creative power in black-and-white images. Sacks also wrote the story of 50-year-old man who suddenly regained sight after nearly a lifetime of blindness. The experience was a disaster. The man's brain could not make sense of the visual world. After a full and rich life as a blind person, he became "a very disabled and miserable (悲惨的）sighted man," Sacks wrote. "When he went blind again, he was rather glad of it."

    Despite the drama and unusual stories. Sacks' books were not meant to be freak shows. "Oliver Sacks humanizes illness…he writes of body and mind, and from every one of his case studies there shows a feeling of respect for the patient and for the illness," Roald Hoffinann, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist, said in 2001.

     When Sacks received the Lewis Thomas Prize for science writing in 2002, the citation (荣誉状)declare, "presses us to follow him into unknown areas of human experience and forces us to realize, once there, that we are facing only oureclves."

    "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is one of the most common sayings in the English languages. This is because apples were one of the first foods that medical professionals recognized as healthy­their benefits became obvious when  quite simply, doctors found that people who ate apples were sick less often than those who did not. Today we have a more specific understanding of why apples are so beneficial to overall health.

    Apples can help keep your levels of bad cholesterol (胆固醇) down. The pectin (果胶) in apples helps you to maintain cardiovascular health and reduce LDL cholesterol(which is the "bad" kind). Apples themselves do not add cholesterol to your diet and are full of water and fiber to help prevent the cholesterol in other foods you might digest. According to Health Diaries, people who eat two apples per day may lower their cholesterol by as much as 16 percent.

    Apples are naturally low in calories and high in water content. Eating an apple can satisfy your hunger and keep you from reaching for high-sugar, high-calories snacks. By eating apples, you will be more able to maintain a healthy weight because they fill you up, potentially stopping you from eating food that encourages a waistline increase.

    Apples contain respectable levels of boron (硼) which helps build healthy bones, and can also prevent diseases like arthritis. Apples are rich in vitamin C, which is known to help build immunity.

    Studies have shown that apples can decrease the risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, and liver cancer. One theory is that the apple skins are responsible for this, so be sure not to peel your apple before you eat them, as you could remove some of the health benefits.

When we learn to drive, we need to learn basic skills such as how to switch on the engine, turn on the wipers, operate the brakes, etc. before we actually take to the road. Once the lower order operations and skills listed above have been automatized or at least routinized to the extent that we do not have to pay attention to them (by­pass Working Memory's attentional systems), we can actually be safe in the assumption that we can wholly focus on the higher order skills which will allow us to take the split seconds decisions that will prevent us from getting lost, clash with other cars, break the traffic laws while dealing with our children messing about in the back seats.

This is what the brain does, too, when learning languages. Because Working Memory has a very limited space available when performing any task, the brain has learnt to automatize lower order skills so that, by being performed "subconsciously" they free up cognitive(认知)space. So, for instance, if I am an advanced speaker who has routinized accurate pronunciation, grammar and syntax to a fairly high degree, I will be able to devote more conscious attention (Working Memory space) to the message I want to put across. On the other hand, if I still struggle with pronunciation, word order, irregular verb forms and tenses most of my attention will be taken up by the mechanics of what I want to say, rather than the meaning; this will slow me down and limit my ability to think through what I want to say due to cognitive overload.

In language teaching this important principle translates as follows: in order to enable our students to focus on the higher order skills involved in comprehension and production we need to ensure that the lower­order ones have been acquired or performance will be reduced.