Houses fall down. Trees fall over. Large holes form in the ground. Could Alaska be sinking? That's what some villagers in Alaska have been asking themselves recently and scientists think they know why. Warmer temperatures may be causing Alaska's frozen ground to thaw (解冻).

    About 85 percent of Alaska's land surface has permafrost (永久冻结带). Permafrost supports the ground above it—including trees, houses, and roads. But why is the permafrost thawing?

    Some scientists say that human-caused pollution is leading to global warming. And most scientists agree that Alaska has been getting warmer. They say that the warmer temperature is causing permafrost to thaw in some areas. The thawing permafrost can cause problems for people, plants, and animals.

    The collapsing (倒塌) is a problem in the villages in Alaska which are built on permafrost, and some of them may have to move to safer ground, where there is no permafrost.

    The Alaskan town of Glennallen saw its old post office collapse. And, according to James Walters, a permafrost expert at the University of Northern Iowa, house-moving companies have been very busy.

    “Melting permafrost can also destroy trees and forests,” Walters said. “When holes in the ground form, trees fall into them and die. This could turn a forest into a swamp (沼泽), and animals which need the forests will have to move elsewhere.”

    “The melting could cause severe problems.” Walters says, “This could take hundreds of years, but in the end Alaska will look quite different from what it looks like now.”

    Harvard University in the United States has been ranked as the university with the best “reputation” in the world.

    The Times Higher Education magazine has listed 200 top universities all over the world based on how they are regarded by a group of international college teachers. That is to say, the list measures how universities are regarded, rather than how they actually performed.

    “A subjective, word-of-mouth (口碑的) quality such as “reputation” has genuine economic value for universities,” said Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

    “Reputation is not just an impression, though it might not be as reliable as performance by objective indicators (客观指标),” said Prof Marginson.

    Based on the views of 13,000 college teachers around the world, it confirms the power of the big US universities, which dominate this list. Seven of the top 10 are US universities, headed by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Furthermore, 14 of the top 20 are from the US. Cambridge is the highest ranking UK university in the list, in third place, with Oxford ranked as sixth.

    “For students applying to university, reputation might be hard to quantify, but was an important part of the attractiveness,” said the president of Cambridge University's students' union, Rahul Mansigani.

    “Reputation makes a huge difference. If there is an idea that somewhere is great, it will get lots of good people applying whether it's true or not. Factors such as a sense of history and the presence of outstanding college teachers were part of the reputation of Cambridge,” he said.

The situation is that familiar — deadlines are approaching, time runs out, disorder and confusion fills the day. The feeling is just as familiar — a slightly faster heart rate, and shortness of breath. Yes, it is panic time.

    It's too late to kick yourself with "I should have started on this sooner." or "It was a mistake to accept this tight deadline." The only thing left to deal with the situation is to panic more efficiently.

    ① Focus.

Panic happens when you are on an overload — too many things to do, too much pressure, too little time. But if you focus on the tasks that you need to take care of, and line them up in a logical list, you can have better control of a highly stressful and wild situation.

    ② Get rid of distractions.

    Time wasters and unnecessary activities are the last things you need during this time. Let everyone know you are on panic mode and should not be disturbed unless it is an emergency.

    ③ Watch your time.

    Don't be too engaged in one detail so that you reduce your timing for the other important details. Mind the time and deal with each task so that you can finish all of the required activities sufficiently.

    Try to solve a panic situation as quickly as you can so that you can rest and get back your energy and strength for the next one.

    As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remembering less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.

    In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

    In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder(文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location(位置)better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory”.

    According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize large amounts of information so that they are able to find it at a later date. This doesn't mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.

    Leadership today is not about forcing others to do things. If this is even possible, it is short-term. If you order someone to do something against their will, they may do it because they feel they must, but the anger they feel will do more harm in the long-term. They will also experience fear.

    Fear causes the thinking brain to shut down, making the person unable to function at his or her best. If they connect you with this emotion of fear, they will become less functional around you, and you will have succeeded in not only shooting yourself in the foot, but possibly making a very good employee or partner unable to perform effectively. Fear has no place in leadership.

    The way we affect people in a lasting way is by our own character, and our understanding and use of emotion. We can order someone to do something, which may be part of the work day, or we can employ them at the emotional level, so they become fully devoted to the projects and provide some of their own motivation（积极性）.

    Today's work place is all about relationships. Anyone works harder in a positive environment in which they're recognized and valued as a human being as well as a worker. Everyone produces just a bit more for someone they like. Leaders understand the way things work. They know money is not the only most motivating factor in the work life of most people.

    The true strength of leadership is an inner strength that comes from the confidence of Emotional Intelligence-knowing your own emotions, and how to deal with them and those of others. Developing your emotional intelligence is the best thing you can do if you want to develop your relationships with people around you, which is the key to the leadership skills.

    Jane Austen is loved mainly as a charming guide to fashionable life in the Regency period (英国摄政时期). She is admired for describing a world of elegant houses, dances, servants and fashionable young men driving barouches (四轮四座大马车). But her own vision of her task was completely different. She was an ambitious and strict moralist. She was highly conscious of human failings and she had a deep desire to make people nicer: less selfish, more reasonable and more sensitive to the needs of others.

    In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bonnet start off heartily disliking each other and then, gradually realize they are in love. They make one of the great romantic couples. He is handsome, rich and well connected; she is pretty, smart and lively. But why actually are they right for one another?

    Jane Austen is very clear. It's for a reason we tend not to think of very much today: It is because each can educate and improve the other. When Mr. Darcy arrives in the neighborhood, he feels "superior" to everyone else, because he has more money and higher status. At a key moment, Elizabeth condemns his arrogance (自大) and pride to his face. It sounds offensive in the extreme, but later he admits that this was just what he needed.

    Mostly, we tend to think of love as liking someone for who they already are, and of total acceptance. But the person who is right for us, Austen is saying, is not simply someone who makes us feel relaxed or comfortable; they got to be able to help us overcome our failings and become more mature, more honest and kinder—and we need to do something similar for them.