Newborns begin to develop language skills long before they begin speaking. And, compared to adults, they develop these skills more quickly. People have a hard time learning new languages as they grow older, but babies have the ability to learn any language easily.

    For a long time, scientists have tried to explain how such young children can learn the complicated grammatical rules and sounds of a language. Now, researchers are getting a better idea of what's happening in the brains of the tiniest language learners. This new information might help kids with learning problems as well as adults who want to learn new languages. It might even help scientists who are trying to design computers that can communicate like people do.

    Most babies go “ma ma” by 6 months of age, and most children speak in full sentences by age 3. For many years, scientists have wondered how the brains of young children figure out how to communicate using language. With help from new technologies, scientists are now finding that babies begin life with the ability to learn any language. They get into contact with other people, listen to what they say and watch their movements very closely. That is why they quickly master the languages they hear most often.

    Studies show that, up to about 6 months of age, babies can recognize all the sounds that make up all the languages in the world. Starting at around 6 months old a baby's brain focuses on the most common sounds it hears. Then, children begin responding only to the sounds of the language they hear the most.

    In a similar way older babies start recognizing the patterns that make up the rules of their native language. For example, English children who are about 18 months old start to figure out that words ending in “-ing” or “-ed” are usually verbs, and that verbs are action words.

    Try this: For an entire day, forget about the clock. Eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired. What do you think will happen?

    You may be surprised to find that your day is much like most other days. You'll probably get hungry when you normally eat and tired when you normally sleep. Even though you don't know what time it is, your body does.

    These patterns of daily life are called circadian rhythms（生理节奏）, and they are more than just habits. Inside our bodies are several clocklike systems that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle. Throughout the day and night, our inner clocks direct changes in temperature, body chemicals, hunger, sleepiness and more.

    Everyone's rhythms are different, which is why you might like to stay up late while your sister always wants to go to bed early. But on the whole, everyone is programmed to fell tired at night and energetic during the day.

    Learning about our body clocks may help scientists understand why problems arise when we act out of step with our circadian rhythms. For example, traveling across time zones can make people wake up in the middle of the night. Regularly staying up late can make kids do worse in tests.

    "There is a growing sense that when we eat and when we sleep are important parts of how healthy we are," says Steven Shea, director of the Sleep Disorders Program at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

    One way to learn about how our body clocks tick is to mess them up and see what happens. That's what neurologist（神经病学家）Frank Scheer and his workmates did in a recent study.

    Staying up night after night, their studies suggest, could make kids extra hungry and more likely to gain weight. And regularly sleeping too little, Scheer says, may be one cause of the recent increase in childhood obesity.

    Imagine that you're the creator and show runner of the newest comedy show on television. Only it isn't so popular yet, and your live Studio audience isn't giving you the big laughs the show deserves. Do you film the show all over again, hoping that this time the audience will laugh? Or is there another option for making a joke sound funnier than it was received?

    Sweeten(改善) the sound by adding a laugh track! “Sweetening,” or the addition of sound effects such as laughs, screams, and other audience-produced noises to the audio track of a TV show, has been used since the 1940s to produce the appearance, or rather the sound, of an engaged and entertained response to a show's comedy. Laugh tracks came into existence as not only a solution, and sometimes replacement, for an unengaged live audience but also as a way to engage an at-home audience into a more-traditional, public, and theaterlike experience. Adding a laugh track to a television show makes the viewers at home feel much less like they're sitting on a couch staring at the television screen and much more like they're in a room full of laughing happy people to varying degrees of success.

    Though the art of sweetening has risen and fallen in popularity over the past 60 years, credit for its creation and continued use is owed to laugh-track pioneer and sound engineer Charles Douglass. Douglass was the first to develop, in 1953, a machine for producing “canned laughter”, accessible at the push of a button or pull of a lever (操纵杆). Despite being artificial, sensibly edited laugh tracks are found by television studios to bring about a positive audience response, as their use is usually accompanied by higher ratings and increased audience memory. Though some television audiences may disagree with the value of the laugh track, the cheerful and repetitive sound holds a permanent place in the history and future of television comedy.

    Relieving poverty has been one of our government's top concerns for the past decades. Poverty(贫困) in remote areas in China is virtually a great obstacle for the Chinese to get common progress; thus, it is urgent for us to help the people there to shake off poverty the sooner the better. For this aim, the government has already sent technicians and experts to poverty-stricken areas to help boost local agricultural production and teach the locals new techniques. The Ministry of Labor has also trained many rural laborers through different programs. But all these are not enough. Several other ways have been proposed as follows.

    First of all, the government should encourage a small part of the people in the remote areas to get wealthy ahead of others by equipping them with relevant funds and agricultural technology. These “better-offs” can not only set a good example but give confidence to the poorer in their efforts to get rid of poverty. When all the people get rich, the general level of living standard can be greatly improved. With their living standard improved, they can attach greater importance to environmental protection and are willing to input considerable amount of money to educate their children. Only in this way is a sustainable development guaranteed.

Secondly, we must call upon people in all walks of life throughout the country, especially those wealthy citizens in coastal areas to help those struggling below poverty line in poor remote regions out. We must realize that only after all Chinese people live a comfortable life can we be peacefully enjoying material prosperity in life. Helps can come in various forms—-donating money to the poor family and books to school drop-outs, college graduates volunteering to work in the most needed regions, bringing knowledge to them, etc.

    The last but not the least, the government should raise the rate of tax on the rich. This can shorten the gap between the poor and the rich as well as benefit the country's revenues(财政收入) whose better part is in turn allocated to the poor remote areas.

    Admittedly, it is never easy to cast off the shadow of poverty in the remote areas completely in the short run. But every one of us should go all out to help those in poverty, we are confident that our country will be more powerful and prosperous in the process of relieving poverty.

Rich as a King

    William 1, who conquered England some 930 years ago, had wealth, power and an army. Yet although William was very rich by the standard of his time, he had nothing like a flush toilet (抽水马桶), paper towels, or riding lawn mower (除草机). How did he get by?

    History books are filled with wealthy people who were poor compared to me. I have storm windows, Croesus did not. Entire nations trembled before Alexander the Great, but he couldn't buy cat food. Czar Nicholas lacked an electric saw.

    Given how much better off I am than so many famous dead people, you'd think I'd be content. The trouble is that, like most people, I compare my wealth with that of living person: neighbors, school classmates, famous TV people. The greed I feel toward my friend Howard's new kitchen is not reduced by the fact that no kings ever had a refrigerator with glass doors,

    There is really no rising or falling standard of living. Over the centuries people simply find different things to feel sad about. You'd think that simply not having disease would put us in a good mood, but no we want a hot bath too.

    Of course, one way to achieve happiness would be to realize that even by today's standards the things I own are pretty nice. My house is smaller than the houses of many investment bankers, but even so it has a lot more rooms than my wife and I can keep clean.

    Besides, to people looking back at our era from a century or two in the future, these bankers' fancy counter tops and my awn worn Formica will seem equally shabby, I can't keep up with my neighbors right now. But just wait.

    While you might not realize it, the environment where you sleep can make a great difference in the actual quality of sleep that you get every night. With a few simple lifestyle changes, you can create a healthy sleep environment that helps improve your sleep quality.

    Go to bed and get up at the same time every day, even on weekends, holidays and days off. Studies show that people who do so are more rested than those who sleep irregularly (不规律地).

    Go to sleep only when you start to feel sleepy. If you don't fall asleep within about 15 minutes, get up and do something relaxing. Go back to bed when you are tired.

    Pay attention to what you eat and drink. Don't go to bed either hungry or stuffed. Your discomfort might keep you up. Avoid caffeine (咖啡因) 6 hours before you sleep. Having a cup of coffee within a few hours of bed time can keep you awake for hours when you are trying to sleep. Coffee isn't the only product containing caffeine. Avoid chocolate and tea, too. Also limit (限制) how much you drink before bed to prevent trips to the toilet at night.

    Many people turn on the TV before they go to bed. TV influences your natural sleep habits by making you stay up longer than you usually would, especially if you are watching something exciting. Instead of turning on the TV, read a book. Light reading before bed can help you fall into a deep sleep quickly.

    If you suffer from serious sleep problems, go to your doctor. Your doctor will help treat the problem or may advise you to see a sleep specialist.