Our love of music and appreciation of musical harmony (和声) is learnt and not based on natural ability, a new study by University of Melbourne researchers has found. The researchers said previous theories about how we appreciate music were based on the physical functions of sound, the ear itself and a born ability to hear harmony.

    The study shows that musical harmony can be learnt, and it is a matter of training the brain to hear the sounds. So if you thought that the music of some foreign culture (or Jazz) sounded like the crying of cats, it's simply because you haven't learnt to listen by their rules.

    The researchers used 66 volunteers with a range of (一系列的) musical training and tested their ability to hear combinations (组合) of notes (音符) to determine if they found the combinations familiar or pleasing. They found that people needed to be familiar with combinations of notes. If they couldn't recognize the notes, they found the notes dissonant. This finding put an end to centuries of theories claiming (声称) that physical functions of the ear determine what we find attractive.

    The study found that trained musicians were much more sensitive (敏感的) to unpleasant notes than non-musicians. When they couldn't find the note, the musicians reported that the sounds were unpleasant, while non-musicians were much less sensitive. This shows the importance of training or nurturing (培养) the brain to like particular sound of combinations of notes, like those found in jazz or rock.

    Depending on their training, a strange chord (和弦) sound was pleasant to some musicians, but very unpleasant to others. This showed us that even the ability to hear a musical note is learnt.

    To confirm (证实) this finding, they trained 19 non-musicians to find the notes of a random (随机的) selection of western chords. Not only did the participants' ability to hear notes improve rapidly; the chords they had learnt sounded more pleasant—regardless of (不论) how the chords were played.

    The question of why some combinations of musical notes are heard as pleasant or unpleasant has long been debated. “ We have shown in this study that for music, beauty is in the brain of the beholder(观看者),” a researcher said.

    Augusto Esquivel is a sculptor who, in his own words, is “crazy with comparisons of reality and potential and the balance between them.” Perhaps the best example of what he's talking about are his most famous creations: the suspended(悬挂的) button sculptures.

Made entirely from buttons hanging on various lengths of string, Esquivel's sculptures are made to look like common objects: a piano, a gumball machine, and even a toilet. If it wasn't for the clear string hanging above, these objects, these sculptures, would look solid, yet you can put your hands right through them. The process starts with him deciding on a subject and setting the acrylic （丙烯酸树脂）from where the buttons are being suspended. He buys buttons of different shapes and sizes, paints them with spray paint, and carefully hangs them. After that, it's a manner of hanging each individual button, which takes a lot of time. For his piano, for example, he individually hung over 60 pounds worth of tiny buttons.

Esquivel's sculptures, while mostly housed inside art galleries, perfectly capture one of the main principles of street art: something that is eye-catching and something that invites interaction. Often the best sculptures outside the art galleries aren't the ones behind guards and fencing, but the ones people can go right up to and touch. In Vancouver, a series of laughing old men are attracting people for pictures and to just generally hang around, but the people who simply walk by and see the sculptures almost always leave with a smile on their face. That's good street art: it draws the viewer in rather than relying on a gallery to draw in an audience and point them to certain pieces.

Esquivel's art is not only a presentation of talent, something that mentions larger philosophical questions, like the ones he stated above, but also just the right combination of interesting idea and painstaking work. One can look at his work in a critical way, or simply appreciate his idea and execution(艺术品的制作).

    We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices（装置）well after they go out of style. That's bad news for the environment – and our wallets – as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the news ones that do the same things.

    To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life – from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

    As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones. "The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids' room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices – we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions（排放）more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

    So what's the solution? The team's date only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand environment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

    In the home country, a common language gives you the ability to communicate easily with the people around you; and you learn something about your country's history, people's habits, likes and dislikes, customs and traditions. This understanding influences your own behavior, and what you expect of others.

    Living abroad, it doesn't take long to realize that many things don't "work" the same, especially when moving from "the West" to "the East". Besides a different language, each country has its own social system and laws and ways of solving problems. You will find some of them strange and alien. Sometimes you may feel uncomfortable because you realize that things are not the same as you think they are supposed to be. This is what has become known as "Culture Shock".

    Living in an environment with an unfamiliar(不熟悉的)culture can cause stress, anxiety or worse- mental or physical illness in some cases. Culture shock is the shock of experiencing an unknown or new culture. Cross-culture Adjustment is the period of anxiety, great pain and confusion suffered when entering a new culture. It can have effects on a person's emotions and behavior. You should learn to accept and try to be used to different situations. One thing is certain: it is far easier to accept the new order of things than to try to change it.

    Most Asian people can bear foreigners and accept their strange habits and behavior, not only because it might be to their benefit but out of natural politeness and restraint(克制)in front of others. Westerners should not make use of this. They must try to accept and obey local rules and rules of behavior.

Does your school have any problems with discipline? What happens when students step out of line? Here are some examples of bad behaviour:

    Playing truant(missing school without permission from parents).

    Stealing, smoking, hitting, swearing(说脏话), running, kissing.

    Cheating in exams.

    Calling a teacher or another pupil bad names.

    Not doing homework.

    Not listening or not paying attention in lessons.

    Wearing unsuitable clothes.

Here are some of the ways that UK school children can be punished:

Exclusion: a pupil is asked to leave the school and not come back. The pupil has to find a new school or a different method of education.

Suspension: a pupil cannot enter the building or attend lessons until the school has a meeting about their situation. Suspension can last from one to 45 days. The pupil is usually given work to do at home with a special teacher.

Detention: a pupil is asked to stay after school and work for 30—60 minutes before they Can leave.

Lines: a pupil has to write a sentence many times(e.g.100 or more)on a sheet of paper, e, g, “I must not shout in class”.

    Freya MacDonald, a 15-year-old pupil from Scotland, made the news when she refused to accept her school's punishment. Her family says that she was given 11 detentions for trivial things in class and coming into school through a fire door.

Freya says that repeated detentions disrupted her fight to an education under Scottish law and made it difficult for her to learn. She refused to return until the school respected her civil rights. She wants the headmaster and her teachers to sign a letter to promise this. Hundreds of schools in Scotland were told not to use detention as a punishment because of her legal action.

Many UK schools now give parents a home-school contract, explaining their discipline and rules. Parents must sign this document to agree that they accept the school's rules and discipline and that they are responsible for their child's behaviour.

    Just as John Lubbock said, we may sit in a library and yet be in all quarters of the earth. Here are some of the coolest libraries of the world.

    Stuttgart City Library

    Despite a classic white-on-white color, Stuttgart City Library is one of the most visually appealing modern libraries. The amazing modern and simple look is the product of the Korean architect Yi Eun-young. The German library opened in 2011, and cost nearly 80 million euros to construct.

    Kanazawa Umimirai Library

    Architects from the Coelacanth K&H Architects studio designed the Kanazawa Umimirai Library lo create the best reading environment. Healed floors, an outpouring of natural light, and other features were specifically included lo achieve this goal. The wall, which consists of thousands of tiny openings, allows natural lighting into the building, improving the overall feel of the space. This Japanese library was opened in 2011, and reflects the appearance of many modern and simple spaces.

    Library of Congress

    In 1800, Congress set up the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Fifteen years later, Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library to replace books that were lost when the British set the building on fire in 1814. His books, which took nearly 50 years to collect, varied from texts on science, literature and philosophy, to books in a variety of foreign languages. These days, the Library of Congress offers more than 155 million items and the largest rare book collection in North America.

    State Library of Victoria

    The Slate Library of Victoria, located in Melbourne, Australia, is one of the largest exhibiting libraries in the world. Though it opened in 1856, major repairs took place between 1990 and 2004. The La Trobe Reading Room is one of the library's main attractions due to its visually amazing architecture. The lawn at the library's front attracts hundreds of city folk each day, who gather for lunch or to enjoy the statues there. The library currently contains over two million books, as well as armor (盔甲) of Ned Kelly, a folk hero against the ruling class.