As I walked along the Edgware Road, I felt as though the world was closing in on me. All the sounds I take for granted, had gone. I had entered a world of silence. This unsettling experience occurred a few weeks ago when I agreed to go deaf for the day to support the work of the charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, for which I am an ambassador.

    When I managed to take a cab to the office of my manager, Gavin, I couldn't hear what the taxi driver was saying to me. Conversation was impossible. Then, when I reached the office, I had to ring the intercom five times as I couldn't hear a response.

    Everybody said I was shouting at them—I simply wasn't aware of how loudly I was speaking as I couldn't hear my own voice. Gavin kept telling me my phone was ringing, but I didn't realize. I was too busy trying to concentrate on reading his lips. And when he tried to tell me a code to put into my phone, I had to keep asking him to repeat it, more slowly. Eventually he lost his patience and snapped at me: “Just give me the phone!” I was shocked.

    People couldn't be bothered to repeat themselves, so they kept trying to do things for me that I was perfectly capable of doing myself. I felt I'd lost control.

    Being deaf for the day was extraordinarily tiring. I had to work so hard to “listen” with my eyes, get people's attention and use my other senses to make up for my lack of hearing. It was a huge, exhausting effort.

    Until that experience I didn't realize how much I took my own hearing for granted, or the sorts of emotions and experiences deaf people go through. If a deaf person asks you to repeat something, never think: “It doesn't matter.” It does matter.

    Women are friendly．But men are more competitive．Why? Researchers have found it's all down to the hormone oxytocin （荷尔蒙催生素）．Although known as the love hormone, it affects the sexes differently．

"Women tend to be social in their behavior．They often share with others．But men lend to be competitive．They are trying to improve their social status," said Professor Ryan．

    Generally, people believe that the hormone oxytocin is let out in our body in various social situations and our body creates a large amount of it during positive social interactions （互动） such as falling in love or giving birth．

But in a previous experiment Professor Ryan found that the hormone is also let out in our body during negative social interactions such as envy．

    Further researches showed that in men the hormone oxytocin improves the ability to recognize competitive relationships, but in women it raises the ability to recognize friendship．

Professor Ryan's recent experiment used 62 men and women aged 20 to 37．Half of the participants（参与者）received oxytocin．The other half received placebo （安慰剂）．

    After a week, the two groups switched with participants．They went through the same procedure with the other material．

    Following each treatment, they were shown some video pictures with different social interactions．Then they were asked to analyze the relationships by answering some questions．The questions were about telling friendship from competition．And their answers should be based on gestures, body language and facial expressions．

    The results indicated that, after treatment with oxytocin, men's ability to correctly recognize competitive relationships improved, but in women it was the ability to correctly recognize friendship that got better．

    Professor Ryan thus concluded: "Our experiment proves that the hormone oxytocin can raise people's abilities to better distinguish different social interactions．And the behavior differences between men and women are caused by biological factors （因素） that are mainly hormonal．"

    For 80 years, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has kicked off the holiday season with glorious bands, balloons and floats (花车)，and for one day, it has transformed New York City into a living comic book.

    The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade presented by Macy's Department Store. It was first held in 1924. It was organized by Macy's employees, most of whom were first­ generation immigrants(移民)，who wanted to celebrate holidays like they did in Europe. The employees dressed in costumes(盛装)and marched on the streets with floats, bands and live animals borrowed from a zoo.

    With an audience of over a quarter of a million people, the parade was such a success that Macy's declared it would become an annual event.

    In 1927 Felix, the Cat became the first parade balloon to float over the city. Large animal­ shaped balloons replaced the live animals from then on. These giant signature(特有的)balloons are by far the biggest attraction of the parade. Each year sees parade balloons adding new characters from comic strip characters to timeless toys.

    One tradition long gone is the releasing of the balloons after the parade. They would float for days and the lucky finder or finders could claim a cash reward if he or she returned the balloon or its remains to Macy's.

    The parade has gone on every year except during World War Ⅱ when, aside from not having much to cheer about, the helium(氦气)air and rubber used for the balloons were needed for the war effort.

    When the parade returned in 1945，it was televised in New York for the first time and also traveled its current route for the first time.

    Nowadays, more than 10,000 people participate in the parade and the National Broadcasting Company(NBC) will nationwide broadcast it live from 9 a.m. to noon. The NBC has even earned several Emmy Awards for this program.

    As always, the parade will end with a visit from Santa Claus. The joyful old man will get settled in Macy's Department Store after the parade to start a­month­long search for who's been naughty and who's been nice.

Evening Workshops

    Optional evening workshops will be held at small restaurants or other meeting places near the conference hotel. Meals and other costs are not included but are also optional. Locations will be announced at the conference site. Workshops are very loosely organized and most represent discussions that have been held at Society for Economic Botany (SEB) meetings over a series of years.

    Workshop 1: Student Network

    Date: Wednesday evening, Feb. 5^th

    Chairs: Hugo de Boer and Arika Virapongse Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

    Description: Student members of the SEB hold a networking mixer each year in order to meet each other and to become familiar with a variety of educational programs and faculty advisors(大学指导老师). Faculty members who are part of training programs are encouraged to join the mixer to meet and talk with students.
     Workshop 2: Botanical Film Making
    Date : Wednesday evening, Feb. 5^th Chair : David Strauch

    Sponsor : University of Hawaii

    Description : Digit al film making is a particularly useful tool of linking cultural information to recognizable plants. This workshop is aimed towards increasing the quality of material recorded by giving participants greater control over the medium. We will cover technical aspects (e.g. camera settings, audio), technical aspects (framing, lighting, focus), and some ways of presenting the material. Experienced filmmakers are encouraged to attend, and participants are welcome to bring their own camera equipment.

    Workshop 3: Collections for Botany

    — Collections Development and Management Date: Friday evening, Feb. 7^th

    Chair: Jan Salick

    Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

    Description: SEB is a network of researchers who have been developing standards for the development of collections of artifacts, plant samples and related materials. Participants discuss successes, problems, and funding sources for solving management issues.

    When I was a little girl, I remember that when my dad was repairing something, he would ask me to hold the hammer, so we would have time for a conversation with each other. I never saw my dad drinking or taking a night out. All he did after work was taking care of his family.

    I grew up and left home for college and since then, my dad had been calling me every Sunday morning. And when I bought a house several years later, my dad painted it by himself in the fierce summer heat. All he asked was to talk to him, but I was too busy in those days.

    Four years ago, my dad visited me. He spent many hours putting together a swing for my daughter. He asked me to have a talk with him, but I had to prepare for a trip that weekend.

    One Sunday morning we had a telephone talk as usual. I noticed that my dad had forgotten some things that we discussed lately. I was in a hurry, so our conversation was short. Several hours later that day I received a call. My father was in the hospital. Immediately I bought a plane ticket and on my way I was thinking about all the occasions I missed to have a talk with my dad. By the time I arrived at the hospital, my father had passed away. Now it was he who did not have time for a conversation with me. I realized how little I knew about my dad, his deepest thoughts and his dreams.

    After his death I learned much more about him and even more about myself. All he ever wanted was my time. And now he has all my attention every single day.

    Despite what so many people would love to believe, NASA hasn't discovered any evidence of past or present intelligent life on Mars. Therefore, when the Curiosity rover (好奇号探测器) found something suspicious on the Red Planet's surface, they were not only surprised but also a little bit worried.

    The thin fragment(碎片) was suspicious enough to guarantee its own name, with NASA's Curiosity rover team calling it the "Pettegrove Point Foreign Object Debris", named for where it was discovered. With no idea what it was or where it came from, the rover's handlers began to worry that it might actually be a piece of the rover itself, suggesting some unseen damage or other issue with the robot. Thankfully, those concerns seem to have been unfound.

    In a new update from NASA the object has now been identified as a natural piece of rock rather than a piece of any man-made craft or vehicle. The team analyzed the unusual object with a tool called the Chem Cam RMI. The instrument uses a laser (激光器)to sniff out the makeup of anything that is pointed at, and the results for this particular piece of debris revealed that it's actually just a very thin piece of rock.

    NASA describes the inspection: The planning day began with an interesting result from the previous plan's Chem Cam RMI analysis of a target that was referred to as "Pettegrove Point Foreign Object Debris"(PPFOD)，and supposed to be a piece of spacecraft debris fact. In fact it was found to be a very thin slice of rock, so we can all rest easy tonight. Curiosity has not begun to shed its skin!

    How this particularly thin sliver of rock got to where it is—and why it seems to be a different colour than the surrounding sand and debris—remains unexplained, but at least the rover isn't falling apart.