Speaking in public meetings is necessary for many students and employees. As well, it is a difficult task for them, especially for non-native speakers. A great many researchers have made efforts to help foreign language learners to improve the approaches.

    Charles LeBeau is a public speaking professor and consultant. Currently, he teaches at two universities and at the Toshiba International Training Center. He has also written books on the subject. English language learners around the world use his book Speaking of Speech.

    In Speaking of Speech Mr. LeBeau says a simple approach helps the learners. So, the professor divides public speaking into three parts: the physical message, the visual message, and the story message. He says, “The central thing to remember about public speaking or presentation is that it's a very complex communicative activity. For non-native speakers it's a really scary activity. So to make that more simplistic and easy for them, the approach that I've taken is to simplify and break it down. First if we look at presentation, what's going on? There are basically three messages that the presenter is giving the audience at the same time. There's what I call the physical message, namely body language. It's the way that my body, as a speaker, is talking to the audience. Then there's also the visual message. The visual messages are the slides that we now make and show the audience. The third message is the story message, which is the content of our presentation. The story message is the verbal message, what we say to the audience. The story message also includes how we organize our ideas to present to the audience.”

    He says the simple approach to breaking down the parts of public speaking has proved itself. He says learners improve quickly and do a good presentation after a few days of study.

    Kunta wondered why the white people had done this to him. Born a free man, he was now in chains. Heavy iron chains around his feet and hands were fixed to a metal bar that ran round the hall about ten centimeters off the ground. He was just able to lie down on the ground, but could not stand up.

    Kunta had been seized in the forest and then hit on the head with a hard object. When he woke up, his hands and feet had already been tied together. What shocked him most was that the men who carried him were black. He reasoned with them, and tried to persuade them to set him free. But they would not listen to him. When they came to the river, a white man was waiting in the boat for them. There was an argument about money, so it seemed, in a language that Kunta did not understand. Finally, Kunta was thrown into the bottom of the boat and covered with an old smelly cloth. The men took him in their boat to the castle on the coast where he was now held prisoner.

    Another thing which shocked Kunta was that women were held in the castle too. He could hear their crying, also children's voices. What was to become of them all, he wondered. For all his life, he had known that people suddenly disappeared from their villages. He had known that it was not safe to travel alone in the forest near the coast. But why did white people want to catch Africans and put them in chains? Would they be killed or even eaten? The situation seemed hopeless and he knew his life was in danger.

    Worse was to come. A few days later about 140 black people were taken and put on a tall sailing ship waiting off the coast. Once on the boat, they were taken below and their chains were fixed to two bars that ran the length of the ship. Their feet were fixed to one bar and their hands to another bar. Thus they lay on hard wooden boards, unable to stand up or move around.

    The sea journey lasted over sixty days and nights. They had rough weather and Kunta's back bled from rolling over on the hard wooden boards. Many of the men fell sick with fever. They sighed and cried out for more water, but food and water were only given out once a day. Once in a while sailors came down, Kunta thought, to carry sick men upstairs for treatment. When the ship finally arrived in a port, the wooden cover was opened wide and Kunta could see in daylight for the first time across the part of the ship where he had been chained. About a third of the people who had been chained up below at the beginning of the journey were missing.

    In an effort to inform our citizens to clear the street snow, the city adopts a snow removal plan.

    Routes used by City Emergency Services come first. Secondly, connector streets will be cleared which allow citizens the greatest access to public roads. And thirdly, roads within neighborhoods will be cleared.

    Snow removal and ice control will start when:

    Snow accumulates 4 inches or more.

    Weather conditions do not endanger the safety of road crew.

    Snow falls during peak traffic periods of heavy use of main streets.

    Snow and ice removal will be delayed or cancelled when:

    There is severe cold, significant wind and limited visibility.

    The snowfall occurs on the weekend or a holiday and is not considered a threat to public safety. In that case, snow and ice removal may take place on the next normal weekday.

    Snow and ice may be left on roadways if melting is obvious.

    Your cooperation is requested during snow removal and these suggestions may apply:

    Limit travel during storms. Travel is possible once roads have been cleared or salted by the road crew

    Avoid removing snow from your driveway into the road. Pile the snow in your yard.

    Park your vehicles in your driveways and off the road or walks.

    Keep public sidewalks next to your house clear of snow and ice.

    Be responsible for removing this snow which is thrown by the snow plough(犁) from your driveways. Hopefully, you can understand this inconvenience.

    If conditions get bad enough, almost any kind of weather can become a storm.

Stormy weather can cause people to cancel their plans. It can cause major events to be postponed. And severe stormy weather can be dangerous to people, fortune and anima1.

    If you weather the storm, or ride out the storm, you survive and move on without harm or injury. For example, 1et's talk about Tornado Alley, the name for part of the central United States. During springtime, this area often has a large number of powerful tornadoes. People who live there are taught to shelter in the safest place they can find and wait for the storm to pass. People who live in Tornado Alley are used to weathering many storms!

    You can also weather a storm, but it doesn't involve actual weather. “To weather the storm” can also mean to make it through a difficult experience or trying times. So, if the stock market(股市)crashes, you might have to weather a financial storm.

    Often before a big storm, conditions are calm. The calm before the storm can happen anytime. It is the time before something bad happens. For example, at the beginning of a family reunion, the adults were all talking happily. But the older children knew it was just the calm before the storm. They've seen it happen before. The adults talk happily for about an hour. Then they start arguing about events from the past—things that should really stay buried!

    But after the storm begins and you find yourself in the middle of it, you are in the eye of the storm. In the world of weather, the eye of the storm is the calmest part, in the center of a hurricane, for example. However, in the English language, if you are in the eye of the storm, you are in the most intense part of a conflict. For example, she had no idea that walking into the meeting would put her in the eye of the storm.

    However, a brainstorm does not exist in the world of weather. To brainstorm means to try to solve a problem by talking with other people. And don't worry. If we have trouble thinking of an idea for the next program, we can always brainstorm with you!

    With the New Year weeks approaching, you're looking forward to watching the splendid fireworks shows that will welcome 2019 worldwide. Unfortunately, visually impaired and blind people can't experience this joyful celebration. That may change soon thanks to Feeling Fireworks, a fireworks experience invented by the Disney Research Lab in Switzerland.

    To experience the show, users stand before a large flexible screen, place their hands at the base of the screen and move them around to feel the fireworks. Alternatively, their hands can be situated in the center of the screen, where the initial explosions happen, and then moved across to explore other fireworks.

    As the fireworks begin to explode, five nozzles (喷嘴) at the back of the screen start to shoot water, creating movement of water imitating the show. One specializes in the "blooming flower effect", another reproduces the "crackle" effect, and the rest take care of rockets and explosions. A computer controls the timing, and Feeling Fireworks allows users to experience fireworks similar to those in the sky.

    Paul Beardsley, who led the research team, says, "We want blind, visually impaired, and sighted people to all try Feeling Fireworks, and to have a shared and enjoyable memory of a fireworks evening." And the screen displaying the vivid images created by water makes it fun for everyone.

    The low-cost technology is still in its early stage, with only a 66 percent success rate. However, the team plans to continue improving the experience and believes the day when everyone will be able to enjoy the thrill of fireworks shows is not far. When ready, Feeling Fireworks will initially be available only at the Disney theme parks, and then hopefully, at fireworks shows worldwide.

Bruce, a parrot missing part of his beak （喙）,  creatively uses stones to clean feathers （羽毛）,  highlighting advanced intelligence in parrots. 

Bruce lost the upper part of his beak in 2012 and was sent to live at a reserve in New Zealand. The defect made Bruce unable to search for food on his own, let alone keep his feathers clean with his beak. But in 2021, when comparative psychologist Bastos arrived at the reserve with colleagues to study parrots, zookeepers reported something strange：Bruce had seemingly figured out how to select and use small stones to clean his own feathers with his beak. 

Over nine days, the team kept a close eye on Bruce, quickly taking, videos if he started cleaning his feathers. It turned out that Bruce had indeed invented his own way to do so, the researchers reported in Scientific Reports. 

"It's crazy because the behavior was not from the wild, " Bastos says. When Bruce arrived at the reserve, he was too young to learn how to clean his feathers. And no other bird in the reserve uses stones in this way. "It seems like he just invented this tool use for himself, " she says. 

Tool use is just one of parrots' many talents. They're famous for copying and even understanding human speech. Some species can also solve complex puzzles, like how to enter a covered rubbish bin or practice self-control. 

For a concept as abstract （抽象的） as intelligence, it's challenging to develop a definition that applies across animals. Researchers often point to features once thought to make humans special—enhanced learning, memory, attention and movement control—as signs of advanced skills. However, many of these abilities can also be seen in parrots, as well as other animals like chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants. 

"Parrots are our evolutionary （进化的） mirror image. These brilliant birds may teach us about how humanlike intelligence can appear, " behavioral ecologist Antone wrote in his 2022 book The Parrot in the Mirror. With powerful brains and a preference for words, these birds are "the very best example, " he writes,  "of nature's 'other try' at humanlike intelligence. "