It used to be mostly the military that used small, unpiloted aircraft, called “drones.” The little planes were very costly. But as they have dropped in price more people have begun to use them. Rescue workers and farmers are among the new users. Moviemakers are using drones to film from the sky. Historians use them when they explore ancient buildings. Rescue workers use them to look for people. And now farmers are using them to watch over their crops.

    Romain Faroux is a French businessman who starts companies. His father was a farmer. He believed drones could help farmers. He helped create a company that developed a small drone that could be controlled by people on the ground. They called it “Agridrone.” It uses a special “optical sensor” to examine crops. He says the technology used is similar to that used by smartphones-except it has wings.

    A computer program directs the drone to fly over the crops. The sensor on the drone records four different-colored “bands” of sunlight that are reflected off the crops.

    Jean-Baptiste Bruggeman is a farmer. He says the drone flies over his crops at different times of the season. He says this provides a lot of information about his crops. He says the drone pictures show him the exact amount of fertilizer the crops need. He says it also shows exactly where the fertilizer is needed. Some areas of a field may need more than others.

    As a result, Mr. Bruggeman says there is reduced nitrogen from the fertilizer after the harvest. This helps nature. Romain Faroux says farmers use information gathered by the Agridrone to place fertilizer only in areas where it was needed. Before they used the drones, farmers would put the same amount of fertilizer everywhere.

    Drones also save time because farmers can examine up to three hectares in about a minute.

    Once there was an old man, who was completely broke (破产的), living in a tiny house. He had to live on a $105-a-month social security (保障) check.

    At 65 years of age, he decided things had to change. So he thought about what he had to offer. His friends thought highly of his chicken recipe (烹饪法). He decided that this was his best shot at making a change.

    He left Kentucky and traveled to different states to try to sell his recipe. He told restaurant owners that he had a mouth-watering chicken recipe. He offered the recipe to them for free, just asking for a small percentage (比例) on the items sold. Sounds like a good deal, right?

    Unfortunately, not to most of the restaurants. He heard "NO" over 1, 000 times, but he didn't give up. He believed his chicken recipe was something special. He got rejected (拒绝) 1,009 times before he heard his first yes.

    With that one success, the old man changed the way Americans eat chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC, was born. The old man was Colonel Harland Sanders, who was an American businessman, best known for founding fast food chicken restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken. His name and image (肖像) are still symbols of KFC now.

    Throughout my educational years, despite the kind teachers I had met, I never felt interest in writing until I met her, Mrs Kelley. At first, I believed that writing would still be my worst class. Gradually, my fondness increased. She taught the lesson in such a lively way and her word choice impressed me. But that was not what made her my favorite. Unlike other teachers, after instructions, she gave an enormous amount of freedom in what we wrote, allowing us to create our own stories using our imagination. And that mattered most.

    There was one really revolutionary event: the historical fiction unit. We were to invent out own stories using the period we were given. World War II was mine. At that point, I was just looking for a good grade. Rather than creating a mundane (平淡的) story, I wanted to make a story that I felt was meaningful. As I progressed, I was pulled further and further into the reality that I had made. Grammar no longer existed, as my hands gained acceleration. When I typed the final word, my hands trembled with excitement. Briefly, I read it over and then submitted the draft.

    In the midst of anxiousness, Mrs Kelley responded. She pointed out some mistakes and gave some suggestions. Sadly, there were no comments of recognition. I fixed the errors and moved on. But when waiting for the final grade, I erased all the unrealistic thoughts that wandered in my mind.

    In the next class, surprisingly, after handing back my paper, Mrs Kelley mentioned that my story was very good. I looked at her in confusion. Soon excitement stirred inside me. I found a “+5” attached to the score. She had given an extra point in "Plot", adding an "Excellent!" No other teacher had done this. On that day, I felt what it means to be a writer. Mrs Kelley introduced me to the beauty of literature and made writing so enjoyable.

    Learning is so complex that there are many different psychological theories to explain how people learn. A psychologist named Albert Bandura suggested a social learning theory which shows that observation, imitation (模仿), and modeling play a primary role in this process.

    In Albert Bandura's opinion, people can learn through observation. Observational learning doesn't even necessarily require watching another person join in an activity. We can also learn by reading, hearing, or watching the actions of characters in books and films. However, just observing someone else's actions isn't always enough to lead to learning. Your own mental state also plays an important role in determining whether a behavior is learned or not. In addition, though in many cases, learning can be seen immediately when the new behavior is displayed, yet sometimes we can learn things even though that learning might not be immediately obvious, which means people can learn new information without showing new behaviors.

    Not all observed behaviors are effectively learned. Certain requirements need to be related to the observational learning process. For example, you need to be paying attention. Also your retention is an important part of observational learning as you need to pull up information later and act on it during the process. Once you've paid attention to the model and kept the information, it's time to actually perform the behavior you observed. Further practice of the learned behavior leads to improvement. Finally, you have to be motivated to imitate the behavior that has been modeled.

    Social learning theory have many real-world applications. For example, researchers employ it to look into and understand ways that positive role models can be used to encourage desirable behaviors. Besides, it's also applied in the field of education, and today, both teachers and parents recognize how important it is to model appropriate behaviors.

Humans aren't the only animals that move to music. Parrots have been known to do it. And now rats have been observed bopping their heads in time with the tunes of Mozart, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson and others, according to a new paper from the University of Tokyo. What's more, the rats seems to respond to the same beats that get humans' feet tapping (轻跺). 

The researchers played a sonata by Mozart for lab rats at different variations of the original speed. Wireless sensors on the rats' bodies tracked their movements. Meanwhile, 20 human participants were involved and listened to the same music through headphones equipped with motion sensors. 

It was observed that the rats' head movements were the most obvious when the music played at its normal speed, which was around 132bpm (beats per minute). The same was true for human participants. The researchers then changed to some pop songs such as Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" and Michael Jackson's "Beat It". As with Mozart's, rats moved their heads along the rhythm of pop songs, similar to how people do, at about 120 to 140bpm. 

The study showed that both rats and humans moved their heads along to the beat in a similar rhythm. The level of head bopping from both humans and rats decreased as the music sped up. The study suggests that there is something similar about the way human and rat brains respond to rhythms, but rats do not match their motions to the beat like humans do. Humans can predict the timing of a beat and move predictably to it. 

Aniruddh Patel, a psychologist who studies brain response to music, says humans and parrots respond to beats with big, voluntary movements such as head shaking, dancing or foot tapping. Patel also stresses that this study does not show that rats have the same emotional associations with music as humans do. Yet he believes it could help reveal how humans and some other animals developed a sense of rhythm. 

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