Shakespeare's Sister

    Let us imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith.

    Shakespeare himself went, very probably — his mother was an heiress — to the grammar school, where he may have learnt Latin — Ovid, Virgil and Horace — and the elements of grammar and logic. He was, it is well known, a wild boy who poached (偷猎) rabbits, perhaps shot a deer, and had, rather sooner than he should have done, to marry a woman in the neighborhood, who bore him a child rather quicker than was right. That escapade sent him to seek his fortune in London. He had, it seemed, a taste for the theatre; he began by holding horses at the stage door. Very soon he got work in the theatre, became a successful actor, and lived at the centre of the universe, meeting everybody, knowing everybody, practicing his art on the boards, exercising his wits in the streets, and even getting access to the palace of the queen.

    Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister remained at home. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as curious to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil. She picked up a book now and then, one of her brother's perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew(炖锅) and not moon about with books and papers. They would have spoken sharply but kindly, for they were practical people who knew the conditions of life for a woman. Soon, however, before she was out of her teens, she was to be engaged to the son of a neighboring wool stapler(经销商). She cried out that marriage was hateful to her, and for that she was severely beaten by her father. Then he ceased to scold her. He begged her instead not to hurt him, not to shame him in this matter of her marriage. He would give her a chain of beads or fine dresses, he said; and there were tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him? How could she break his heart?

    The force of her own gift alone drove her to it. She made up a small parcel of her belongings, let herself down by a rope one summer's night and took the road to London. She was not seventeen. The birds that sang in the woods were not more musical than she was. She had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother's, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre. She stood at the stage door; she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager — a fat, loose-lipped man — howled with laughter. He roared something about puppies dancing and women acting — no woman, he said, could possibly be an actress. She could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a bar or roam (游荡) the streets at midnight? Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women and the study of their ways. At last — for she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows — at last Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so — who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and confined in a woman's body? — killed herself one winter's night and lies buried at some cross-roads where the omnibuses (公共汽车) now stop outside the Elephant and Castle.

    That, more or less, is how the story would run, if a woman in Shakespeare's day had had Shakespeare's genius.

Seeds on Ice

    Close to the North Pole, remote and rocky Plateau Mountain in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard seems an unlikely spot for any global effort to safeguard agriculture. In this cold and deserted environment, no grains, no gardens, no trees can grow. Yet at the end of a 130-meter-long tunnel cut out of solid stone is a room filled with humanity's most precious treasure, the largest and most diverse seed collection—more than a half-billion seeds.

    A quiet rescue mission is under way. With growing evidence that unchecked climate change-will seriously affect food production and threaten the diversity （多样性） of crops around the world, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault （地窖） represents a major step towards ensuring the preservation （贮藏） of hundreds of thousands of crop varieties. This is a seed collection, but more importantly, it is a collection of the traits found within the seeds: the genes that give one variety resistance to a particular pest and another variety tolerance for hot, dry weather.

    Few people will ever see or come into contact with the contents of this vault. In sealed boxes, behind multiple locked doors, monitored by electronic security systems, enveloped in below—zero temperatures, and surrounded by tons of rock, hundreds of millions of seeds are protected in their mountain fortress. Frozen in such conditions inside the mountain, seeds of most major crops will remain viable for hundreds of years, or longer. Seeds of some are capable of retaining （保留） their ability to grow for thousands of years.

    Everyone can look back now and say that the Seed Vault was a good and obvious idea, and that of course the Norwegian government should have approved and funded it. But back in 2004, when the Seed Vault was proposed, it was viewed as a crazy, impractical, and expensive idea.

    We knew that nothing would provide a definite guarantee. But we were tired, fed up, and frankly scared of the steady, greater losses of crop diversity. The Seed Vault was built by optimists who wanted to do something to preserve options so that humanity and its crops might be better prepared for change. If it simply resupplied seed gene banks with samples those gene banks had lost, this would repay our efforts.

    The Seed Vault is about hope and commitment-about what can be done if countries come together and work cooperatively to accomplish something significant, long-lasting, and worthy of who we are and wish to be.

Training the Brain

    People who can accomplish unbelievable tasks, such as memorizing thousands of random numbers in under an hour, state that they just have normal brains. Some memory superstars compete in Olympic-like World Memory Championships. These mental athletes, or MAs for short, can memorize names of dozens of strangers in a few minutes or any poem handed them. Ed Cooke, a 24-year-old MA, explains they see themselves as participants rescuing the long-lost art of memory training. These techniques existed not to recall useless information, but to cut into the brain basic text and ideas.

    A study in the journal Nature examined eight people who finished near the top of the World Memory Championships. The scientists examined whether their brains were fundamentally different from everyone else's or whether they were simply making better use of memorizing abilities we all possess. They put the MAs and control subjects into brain scanners and had them memorize numbers and photographs. The result surprised everyone. The brains of the MAs and those of the control subjects were indistinguishable. On every test, the MAs scored in the normal range. However, when the scientists examined what part of the brain was used during a memory activity, they found the MAs relied more heavily on areas in the brain involved in spatial memory.

    MAs offer an explanation: anything can be fixed upon our memories and kept in order by constructing a building in the imagination and filling it with pictures of what needs to be recalled. Dating back to the fifth century, the building is called a memory palace. Even as late as the fourteenth century, when there were copies of any text, scholars needed to remember what was read to them. Reading to remember requires a different technique than speed reading. If something is made memorable, it has to be repeated. Until relatively recently, people read only a few books intensively (细致地) again and again, usually aloud. Today we read extensively, usually only once and without continuous focus.

    So the great difference is the ability to create impressive pictures in mind and to do it quickly. Using memory palaces, MAs create memorized pictures. For example, recombine the pictures to form unforgettable scenes such as the ways through a town. One competitor used his own body parts to help him memorize a 57,000-word dictionary.

    Anyone who wishes to train the mind needs first to create fantastical palaces in the imagination. Then they should cut each building into cubbyholes for memories. In a short amount of time, they will notice improvement with remembering things. To keep the skill sharp, MAs deliberately empty their palaces after competitions, so they can reuse them and they recommend that beginners do the same.

    We all know that water is tasteless. But it happens from time to time: you pick up the bottle of water you didn't finish yesterday, and it tastes strange. Most often, you tend to drop the bottle in the trash bin, believing that the water has gone bad. But is it true?

    According to Time, of course not, taste has little to do with quality of water.

    According to Time, when water is exposed to the air for 12 hours, carbon dioxide interacts with the H2O in the water, and the pH value lowers slightly. As a result, the water has a different taste.

    "But it's most likely safe to drink," Norwegian expert Truls Krogh told Science Nordic. "If the water is covered and of good quality to start with, in principle it can last a thousand years. That's because when water is fresh, it contains little organic matter. As long as water is held in clean glasses or bottles, no pollutants will enter it to harm our health."

    People in countries like the US, the UK and Australia usually drink tap water. According to Time, if tap water is drunk within six months, the chlorine (氯气) in the water will be enough to kill any bacteria and keep it safe to drink.

    However, there are also some exceptions. If you accidentally put your fingers into water or store water in unclean containers day after day, microorganism (微生物) will enter the water.

    With the help of surrounding temperature, and sunlight streaming through windows, these microorganisms multiply quickly. Sooner or later, the water will be in the charge of the unfriendly bacteria. And if you drink the water too often, then you're more likely to be ill.

    And what about water in plastic bottles? Heat and plastic are a bad combination, US researcher Kellogg Schwab stresses. When plastic bottles are used at high temperatures, they produce a chemical called BPA. BPA is something that affects hormones (荷尔蒙) and research has tentatively linked it to "several health damage, including heart disease and cancer", Time reported.

    Schwab suggests replacing disposable (一次性的) plastic bottles with the refillable containers made of metal or glass to deal with BPA.

The world will observe International Museum Day on May 18th. Since 1977, this day {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (celebrate) by the International Council of Museums annually to raise awareness of the role that museums play in the development of society. The day is an excellent way of {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (get) more of the younger generations interested in the history and culture available in museums. Every year, the organization {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (decide) on a new theme. And the theme for 2023 is Museums, Sustainability and Well-being.

Following Zibo and Harbin, Tianshui, an ancient silk Road city in Northwest China's Gansu Province, became the latest place that has caused {#blank#}1{#/blank#} nationwide craze thanks to its malatang, or spicy hot pot. Tianshii spicy hot pot {#blank#}2{#/blank#}（make） by cooking raw ingredients（原料） —meats, vegetables and noodles, in a pot of boiling broth. Then they are rolled into a large steel basin, drizzled with garlic sauce, sprinkled with Tianshui peppercorns and crushed peanuts, {#blank#}3{#/blank#}（brush） with bright red chili oil, and colored with coriander and green onions. Fragrant and {#blank#}4{#/blank#}（visual） appealing, it provokes（刺激） taste buds on the tip of tourists' tongue. Different {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Sichuan cuisine, the secrets to the unique flavor and attractive appearance of Tianshui malatang come from local speciality ingredients in Tianshui—Gangu chili peppers and Maiji peppercorns, both {#blank#}6{#/blank#}（belong）to local speciality agricultural industries. Unlike the peppers used throughout Sichuan, the Tianshui pepper is fragrant and juicy. It {#blank#}7{#/blank#}（burn） in the mouth but is smooth in the stomach.

Tianshui not only has delicious spicy hot po t food, but also stands out for its distinctive {#blank#}8{#/blank#}（region）culture. Its grottoes and murals（石窟与壁画） are among the most famous art {#blank#}9{#/blank#}（form） in Gansu. The Maijishan Grottoes, {#blank#}10{#/blank#} are home to 221caves and more than 1,000 square meters of ancient murals, are known for their impressive beauty.