Mark Twain, the famous American writer and a great master of humor, liked to play jokes on others. But once a joke was played on him. One day Mark Twain was invited to give a talk in a small town. At lunch he met a young man, one of his friends.

    The young man said that he had an uncle with him. He told Mark Twain that his uncle never laughed or smiled, and that nobody and nothing was able to make his uncle smile or laugh.

    "You bring your uncle to my talk this evening," said Mark Twain. "I'm sure I can make him laugh."

    That evening the young man and his uncle sat in the front. Mark Twain began to speak. He told several funny stories and made everyone in the room laugh. But the man never even smiled. Mark Twain told more funny stories, but the old man still kept quiet. Mark Twain continued to tell his funny stories. Finally he stopped. He was tired and quite disappointed.

    Some days later, Mark Twain told another friend what had happened." Oh," said his friend, "I know that man. He's been deaf for years."

    The word advertising refers to any kind of public announcement that brings products and services to the attention of people. Throughout history, advertising has been an effective way to promote(促进)the trading and selling of goods. In the Middle Ages, merchants employed "town criers" to read public messages aloud to promote their goods. When printing was invented in the fifteenth century, pages of advertisements(ads)could be printed easily and were either hung in public places or put in books.

    By the end of the seventeenth century, when newspapers were beginning to be read by more people, printed materials became an important way to promote products and services. The London Gazette was the first newspaper to set aside a place just for advertising. This was so successful that by the end of the century several companies started businesses for the purpose of making newspaper ads for merchants.

    Advertising spread quickly throughout the eighteenth century. Ad writers were starting to pay more attention to the design of the ad text. Everything, from clothes to drinks, was promoted with clever methods such as repetition of the firm's name or product, words organized in eyecatching patterns, the use of pretty pictures and expressions easy to remember.

    Near the end of the nineteenth century, companies that were devoted to the production of ads came to be known as "advertising agencies(广告商)．"The agencies developed new ways to get people to think of themselves as members of a group. Throughout the twentieth century, advertising agencies promoted consumerism(消费主义)as a way of life, spreading the belief that people could be happy only if they bought the "right" products.

    New research, attempting to throw light upon how male and female brains differ, has found that timing is everything. American Vanderbilt University researchers Stephen Camarata and Richard Woodcock discovered that females have a significant advantage over males in timed tests and tasks. The study involved more than 8,000 males and females ranging in age from 2 to 90 from across the US.

    “We found hardly any differences in overall intelligence. But we discovered that females performed better than men in time limited situations,” Camarata said, “It is very important for teachers to understand this difference in males and females when it comes to assigning work and tests.”

    Many males can do a better job without strict time limits, added Camarata.

    “Consider that many classroom activities, including testing, are directly or indirectly related to processing speed,” the researchers wrote in their report. “The higher performance in females may contribute to a classroom culture that favors females, not because of teacher bias(偏见)but because of inherent(与生俱来的)differences in gender processing speeds.”

    The researchers found that males scored lower than females in all age groups in tests measuring processing speed. However, the study also found that males consistently outperformed females in some language abilities, such as identifying objects and knowing antonyms(反义词)and synonyms(同义词). The research contradicts the popular belief that girls develop all communication skills earlier than boys.

    The researchers found no significant overall intelligence differences between males and females in any age groups.

    “We believe there are fundamental differences in how male and female brains end up getting organized,” Camarata said, “Our next studies will give us some insight into where these processing differences are occurring.”

    You need some bread and milk. But half an hour later, you leave the supermarket with a trolley（推车）full of food. What games do supermarkets play to make us spend so much money?

    The tricks usually start before you walk in. Outside the supermarket entrance, anybody who walks past can smell warm, fresh bread. That makes us hungry and ready to buy lots of food, not just bread.

    Now you're inside and, of course, a small basket would be fine, but all they have are trolleys. And of course the problem with a trolley is that it looks sad and lonely with just one or two goods inside. So we may fill it with something. In fact, supermarket trolleys are actually getting bigger so that we buy more.

    Of course, many people shop in supermarkets because they think everything is cheaper than in other shops. So supermarkets offer very cheap prices on some things but then have higher prices for other goods. One new trick is to put red stickers（标签）on them. Customers usually connect red stickers with lower prices so the red stickers is easy to be seen, even when there is no reduction! Interestingly, this trick appears to work more with men than with women.

    There is a story behind the position of everything in the supermarket. The most expensive goods are usually at eye-level so you see these immediately. The exception is anything that children might like. These goods are on lower shelves so that kids see them.

    Apart from what you see and smell in a supermarket, what about what you listen to? In most supermarkets they have soft, slow music. It's so relaxing that you slow down and spend more time (and money) in the store. Experts suggest it's better to shop when it's quieter, on a Monday or a Tuesday for example. And be careful with queues at the checkouts（收银台）. These are sometimes on purpose, to make you buy something from the checkout shelves while you wait.

    So, next time you go into your local supermarket, remember these tricks and see if you can come with just the things you went for.

    As any plane passenger will confirm, a crying baby is almost impossible to ignore, no matter how hard you try. Now scientists believe they may have worked out why. A baby's cry pulls at the heartstrings(扣人心弦)in a way while other cries don't, researchers found.

    Researchers found that a baby's cry can trigger unique emotional responses in the brain, making it impossible for us to ignore them—whether we are parents or not. Other types of cries, including calls of animals in great pain, fail to get the same response…suggesting the brain is programmed to respond specifically to a baby's cry.

A team of Oxford University scientists scanned the brains of 28 men and women as they listened to a variety of calls and cries. After 100 milliseconds — roughly the time it takes to blink (眨眼) —two parts of the brain that respond to emotion lit up. Their response to a baby's cry was particularly strong. The response was seen in both men and women—even if they had no children.

    Researcher Dr Christine Parsons said, "You might read that men should just notice a baby and step over it and not see it, but it's not true. There is a special processing in men and women, which makes sense from an evolutionary(演化的)view that both men and women would be responding to these cries." The study was in people who were not parents, yet they are all responding at 100ms to these particular cries, so this might be a fundamental response present in all of us regardless of parental status.

    Fellow researcher Katie Young said it may take a bit longer for someone to recognize their own child's cries because they need to do more "fine-grained analysis". The team had previously found that our reactions speed up when we hear a baby crying. Adults performed better on computer games when they heard the sound of a baby crying than after they heard recordings of adults crying.

    Hi, everyone! I am Paul Hawking, the trip leader for this weekend's activity.

    It's that time of the year again when the days are long and it is nice to sit outside and enjoy some oysters(牡蛎).

    We plan to head out to the Mission Bay this Sunday for a beach picnic. You can buy fresh oysters at the Mission Bay Oysters Company and you just need to pay $6 to $10 for each dozen, depending on the size. It's on Sunday, June 30.

    We will meet at the Student Center at 9:00 a.m. and all go together. The driving time is one and a half to two hours, and the time of return is still uncertain. Come and join us in what must now be the 4^th or 5^th such trip for the Outing Club.

    The oyster farm has a small picnic area with chairs and barbecue grills(烧烤架). Bring some briquettes(煤球) if you would like to grill. Except for oysters, oysters and oysters, little is available there, so please bring your own food and drinks. And of course, if you have any special oyster recipes(食谱), bring them, make them and share them!

    The weather forecast(预报) says it's going to be sunny and around 26℃ this weekend. My telephone number is 408-896-3228. Please feel free to call me if you have any questions. Remember to finish your homework before we leave for the picnic.