With brown curly hair and a pair of glasses, 19-year-oldNicholas Allegra from New York state, US, looks like a real-life Harry Potter.However, rather than waving a wand, Nicholas is a "wizard " at"jailbreaking ". This is probably why he ended up with an intern­shipat Apple, a job many of his fellow Brown University students dream of.

Jailbreaking is the process of removing the limitations set byApple on devices with the iOS oper­ating system. These devices include theiPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. It allows users to gain full access to theoperating system and download additional materials that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store.However, it is estimated that Apple loses $100 million (640million yuan) fromjailbreaking each year.

Nicholas, with a famous nickname "Comex", is theteenage hacker behind the jail-breaking site JailbreakMe. com. The site tellsusers how to unlock their iPhones using software that is not approved by Apple.The jailbreaking software he made has been downloaded millions of times byusers around the world.

Then Forbes magazine suggested in an article that Apple's securityteam might need him as a new intern. It seems that they do. Little more than aday after Steve jobs stepped down as CEO, Apple welcomed Nicholas Allegra.Nicholas wrote on his Twitter on August 26 that " It's been really, reallyfun, but it's also been a while and I've been getting bored. So, the week afternext I will be starting an internship with Apple.

Apple is not the only company embracing the skills ofhackers. Facebook recently hired iPhone jailbreaker George "Geohot"Hotz as a full-time employee.

However, there are still hot debates about whether employinghackers is a wise solution. The word "hacker" has always had a doublemeaning. In the press, "hacker" means someone who breaks intocomputers. They steal from people's bank ac­counts, download sensitiveinformation and attack legal websites. Among computer lovers, it means a coolpro­grammer who can make a computer do whatever he wants.

Hiring a hacker does have its advantages. A talented hacker isprobably quite capable of finding problems and suggesting corrections. On theother hand, because of a hacker's former behavior, many people doubt theirmorals .Can the company trust them with its valuable assets ? And can someonewho is so used to working alone in the dark fit into a new role within acompany?

One thing is for sure- Comex isn't the first member of thehacker community to land the job of his dreams. It's likely that he won't bethe last.

You must have written your research paper, your personal essay, your book review—-whatever your school class requires. You think you have provided good information in the needed number of words.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    But is it really done? Many teachers and professional writers believe that writing is revision.{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

Revision of writing is a necessary skill for students. The classroom is a good place to practice patience, concentration and listening. There are rewards with spending time with your thoughts and really taking time to compose your ideas in an orderly and reasonable way. You should put away your paper after you have written a first version, or draft. Wait several hours, maybe overnight, before working on it more.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} Not only are you refreshed, but you're looking at things through different eyes. That's what revision literally means—to see again through different eyes.

Following a four-step process may help you with your paper. The first step in the process is invention. It includes forming many questions about your subject. It is called “question-storming”.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}Then comes the revision period. Take your time to read what you've written, to think about it, and maybe to re-shape it based on what you see now, as a kind of new person looking at it with a reader's eyeglasses rather than a writer's. The fourth step is called “publication”.{#blank#}5{#/blank#}In a sense, anytime you turn it over to another person, that's publication.

    Probably, the process takes away some of the tension of writing. And worry about the quality of your writing often disappears when you share that writing.

    If you want to convince the boss you deserve a pay rise or promotion, the solution could be simple — eat the same food as they do. Psychologists have discovered managers are much more likely to instantly trust us if we choose the same dishes as them.

    During experiments, discussions over wages and work conditions were much more successful if both sides chose to snack on the same treats. And shoppers were much more likely to buy a product advertised on TV by someone eating a similar food to them at the time.

    The reason is thought to be so-called similarity attraction theory — where people tend to like others who have similar tastes or habits to themselves. But this is believed to be one of the first studies highlighting the role of food in this relationship. Researchers at Chicago University in the US conducted a series of experiments to examine food's role in earning trust.

    In a test, participants were told to watch TV — where someone pretending to be a member of the public praised a certain product. The volunteers were given Kit Kat bars to nibble (咬), while the TV people ate either a Kit Kat or grapes as they talked.

    The results showed viewers were much more likely to express an interest in buying the product if the TV showed the other person eating a Kit Kat too.

    The researchers added, “Although similarity in food consumption is not a sign of whether two people will get along, we find consumers treat this as such. They feel more trusting of those who consume as they do. It means people can immediately begin to feel friendship and develop a bond, leading to smoother transactions (交易) from the start.”

    Harley Street psychologist Dr. Lucy Atcheson said it was already known that wearing similar clothes could instantly create trust. But this was the first report that food had the same effect. She said, “This is really interesting. It makes sense as people feel they have common ground and can trust the other person. That means negotiations are more likely to be successful.”

    When the fork was stolen off Bart Michiels's mountain bike last summer, he wheeled it nearly three miles from his home in Chelsea to Frank's Bike Shop on the eastern end of Grand Street.

Mr. Michiels passed many other bike shops along the way, including one that offers free coffee. But for 20 years, he has remained devoted(忠实的) to Frank's. "Frank's the man," he said of Frank Arroyo, the owner. "I don't care where he is in the city — I'll go."

    Mr. Michiels doesn't have to worry about Mr. Arroyo's relocating(搬迁). The shop has stayed on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for 40 years.

    After Mr. Michiels left, Marvin Priess arrived. A professor of chemistry and math, Mr. Priess wheeled in the Ross 18-speed he had bought at Frank's in 1978 and still rides today, at age 68. Mr. Priess said that over the years, every single part of it that couldn't be repaired had been replaced, sometimes more than once, at Frank's. Customers don't come for the ambience(环境). It's crowded and dirty; buckets of parts and boxes of training wheels line the entryway.

    The store is filled with about 500 bikes and you will find Mr. Arroyo, 72, six days a week. He has been in the bike business since age 14. Born and raised on the Lower East Side, he has employed and taught many young people in the neighborhood. He is also willing to repair bikes in any condition, as well as his neighbors' walkers and wheelchairs.

    English Epps, a lawyer, needed a new seat; his had been stolen. "I've been coming here since I was in the third grade," he said, adding: "There's a new bike shop on Delancey Street, but everybody comes here."

    Tiredness, coughing, a runny nose and a sore throat—among all sicknesses there is probably none more common than the flu (流感), which we all get now and then. However, bird flu is a completely different story.

    In 2003, the H5N1 bird flu swept across 15 countries, including China, with sufferers reporting chest pain, difficulty breathing, fever and severe coughing. More than 600 people were infected, and about 60 percent died. Now, another type of bird flu hit Shanghai and three neighboring provinces, and this time the virus is called H7N9. By the afternoon of April 11, the new virus had taken nine lives out of 35 infected, according to Xinhua News Agency.

    The "H" and "N" in the virus' name refer to two kinds of proteins (蛋白质) on the surface of the virus. Any change of the numbers of the two proteins indicates a new mutation(变异). Most of the mutations only affect birds, such as chickens and pigeons, and don't normally spread to humans. But once they do, the results can be disastrous.

    "Any time an animal influenza virus crosses to humans, it is a cause for concern, " Malik Peiris, virologist (病毒学家) at the University of Hong Kong, told Nature magazine. Take the SARS epidemic (传染病) in 2003 as an example. The virus behind the disease is thought to have jumped to humans from animals. The virus was a complete "stranger" to human bodies, which hadn't developed an immunity (免疫力) against it.

    But there is something more about the new H7N9 bird flu. Unlike the H5N1 bird flu, which causes severe sickness in birds, the H7N9 has been evolving under the radar(悄悄地) since it travels between birds without causing noticeable illness. That makes it difficult to keep track of the disease.

    The good news is that there's so far no sign that the virus is spreading from person to person. But since there is no vaccine (疫苗) for the disease yet, the World Health Organization recommends that you wash your hands after meeting with sick people and before and after you eat or prepare food, and they also suggest avoiding contact with birds or their eggs.

    As a young boy, I knew what people said was not always what they meant or were feeling. And I knew it was possible to get others to do what I wanted if I read their real feelings and responded(回应) suitably to their needs. At the age of eleven, I sold sponge rubber(泡沫橡胶) door-to-door after school and quickly worked out how to tell if someone was likely to buy from me. When I knocked on a door, if someone told me to go away but their hands were open and they showed their palms (the inside surfaces of their hands), I knew it was safe to continue with my presentation(展示) because they weren't angry or threatening although they may have a dismissive(不屑 ) attitude. If someone told me to go away in a soft voice but used a pointed finger or closed hand, I knew it was time to leave.

    As a teenager, I became a pots and pans(炊具)salesperson, and my ability to read people earned me enough money to buy my first house. Selling gave me the chance to meet people and study them close and to know whether they would buy or not, simply by watching their body language.

    I joined the life insurance business at the age of twenty. And I went on to break several sales records for my company, becoming the youngest person to sell over a million dollars' worth of business in my first year. This achievement allowed me to become a member of the well-known Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT, which recognizes the world's top achievers in life insurance). I was lucky that the skills I'd learned as a boy in watching body language while selling pots and pans could be used in this new area, and were directly related to the success I could have in any business closely connected with people.