A new study shows students who write notes by hand during lectures perform better on exams than those who use laptops(笔记本电脑)．

    Students are increasingly using laptops for note­taking because of speed and legibility(清晰度)．But the research has found laptop users are less able to remember and apply the concepts they have been taught.

    Researchers performed experiments that aimed to find out whether using a laptop increased the tendency to make notes “mindlessly” by taking down word for word what the professors said.

    In the first experiment，students were given either a laptop or pen and paper. They listened to the same lectures and were told to use their usual note­taking skills. Thirty minutes after the talk，they were examined on their ability to remember facts and on how well they understood concepts.

    The researchers found that laptop users took twice as many notes as those who wrote by hand. However，the typists performed worse at remembering and applying the concepts. Both groups scored similarly when it came to memorizing facts.

    The researchers' report said，“While more notes are beneficial，if the notes are taken mindlessly，as is more likely the case on a laptop，the benefit disappears.”

    In another experiment aimed at testing long­term memory，students took notes as before but were tested a week after the lecture. This time，the students who wrote notes by hand performed significantly better on the exam.

    These two experiments suggest that handwritten notes are not only better for immediate learning and understanding，but that they also lead to superior revision in the future.

    There are more bicycles than residents in the Netherlands,and in cities

like Amsterdam and The Hague up to 70% of all journeys are made by bike.

    The BBC's reporter,Anna Holligan,examines what made everyone get back in the saddle（车座）.

    Before World WarⅡ,journeys in the Netherlands were mainly made by bike, but in the 1950s and 1960s,as car ownership increased quickly,this changed.As in many countries in Europe, roads became increasingly crowded.

    The jump in car number caused a huge rise in the number of deaths on the roads.In 1971 more than 3,000 people were killed by motor vehicles,and 450 of them were children.In response a social movement demanding safer cycling conditions for children was formed.Called Stop de Kindermoord,it took its name from the headline of an article written by journalist Vic Langenhoff whose own child had been killed in a road accident.

    The Dutch love of the motor vehicle was also shaken by the Middle East oil crisis of 1973,when oil-producing countries topped export to the US and Western Europe.

    These twin pressures helped to persuade the Dutch government to invest in improving cycling infrastructure（基础设施）and the Dutch urban planners started to change from the road-building policies designed mainly for cars.

    To make cycling safer and more inviting,the Dutch have built a vast network of cycle paths.These are clearly marked,have smooth surfaces,separate signs and lights for those on two wheels,and are wide enough to allow cycling side by side and overtaking.

    Even before they can walk,Dutch children live in a world of cycling.As babies they travel in special seats on bikes.As the children grow up they ride their own bikes.And,as the Dutch are not allowed to drive until 18,cycling offers teenagers an alternative form of freedom.

    The state also plays a part in teaching,with cycling lessons a compulsory（必修的）part in Dutch schools.All schools have places to park bikes and at some schools 90% of pupils cycle to class.

    Earthquakes are something that people fear. There are some places that have few or no earthquakes. Most places in the world, however, have them regularly (有规律地). Countries that have a lot of earthquakes are usually quite mountainous.

    The earthquake which was talked about most in the United States was in San Francisco in 1906. Over 700 people died in it. The strongest one in North America was in 1964. It happened in Alaska.

    Strong earthquakes are not always the ones that kill the most people. In 1755, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded was felt in Portugal. Around 2,000 people died.

    In 1923, a very strong earthquake hit Tokyo, the Yokohama area of Japan. One hundred and forty thousand people died. Most of them died in fires which followed the earthquake.

    One of the worst earthquakes ever was in China in 1976. It killed a large number of people. The worst earthquake ever recorded was also in China, in which about 80,000 people were killed or injured. This earthquake happened in 2008.

    Earthquakes worry people a lot. The reason is that we often do not know when they are coming. People cannot prepare for them.

    Your next ca might drive itself. After years of trials on city streets, driverless vehicles are now nearing the live phase. Last moth, a driverless bus began carrying passengers through Lyon, France, Most in the automobile industry think self-driving vehicles will be on the road by 2020 or before.

    Driverless cars will at first be huddled with human-driven cars. But the first places where they will become dominant（统治的）are dense urban areas — precisely the spots most damaged by the automobile age. Many advanced cities are already reducing the role of human-driven cargo. Driverless cars will quicken that process and will bring us enormous benefits.

    Driverless cars will reduce accidents by around 90 percent. That's big—the annual death toll on the world's roads is about 1.2 million a year. Pollution and carbon emissions will drop, because urban driverless cars will be electric. The old, otherwise they would stay at home most of the time and the disabled and teenagers will suddenly gain mobility.

    On the other hand, driverless cars will bring catastrophe. The best thing about the automobile age was that it employed tens of millions of people to make, market, insure and drive vehicles. Over the next 20 years, the mostly low-skilled men who now drive trucks, taxis and buses will see their jobs reduced. Carmakers are especially scared. The few cars of the future might be made by tech companies such as Apple, Baidu and Google. Imaging the impact on Germany, where the automotive sector is the largest industry.

    Dramatic change is coming, and driverless cars could arrive by 2020. But governments have barely begun thinking about it. Only 6 percent of the biggest US cities have factored them into their long-term planning.

    A decade ago anyone hardly saw the Smartphone coming. It has bought an epidemic of mass addiction. Let's hope we do a better job of handling the driverless car.

    I was wandering around the Albuquerque International Support airport. My flight had been delayed and I heard an announcement: “If anyone near Gate A-4 understands Arabic（阿拉伯语）, please come to the gate immediately.” Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

    An older woman was crumpled（蜷缩成一团的）on the floor, crying loud. In her traditional Palestinian dress, she reminded me of my grandmother.

    “Talk to her,” urged the flight agent. “We told her the flight was going to be late, and she did this.”

    I bent over to put my arm around the woman and spoke uncertainly. “Shu-dow-a, shu-bid-uck, habibti? Stanischway, min fadlick, shu-bit-se-wee?” She stopped crying. She thought the flight had been called off. She needed to be in El Paso for a medical treatment the next day. I said, “You'll get there, just late. Who is picking you up? Let's call him.”

    We called her son. In English, I told him that I would stay with his mother until we got on the plane. She talked with him. Then we called her other sons just for fun. Then we called my dad and they spoke for a while in Arabic and found out that they had several shared friends. After that, I called some Palestinian poets I knew and let them chat with her.

She was, laughing a lot but then, patting my knee and answering questions. She pulled a bag of homemade cookies filled with dates and nuts and topped with sugar from her bag and offered them to the people at the gate. To my amazement, no one declined. It was like a sacrament（圣餐）. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo— We were all smiling, covered with the same sugar.

    I looked around the gate and thought. This is the world I want to live in, one with no anxiety. This can still happen anywhere, I thought. Not everything is lost.

    Every country may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global warming". We should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true.

    Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is an irony that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedback involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplifies the small effect of CO2. The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant and it is a key component of the biosphere ( 生物圈)'s life cycle. Plants get better growth with more of it and part of the increase of agricultural yields in the past century certainly came from additional CO₂ in the atmosphere.

    Although the number of the scientists who are publicly opposed to the claim is growing, many young scientists secretly say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted or worse.

    Why is there so much passion about global warming? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "Cui bono?", or the modern update, "Follow the money". Alarmism (危言耸听) over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research, and thus those people who benefit from this fiercely defended their dogma (信条) and the privileges it brought them.

    Every country should support rational ( 合理 的) measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that turn away resources from real needs and are based on alarming but shaky claims of "incontrovertible" evidence.