Recently, I learned firsthand why it's a bad idea to judge people prematurely (过早地).

    I'm a nursing supervisor, and my job is to evaluate workers' performances at the hospital.

    Kenny was a new employee. After weeks' probation (试用), I had to admit that he was clean, punctual and efficient.

    But he had this self-assured and energetic presence. He was a large man, both physically and socially — he was independent and strong. I worried that our hospital, which demanded teamwork, was not right for such a personality.

    We had a patient named Mary. At 94 years old, Mary was weak. She had outlived her husband and sisters.

    Mary had an obsessive (强迫性的) belief that someone had taken her purse. She searched for it all the time. Unless tied to her wheelchair, she would go through the door onto the street mindlessly searching and never giving up. She was often sitting in her wheelchair in the hallway, where she stopped everyone who came near.

    “Can you lend me a comb?” she would ask. “I've lost mine. It was in my red purse. Where is my purse?”

    Every day it was the same. We all knew Mary didn't have a purse, but we would answer: “Sure, if I see your purse I'll bring it back.”

    One afternoon, I saw Kenny walking down the hall with a grocery bag. He walked toward Mary in her wheelchair. He pulled out a red purse.

    Mary's old hands flew up to her face in a gesture of wonder and joy, and then flew out hungrily like a starved child taking bread. Mary grabbed the red purse. She held it for a moment, and then pressed it to her breast, rocking it like a baby.

    Kenny leaned over, unzipped the purse open and showed Mary a comb inside. Tears of joy poured down Mary's face.

    Instead of paying lip service like the rest of us, Kenny had made Mary's problem his problem. I had been wrong about Kenny.

    Albert Hofmann was a Swiss Scientist who was fascinated by nature. This led him to a career in chemistry in which he sought answers to his uncertainties. He worked at Sandoz Laboratories where he nurtured his research work, and there he made a lot of success by working with various plants and changing them into something useful. He became famous when he became the first person to produce lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) (迷幻药). In addition, he was also the first person to taste it and learn about its hallucinogenic (勾起幻觉的) effects. He was deeply connected to the nature and argued that LSD, besides being useful for psychiatry(精神病学), could also be used to promote awareness of mankind's place in nature. However, he was disappointed that his discovery was being carelessly used as a drug for entertainment. Because of his discovery, LSD fans have fondly called him “The father of LSD”. Besides carrying out his scientific experiments, he also authored numerous books and more than 100 scientific articles. In 2007, he featured in a list of the 100 greatest living geniuses(天才), published by The Telegraph Newspaper.

Childhood & Early Life

    Albert Hofmann was born in Baden, Switzerland, on January 11, 1906. He was the eldest of four children. His father was a poor toolmaker in a factory and they lived in a rented apartment. He spent much of his childhood outdoors, and grew up with a very deep connection with nature.

    He had mind-blowing experiences in childhood, wherein nature was changed in magical ways that he didn't understand. These experiences caused questions in his mind, and chemistry was the scientific field which allowed him to understand them.

    He studied chemistry at Zurich University, and his main interest is the chemistry of plants and animals. At 23, he earned his Ph. D with honors.

    Physics is a different world now. Will there ever be another Einstein?

    Scientists say a new Einstein will appear, but it may take a long time. After all, more than 200 years separated Einstein from his nearest rival (对手) , Isaac Newton. Many physicists say the next Einstein hasn't been born yet, or is only a baby now. That's because the searching for a unified(统一的) theory that would explain all the forces of nature has pushed current mathematics to its limits. New math must be created before the problem can be solved.

    But researchers say there are many other factors working against another Einstein appearing anytime soon. For one thing, physics is quite a different field today. In Einstein's day, there were a few thousand physicists worldwide, and fewer theoreticians. Education is different, too. One extremely important aspect of Einstein's training that failed to be considered is the philosophy he read as a teenager. It taught him how to think theoretically about space and time.

    And he was a skilled musician. The interplay between music and math is well known. Einstein would fiercely play his violin as a way to think through a knotty physics problem.

    Today, universities have produced millions of physicists. There aren't many jobs in science for them, so they go to Wall Street and Silicon Valley to apply their analytical skills to more practical and rewarding efforts.

    Besides, those who stay in science don't work alone. It's very difficult to imagine an independent person like Einstein ever tolerating this.

    Dolphin or not a dolphin? That is the question! You see, there are several types of dolphins. Some are saltwater dolphins while others are river dolphins.

    "What are the 32 types of dolphins?" When people are asking the question, they are actually referring to the saltwater dolphins in oceans and seas. The river dolphins living in fresh water are not included in these species. But what would be the answer in this case if we ask. "Dolphin or not a dolphin?" The answer would obviously be yes. River dolphins still belong to the dolphin family.

    Among the 32 types of dolphins do not actually wear the word "dolphin" in their names, such as the tucuxi, while others actually have the word "whale" as part of their names even if they are not whales but in fact, belong to the dolphin family, for example, the melon-headed whale and the killer whale. So what would be the answer to the question "Dolphin or not a dolphin?" in these cases? It would be yes. All these species do belong to the dolphin family.

    Another question that people ask is. "Are the sea animals that perform at aquariums(水族馆)all dolphins?" So ,it always seems to come back to the question, "Dolphin or not a dolphin?" Well the answer is no in this case. The sea animals that perform there are not all dolphins. The beluga which people tend to think belong to the dolphin family because they show what seems like a smile, like most dolphins, are in fact a species of the whale family.

    Now that you read these facts about dolphins, you probably realize that certain sea animals may appear to be part of the dolphin species and that others seem to be part of the whale family but in either case, it is not obvious and can be surprising when you identify a sea animal as being a dolphin or not a dolphin. That is the question ！

    A new high tech mirror, designed specifically for cancer patients, will only become reflective when a user smiles into it. The plug-in device, which exactly looks like a tablet, comes equipped with a mirror, a built-in camera, and a smart material triggered(触发)by some software. Facial recognition technology captures the face and instructs the surface of the mirror to change when a smile is detected. It can hang on a wall or sit on a table, much like a conventional mirror. Unlike a regular mirror, however, the price is currently standing at a surprising $2000—$3000.

    After witnessing a close family member struggle through cancer treatments, Turkish industrial designer Berk Ilhan decided to focus his work primarily on products that would cultivate joy and benefit cancer patients directly.

    “She told me in the first days after her diagnosis, it was difficult for her to look in the mirror and acknowledge she had cancer.” he said.“ Our facial expressions affect how we feel. If we flex(绷紧)our facial muscles to smile, our brains think that something good happened and as a result, we feel happiness.”

    After earning his master's degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Ilhan spent several weeks visiting cancer hospitals in Turkey, speaking to both patients and doctors. He spent two years designing and developing the mirror. The idea behind it is that smiling, even when forced, can make us feel better, according to research known as the facial feedback hypothesis. Laughter is linked to improved immune system function, and some researchers claim it can even increase our lifespans.

Ilhan is currently producing the mirror in limited quantities at the previously mentioned price. The product, however, will soon be launching a campaign in which Ilhan hopes to raise enough funds to bring the price down to $500.He also intends to donate the mirror to hospitals when it is financially possible to do so.

    In many aspects, nowadays business environment has changed greatly since the late 1980s. The end of the cold war completely altered the very nature of the world's politics and economics. In just a few short years, globalization has started a variety of trends with profound consequences: the opening of markets, true global competition, widespread deregulation (解除政府对……的控制) of industry, and an abundance of accessible capital. we have experienced both the benefits and risks of a truly global economy, with both wall street and main street (平民百姓) feeling the pains of economic disorder half a world away.

    At the same time, we have fully entered the information age, starting breakthroughs in information technology, which have irreversibly altered the ability to conduct business unconstrained by the traditional limitations of time or space. Today, it's almost impossible to imagine a world without intranets, e-mail, and portable computers. With amazing speed, the internet is profoundly changing the way we work, shop, do business, and communicate.

    As a consequence, we have truly entered the post-industrial economy. We are rapidly shifting from an economy based on manufacturing and commodities to one that places the greatest value on information, services, support, and distribution. That shift, in turn, attaches great importance to "knowledge workers," a new class of wealthy, educated, and mobile people who view themselves as free agents in a seller's market.

Beyond the field of information technology, the increasing pace of technological change in virtually every industry has created entirely new business, wiped out others, and produced a great demand for continuous innovation (创新).New product, process, and distribution technologies provide powerful levers for creating competitive value. More companies are learning the importance of destructive technologies—innovations that hold the potential to make a product line, or even an entire business segment, virtually outdated.

    Another major trend has been the consumer and business markets. There's a growing appreciation that superficially similar groups of customers may have very different preferences in terms of what they want to buy and how they want to buy it. Now, new technology makes it easier, faster, and cheaper to identify and serve targeted micro-markets in ways that were physically impossible or prohibitively expensive in the past. Moreover, the trend feeds on itself, a business's ability to serve sub-markets fuels customers' appetites for more and more specialized offerings.