Just a couple of hours ago, I was on the plane, ready to fly home from London. The flight had been delayed by a few hours so it felt good to be so close to take-off. I had my iPod in place and a new book to read. Then, over the loudspeaker came the pilot’s voice: "The ground crew has found a metal instrument in one tire. We regret that we must cancel this flight."

The passengers’ reactions that announcement led to were interesting. One man close to me began to argue with a flight attendant. A couple in another row complained loudly. A businessman in a black suit actually kicked the seat in front of him. Yet some passengers responded differently. An elderly gentleman smiled as he helped others take their bags down from the overhead compartments (隔间). A teenager, rather than trying to rush off the plane like most of the other passengers, stopped to help a woman with a disability. The lady sitting next to me laughed and said: "Hey, it’s not the end of the world..." before she made a call to her kids and shared her adventure with them. The wisest among us have a remarkable ability to maintain grounded when times get tough.

No life is perfect； mine certainly isn’t. We all must face challenges, both large and small. You and I have the power to choose to rise above the external circumstances. We always have the choice to be strong and kind when things fall apart.

That’s grace under pressure. My seatmate was right — things could have been so much worse. Anyway, I am safe. I have my health. I have two wonderful children. I have work I love and so much to be grateful for. Sure I now have to wait a few hours to catch the next flight home.

Is it possible that the sinking of the Titanic was caused by a ghost? A lot of the story below is true…but did it really happen quite like this?

Our story begins not in the icy cold waters of the North Atlantic, but rather thousands of miles away in Egypt. It is here, perhaps, that we can find the start of the mystery(谜) of the Titanic, in the year 1910, in the great city of Cairo.

One day, a famous professor of Egyptian history called Douglas Murray was staying in Cairo, when he was contacted by an American adventurer.

The American had something unusual to offer Murray, something that was certain to thrill him: a beautiful ancient Egyptian mummy case, containing the mummy of an Egyptian queen. It was over 3000 years old, but in beautiful condition —gold, with bright paintings on it. Murray was delighted with both the object and the asking-price. He gave the man a cheque immediately.

The cheque was never cashed. That evening the American adventurer died. For his part, Murray arranged to have the treasure sent back to Britain. However, it was not long before he learnt more about the beautiful mummy case: On the walls of the tomb in which it had been discovered, there were messages which warned of terrible consequences to anyone who broke into the tomb. Murray was disbelieving of these warnings until a few days later, when a gun he was holding exploded in his hand, shattering his arm. The arm had to be cut off.

After the accident, Murray decided to return to his homeland. On the return journey, two of his companions died mysteriously, and two servants who had handled the mummy also passed away. The now-terrified Murray decided he would get rid of the cursed case as soon as he arrived in London. A lady he knew named Janet Jones said she would like it, so he gave it to her. Shortly afterwards, Jones’ mother died, and she herself caught a strange disease. She tried returning the mummy, but naturally Murray refused it. In the end, it was presented to the British Museum.

Even in the museum, the mummy apparently continued to cause strange events. A museum photographer died shortly after taking pictures of the new exhibit, and a manager also died for no apparent reason. In the end, the British Museum decided to get rid of the mummy too. They sold it to a collector in New York.

At the start of April 1912, arrangements for the transfer were complete, and the mummy began the journey to its new home. But the New Yorker never received the mummy or its case. For when the Titanic sank, one of the objects in its strong-room was the mummy case. Or so they say.

A．used to work for the British Museum

B．was a British professor of Egyptian history

C．didn’t believe the mummy really brought bad fortune

D．was a famous American adventurer

A．uncommon	B．expensive
C．unlucky	D．forgotten

a. The case was given to the British Museum.

b. Janet Jones caught a mysterious illness.

c. Murray’s arm was cut off

d. The mummy case was sold to an American.

e. A man who took a picture of the case died.

f. Warnings were written on the tomb’s walls.

The son of a piano producer, Elwyn Brooks White was born in Mount Vernon in a wealthy family．And he was raised with the mix of sophistication（富有经验）and common sense that would mark his writing．

After graduation, White spent a year as a newspaper reporter in New York City, then decided to drive across the country with a friend．The trip gave White a lifetime of anecdotes．“When they ran out of money," White's friend, James Thurber, noted, "they played for their supper and their gasoline on an interesting musical instrument that White had made out of some pieces of wire and an old shoe．"

When White returned to New York City in the mid-1920s, he spent a few years bouncing between advertising jobs and unemployment before trying his hand again at writing．Not very seriously, he sent some essays to a new magazine called The New Yorker．Since its founding in 1925, the magazine had struggled to find its niche, and White's work helped put The New Yorker on the map．His essays were funny and sophisticated; they spoke equally to socialites(社会名流）and cab drivers, professors and repairmen．Through his essays, which he wrote for nearly 50 years, White helped give The New Yorker its voice and identity．

In 1945, already a leading literary figure, White switched to his second occupation writing children's books．He moved from New York to a farm in Maine, where he raised chickens and geese． Seeking a way to amuse his nieces and nephews, White started to write stories for them．“Children were always after me to tell them a story and I found I couldn't do it," he said．“ So I had to get it down on paper．”

By the time he died from Alzheimer's disease in 1985, White's essays had appeared in more literary collections in colleges than those of any other writer．Many said his essays matched his personality: sophisticated without being simple, critical without being mean．

According to a new US study, couples who expect their children to help care for them in old age should hope they have daughters because they are likely to be twice as attentive as sons overall.

The research by Angelina Grigoryeva, a sociologist at Princeton University, found that, while women provide as much care for their elderly parents as they can manage, men do as little as they can get away with and often leave it to female family members. 

Her analysis of the family networks of 26,000 older Americans concluded that gender(性别) is the most important predictor(预示物) of whether or not people will actively care for elderly parents. 

In a paper being presented at the annual conference of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, she concludes that simply having a sister makes men statistically likely provide less care. 

Using data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, a study which has been tracking a cross-section of over-50s for the last decade, she calculated that women provide an average of 12.3 hours a month of care for elderly parents while men offer only 5.6 hours. 

“Whereas the amount of elderly parent care daughters provide is associated with limitations they face, such as employment or childcare, sons’ caregiving is associated only with the presence or absence of other helpers, such as sisters or a parent’s spouse(配偶),” she explained. 

“Sons reduce their relative caregiving efforts when they have a sister, while daughters increase theirs when they have a brother.” 

“This suggests that sons pass on parent caregiving responsibilities to their sisters.” 

In the UK, the 2011 census(人口普查) showed that there are now around 6.5 million people with caring responsibilities – a figure which has risen by a tenth in a decade. 

But many are doing so at the risk of their own health. The census showed that those who provide 50 hours or more of care a week while trying to hold down a full- time job are three times more likely to be struggling with ill health than their working counterparts(相对应的人) who are not carers.

Nature’s cheats

Mary is digging in the ground for a potato，when along comes John．Seeing that there is no one in sight, John starts to scream．John’s angry mother rushes over and drives Mary away．Once his mum has gone，John helps himself to Mary’s potato．

We’ve all experienced similar annoying tricks when we were young-the brother who stole your ball and then got you into trouble by telling your parents you had hit him．But Mary and John are not humans．They’re African baboons(狒狒)．    16    

John’s scream and his mother’s attack on Mary could have been a matter of chance, but John was later seen playing the same tricks on others．    17    

Studying behavior like this is complicated, but scientists discovered apes(猿)clearly showed that they intended to cheat and knew when they themselves had been cheated．    18     An ape was annoying him, so he tricked her into going away by pretending he had seen something interesting．When she found nothing, she “walked back, hit me over the head with her hand and ignored me for the rest of the day．”

Another way to decide whether an animal’s behavior is deliberate is to look for actions that are not normal for that animal．A zoo worker describes how an ape dealt with an enemy．“He slowly stole up behind the other ape, walking on tiptoe．When he got close to his enemy, he pushed him violently in the back, then ran indoors.” Wild apes do not normally walk on tiptoe．    19     But looking at the many cases of deliberate trickery in apes, it is impossible to explain them all as simple copying．

It seems that trickery does play an important part in ape societies．    20     Studying the intelligence of our closest relative could be the way to understand the development of human intelligence．