A Calendar Listing of Cultural Events

Gypsy Caravan With 30 musicians and dancers, this show traces the Roma (or gypsy) migration from India to Western Europe. Representing dance traditions from India, Spain, Romania, and Macedonia. 7：30 P. M. Sanders Theatre, Cambridge. $20, $30, and $37.

Gal Costa World Music presents the Boston debut (首演）of Brazil’s tropicalismo superstar， backed by Dari Caymmi and his Quintet.

8 P.M. Berklee Performance Centre, Boston. $30, $35, and $40.

Harvest Ball Get out the black suit or fancy cocktail dress for a night of dancing to Mark Morris and the Catunes. The dance is a benefit for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

8 P.M. Back Bay Hilton, Boston.

$ 40 in advance, $ 50 at door.

Noche Flamenca Spain's flamboyant flamenco dance company returns to Boston.

8：00 P.M.

$20. $30, and $40.

Berlin Phiharmonic Orchestra The Celebrity Series opens its season with an all-Beethoven program.

8 P.M. Symphony Hall, Boston.

$ 45 - $ 95.

MUSEUMS

Geometric Abstraction： Latin American Art 60 paintings, drawings, and sculptures， Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge.

Sixth Annual Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition DeCordova Museum , Lincoln.

A Studio of Her Own： Women Artists in Boston 1870-1940 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Open every day except Monday.

Admission free.

Chess is one of the oldest board games in the world. A version of the game was first played in India in the sixth century. Throughout time, the game has been played by kings, knights, and generals who warned to prove their military skills and practice war strategies.

Today，the game is played by millions of ordinary people as well. Most play for fun,but there are players who compete seriously and have gone on to gain the rank of grandmaster -the highest rank a player can achieve.

In 1991, when Hungarian Judit Polgar achieve the rank of grandmaster, it caused quite an uproar (骚动）. First of all, Polgar is a female playing in a sport traditionally dominated by men. Also, Polgar was only 15 years old, making her the youngest in history at the time. In 1993, she defeated former world champion Boris Spassky in Budapest, Hungary. In 1998, she became the first woman in history to win the U. S, Open Chess Championship, which was held in Kailua-Kona，Hawaii.

Like her two older sisters, Polgar was strictly trained to be a master chess player as a young girl. She was homeschooled in all her subjects and played chess several hours every day. At the age of five, she was beating her father at the game. At eight years old，she was competing internationally. At the age of nine，she competed in and won the New York Open Chess tournament，placing first among unranked players. The young Polgar was just getting started.

Known for her fiercely competitive nature and ability to understand her opponents strategy early in a game, Polgar quickly won the respect of both fans and fellow chess players. Despite her achievements and clear talent, she often had trouble getting into top competitive situations because many of them didn’t include women. Polgar wanted to compete with the best一to be a world champion and not just a female champion. For this reason, she absolutely refused to play in women-only competitions. Her refusal paved the way for the next generation of female chess players.

Madagascar lies in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa. The island is perhaps best known as the unique home of the lemur (狐猴）. But those lemurs live among some of the most rich and varied flora (植物群）in the world. And so threatened is that flora that British and Malagasy scientists were involved in a project to collect seeds from the island to be stored in a British seed bank. The project is being done by the Royal Botanic Garden in London. The botanist Steward Cable is head of the conservation center there and a frequent visitor of the island.

I mean Madagascar is well known as one of the top biodiversity hot spots in the world. It has perhaps 13,000 plant species. 90% of those are unique to the country, i.e. found nowhere else in the world. But also many species, many of those species are only found in small areas.        And I would say that probably about 80% of the population are dependent on farming.

And a lot of their farming is slash and burn，shifting cultivation (耕作）where farmers have to move to a new patch of forest every year. They cut it and they burn it and they can grow dry rice or cassava for a year or so or two years at most.And the nutrients are gone and they have   to move to a new patch of forest .And for centuries that would not have been a problem with the low population and with long periods of no farming but people returning after three or five years something like that ,then the forest became grassland. So we are losing many of those species in Madagascar, those unique species.

Scientists who study the Sun watch for sunspots—violent storms that can affect communications，navigation systems and even electric power stations on the Earth.

Sunspots are a product of huge electromagnetic storms on the Sun. Scientists on the Earth are able to observe sunspots eight minutes after they happen. That is how long it takes for the Sun’s light to reach us.

The first electrically charged particles (颗粒）from a sunspot enter the Earth’s atmosphere about 20 to 30 minutes after the storm happens. These particles can harm human beings. So before they arrive, astronauts on the International Space Station move into special areas designed to protect them from their effects.

About a day or two later, the biggest part of the storm arrives. It is called a coronal mass ejection. “That is billions of tons of solar material that's blown away from the Sun. It’s traveling millions of kilometers an hour, but that is relatively slow.” says Alex Young, the Associate Director for Science at NASA's Heliophysics Science Division.

Several civilian government agencies and the U.S. Air Force watch weather conditions in space 24 hours a day. NASA does so because it must protect its astronauts and the electronic devices on its spacecraft.

Scientists are also trying to understand why the number of sunspots rises and falls at almost regular intervals every 11 years. In other words, scientists can almost predict the amount of solar activity. Sometimes the intensity (强度）is higher，sometimes lower，For example, the current solar cycle, as it is called, is much lower than the previous one.

Several satellites watch the Sun and the environment between the Sun and tho Earth. Pictures and other information from the satellites tell scientists what is happening on and near the Sun.

Alex Young says we have only been looking at the Sun with powerful instruments for about 30 to 40 years. Thai is a very short time compared to ll\o four billion years that tho star has been shining.