【推荐1】Comedy and Psychology

Earlier this year I did a part-time comedy course. The class was taught by Ryan, a professional comedian.I had performed a show, which wasn’t originally meant to be a comedy. However, the audience laughed at my first joke, then continued to laugh throughout the routines that were meant to be serious. So it was the audience who told me I was funny, but I didn’ t understand why or how to control the comic (滑稽的) moments. So, I joined the course to learn.

“Turn off your editor that makes you say the right thing and remember how to be a child,” explained Ryan. “Don’t try to be clever. Don’t try too hard to be funny…and knowing all about the theory of humor is unlikely to help you much. Just behave in a silly way. That’s what people want to see on stage.”Ryan would help us loosen up by saying things like, “Wander around talking to others, but make sure that you’re the lowest status person here.”

I’ d say that understanding the psychology of humor has actually helped. Recently I came across the book Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind. Its main idea is that any self-directed intelligent system will need to correct its own fault. There’s a risk that the occasional error will be made. If this was boring or burdensome, we’d be less willing to do it. However, evolution has made the process fun.

Here’s a joke in the book: Two fish are in a tank. One says to the other, “Do you know how to drive this thing?” It works on the principle that we have started to imagine one thing—that the tank is the typical container people keep fish in—and, just in time, the following words tell us that our first assumption was wrong—it’s a heavy vehicle. For correctly figuring out the error, we are rewarded with a pleasurable feeling. The joke is an efficient way of encouraging this natural reaction, and comedians have become experts in slightly touching this mental funny-bone in order to make us laugh.

Ryan was right when he said that knowing the theory of humor wouldn’t help us that much as a comedy.During one exercise in the course, four of us were told to perform an opera. Susan and Caroline sang earnestly on either side of the stage, and I brought Henry to the floor, where we wrestled (摔跤) each other like out-of-control teenagers. The rest of the group was in uncontrollable fits of laughter. As a performer, I’ ll never appreciate just why it seemed so funny. But the point is that I would never have written this on the paper. It was a joyous, found moment.

【推荐3】Almost everyone has heard the expression, "the calm before the storm". It is usually used to describe a peaceful period just before a very stressful situation or a tense argument.

British sailors coined the phrase in the late 1600s. They noted that before certain storms the seas would seem to become static(平静的) and the winds would drop. But why is it often so calm before a storm?

According to the US website How Stuff Works, a calm period occurs because many storms, tornadoes and hurricanes draw in all the warm and wet air from the surrounding area. As the air rises into the storm clouds, it cools and acts as “fuel for the storm, like petrol in a car”. Once the storm has taken all the energy it can from the air, it is pushed out from the top of the storm clouds and falls back down to ground level. As the air goes down, it becomes warm and dry. Warm and dry air is stable, so once it covers an area, it causes a calm period before the storm.

This same process also causes the “eye of the storm” in hurricanes and tornadoes. In these conditions, the calm occurs in the center of the storm because of the strong circling winds.

The Weather Network has a tip for working out how far away a storm is, First count how many seconds there are between a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, roughly three seconds equal one kilometer. So, for example, if you count nine seconds, the storm is about three kilometers away. A good judge is that if your count is below 30 seconds, you should seek shelter straight away.

However, due to the complexity of storm system, not all storms are proceeded (领先) by calm. Given the right conditions, some storms announce themselves with heavy rain and icy winds. So, your best bet is to keep yourself updated with weather reports for any predictions regarding a coming storm in your area. That’s the most reliable and sensible way to predict the next display of nature’s temper.

【推荐1】When it comes to saving the planet,more and more people begin to realize the importance of living green.However,more rubbish than we can imagine is being produced every day.How we deal with waste is a big environmental problem.

Waste sorting is a good way to save the planet.Waste sorting refers to the separation of waste into different kinds.Dry waste should be separated from wet waste.Dry waste is made up of anything that is naturally dry and can't be broken down,such as metal and paper while wet waste refers to organic(有机的）waste,such as trees,plant cuttings and flowers.Wet waste also refers to food that needs to be thrown away.Famous companies such as Allmetro Bins are available to offer advice about how to sort waste.

Waste sorting allows recycling factories to place all of the recyclable items together and get rid of what can't be recycled,thus doing less damage to the environment.In addition,we can reduce producing products using raw materials,which is good for the protection of natural resources(资源）。

Advanced technologies are being developed and used nowadays to help sort out waste. Even so,about another 300 factories for sorting and recycling are possible to be built by 2025 to meet the increasing need to reduce waste across Europe to the lowest possible level.

Remember:sorting at home is the first step towards recycling.By separating the glass waste from the rest,we will be doing our bit for the environment.

【推荐2】Why do you think people who live in some hot countries eat very spicy (辛辣的) food? Is it because the spices make the food taste better? Is it just because their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents liked hot food, or is there some connection between spices and healthy food?

Researchers from Cornell University think that it is because spice plants have some important chemicals. These chemicals can kill bacteria (细菌) which spoil food. “Most common spices can kill 75 to 100 percent of the bacteria in food,” explains one of the scientists. The bacteria grow more easily and spoil food more quickly at higher temperatures. For this reason, it is more difficult to keep food from spoiling in hot climates.

Do you like your food spicy? Your answer probably tells something about the country you come from．If you like spicy food, it is possible that hundreds of years ago, when there were no fridges, people in your country started using spices to keep the food from spoiling. The traditional spicy dishes helped those people to live longer, healthier lives. Today, in a time of fridges, the spices just make the food taste good.

【推荐1】All too often, a choice that seems sustainable (可持续的) turns out on closer examination to be problematic.Probably the best example is the rush to produce ethanol (乙醇) for fuel from corn.Corn is a renewable resource — you can harvest it and grow more, almost limitlessly.So replacing gas with corn ethanol seems like a great idea.

One might get a bit more energy out of the ethanol than that used to make it, which could still make ethanol more sustainable than gas generally, but that's not the end of the problem.Using corn to make ethanol means less corn is left to feed animals and people, which drives up the cost of food.That result leads to turning the fallow land — including, in some cases, rain forest in places such as Brazil — into farmland, which in turn gives off lots of carbon dioxide into the air.Finally, over many years, the energy benefit from burning ethanol would make up for the forest loss.But by then, climate change would have progressed so far that it might not help.

You cannot really declare any practice “sustainable” until you have done a complete life­cycle analysis of its environmental costs.Even then, technology and public policy keep developing, and that development can lead to unforeseen and undesired results.The admirable goal of living sustainably requires plenty of thought on an ongoing basis.

【推荐3】On April 14th, 2010, my entire life changed in an instant. One moment I was joyfully riding through the sunshine. The next moment, metal, flesh and bone were spreading against the pavement in a thunderous crash. Another cyclist, biking carelessly, had cut me off and sent me supermanning toward oncoming traffic.

As if to symbolize the accident that had hit my life, another disaster also occurred on April 14th, 2010. It cost the airline industry $1.7 billion. Ten million travelers were stuck for days. Economies all over the world were disturbed. This was the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, one of Iceland’s many volcanoes.

However, volcanoes are not all bad. In fact, they are necessary. They are responsible for the birth of new earth, and for the creation of rich soil. This eruption gave off 0.15 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere daily. But cancelling 48% of the world’s flight travel saved about 2.8 million tons of CO₂ from entering the atmosphere, temporarily decreasing our carbon footprint.

Similarly, the accident had badly affected my emotion but it also allowed me to look more closely inside myself and discover things about myself I never would have realized. I learned how not to judge myself for my new limitations.

In 1973, another Icelandic volcano, Eldfell, broke out. Icelanders decided to bomb it with cold water until it froze and chose a different path. After their plan worked, they used the geothermal (地热) energy for the next 15 years to heat their homes. A good example of life bringing lemons, and making lemonade! One must move on from misfortunes, focusing only on the present moment and being hopeful for the future.

I ran from April 14th, 2010, to every kind of escape. Eventually I ended up in university for a new-found love in Earth sciences.