1 . For some people,music is no fun at all. About four percent of the population is what scientists call “amusic.” People who are amusic are born without the ability to recognize or reproduce musical notes(音调). Amusic people often cannot tell the difference between two songs. Amusics can only hear the difference between two notes if they are very far apart on the musical scale.

As a result, songs sound like noise to an amusic. Many amusics compare the sound of music to pieces of metal hitting each other. Life can be hard for amusics. Their inability to enjoy music sets them apart from others. It can be difficult for other people to identify with their condition. In fact, most people cannot begin to grasp what it feels like to be amusic. Just going to a restaurant or a shopping mall can be uncomfortable or even painful. That is why many amusics intentionally stay away from places where there is music. However, this can result in withdrawal and social isolation. “I used to hate parties,” says Margaret,a seventy-year-old woman who only recently discovered that she was amusic. By studying people like Margaret, scientists are finally learning how to identify this unusual condition.

Scientists say that the brains of amusics are different from the brains of people who can appreciate music. The difference is complex, and it doesn't involve defective hearing. Amusics can understand other nonmusical sounds well. They also have no problems understanding ordinary speech. Scientists compare amusics to people who just can't see. certain colors.

Many amusics are happy when their condition is finally diagnosed(诊断). For years, Margaret felt embarrassed about her problem with music. Now she knows that she is not alone. There is a name for her condition. That makes it easier for her to explain. “When people invite me to a concert, I just say,” No thanks, I'm amusic,'“says Margaret. “I just wish I had learned to say that when I was seventeen and not seventy.”

3 . In 2020, Pink launched the World Regret Survey, the largest survey on the topic ever undertaken. With his research team, Pink asked more than 15, 000 people in 105 countries, “How often do you look back on your life and wish you had done things differently?” Most of them said regret was at least an occasional part of their life. About 21 percent said they felt regretful all the time. Only 1 percent said they never felt regretful.

If you are of the “no regrets” school of life, you may think that all this regret is a recipe for unhappiness. But that isn’t the case. Letting yourself be overwhelmed by regret is indeed bad for you. But going to the other extreme may be even worse. To extinguish your regrets doesn’t free you from shame or sorrow but causes you to make the same mistakes again and again. To truly get over our guilt requires that we put regret in its proper place.

Uncomfortable as it is, regret is an amazing cognitive(认知的) feature. It requires that you go back to a past scene. Imagine that you acted differently to change it, and with that new scene in mind, arrive at a different present-and then, compare that fictional present with the one you are experiencing in reality. Not all regrets are the same, of course. Pink says they come in four basic types, and an instance of regret may involve just one combination.

Many connection regrets overlap (重叠) with moral regrets, which can come about after you go against your own values. For example, you may pride yourself on being a loving person, and thus regret not living up to this image in the relationship you harmed. Moral regrets can also involve just yourself. Maybe you regret not living up to your promise to your health when you ate a whole pizza or skipped the gym.

If not analyzed(分析) and managed, any kind of regret can be harmful to your well-being. Regret is linked to depression and anxiety, and too much regret can negatively affect your immune system. But regret doesn’t have to be put aside and ignored.

4 . There is more of a connection between food and culture than you may think. On an individual level, we grow up eating the food of our culture. It becomes a part of who we are. Many associate food from our childhood with warm feelings and good memories and it ties us to our families, holding a special and personal value for us. Food from our families often becomes the comfort food we seek as adults in times of frustration and stress.

On a large scale, traditional food is an important part of culture. It also operates as an expression of cultural identity. Immigrants bring it wherever they go, and it is a symbol of pride in their culture and means of coping with homesickness.

Many immigrants open their own restaurants and serve traditional dishes. However, the food does not remain exactly the same. Some materials needed to make traditional dishes may not be readily available, so the taste and flavour can be different from what they would prepare in their home countries. Additionally, immigrants do not only sell dishes to people from the same countries as them, but to people from different countries. Therefore, they have to make small changes in the original dishes to cater to a wider range of customers. Those changes can create new flavours that still keep the cultural significance of the dishes.

We should not only embrace our heritage (传统) through our culture’s food, but also become more informed about other cultures by trying their food. It is important to remember that each dish has a special place in the culture to which it belongs, and is special to those who prepare it. Food is a window on culture, and it should be treated as such.

5 . In March 2020, when I stood alone in the middle of the main road to the Lake District，it felt like the end of the world. As a local _______ , I’ve grown used to the heavy traffic. But suddenly, everything _______. The lockdown(因疫情封锁)brought quietness to the area, and I did feel a sense of relief(放松)to be done with the _______ for a while.

Just off the main road is Matterdale, where I _______ with my family. We own a farm and our work _______ tending farm animals. Like many who live in tourist attractions, we have been _______ by some visitors. My farming would have been significantly _______ without people parking in gateways, walking through the fields of lambs(羊羔)with running pet dogs _______ them, or giving up their tents along the river.

_______ my complaints(抱怨), however, I would never refuse visitors’ presence. I do understand their need for ________ after months of busy city life. In fact, I think I ________ them too. Of course, communities like ours rely on the income that ________ creates. But to me, there is something more personal. I once took my kids to the lake. Near the shore, we saw boys and girls playing together. A young dad was ________ his kid’s hand as she tiptoed through the shallows(浅水处). An elderly couple were sitting in the shade, ________ the view. I found myself content knowing that I was ________ this landscape(景色)with others.

As lockdown restrictions(限制)have ________ and visitors started to come back, I wonder how we can coexist ________ . For those who are reading this, I hope that my words can encourage you to ________ the communities you visit, and understand the responsibilities that come with ________ those places. Our love can coexist, even if it sometimes makes life a little ________.

8 . We recognize our friends’ faces. And we’re not alone. Many social animals can identify individuals of their own species by features of their faces. That's important, because they need to be able to change their behavior depending on who they meet. And a recent research has shown that some species of monkeys, birds, and domesticated (家养的) animals can even tell different faces apart by looking at photographs alone.

Ethologist Léa Lansade of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment did an experiment to find out how well horses can recognize individual people in photographs.

She and her team first taught the horses how to “choose” between two side-by-side pictures by touching their noses to a computer screen. The horses were then shown photos of their present keeper alongside faces of unfamiliar humans. They had never seen photos of any of the people before. The horses correctly identified their current keeper and ignored (忽视) the stranger’s face about 75%of the time. In fact, even though the horses didn't get it right every single time, they were at least as correct in picking out their earlier keeper as they were at identifying their present one.

The results suggest that not only can horses differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar human faces, they also naturally understand that photographs are two dimensional representations (二维呈现) of real life, without any other intimations such as smell or sound. And they’re even better at this than our oldest animal parter, the domestic dog.

In addition, horses seem to have a strong long-term memory for human faces, like their long lifespan and history of domestication. In future experiments, the researchers would like to test whether looking at photos of people that they have had bad experiences with in the past might cause horses to act anxious or even avoidance. So maybe think twice before doing anything that might give a horse a long face.

9 . On the day the tornado hit, there was no indication that severe weather was on its way—the sky was blue and the sun had been out. The first alert my husband, Jimmy, 67, and I, 65, got came around 9 p. m. , from some scrolling text on the TV Jimmy was watching. He ran upstairs to find me in our thirdfloor bedroom, and we changed the channel from the presidential primary debate I had been watching to our local Pensacola, Florida, station.

No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard. The bones of the house shook, and the power went out. The wind began to roar through the house, most likely through blownout windows and the door to our garage. We had three flights of steps to navigate to get to the relative safety of the first floor, because the cupboard down there is underneath a brick staircase.

I didn’t know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. I tried to move forward, but this intense pressure held me in place.

As we reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Pieces of glass that looked like crushed ice flew everywhere. Suddenly, a threefootlong tree branch crashed into the door frame. It flew over our heads, missing us by inches. Had we been one step up, it would have hit us.

By the time I reached the cupboard, the tornado had been over us for about a minute. Jimmy pushed me down to the cupboard floor, but he couldn’t get inside himself because of the wind. I held Jimmy’s arm and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees were full of glass, but at that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house and into the bay.

All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn't believe it was over, Jimmy said he'd go outside to check. “No,” I said. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. ”

Our neighbor said the storm lasted four minutes. In that time, four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Of the houses left standing, ours suffered the most damage. Amazingly, none of us were severely injured.