2 . “I like pigs,” Winston Churchill supposedly once said. “Dogs look up at us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals.” Whether Churchill’s contemporary George Orwell also liked pigs is less clear. But he, too, surely saw something in them that was lacking in other domestic beasts, for it was they who ended up running the show in novel Animal Farm. Pigs, then, are intelligent social creatures.

And, like all animals, they sometimes fight. A study just published in Animal Cognition by Ivan Norscia, a biological anthropologist at the University of Turin, in Italy, and his colleagues, looked at how a group of 104 domestic pigs went about resolving such incidents. In total, Dr. Norscia and his team studied the details of 216 pig conflicts over the course of six months.

Some pigs tend to be attackers; others tend to be victims. Who is what depends largely on weight, for, among pigs pounds mean power. The attacker might bite, kick, bump or lift the victim (or string together a sequence of those actions). Most conflicts ended in seconds, but some lasted a minute or two.

In most animal species that would be that. However, many of the pig conflicts Dr. Norscia observed had interested parties beyond the protagonists (主角). He therefore wanted to understand the role of these bystanders in resolving fights —and what this says about pigs’ cognitive (认知) abilities.

Since there was usually not enough time for a bystander pig to intervene during the heat of a conflict (though this did occur), he and his colleagues looked at what happened in the three minutes directly following an aggressive interaction. Sometimes, they found, the protagonists made up on their own —for instance, by touching noses.

On other occasions, though, a third pig stepped in. Sometimes this bystander acted as a peacemaker, engaging with the attacker and reducing the number of subsequent attacks compared with what might otherwise have been expected. Sometimes, by contrast, the bystander engaged with the victim. This appeared to calm the victim down, for it reduced anxiety-related behavior such as shaking and scratching.

3 . It’s a beautiful day in Jaen capital of Jaen Province of Southern Spain. The September ________ beats down on a sea of wedding(婚礼)guests. As Dave makes a final toast(祝酒词), the guests ________ applause(掌声), because he just ________ his speech in Spanish, which he couldn’t speak a year ago.

Dave and his wife Carol were in South Wales when their son Stewart called from Spain and asked them to meet a(n) ________ lady-Atanea and her family. ________, Dave and Carol traveled to Spain to meet them, where they felt very ________, because they couldn’t speak Spanish. It was Atanea who acted as ________ to make everyone understood. One week later Stewart asked Atanea to ________ him, and she said yes. Dave wanted to ________ his son and connect with his in laws on a deeper level, so the mom and he arrived in the UK, Dave ________ Spanish lessons in the local learning center.

Dave’s months of hard work and ________ come together in one wonderful expression of ________ for Stewart and Atanea. No wonder he receives warm applause. ________ Atanea’s family are applauding more than Dave’s speech. They are applauding the respect Dave shows for their ________. Through learning Spanish, Dave shows his new in-laws that he wants to be part of their lives and that he ________ his daughter-in-law deeply. After all, she couldn’t translate for them forever.

“China is at the center of many developments.     1     is important for our next generation to understand China’s culture and to also be able to work     2     (use) the Chinese language,”says Joan Deslandes, head teacher of Kingsford Community School in East London.

She     3     (make) the comments at the prize-giving ceremony (典礼) for the winners of the Chinese Proficiency Competition-“Chinese Bridge”. In total,     4     (near) 500 British students took part in the two competitions     5     (hold) earlier this year online.

“But more important is that China has a wonderful history and culture that is unknown     6     many of the young people in the UK. I feel it will be good to their development if they learn the language,“she says.     

In 2000, Kingsford became the     7     (one) school in Britain to introduce Chinese language courses into its curriculum.     

Present at the event were around 140 students and teachers from 17 schools     8     put on performances(表演) on the stage, including Chinese songs,     9     (tradition) dances and musical instruments.

“China is playing     10     important role on the international stage. Our children need to be equipped (具备) with all the skills, including language and cultural understanding, to be able to stay connected as they grow up,”says Suzanne Haigh, head teacher at Kensington Wade.

6 . When our youngest son was little, his favorite toys were “happy meal toys”. We collected them when we ______ at the different fast-food restaurants. He ______ his bookshelves with them. Often I would carefully remove them out of his hands when he ______.

As he got older, he felt ______ when asking for the children’s meal, so I would ______ the happy meal and give him the toys for his collection. ______ he finally gave up the idea of ______ happy meal toys, I continued to pass them on to his children.

When I visited them, I hid the toys in different parts of my huge ______ so that each day when I was there, they were allowed to ______ one toy to play with. These little toys seem to be a bigger ______ than any other big or expensive gift that I could bring them.

Without really trying, I guess I created a little ______ between us. They knew they could always find a happy meal toy stuck ______ in their Nana’s luggage (行李).

Whether it is a happy meal toy, the smell of cookies, or giving a book to a child, children need a ______ with their families.

Today, families are often spread across the country or even the globe. Keeping long-distance family ties requires some ______ but is well worth it.

When we mix love with every moment, even something as ______ as a happy meal toy can create sweet and lasting memories.

7 . If you’ve ever watched a dog sleep, you’ve probably wondered if animals dream. It’s a difficult question. We still don’t know exactly why humans dream, or why dreams might be important. Studying animal dreams is even harder.

Animal dreams might be very interesting. “I think dreaming gives us a way to relate many human cognitive abilities to animals, such as emotion, memory, and even imagination,“ says David M. Pena-Guzmán, who recently authored When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness.

We know monkeys have emotions, but consider spiders, which a recent study suggests may experience REM-like sleep and even dreams. The thought of spider dreams sounds outlandish, but it may be true.

“We have this idea of dreams being an imaginary process with something crazy in it,” says Matthew Wilson, a neurobiologist at MIT. “But when we look into animal models, we’re simply trying to understand what goes on during sleep that might influence learning, memory, and behavior.”

Cats were some of the first animals studied in dream research. Michel Jouvet, a pioneer of sleep studies, proved that cats dreamed in the 1960s.

In REM sleep, human muscles don’t move much despite the brain activity that powers our dreams. The body doesn’t act out our dreams no matter how real they seem. Jouvet learned that, in cats, a part of the brain called the pons seemed to control REM sleep and produce partial paralysis. By removing parts of the pons, Jouvet found with their brains deep in REM sleep the cats began to move as if awake, hunting, jumping and fighting against unseen threats. This provided a window into what was happening in the cats’ sleeping brains.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if actual dreams were found in animals, and I think finally we’ll be able to show that scientifically,” Stanford neurobiologist Philippe Mourrain says. “We’re not the only species able to remember and learn.”

8 . Every auntie I know has a kitchen drawer containing (容纳) a carefully kept collection of yogurt dabbas. Dabba is an Indian word for “box”, but it refers to all kinds of containers, too. Dabbas live many lives: the containers holding the yogurt we eat every day are saved and washed and washed again.

The reused dabbas end up storing food and pot luck contributions. They pass from house to house, living in their drawer or the fridge. Sometimes they are even returned to their original (最初的) owners full of some other delicious food. This is a fairly advanced skill and one only the elder aunties manage-recognizing their dabba from their friends’ seemingly same container is nothing short of miraculous (奇迹般的).

But just as every auntie values her dabbas, every uncle hates them. “How many of these things can you possibly need?” my father used to ask my mother, extremely annoyed. She would shoot him a look that would surely have killed a weaker man and place her dabba carefully back.

When I went away to university, my mom used to cook food and send it to me with strict instructions to wash the dabbas and bring them home. I felt awkward about my dabbas — why did we need to save these things? I weighed the choices: if I threw away the dabbas, would she still send me food? I knew the answer was yes, but it wasn’t a risk I was prepared to take.

Finally, I found my way to Halifax, where I now have a family of my own. Like my mother, I’m also the proud owner of a rich dabba collection, which I guard seriously. My husband is an American. Dealing with cultural differences is surely an adventure. The other night, I saw him throw my dabbas into the recycling bin. I narrowed my eyes a little as I fished them out, washed them up and replaced them in their drawer. I was practicing my mother’s death look.

9 . Whatever your interest is — Titanic, history, food, music or even Game of Thrones’ filming sites — one of the different tours on offer here in Belfast can satisfy you.

.GAME OF THRONES TOUR

A guided coach tour takes you to explore some of the exciting filming sites in the hit show. You can step into “Winterfell” and experience archery in a recreated film set in “Stark Family” costumes, or even meet some “Stark Family” members!

.TITANIC TOUR

Take the world’s only guided Titanic Boat tour to see the ever changing story of Belfast’s rich sea heritage and how the area has developed into a major tourist attraction. Exploring the Titanic story, the boat tour allows you to view the Titanic Quarter from the water. You also have a chance of seeing many seals living in Belfast.

.MUSIC TOUR

Take a bus journey through the heart of this rock and roll city. Sit back, relax, and enjoy music by way of amazing guitar players, from folk songs to rock and Hollywood soundtracks. Finish up at the wonderful Belfast Music show at the Oh Yeah Music Centre in the Cathedral Quarter.

.CITY TOUR

If you’re short on time but still want to get a general overview of the city, book a private guided taxi tour or a guided open top bus tour. It’s the best and quickest way to find out all about the city’s history and other places of interest.

10 . Zwingmann teaches online courses on AI and helps clients make use of artificial intelligence. Lately, he has been generating lecture notes using ChatGPT. “I went up and said, ‘OK, tell me a detailed step by step of how the DBSCAN algorithm works,’ and it gave me that step by step,” Zwingmann said.

The AI chatbot ChatGPT Zwingmann uses has taken the internet by storm. It allows users to input questions that ask the conversational assistant to create a series of writing tasks. Although the chatbot is still in its infancy, ChatGPT has the potential to be a game-changer for the whole world.

The GPT stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer”, providing detailed answers to users’ questions. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow up questions, challenge incorrect statements and reject inappropriate requests.

If you have a passion for writing but aren’t sure how to add a touch of elegance to your words, ChatGPT can help! If you want to create your personal web page but know little about HTML code, ChatGPT can generate the code for you! Even if you are an experienced developer, ChatGPT can help you analyze the code and provide a detailed explanation of the error along with suggestions for how to fix it.

Despite looking very impressive, ChatGPT still has limitations. Such limitations include the inability to answer questions that are worded in a specific way and the lack of quality in the responses it delivers, which sometimes seem to be reasonable but make no practical sense. With its widespread use, there is growing concern about how the tool might be used to help students create essays for class assignments.

So how good is it at producing literary works in the style of a news article? And how does its writing live up to the likes of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or a film producer like Ben Affleck? Judge for yourself.