1 . Plato believed that men are divided into three classes: gold, silver and bronze. Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, argued that “ the vital few” contributed to most progress. Such viewpoints are taboo (禁忌) today in public life. Politicians avoid talking of a “leadership class” or “the vital few”. School recruitment turns away from picking winners. Universities welcome the masses: more people now teach at British universities than attended them in the1950s.

In the private sector things could hardly be more different. The world’s best companies struggle tirelessly to find and keep the vital few. They offer them fat pay packets, extra training, powerful instruction and more challenging assignments. Private-equity (私人股权) firms rely heavily on a few stars. Firms in emerging markets are desperate to find high-flyers who can cope with rapid growth and fast-changing environments.

Few people know more about how companies manage talent than Bill Conaty and RamCharan. Mr. Conaty led the human-resources department at General Electric (GE) for 14years. Mr. Charan has spent the past few decades presenting proposals to some celebrated entrepreneurs (企业家). Their recent book, The Talent Masters, provides. a nice mix of portraits of well-known talent factories, such as GE and Procter & Gamble (P&G).

Successful companies make sure that senior managers are involved with “ talent development”. Jack Welch and A. G. Lafley, former bosses of GE and P&G, claimed that they spent 40% of their time on personnel. Andy Grove, who ra n Intel, a chipmaker, obliged all the senior people, including himself, to spend at least a week a year instructing high-flyers . Nitin Paranjpe, the boss of Hindustan Unilever, recruits people from campuses and regularly visits high-flyers in their offices.

Elitism (精英主义) has its drawbacks. In their rush to classify people, companies can miss potential stars. Those who are singled out for special treatment can become too full of themselves.

2 . New research from Holland suggests that good conversational flow has a powerful effect on people’s feelings of self-respect and belonging, and that even brief silences—just four seconds long—during a conversation are enough .... As Tom Jacobs puts it, “Smooth conversational flow is associated with positive emotions, and a heightened sense of belonging, self-respect, social confirmation and agreement.”

For the study, researchers performed two experiments in which they studied participants’   responses to awkward silences. In the first, 102 college students read one story of two versions. The first version described someone making an unsympathetic remark—“I think fat people should pay for two seats on the bus”—which was followed by an obvious silence. In the second version, conversation flowed without pause after the remark.

The students were asked to imagine themselves as the speaker who made the faux pas. Not surprisingly, they reported feeling more anxious, rejected and less self-confident in the spot with the awkward silence than in the latter version.

The second experiment involved 60 undergrads watching videos of similar cases by turns, but in this case, the questionable remark took place in a conversation involving the topic of plagiarism (抄袭) among professors. In one case, the statement was followed by a four-second silence; in the other version, conversation continued to flow smoothly. Although the videos contained no other tips about the silence and viewers weren’t even consciously aware of the pause, students who viewed the version that contained the break in conversation again reported greater feelings of rejection and lower self-respect.

The researchers suggest that sensitivity toward signs of rejection and exclusion is not a matter of life and death. Luckily, the consequences of social rejection are typically far less terrible these days.

3 . Compared with Marie Curie, Wu Chien-shiung is not a household name in China, where she was born and grew up, or in the United States, where she spent most of her life.

Wu’s father received a modern education in Shanghai, and in 1913, founded the first school for girls in Taicang, aiming to break the old sexist   advocacy that it was women’s virtue to have no talents, which had the most profound influence on Wu’s life. Now, the school has become Mingde Senior Middle School.

Working in the scientific world dominated by men, she never gave up or lowered her standards even if unequally treated. After graduating from the former National Central University in Nanjing, Wu, aged 24, enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley to continue her study in physics. She was the first woman to be president of American Physical Society.

To get accurate results from experiments, she worked seriously day and night at a laboratory and gained a reputation for accuracy. There was a saying among physicists:   “If the experiment was done by Wu, it must be correct.” As one of the most influential nuclear physicists of the 20th century, she thoroughly changed human’s view of the universe. Her experiments overturned many previous experimental results and theories.

Wu lived a simple life, but she set up a funding program in honor of her father with her life savings, rewarding students and teachers at Mingde Senior Middle School. In 1997, Wu died aged 85 in the US. According to her will, she was buried in her hometown Taicang. Chiang Tsai-chien, the author of her biography, Madame Wu Chien-shiung: The First Lady of Physics Research, wrote the epitaph (墓志铭) that starts, “Here’s buried the most prominent female physicist Wu Chien-shiung”, and ends, “she was a distinguished world citizen, and was forever a Chinese”.

I stayed mostly at home recovering from major surgery for breast cancer. Then my Today show colleague Matt threw me a lifeline by asking whether I felt well enough to tape a“ Where in the World?” segment (节目). He suggested kindly that I pick a couple of days and escape.   On second thought, I jumped at the chance.

The trip was fun, and on the plane back home, my plan was to sleep for the entire flight. The earbuds were an inch away from going in when the guy beside turned to me and said, “Hi. How are you doing? I recognize you from somewhere.”

“I work on the Today show,” I told him, still holding my earbuds.

He smiled at me. “How’s Matt? Is Matt nice?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Matt’s nice.”

“How’s Al? Al seems funny.”

He then noticed I was wearing a compression sleeve (压力袖套) on my arm and asked what that was. I told him I’d had a “procedure”   and needed the sleeve to fly, hoping we could change the subject.

But he continued, “What procedure did you have?”

“I had an operation,” I said vaguely. Defeated by his curiosity, I finally said, “I had breast cancer. But, I hope that’s not the first thing you think of when getting off this flight, telling your kids, ‘Hey, I sat next to this girl with breast cancer.’”

He paused for a moment and said,   “What’s wrong with that? It is part of you, like going to college or getting married. Let me give you some advice: Don’t hog(独占) your journey. It’s not just for you. Think of how many people you could help.”

I could feel tears coming down my face.

“Look! You have a choice in life. You can either put your story deep in your pockets and take it to your grave, or you can help someone.”

Despite being open on a show, I’ve always been a private person, and aside from the few people who needed to know, I’d kept my illness secret. I didn’t want to be defined by my weakness.

But this man, Ken, showed me that my illness gave me strength.

Years later, awarded for my volunteer work at a charity event, I met Ken again.

9 . Kew Gardens is not only a popular tourist destination in London, but also a botanic garden and a research center that has the largest collection of living plants at a single site. So, let’s explore the Royal Botanic Gardens with CGTN’s reporter Robyn Dwyer.

Palm House

The first stop is the Palm House, a giant indoor rainforest with a wide range of plants. Visitors can enjoy these exotic plants while researchers can study the secrets of these flora. Eatable plants such as cocoa tree and African oil palm are all preserved here to keep the diversity of food resources. At the same time, it houses many medical use plants, including some that are used to treat cancer.

Temperate House

Known as the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse, the Temperate House is home to1,500 species of plants from temperate regions of the world. Some of the species kept here have gone extinct in the wild, such as Encephalartos woodii, a cycad from South Africa. And some are already extinct like Saint Helena olive, but the Kew has stored its DNA.

Mediterranean Garden

In the Mediterranean Garden, one can see plants from the Southern Europe, such as rosemary, olives and cork oak. Walking in the garden, one can feel the non-indoor vibe (氛围) of the Mediterranean and learn about the economic as well as scientific uses of these plants.

On International Day for Biological Diversity this year, join CGTN to travel around the world’s national parks and reserves across seven continents. Our next program is to visit penguins and seals in the Antarctic Ice Aquarium Norway. Please stay tuned!

It may be impossible to visit the “end of the world,” but one place in Argentina could take you close. Ushuaia—     1     (pronounce) “ooh-SWA-ya”—is often called the southernmost city in the world.

Almost the only thing south of Ushuaia is Antarctica, making     2     one of the few places from where you can travel to the White Continent. And with an increase in Antarctic tourism during the past few years, more boats     3     (leave) from Ushuaia—meaning more people have been attracted to this southern city.

So, what is there to do?     4     20-minute drive from the city is the Tierra del Fuego National Park,     5     visitors can enjoy mountains, glaciers, beaches and wildlife. The park has lots of hiking     6     (route), or you can rent a canoe to enjoy     7     (incredible) beautiful views from the water. Take the “End of the World Train” to the park-with its vintage cars,     8     you may feel like you’ve traveled back in time. Ushuaia is also a great place     9     (see) penguins, which are mostly found on the islands of the Beagle Channel to the south. Martillo Island is easy to get to     10     boat, and is full of Magellanic and Gentoo penguins. At the end of the day, enjoy some local seafood—such as king crabs—and a warm cup of traditional yerba mate, an Argentinian tea.