2 . We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices(装置) well after they go out of style. That’s bad news for the environment — and our wallets — as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life — from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation — Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones. "The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids' room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices — we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions（排放）more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

So what's the solution（解决方案）? The team's data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

3 . We’ve all been there: in a lift, in line at the bank or on an airplane, surrounded by people who are, like us, deeply focused on their smartphones or, worse, struggling with the uncomfortable silence.

What’s the problem? It’s possible that we all have compromised conversational intelligence. It’s more likely that none of us start a conversation because it’s awkward and challenging, or we think it’s annoying and unnecessary. But the next time you find yourself among strangers, consider that small talk is worth the trouble. Experts say it’s an invaluable social practice that results in big benefits.

Dismissing small talk as unimportant is easy, but we can’t forget that deep relationships wouldn’t

even exist if it weren’t for casual conversation. Small talk is the grease(润滑剂) for social communication, says Bernardo Carducci, director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast. ＂Almost every great love story and each big business deal begins with small talk,＂ he explains. ＂The key to successful small talk is learning how to connect with others, not just communicate with them.＂

In a 2014 study, Elizabeth Dunn, associate professor of psychology at UBC, invited people on their way into a coffee shop. One group was asked to seek out an interaction(互动) with its waiter; the other, to speak only when necessary. The results showed that those who chatted with their server reported significantly higher positive feelings and a better coffee shop experience. ＂It’s not that talking to the waiter is better than talking to your husband,＂ says Dunn. ＂But interactions with peripheral(边缘的) members of our social network matter for our well-being also.＂

Dunn believes that people who reach out to strangers feel a significantly greater sense of belonging, a bond with others. Carducci believes developing such a sense of belonging starts with small talk. ＂Small talk is the basis of good manners,＂ he says.

4 . Why isn’t science better? Look at career incentives.

There are often substantial gaps between the idealized and actual versions of those people whose work involves providing a social good. Government officials are supposed to work for their constituents. Journalists are supposed to provide unbiased reporting and penetrating analysis. And scientists are supposed to relentlessly probe the fabric of reality with the most rigorous and skeptical of methods.

All too often, however, what should be just isn’t so. In a number of scientific fields, published findings turn out not to replicate (复制), or to have smaller effects than, what was initially claimed. Plenty of science does replicate — meaning the experiments turn out the same way when you repeat them — but the amount that doesn’t is too much for comfort.

But there are also ways in which scientists increase their chances of getting it wrong. Running studies with small samples, mining data for correlations and forming hypotheses to fit an experiment’s results after the fact are just some of the ways to increase the number of false discoveries.

It’s not like we don’t know how to do better. Scientists who study scientific methods have known about feasible remedies for decades. Unfortunately, their advice often falls on deaf ears. Why? Why aren’t scientific methods better than they are? In a word: incentives. But perhaps not in the way you think.

In the 1970s, psychologists and economists began to point out the danger in relying on quantitative measures for social decision-making. For example, when public schools are evaluated by students’ performance on standardized tests, teachers respond by teaching “to the test”. In turn, the test serves largely as of how well the school can prepare students for the test.

We can see this principle—often summarized as “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”—playing out in the realm of research. Science is a competitive enterprise. There are far more credentialed (授以证书的) scholars and researchers than there are university professorships or comparably prestigious research positions. Once someone acquires a research position, there is additional competition for tenure (终身教授) grant funding, and support and placement for graduate students. Due to this competition for resources, scientists must be evaluated and compared. How do you tell if someone is a good scientist?

An oft-used metric (标准，度量) is the number of publications one has in peer-reviewed journals, as well as the status of those journals. Metrics like these make it straightforward to compare researchers whose work may otherwise be quite different. Unfortunately, this also makes these numbers susceptible to exploitation.

If scientists are motivated to publish often and in high-impact journals, we might expect them to actively try to game the system (钻空子). And certainly, some do—as seen in recent high-profile cases of scientific fraud (欺诈). If malicious (恶意的) fraud is the prime concern, then perhaps the solution is simply heightened alertness.

However, most scientists are, I believe, genuinely interested in learning about the world, and honest. The problem with incentives is that they can shape cultural norms without any intention on the part of individuals.

9 . Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching one has been the inevitable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.

It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once considered suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.

We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War II, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament (装饰) to the publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. “So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism,” Newman wrote, “that I am tempted to define ‘journalism’ as ‘a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are’.”

Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England’s foremost classical-music critics, a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists.

Is there any chance that Cardus’s criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.