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Want to make people laugh?  Here are a few tips to keep in mind if your goal is to tickle some funny bones. 

Consider your audience. Your audience, whether it' s your parents in your living room or a paying crowd at an auditorium, must be able to connect with any situation you describe in your jokes. If they can' t relate to the joke, or if they don' t completely understand it, then it' s simply not funny to them.  If you have to explain a joke to someone, the person might eventually understand it, but he or she probably won' t think it' s funny. This is the reason that many jokes don' t translate well into another language. They rely on an understanding of a particular culture. You can translate the words but, without an appreciation for the background, many translated jokes aren' t very funny. 

There' s a reason that people say, "Stop me if you' ve heard this one" before telling a joke. If your audience already knows (or can guess) the end of a joke before you tell it, then it' s not going to make them laugh. People laugh at the end of a joke because they' ve been told a story and led toward its ending, (unconsciously) thinking about what will happen next or how it will end. Surprise is part of the reason that you want to learn to tell jokes without laughing. If you laugh, then your listeners expect you to say something funny. If you tell a joke without laughing or smiling, then they' re more surprised when you get to the funny part.

Check your timing. Another important part of humor is timing, or delivering the punch line at the best possible moment.  The reason is that this builds tension. The listener knows the end is coming and is waiting for it. When you finally tell the punch line, the listener feels a sense of relief and is more and inclined to laugh. 

A. Use surprise. 

B. Choose your jokes. 

C. Then you' ve got to know what' s funny. 

D. Make sure your jokes are often told within limited time. 

E. It' s often useful to pause before telling the last line of a joke. 

F. When we hear something that wasn' t what we were expecting, we find it funny. 

G. People love jokes that, based on their experience, make them say, "That' s so true!"

Cornell University researchers have developed a silent-speech recognition interface that uses acoustic-sensing ( 声学传感) and artificial intelligence to continuously recognize up to 31 unvocalized commands, based on lip and mouth movements. The low-power, wearable eyewear—called EchoSpeech—requires just a few minutes of user training data before it will recognize commands and can be run on a smartphone. 

Ruidong Zhang, doctoral student of information science, is the lead author of "EchoSpeech—Continuous Silent Speech Recognition on Minimally-obtrusive Eyewear Powered by Acoustic Sensing," which will be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) this month in Hamburg, Germany.

"For people who cannot vocalize sound, this silent speech technology could be an excellent input for a voice synthesizer. It could give patients their voices back," Zhang said of the technology' s potential use with further development. In its present form, EchoSpeech could be used to communicate with others via smartphone in places where speech is inconvenient or inappropriate, like a noisy restaurant or quiet library. The silent speech eyewear can also be paired with a stylus (触控笔) and used with design software like CAD, all but erasing the need for a keyboard and a mouse.

Outfitted with a pair of microphones and speakers smaller than pencil erasers, the EchoSpeech become a wearable AI-powered sonar (声呐) system, sending and receiving soundwaves across the face and sensing mouth movements. A deep learning algorithm (算法) then analyzes these echo profiles in real time, with about 95% accuracy. 

"We' re moving sonar onto the body," said Cheng Zhang, assistant professor of information science and director of Cornell' s Smart Computer Interfaces for Future Interactions (SciFi) Lab. "We' re very excited about this system," he said, "because it really pushes the field forward on performance and privacy. It' s small, low-power and privacy-sensitive, which are all important features for using new, wearable technologies in the real world. "

Most technology in silent-speech recognition is limited to a select set of predetermined commands and requires the user to face or wear a camera, which is neither practical nor achievable, Cheng Zhang said. There also are major privacy concerns involving wearable cameras—for both the user and those with whom the user interacts, he said. 

Acoustic-sensing technology like EchoSpeech removes the need for wearable video cameras. And because audio data is much smaller than image or video data, it requires less bandwidth to process and can be relayed to a smartphone via Bluetooth in real time, said François Guimbretière, professor in information science. "And because the data is processed locally on your smartphone instead of uploaded to the cloud," he said, "privacy-sensitive information never leaves your control. "

This week I watched an international news program and saw what looked like most of the planet—the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia—painted in bright oranges and reds. Fahrenheit (华氏温度的) temperatures in three-digit numbers seemed to burn all over on the world map. 

Heat records have burst around the globe. This very weekend, crops are burning,

roads are bending and seas are rising, while lakes recede, or even disappear. Ice sheets melt in rising heat, and wildfires attack forests. People are dying in this heat. Lives of all kinds are threatened, in cities, fields, seas, deserts and forests. Wildlife, farm animals, insects and human beings are in pain. 

The UN' s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says there is more deadly heat in our future because of climate change caused by our species on this planet. Even with advances in wind, solar and other alternative energy sources, and international promises and agreements, the world still derives about 80% of its energy from fossil fuels, like oil, gas and coal, which release the carbon dioxide that' s warmed the climate to the current temperatures of this hot summer. The WMO' s chief, Petteri Taalas, said this week, "In the future these kinds of heatwaves are going to be normal. "

The most alarming word in his forecast might be: "normal. " I' m of a generation that thought of summer as a sunny time for children. I think of long days spent outdoors without worry, playing games or just wandering. John Updike wrote in his poem, "June":

The sun is rich

And gladly pays

In golden hours,

Silver days,

And long green weeks

That never end.

School' s out. The time

Is ours to spend.

There' s Little League,

Hopscotch, the creek,

And, after supper,

Hide-and-seek.

The live-long light

Is like a dream. . .

But now that bright, "live-long light," of which Updike wrote, might look threatening in a summer like this.

The extremely hot weeks that we see this year cause one to wonder if our failures to care for the planet given to us will make our children look forward to summer, or fear another season of heat. 

South Africa' s viniculture industry employs around 270,000 people, producing some of the world' s most sought-after wines. But not all jobs are best left to humans. In some cases, it' s better to get your ducks in a row, and then put them to work. 

Outside Cape Town on the banks of the Eerste river, Vergenoegd Löw, the Wine Estate, has repurposed a centuries-old practice by gathering a group of ducks to keep its vineyards free of pests. "I call our ducks the soldiers of our vineyards," says managing director Corius Visser. "They will eat aphids, they will eat snails, they will eat small worms—they keep (it) completely pest-free. "

The species, the Indian runner duck, is flightless, with a peculiarly upright stance and highly developed sense of smell. The duck troops are employed on a 14-day circuit through the vineyards, eating and fertilizing the ground as they go. 

The ducks' "annual leave" takes place during the harvest (they' d eat the grapes). During this time they search for food on open farm pasture, swim in a nearby lake and undergo selective breeding, says Visser.

Duck eggs are consumed in the vineyard restaurant, but never the ducks themselves—"that would be like eating a colleague," Gavin Moyes, the estate' s tasting room manager, said in a 2020 interview.

Inspired by ducks used to remove pests from rice paddies in Asia, the winery calls on the services of some 1,600 ducks as part of its effort to make wine production more sustainable. "The world is moving away from more conventional farming to (being) a bit more organic," Visser explains. "For Vergenoegd, it' s a big goal … to have less influence on the Earth, the soil and the environment. "

As a pioneering winemaker with industry influence—vines have been grown on the estate since the late 17th century—Vergenoegd Löw is hoping to convince others to adopt its approach. Visser says the vineyard plans to sell 750 ducks to other vineyards and replenish numbers by breeding the birds. 

"I think the industry itself has the potential to engage more in experimental ways," he adds. That requires money, and increasing the price point of South African wines could help fund Vergenoegd Löw and other vineyards' green initiatives.

"If we can achieve that, we can then put back some of that (income) into our people, into our land, and become more sustainable," Visser says.

Uses of Banana Peels (皮) You Probably Ignored

Soothes the itchy (发痒的) insect bites

With the good weather approaching, various bugs, insects and mosquitoes multiply. If you want to relieve the sting or bite of these insects naturally, banana peel can help you. Rub the red, inflamed bites with the inside of the banana peel. The banana polysaccharides (多糖) infiltrate the skin and reduce the swell. 

____

Spring then summer is coming, and there' s one little annoying thing: the flies. To catch them, you can make a trap made of natural ingredients. All you will need is a large yogurt cup, banana peels, a hammer and a nail. Make holes at the bottom of the yogurt cup with the hammer and nail, place the banana peels inside, turn it over, and place it near the food that you are trying to protect. Flies will get into the sweet smell in the holes, but there is no way out of the yogurt cup. 

Cheap and simple teeth whitening

You don' t have to spend a huge amount of your salary on aesthetic dentistry to make your teeth whiter. Simply rub your freshly-brushed teeth with the inside of the banana peel every day for about 2 minutes. Salicylic acid in bananas gently bleaches teeth, effectively eliminating dirt which causes discoloration. 

Water purification

This effect was the most surprising for us. The Sao Paulo Research Foundation, led by Gustavo R. Castro, tested the suitability of banana peels for the treatment of wastewater from industrial plants. It turned out that the banana peel adsorbs heavy metals such as lead and copper from the water. 

Erases the ink stain (污点)

If ink gets on your skin, it is difficult to clean it off. Only with water and soap is it almost impossible to make your hands clean. But the good news is that the banana peel is good for that—rub the patches on the inside of the peel and see how they disappear. 

The Belfast community was busy helping a deaf woman find her beloved dog "Ruthie" the past couple of days.

Ruthie went 1 several days ago when she jumped out of the car wearing her retractable leash (伸缩皮带). Marina Delune, her 2 , posted on her community website that she needed help looking for her lost dog. She thought only a few people would 3 . So she was surprised when help started to pour in. "The response that I got was literally overwhelming," Marina said. "It was extraordinary. I couldn' t even 4 all the responses. "

A doctor named Kimberly Mitchell headed to Marina' s house to help her out. When she pulled into the driveway, she sensed that Ruthie was just nearby. Despite the cold rain, Kimberly 5  the yard. Later on she expanded her 6  to the neighbors'  yards, but 7  came up empty-handed. 

It was dark by the time she rounded the corner of a neighbor' s house and saw a small hole in the bottom of their deck. Kimberly used her cell phone flashlight to look around in the darkness. "Right there under the deck, I 8 her little face. She was looking right at me. "

It turned out Ruthie' s leash was stuck. The house' s owner, Collin Brewster Cunning, crawled under the deck and 9 her. The reunion of Ruthie and Marina was nothing but emotional. Marina cried and held on to Ruthie and her two rescuers. "We were in a three-way 10 with Ruthie in the middle. It was absolutely amazing," Kimberly said.

The British have many traditions but there is nothing more quint essential(典型的) than taking afternoon tea. We know the Brits have a love affair with drinking tea,  more than 160 million cups drunk every day, but it was the invention of afternoon tea that turned tea-drink into  popular pastime.

This sociable feast involves drinking good quality tea (comfortable) while nibbling(小口吃) on nice sandwiches, scones with jam and cream and a selection of small cakes. And, of course, it can only happen in the afternoon! Afternoon tea, which (design) as a light snack to bridge the gap between lunch and dinner, dates back to the 1840s. It went on to become a (fashion) social occasion for the upper classes.

Now there is a resurgence(复苏) in its (popular) in the UK and it is available to anyone who can afford it.  it can be enjoyed at home, the best way to experience it is at a smart hotel or café. But if you're thinking of visiting such a place(enjoy) a plate of sweet and savory treats with a steaming hot brew, remember the rules you must follow to avoid (ask) to leave.

Writer Henry James once noted that "there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea". I'm sure once you (try) it, you will agree.

The evening before Walter Carr's first day of work, his car broke down. After he asked for a ride and it 1 , the young man was anxious about 2 to get to work in Pelham. Carr considered and concluded there was only one 3 : He would walk it . It would take him five hours 4 , according to the web mapping service. He 5 the road at midnight to arrive at his place of work by8:30 a.m. It was 6 to stick to one side of the road in the darkness. Sometimes the light of the oncoming vehicles 7 him and he lost the sense of 8  now and then. "I just worried about taking a wrong way," Carr said to The Washington Post. Even he 9  two aggressive dogs on the road. After his several hours' 10 , he reached Pelham and the day 11 . A kind driver came along in the daylight of dawn and 12 a ride and breakfast while he was resting by the side.

Twenty-year-old Carr 13 made it. When his new boss Luke Marklin heard his story, he was so 14 with Carr's heart that he gave Carr his Ford Escape. "The only thing standing in his way seemed to be the 15 . The vehicle was going to be put to better use." said Marklin .

We're directly affected by our environment. When the rising temperature or the bitter cold is the first thing on your mind, it might be hard to discuss anything else. However, as a matter of fact, you needn't have worried so much about this.However, there are ways to change the activity into a meaningful moment between two people.

Talking about shared interests is the easiest way to make a connection with someone-and more personal talking

about the weather. When you start a conversation with someone, try searching for pieces of information that you can connect to.

Don't ask someone what they do.

When speaking with someone for the first time, work is always one of our topics. But wanting to know what someone does for a living may kill our conversations.When it comes to small talk, try avoiding jobs and discovering general interests instead.

Enjoy the silence.

No one likes a long stop-but most silent moments between topics aren't as long as you think they are. Sometimes stops are needed in order to continue a conversation. Remember that if you say something, the other person may need to think about it, so enjoy the silence.

Look at your conversation as a learning experience.

Different people have different thoughts, ideas and feelings. Ask someone about a topic they're familiar with that you know nothing about. Every time you meet someone new-or even speak with someone you know-it's an opportunity to learn something.You can expand your knowledge of other areas, cultures and nations.
 

A. Search for common interests.

B. Keep your introduction simple.

C. Small talk may not be pleasant.

D. In fact, a little quiet can be a good thing.

E. It'll benefit you more than you may realize.

F. Making small talk is an art that can be mastered.

G. It may send the signal that the most important part about us is our job.

Every April for the past decade, systems biologist Gutiérrez has driven 1,600 kilometers to reach one of the driest places on Earth: Atacama Desert, parts of which receive less than three millimeters of rain annually. His team investigated 32 plant species, some closely related to grains, beans and potato crops, from three altitude ranges. They collected plants and soil from nearly two dozen sites each year, froze the samples in liquid nitrogen, and brought them back to his laboratory. "We knew almost nothing about how these plants survived," Gutiérrez says. "There was great potential to study these wild species, which is now a little easier with all the genomic(基因组的)tools we have." They analyzed the plants' genes and the microorganisms, hoping to find what helps them thrive in such extreme conditions.

Scientists usually conduct genetic studies on lab-grown plants, which lets researchers tightly control factors such as the amount of nutrients and light the plants receive. But sampling plants in nature captures critical differences based on their varied living conditions. "This study merges the genomics with ecological understanding of how plants behave in their natural environment," says Davis, a plant biologist, who was not involved in the research. "That just by itself makes it very significant."

To identify genes that contribute to the plants' survival, Gutiérrez worked with other scientists to compare the genetic codes of the sampled Atacama species with those of closely related plants. In what the researchers describe as a "genetic gold mine," they traced genomes' evolutionary changes and identified adaptive mutations(变异)related to stress response, metabolism（新陈代谢）and energy production. These mutations might help desert plants tolerate intense solar radiation, get the most out of water capture and adjust flowering times. The researchers also discovered some bacteria that live on the desert plants' roots and convert nitrogen from the air into a usable form, aiding growth in nitrogen-poor soils.

Researchers could potentially insert newfound genes into food plants and grasses used for biofuel, Gutiérrez says, giving such species better survival odds when planted in saltier soils and areas experiencing drought—conditions expected to become more severe with climate change.