Why was the mandated study of "reason and faith" substituted by "culture and belief"？

The last time Harvard University tackled that question was in 1978, when it established its Core Curriculum, which focused less on content than on mastering ways of thinking. Like Harvard's so-called Red Book standards of 1945, which helped inspire a generation of distribution requirements, the core had broad resonance at other major universities. Now, after a four-year process initiated under controversial former president Lawrence Summers, the nation's most famous university has come up with a whole new set of guidelines that proponents say will help clarify how liberal-arts subjects like philosophy and art history shed light on the hurly-burly of more quotidian topics. "Students will be more motivated to learn if they see a connection with the kinds of problems, issues and questions they will encounter in later life," says interim president Derek Bok. Harvard isn't the only institution rethinking what and how to teach its students. Yale, Rutgers and the universities of Pennsylvania and Texas have recently made similar changes, and now that Harvard has joined the club, others are likely to follow.

Harvard's new curriculum establishes eight primary subject areas that all students will have to take. The categories include Societies of the World, encompassing subjects like anthropology and international relations; Ethical Reasoning, a practical approach to philosophy; and the United States in the World, which will likely span multiple departments, including sociology and economics. The plan, which is expected to be formally approved by the faculty in May, won't go into effect before September 2009 at the earliest.

But the school is already preemptively dismissing charges that it is embracing purely practical knowledge. "We do not propose that we teach the headlines," said a report published on Feb. 7 by the curriculum committee, comprising professors, students and a dean. "Only that the headlines, along with much else in our students' lives, are among the things that a liberal education can help students make better sense of."

One point likely to raise eyebrows among academic traditionalists is the rationale for the newly mandated study of Empirical Reasoning, which will cover math, logic and statistics. It is being added, the committee report says, because graduates of Harvard "will have to decide, for example, what medical treatments to undergo, when a defendant in court has been proven guilty, whether to support a policy proposal and how to manage their personal finances". Does this mean balancing a checkbook is on a par with balancing equations? What about learning for learning's sake? What about the study of history, which Harvard will no longer require, even though its recently announced new president, Drew Gilpin Faust—the first woman to head the institution—is a renowned historian?

The plan's advocates say the curriculum is flexible enough that students will still be able to take courses in whatever interests them, be it ancient art or cutting-edge science. What's crucial, they say, is that the new approach emphasizes the kind of active learning that gets students thinking and applying knowledge. "Just as one doesn't become a marathon runner by reading about the Boston Marathon," says the committee report, "so, too, one doesn't become a good problem solver by listening to lectures or reading about statistics." Acknowledging how important extracurricular activities have become on campus, the report calls for a stronger link between the endeavors students pursue inside and outside the classroom. Those studying poverty, for example, absorb more if they also volunteer at a homeless shelter, suggests Bok, whose 2005 book, Our Underachieving Colleges, cites a finding that students remember just 20% of the content of class lectures a week later.

There were, however, some contemporary

time talking with the native people whose knowledge of local species is dying out as fast as their languages are being lost.

Potentially vital information about many endangered species is locked in the vocabulary and expressions of local people, yet biologists are failing to tap into this huge source of knowledge before it is lost for good, scientists said. "It seems logical that the biologists should go and talk to the indigenous people who know more about the local environment than anyone else," said David Harrison, an assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.

"Most of what humans know about ecosystems and species is not found in databases or libraries or written down anywhere. It's in people's heads. It's in purely oral traditions," Dr. Harrison told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. "About 80 percent of the animals and plants visible to the naked eye have not yet been classified by science. It doesn't mean they are unknown; it just means we have a knowledge gap."

An estimated 7,000 languages are spoken in the world but more than half of them are dying out so fast that they will be lost completely by the end of the century as children learn more common languages, such as English or Spanish. He cited the example of a South American skipper butterfly, Astraptes fulgerator, which scientists thought was just one species until a DNA study three years ago revealed that it was in fact 10 different species whose camouflaged colouration made the adult forms appear "identical to one another".

Yet if the scientists had spoken to the Tzeltal-speaking people of Mexico—descendants of the Maya—they might have learnt this information much sooner because Tzeltal has several descriptions of the butterflies based on the different kinds of caterpillar. "These people live on the territory of that butterfly habitat and in fact care very little about the adult butterfly but they have a very-fine grained classification for the larvae because the caterpillars affect their crops and their agriculture," Dr. Harrison said.

"It's crucial for them to know which larva is eating which crop and at what time of year. Their survival literally depends on knowing that, whereas the adult butterfly has no impact on their crops," he said. "There was a knowledge gap on both sides and if they had been talking to each other they might have figured out sooner that they were dealing with a species complex," he said.

"Indigenous people often have classification systems that are often more fine-grained and more precise than what Western science knows about species and their territories." Another example of local knowledge was shown by the Musqueam people of British Columbia in Canada, who have fished the local rivers for generations and describe the trout and the salmon as belonging to the same group.

In 2003 they were vindicated when a genetic study revealed that the "trout" did in fact belong to the same group as Pacific salmon, Dr. Harrison said. "It seems obvious that knowing more about species and ecosystems would put us in a better position to sustain those species and ecosystems," he said. "That's my argument that the knowledge gap is vastly to the detriment of Western science. We know much less than we think we do."

Why does the author say that indigenous languages hold the key to saving endangered species?

rs for most workers. But, with performance-review season in full swing, some people are bound to hear negative comments. In a tough economy, a bad review can seem insurmountable. But you can recover if you are "willing to self-assess and be open-minded to what is being told" to you, says Barbara Mohl, president of HR Connected, a human resources consulting firm. Here's how to bounce back:

—Be open to feedback

The review is a communication tool for you and your manager to begin the conversation about your performance. You should be ready and willing to accept feedback. Remember, what you hear is usually meant to help you do your job better. "Realize that this process is called a performance review, not a performance correction," says John Heins, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at staffing firm Spherion Corp. The review isn't the time to debate and resolve the problems. "That conversation is best-suited for a follow-up meeting," says Mr. Heins.

—Acknowledge your manager's comments.

Giving negative feedback can be stressful for a manager. Listen to and acknowledge what your manager is saying, regardless of whether you agree with the comments. "The worst thing you can do is to make excuses or put the blame on someone else," says Beth Carvin, CEO and president of Nobscot, a retention management consulting firm in Honolulu. After you have heard your manager's comments and you understand what has been said, you can say "I appreciate your feedback and I understand the issues you have addressed." If you feel strongly and have proof that the assessment is unfair, then you can say "Thank you for your feedback, but I don't necessarily agree with X and I look forward to scheduling a follow-up meeting to discuss your points more specifically. " Schedule that meeting before you leave the review.

—Create an action plan.

Take time to reflect and review your manager's comments. You might want to discuss difficult issues with a mentor or friend. Then create an action plan that you can cover and add to in the" follow-up meeting. If you don't agree with your boss on all points, give specific examples of where you think your manager is wrong. Keep in mind, though, you'll need to be proactive about how to turn things around—regardless of whether you agree. "Plan with your manager exactly what he or she would like you to improve," says Mr. Heins. "Does something have to be done quicker or faster, or do you have to interact better with your colleagues? Ask if there might be a colleague who can mentor you and inquire about resources you can use to improve," recommends Ms. Mohl. —Schedule periodic follow-up meetings.

Stay on top of the turnaround plan. "Many employees don't take the time or initiative to check in with their supervisor to see how they're doing," says Ms. Carvin. "Don't be afraid to toot your own horn," she says, "and let your boss know what you're accomplishing. Check in at least every two to three weeks or sooner if you've achieved a success at work. "

According to the passage, how to deal with the feedback?

tier pose for photographs before the start of their trial in San Francisco, California January 11, 2010. California's ban on gay marriage goes to trial on Monday in a federal case that plaintiffs hope to take all the way to the US Supreme Court and overturn bans throughout the nation.

Two Californian men challenging a ban on same-sex marriage on Monday said they had been a couple for nine years and felt like third-class citizens, leading them to launch the federal case which could set a national precedent. The men and a lesbian couple unable to marry in California hope to take their case against the state' s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage all the way to the US Supreme Court and to overturn bans throughout the nation. A loss in the top court, two ranks above the action in the case which began on Monday, would seriously undermine efforts to win gay marriage rights in state courts.

The United States is divided on same-sex marriage. It is legal in only five states, though most of those, and the District of Columbia, approved it last year. Approval of Prop 8 in November 2008 was a sweet victory for social conservatives in a state with a liberal, trend-setting reputation, and maintained the steady success they have scored on the issue at the ballot box. Where it is legal, gay marriage has been championed by courts and legislatures, not voters.

"I don't think of myself as a bad person," said Paul Katami, describing the persecution he felt from a media campaign warning California parents to "protect" their children by voting against same-sex unions in the 2008 poll. He and his would-be husband, Jeffrey Zarrillo, described slights in gay life that ranged from being pelted with rocks and eggs in college to the awkwardness of checking into a hotel and not being able to clarify the relationship. "Being able to call him my husband is so definitive," Katami said. "There is no subtlety to it. It is absolute. " Gays and lesbians have nearly equal rights under domestic partnership laws, but the two men said that left them feeling second-or third-class citizens and they wanted to be married to have kids. "We hear a lot of 'What's the big deal?' The big deal is creating a separate category for us," Katami said.

Gay rights lawyers in the case describe their battle as a continuation of the fight against racist laws stopping whites and blacks from marrying. Marriage is a fundamental constitutional right, and in addition gays and lesbians deserve special protection from discrimination, they say.

What is current situation of the nation on same-sex union?

gical treadmill.

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erica's most successful technology companies.

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son. Thus a person is not just a physical entity, but also a mental or emotional entity, even their spiritual side will be included. Acupuncture itself works on an energy system basically. If that energy is blocked or out of balance, you will show certain symptoms. And to stay healthy, diet, exercise and regular life schedule are surely three essential elements. If we live in tune with laws of the universe, we won't get sick.

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, and at least as important as, the problem of the division of labour," Friedrich Hayek told the London Economic Club in 1936. What Mr. Hayek could not have known about knowledge was that 70 years later weblogs, or blogs, would be pooling it into a vast, virtual conversation. That economists are typing as prolifically as anyone speaks both to the value of the medium and to the worth they put on their time.

Like millions of others, economists from circles of academia and public policy spend hours each day writing for nothing. The concept seems at odds with the notion of economists as intellectual instruments trained in the maximisation of utility or profit. Yet the demand is there: some of their blogs get thousands of visitors daily, often from people at influential institutions like the IMF and the Federal Reserve. One of the most active "econobloggers" is Brad DeLong, of the University of California, Berkeley, whose site, delong, typepad, com,, features a morning-coffee videocast and an afiernoon-tea audiocast in which he holds forth on a spread of topics from the Treasury to Trotsky.

So why do it? "It's a place in the intellectual influence game," Mr. DeLong replies (by e-mail, naturally). For prominent economists, that place can come with a price. Time spent on the Internet could otherwise be spent on traditional publishing or collecting consulting fees. Mr. DeLong caps his blogging at 90 minutes a day. His only blog revenue comes from selling advertising links to help cover the cost of his servers, which handle more than 20,000 visitors daily.

Gary Becket, a Nobel-prize winning economist, and Richard Posner, a federal circuit judge and law professor, began a joint blog in 2004. The pair, colleagues at the University of Chicago, believed that their site, becker-posner-blog, com, would permit "instantaneous pooling (and hence correction, refinement, and amplification) of the ideas and opinions, facts and images, reportage and scholarship, generated by bloggers." The practice began as an educational tool for Greg Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard and a former chairman of George Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. His site, gregmankiw, blogspot, com, started as a group e-mail sent to students, with commentary on articles and new ideas. But the market for his musings grew beyond the classroom, and a blog was the solution. "It's a natural extension of my day job—to engage in intellectual discourse about economics," Mr. Mankiw says.

With professors spending so much time blogging for no payment, universities might wonder whether this detracts from their value. Although there is no evidence of a direct link between blogging and publishing productivity, a new study by E. Hah Kim and Adair Morse, of the University of Michigan, and Luigi Zingales, of the University of Chicago, shows that the Internet's ability to spread knowledge beyond university classrooms has diminished the competitive edge that elite schools once held.

Top universities once benefited from having clusters of star professors. The study showed that during the 1970s, an economics professor from a random university, outside the top 25 programmes, would double his research productivity by moving to Harvard. The strong relationship between individual output and that of one's colleagues weakened in the 1980s, and vanished by the end of the 1990s.

The faster flow of information and the waning importance of location—which blogs exemplify—have made it easier for economists from any university to have access to the best brains in their field. That anyone with an internet connection can sit in on a virtual lecture from Mr. DeLong means that his ideas move freely beyond the boundaries of Berkeley, creating a welfare gain for professors and the public.

Universities can also benefit in this part of the equation.