Animals in the local zoo, Primates -- Part 2 Apes = Orangutans + Chimpanzees + Gorillas +… + US! If you’ve ever seen the movie “Life of Pi” before, I bet you do remember that big ape with red-brown fur, long and strong arms. Yep, she’s an orangutan. Orangutans are from Southeast Asia. Well, the name “orangutan” comes from two Malay words which means “person of the forest”. Orangutans are so clever that they can even build umbrellas out of leaves. Chimpanzees live in Africa. They spend a lot of time with other chimpanzees from their group, acting up, playing, and chatting. And what they love most is grooming each other. Grooming is their special way of networking. You could probably hear of Jane Goodall, who has studied chimpanzees since 1960. More than 45 years of observation! She found out that even a baby chimp gets the hang of using the stick. It is able to “fish” for termites in an underground nest. Gorillas may be aggressive when attacked or provoked, but they are naturally gentle. They are also omnivorous, like chimpanzees and orangutans. A gorilla may live up to 50 years and more. With a broad chest, wide shoulders, short legs, and long, powerful, strong arms, no wonder they are excellent wrestlers. Male gorilla’s fur becomes silver/grey on the back as getting older. Because of that older male is called the “silverback”. Usually the silverback is the leader of the troop. (A group of primates is called “troop”) OK, now let’s go and see them monkeying around!

Animals in the local zoo, Primates -- Part 1 Primates = monkeys + apes + lemurs. The word "lemur" comes from the Latin word “lemurs”, which means "ghosts". This name refers to many of the nocturnal (active at night) lemur species and their large eyes which make them look like ghosts. Lemurs are marvelous jumpers with ring tails. They can jump up to ten meters in one single bounce, which is about the same length as a bus. Lemurs live ONLY on the island of Madagascar and some smaller islands next to it. Monkeys = capuchins + baboons + macaques + … The Rhesus Macaque is THE monkey we are usually talking about (I mean in China). I dare say that the Monkey King is a Rhesus Macaque too. Rhesus Macaques are very social. They have a very intricate social structure and hierarchy which make the observation on them quite interesting. Another funky fact is that they can actually store a whole day’s worth in their cheeks which is really handy, because in the wild, if they’re searching for food in dangerous places, they don’t have to hang around for too long. Capuchin monkeys are native to Central and South America. These little guys are really smart, they select a few of the ripest fruits. After nipping off the tip and drinking the juice, they discard the rest of the fruit with the nut inside. When these discarded fruits are hardened and brittle (easily cracked), the capuchins gather them up. Then they will use tools to crack open nuts. What a cracking job! Isn’t it? Despite of being the largest kinds of monkey in size, baboons are actually friendly animals in most of time. They are omnivores (eat both plants and meat). Their diet includes grasses, roots, insects and other small animals, like lizards, small mammals, fishes and birds. Seems not fierce, do they? But don’t be cross with them. It is said that an angry baboon can kill a cheetah with bare hands.

Could you please list the most popular classic children’s games in the English world? I want to play some games with my son. As a non-native speaker, I am not very familiar with all these games, especially what players usually say. Please explain them in details. For example, when playing hide-and-seek, the player (“it”) will say “ready or not, here I come” after counting and attempt to find all other players. In “three little pigs”, the big bad wolf usually answer: “Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.” You know, sentences like that.

Can you help me to hear this and tell me what does this woman say? https://youtu.be/ad0s6s-cnow?t=24s Something like "you may have a courage to...". It is supposed to be a famous quote or something like that. This software, Encarta 96, was the one of most influential things in my life, which inspired me learning English and changed the course of my life. I tried to figure out what the other three clips (in the first 20 seconds) were. However, the last one still remains an "enigma" to me.

Can stars and AlphaGo called “life form”? I love astronomy and sometimes go out for stargazing. When I look at those stars, I am always wondering “are they living?” Well, stars do “die”. Then the new stars will be “born” from the ashes. If the new stars resemble to the old ones and they can evolve, then why can’t we literally call them a “life form”? But the problem is that it’s quite hard for us to really know about it, as that process would usually take millions even billions of years, which possibly if not probably outlives us all, the humanity. Imagine the bacteria living inside us, they are civilized, they developed science, philosophy, arts, even quantum physics (could be a little easier for them because of their sizes). But the bacteria scientists may never be aware that the whole space they live in is actually a living thing. I gather we might be like those bacteria more or less. AlphaGo makes me to rethink about what life is. Can we call it a “life form”? It can be duplicated, it can evolve. Most of people will laugh at that idea because it doesn’t have a “body”. But we always can make a robot body, maybe a male looking one, put AlphaGo into that body. If that happens, it could be a bit ambiguous either we agree or disagree that AlphaGo has life. However, we surely can copy AlphaGo out and destroy that body, put it into another body, let’s say a hottie. So the body looks quite like some kind of “cloth” in this case. My question is, can we simplify the definition of “life” to merely three words--spontaneously evolving information? Perspective is a very powerful thing. Perspective can change. If we change our perspectives, something amazing may happen. For example, if life can be considered “spontaneously evolving information”, languages can be deemed to be a “life form”. Then we can “borrow” some study methods from biology and apply them to linguistics. Linguists may draw some scientific predictions which are falsifiable. Such as, if the globalization and internet continue to develop, the diversity of languages would dramatically decrease (like you put all species into the same continent). We would witness the largest “linguicide” in the human history in the following decades. We may even calculate the estimated rates of language extinctions and take measures in advance in order to preserve the invaluable heritages given by our ancestors over hundreds of thousands generations.

Five Chinese characters “月”(moon) is a semi-circle with a dot in it. The moon has phases, so it explains why there is a semi-circle. The dot indicates that the moon glows. “雨” looks much like rains. The two lines on the top stand for the sky. “天” is a man with a square above his head. It means the space on the top. The original meaning of “厂” is actually the “cliff” as what it resembles. Then gradually it combined with another character "厰”", which represents an open and spacious building. "石"="厂"+"口", it stands for a square thing underneath the cliff. Yes, that's stone.