1.

·         But beginning in the 1990s, foreign aid had begun to slowly improve.

·         Scrutiny by the news media shamed many developed countries into curbing their bad practices.

·         Today, the projects of organizations like the World Bank are meticulously inspected by watchdog groups.

·         Although the system is far from perfect, it is certainly more transparent than it was when foreign aid routinely helped ruthless dictators stay in power.

2.

·         After finishing first in his pilot training class, Lindbergh took his first job as the chief pilot of an airmail route operated by Robertson Aircraft Co. of Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri.

·         He flew the mail in a de Havilland DH-4 biplane to Springfield, Illinois, Peoria and Chicago.

·         During his tenure on the mail route, he was renowned for delivering the mail under any circumstances.

·         After a crash, he even salvaged bags of mail from his burning aircraft and immediately phoned Alexander Varney, Peoria's airport manager, to advise him to send a truck.

3.

·         Take an underperforming company.

·         Add some generous helpings of debt, a few spoonful of management incentives and trim all the fat.

·         Leave to cook for five years and you have a feast of profits.

·         That has been the recipe for private-equity groups during the past 200 years.

4.

·         A simple way to disprove this Innateness Hypothesis, as linguists call it, is to demonstrate that other species have the capacity to speak but for some reason simply have not developed speech. A logical candidate for such a species is the chimpanzee, which shares 98.4% of the human genetic code.

·         Chimpanzees cannot speak because, unlike humans, their vocal cords are located higher in their throats and cannot be controlled as well as human vocal cords.

·         It does not follow from their lack of speech, however, that chimpanzees are incapable of language, this is, a human-like grammar. Perhaps they can acquire grammar and speak if they could only use grammar some way other than with a voice.

·         The obvious alternative is sign language. All primates have extremely dexterous hands and sign language is a language. You have probably already read about the regular chimpanzees Washoe and Nim Chimpsky, and the lowland gorilla, Koko, all of whom learned to sign and interact very naturally with their trainers.

·         All of these animals were taught to sign in order to get food, tickling, grooming, and toys and to get out of their cages. The question, then, is whether chimpanzee and gorilla signing is language; is it based on grammatical rules?

5.

·         A simple way to disprove this hypothesis (the Innateness Hypothesis) is to demonstrate that other species have the capacity to speak but for some reason simply have not developed speech.

·         A logical candidate for such a species is the chimpanzee, which shares 98.4% of the human genetic code.

·         Chimpanzees cannot speak because, unlike Homo sapiens, their vocal cords are located higher in their throats and cannot be controlled as delicately as human vocal cords.

·         It does not follow from their lack of speech, however, that chimpanzees are incapable of language. Perhaps they can acquire grammar like humans if they could only express it some other way.

·         The obvious alternative is sign language. All primates have extremely dexterous hands and sign language is a language.

6.

·         International Date Line, imaginary line on the earth's surface, generally following the 180° meridian of longitude, where, by international agreement, travellers change dates.

·         The date line is necessary to avoid a confusion that would otherwise result.

·         For example, if an airplane were to travel westward with the sun, 24 hours would elapse as it circled the globe, but it would still be the same day for those in the airplane while it would be one day later for those on the ground below them.

·         The same problem would arise if two travellers journeyed in opposite directions to a point on the opposite side of the earth, 180° of longitude distant.

·         The apparent paradox is resolved by requiring that the traveller crossing the dateline change his date, thus bringing the travellers into agreement when they meet.

7.

·         In his fascinating book Carbon Detox, George Marshall argues that people are not persuaded by information.

·         Our views are formed by the views of the people with whom we mix.

·         Of the narratives that might penetrate these circles, we are more likely to listen to those which offer us some reward.

·         He proposes that instead of arguing for sacrifice, environmentalists should show where the rewards might lie.

·         We should emphasise the old-fashioned virtues of uniting in the face of a crisis, of resourcefulness and community action.

8.

·         Early rails were used on horse drawn wagon way, originally with wooden rails, but from the 1760s using strap-iron rails, which consisted of thin strips of cast iron fixed onto wooden rails.

·         These rails were too fragile to carry heavy loads, but because the initial construction cost was less, this method was sometimes used to quickly build an inexpensive rail line.

·         However, the long-term expense involved in frequent maintenance outweighed any savings.

·         These were superseded by cast iron rails that were flanged and with the wagon wheels flat.

·         An early proponent of this design was Benjamin Outram. His partner William Jessop preferred the use of 'edge rails' in 1789 where the wheels were flanged and, over time, it was realised that this combination worked better.

·         The first steel rails were made in 1857 by Robert Forester Mushet, who laid them at Derby station in England. Steel is a much stronger material, which steadily replaced iron for use on railway rail and allowed much longer lengths of rails to be rolled.

9.

·         Education scholars generally agree that mayors can help failing districts, but they are starting to utter warnings.

·         Last summer the editors of the Harvard Educational Review warned that mayoral control can reduce parents' influence on schools.

·         And they pointed to Mr Bloomberg's aggressive style as an example of what not to do.

·         All this must be weighed up by the New York state legislature in 2009, when mayoral control is up for renewal—or scrapping.

10.

·         In 1992 a retired engineer in San Diego contracted a rare brain disease that wiped out his memory.

·         Every day he was asked where the kitchen was in his house, and every day he didn’t have the foggiest idea.

·         Yet whenever he was hungry he got up and propelled himself straight to the kitchen to get something to eat.

·         Studies of this man led scientists to a breakthrough: the part of our brains where habits are stored has nothing to do with memory or reason.

·         It offered proof of what the US psychologist William James noticed more than a century ago- humans “are mere walking bundles of habits”.

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