新视野大学英语第四册课文原文加翻译

1A An artist who seeks fame is like a dog chasing his own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it.

The cruelty of success is that it often leads those who seek such success to participate in their own destruction.

"Don't quit your day job!" is advice frequently given by understandably pessimistic family members and friends to a budding artist who is trying hard to succeed.

The conquest of fame is difficult at best, and many end up emotionally if not financially bankrupt.

Still, impure motives such as the desire for worshipping fans and praise from peers may spur the artist on.

The lure of drowning in fame's imperial glory is not easily resisted.

Those who gain fame most often gain it as a result of exploiting their talent for singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc.

They develop a style that agents market aggressively to hasten popularity, and their ride on the express elevator to the top is a blur.

Most would be hard-pressed to tell you how they even got there.

Artists cannot remain idle, though.

When the performer, painter or writer becomes bored, their work begins to show a lack of continuity in its appeal and it becomes difficult to sustain the attention of the public.

After their enthusiasm has dissolved, the public simply moves on to the next flavor of the month.

Artists who do attempt to remain current by making even minute changes to their style of writing, dancing or singing, run a significant risk of losing the audience's favor.

The public simply discounts styles other than those for which the artist has become famous.

Famous authors' styles—a Tennessee Williams play or a plot by Ernest Hemingway or a poem by Robert Frost or T.S. Eliot—are easily recognizable.

The same is true of painters like Monet, Renoir, or Dali and moviemakers like Hitchcock, Fellini, Spielberg, Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou. Their distinct styles marked a significant change in form from others and gained them fame and fortune.

However, they paid for it by giving up the freedom to express themselves with other styles or forms.

Fame's spotlight can be hotter than a tropical jungle—a fraud is quickly exposed, and the pressure of so much attention is too much for most to endure.

It takes you out of yourself: You must be what the public thinks you are, not what you really are or could be.

The performer, like the politician, must often please his or her audiences by saying things he or she does not mean or fully believe.

One drop of fame will likely contaminate the entire well of a man's soul, and so an artist who remains true to himself or herself is particularly amazing.

You would be hard-pressed to underline many names of those who have not compromised and still succeeded in the fame game.

An example, the famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, known for his uncompromising behavior, both social and sexual, to which the public objected, paid heavily for remaining true to himself.

The mother of a young man Oscar was intimate with accused him at a banquet in front of his friends and fans of sexually influencing her son. Extremely angered by her remarks, he sued the young man's mother, asserting that she had damaged his "good" name.

He should have hired a better attorney, though.

The judge did not second Wilde's call to have the woman pay for damaging his name, and instead fined Wilde.

He ended up in jail after refusing to pay, and even worse, was permanently expelled from the wider circle of public favor.

When things were at their worst, he found that no one was willing to risk his or her name in his defense.

His price for remaining true to himself was to be left alone when he needed his fans the most.

Curiously enough, it is those who fail that reap the greatest reward: freedom!

They enjoy the freedom to express themselves in unique and original ways without fear of losing the support of fans.

Failed artists may find comfort in knowing that many great artists never found fame until well after they had passed away or in knowing that

they did not sell out.

They may justify their failure by convincing themselves their genius is too sophisticated for contemporary audiences.

Single-minded artists who continue their quest for fame even after failure might also like to know that failure has motivated some famous people to work even harder to succeed.

Thomas Wolfe, the American novelist, had his first novel Look Homeward, Angel rejected 39 times before it was finally published. Beethoven overcame his father, who did not believe that he had any potential as a musician, to become the greatest musician in the world. And Pestalozzi, the famous Swiss educator in the 19th century, failed at every job he ever had until he came upon the idea of teaching children and developing the fundamental theories to produce a new form of education.

Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in the fourth grade, because he seemed to his teacher to be quite dull.

Unfortunately for most people, however, failure is the end of their struggle, not the beginning.

I say to those who desperately seek fame and fortune: good luck.

But alas, you may find that it was not what you wanted.

The dog who catches his tail discovers that it is only a tail.

The person who achieves success often discovers that it does more harm than good.

So instead of trying so hard to achieve success, try to be happy with who you are and what you do.

Try to do work that you can be proud of.

Maybe you won't be famous in your own lifetime, but you may create better art.

1B One summer day my father sent me to buy some wire and fencing to put around our barn to pen up the bull.

At 16, I liked nothing better than getting behind the wheel of our truck and driving into town on the old mill road.

Water from the mill's wheel sprayed in the sunshine making a rainbow over the canal and I often stopped there on my way to bathe and cool off for a spell—natural air conditioning.

The sun was so hot, I did not need a towel as I was dry by the time I climbed the clay banks and crossed the road ditch to the truck.

Just before town, the road shot along the sea where I would collect seashells or gather seaweed beneath the giant crane unloading the ships. This trip was different, though.

My father had told me I'd have to ask for credit at the store.

It was 1976, and the ugly shadow of racism was still a fact of life.

I'd seen my friends ask for credit and then stand, head down, while a storeowner enquired into whether they were "good for it".

Many store clerks watched black youths with the assumption that they were thieves every time they even went into a grocery.

My family was honest.

We paid our debts.

But just before harvest, all the money flowed out.

There were no new deposits at the bank.

Cash was short.

At Davis Brothers' General Store, Buck Davis stood behind the register, talking to a middle-aged farmer.

Buck was a tall, weathered man in a red hunting shirt and I nodded as I passed him on my way to the hardware section to get a container of nails, a coil of binding wire and fencing.

I pulled my purchases up to the counter and placed the nails in the tray of the scale, saying carefully, "I need to put this on credit."

My brow was moist with nervous sweat and I wiped it away with the back of my arm.

The farmer gave me an amused, cynical look, but Buck's face didn't change.

"Sure," he said easily, reaching for his booklet where he kept records for credit.

I gave a sigh of relief.

"Your daddy is always good for it."

He turned to the farmer.

"This here is one of James Williams' sons.

They broke the mold when they made that man."

The farmer nodded in a neighborly way.

I was filled with pride.

"James Williams' son."

Those three words had opened a door to an adult's respect and trust.

As I heaved the heavy freight into the bed of the truck, I did so with ease, feeling like a stronger man than the one that left the farm that morning.

I had discovered that a good name could furnish a capital of good will of great value.

Everyone knew what to expect from a Williams: a decent person who kept his word and respected himself too much to do wrong.

My great grandfather may have been sold as a slave at auction, but this was not an excuse to do wrong to others.

Instead my father believed the only way to honor him was through hard work and respect for all men.

We children—eight brothers and two sisters—could enjoy our good name, unearned, unless and until we did something to lose it.

We had an interest in how one another behaved and our own actions as well, lest we destroy the name my father had created.

Our good name was and still is the glue that holds our family tight together.

The desire to honor my father's good name spurred me to become the first in our family to go to university.

I worked my way through college as a porter at a four-star hotel. Eventually, that good name provided the initiative to start my own successful public relations firm in Washington, D.C.

America needs to restore a sense of shame in its neighborhoods.

Doing drugs, spending all your money at the liquor store, stealing, or getting a young woman pregnant with no intent to marry her should induce a deep sense of embarrassment.

But it doesn't.

Nearly one out of three births in America is to a single mother. Many of these children will grow up without the security and guidance they need to become honorable members of society.

Once the social ties and mutual obligations of the family melt away, communities fall apart.

While the population has increased only 40 percent since 1960, violent crime in America has increased a staggering 550 percent—and we've become exceedingly used to it. Teen drug use has also risen.

In one North Carolina County, police arrested 73 students from 12 secondary schools for dealing drugs, some of them right in the classroom.

Meanwhile, the small signs of civility and respect that hold up civilization are vanishing from schools, stores and streets.

Phrases like "yes, ma'am", "no, sir", "thank you" and "please" get a yawn from kids today who are encouraged instead by cursing on television and in music.

They simply shrug off the rewards of a good name.

The good name passed on by my father and maintained to this day by my brothers and sisters and me is worth as much now as ever.

Even today, when I stop into Buck Davis' shop or my hometown <49>barbershop for a haircut, I am still greeted as James Williams' son.

My family's good name did <50>pave the way for me.

2A He was born in a poor area of South London.

He wore his mother's old red stockings cut down for ankle socks.

His mother was temporarily declared mad.

Dickens might have created Charlie Chaplin's childhood.

But only Charlie Chaplin could have created the great comic character of "the Tramp", the little man in rags who gave his creator permanent fame.

Other countries—France, Italy, Spain, even Japan—have provided more applause (and profit) where Chaplin is concerned than the land of his birth.

Chaplin quit Britain for good in 1913 when he journeyed to America with a group of performers to do his comedy act on the stage, where talent scouts recruited him to work for Mack Sennett, the king of Hollywood comedy films.

Sad to say, many English people in the 1920s and 1930s thought Chaplin's Tramp a bit, well, "crude".

Certainly middle-class audiences did; the working-class audiences were more likely to clap for a character who revolted against authority, using his wicked little cane to trip it up, or aiming the heel of his boot for a well-placed kick at its broad rear.

All the same, Chaplin's comic beggar didn't seem all that English or even working-class.

English tramps didn't sport tiny moustaches, huge pants or tail coats: European leaders and Italian waiters wore things like that.

Then again, the Tramp's quick eye for a pretty girl had a coarse way about it that was considered, well, not quite nice by English audiences—that's how foreigners behaved, wasn't it?

But for over half of his screen career, Chaplin had no screen voice to confirm his British nationality.

Indeed, it was a headache for Chaplin when he could no longer resist the talking movies and had to find "the right voice" for his Tramp.

He postponed that day as long as possible: In Modern Times in 1936, the first film in which he was heard as a singing waiter, he made up a nonsense language which sounded like no known nationality.

He later said he imagined the Tramp to be a college-educated gentleman who'd come down in the world.

But if he'd been able to speak with an educated accent in those early short comedies, it's doubtful if he would have achieved world fame. And the English would have been sure to find it "odd". No one was certain whether Chaplin did it on purpose but this helped to bring about his huge success.

He was an immensely talented man, determined to a degree unusual even in the ranks of Hollywood stars.

His huge fame gave him the freedom—and, more importantly, the money—to be his own master.

He already had the urge to explore and extend a talent he discovered in himself as he went along.

"It can't be me. Is that possible? How extraordinary," is how he greeted the first sight of himself as the Tramp on the screen.

But that shock roused his imagination.

Chaplin didn't have his jokes written into a script in advance; he was the kind of comic who used his physical senses to invent his art as he went along.

Lifeless objects especially helped Chaplin make "contact" with himself as an artist.

He turned them into other kinds of objects.

Thus, a broken alarm clock in the movie The Pawnbroker became a "sick" patient undergoing surgery; boots were boiled in his film The Gold Rush and their soles eaten with salt and pepper like prime cuts of fish (the nails being removed like fish bones).

This physical transformation, plus the skill with which he executed it again and again, is surely the secret of Chaplin's great comedy.

He also had a deep need to be loved—and a corresponding fear of being betrayed.

The two were hard to combine and sometimes—as in his early marriages—the collision between them resulted in disaster.

Yet even this painfully-bought self-knowledge found its way into his comic creations.

The Tramp never loses his faith in the flower girl who'll be waiting to walk into the sunset with him; while the other side of Chaplin makes Monsieur Verdoux, the French wife killer, into a symbol of hatred for women.

It's a relief to know that life eventually gave Charlie Chaplin the stability and happiness it had earlier denied him.

In Oona O'Neill Chaplin, he found a partner whose stability and affection spanned the 37 years age difference between them, which had

seemed so threatening, that when the official who was marrying them in 1942 turned to the beautiful girl of 17 who'd given notice of their wedding date, he said, "And where is the young man? "—Chaplin, then 54, had cautiously waited outside.

As Oona herself was the child of a large family with its own problems, she was well prepared for the battle that Chaplin's life became as many unfounded rumors surrounded them both—and, later on, she was the center of calm in the quarrels that Chaplin sometimes sparked in his own large family of talented children.

Chaplin died on Christmas Day 1977.

A few months later, a couple of almost comic body thieves stole his body from the family burial chamber and held it for money.

The police recovered it with more efficiency than Mack Sennett's clumsy Keystone Cops would have done, but one can't help feeling Chaplin would have regarded this strange incident as a fitting memorial—his way of having the last laugh on a world to which he had given so many. 2B Modest and soft-spoken, Agatha Muthoni Mbogo, 24, is hardly the image of a revolutionary.

Yet, six months ago, she did a most revolutionary thing: She ran for mayor of Embu, Kenya, and won.

Ms. Mbogo's victory was even more surprising because she was voted in by her colleagues on the District Council, all men.

For the thousands of women in this farming area two hours northeast of Nairobi, Ms. Mbogo suddenly became a symbol of the increasingly powerful political force women have become in Kenya and across Africa.

Ms. Mbogo launched her dream of a career in politics in 1992 by running for the Embu Council, facing the obstacles that often trouble African women running for political office.

She had little money.

She had no political experience.

She faced ridiculous questions about her personal life.

"My opponent kept insisting that I was going to get married to somebody in another town and move away," Ms. Mbogo said.

Ms. Mbogo also faced misunderstanding among the town's women, many of whom initially were unwilling to vote for her.

She became an ambassador for women's political rights, giving speeches before women's groups and going from door to door, handbag in hand, spending hours at a time giving a combination of speech and government lesson.

"I was delighted when she won the election, because men elected her," said Lydiah Kimani, an Embu farmer and political activist.

"It was the answer to my prayers because it seemed to be a victory over this idea that 'women can't lead'."

Education of African women has become a top priority for political activists.

One organization has held dozens of workshops in rural Kenya to help women understand the nation's constitution and the procedures and theory behind a democratic political system.

One veteran female political activist said that many women had not been taught the basics of political participation.

They are taught to vote for the one who "gives you a half kilo sack of flour, 200 grams of salt, or a loaf of bread" during the campaign, said the activist.

Women politicians and activists say they are fighting deeply-held cultural traditions.

Those traditions teach that African women cook, clean, take care of children, sow and harvest crops and support their husbands.

They typically do not inherit land, divorce their husband, control their finances or hold political office.

Yet, political activity among Kenyan women is not a new phenomenon.

During the struggle for independence in the 1950s, Kenyan women often secretly provided troops with weapons and spied on the positions of colonial forces.

But after independence, leaders jealous to protect their power shut them out of politics, a situation repeated across the continent.

Today, men still have the upper hand.

Women in Kenya make up 60 percent of the people who vote, but only 3 percent of the National Assembly.

No Kenyan woman has ever held a cabinet post.

Against that background, Agatha Mbogo began her political career.

After winning her council seat, she declined a spot on the education and social services committee after a colleague called it "a woman's committee".

She instead joined the town planning committee, a much more visible assignment.

Then last year, she decided to challenge Embu's mayor, a veteran politician.

Ms. Mbogo said she had become frustrated because the donor groups that provide substantial aid to Kenya's rural areas "did not want to come here".

"We weren't seeing things done for the community," she said.

"It was a scandal—the donors' money seemed to be going to individuals."

After a fierce campaign, the council elected her, 7 to 6.

She said women in Embu celebrated.

Men were puzzled; some were hostile.

They asked, "How could all of those men vote for a woman? " she recalled.

Ms. Mbogo has not met with the kinds of abuse that other female politicians have been subjected to, however.

Some have said their supporters are sometimes attacked with clubs after rallies.

Last June, Kenyan police attempted to break up a women's political meeting northwest of Nairobi, insisting it was illegal and might start a riot.

When the 100 women, including a member of the National Assembly, refused to go, officers tore down their banners and beat them with clubs and fists, witnesses reported.

In contrast, Ms. Mbogo generally receives warm greetings from the men of Embu, and many say they are now glad the council chose her.

Donor groups are now funding projects in Embu in earnest.

A new market is going up downtown.

A 200-bed section for new mothers is being added to the hospital.

A dormitory-style home has been built for the dozens of homeless street children who once wandered the city.

Ms. Mbogo is especially proud of the market and the hospital because "they have an impact on women".

At the current market, where hundreds of people, shaded by umbrellas, lay out fruits and vegetables, one person who sells lemons said she liked the new mayor.

"I feel like if I have a problem, I can go to her office," she said.

"The other mayor shouted. He acted like an emperor. He did not want to hear my problems."

Nearby, a man said he found Ms. Mbogo a refreshing change.

"I'm tired of men," he said, watching over his pile of onions.

"They give us so many promises, but they don't deliver the goods. As long as she keeps giving us what we want, she is all right."

3A A welfare client is supposed to cheat. Everybody expects it.

Faced with sharing a dinner of raw pet food with the cat, many people in wheelchairs I know bleed the system for a few extra dollars.

They tell the government that they are getting two hundred dollars less than their real pension so they can get a little extra welfare money. Or, they tell the caseworker that the landlord raised the rent by a hundred dollars.

I have opted to live a life of complete honesty.

So instead, I go out and drum up some business and draw cartoons.

I even tell welfare how much I make!

Oh, I'm tempted to get paid under the table.

But even if I yielded to that temptation, big magazines are not going to get involved in some sticky situation.

They keep my records, and that information goes right into the government's computer.

Very high-profile.

As a welfare client I'm expected to bow before the caseworker.

Deep down, caseworkers know that they are being made fools of by many of their clients, and they feel they are entitled to have clients bow to them as compensation. I'm not being bitter.

Most caseworkers begin as college-educated liberals with high ideals.

But after a few years in a system that practically requires people to lie, they become like the one I shall call "Suzanne", a detective in shorts.

Not long after Christmas last year, Suzanne came to inspect my apartment and saw some new posters pasted on the wall.

"Where'd you get the money for those? " she wanted to know.

"Friends and family."

"Well, you'd better have a receipt for it, by God. You have to report any donations or gifts."

This was my cue to beg.

Instead, I talked back.

"I got a cigarette from somebody on the street the other day. Do I have to report that? "

"Well, I'm sorry, but I don't make the rules, Mr. Callahan."

Suzanne tries to lecture me about repairs to my wheelchair, which is always breaking down because welfare won't spend money maintaining it properly.

"You know, Mr. Callahan, I've heard that you put a lot more miles on that wheelchair than average."

Of course I do.

I'm an active worker, not a vegetable.

I live near downtown, so I can get around in a wheelchair.

I wonder what she'd think if she suddenly broke her hip and had to crawl to work.

Government cuts in welfare have resulted in hunger and suffering for a lot of people, not just me.

But people with spinal cord injuries felt the cuts in a unique way: The government stopped taking care of our chairs.

Each time mine broke down, lost a screw, needed a new roller bearing, the brake wouldn't work, etc., and I called Suzanne, I had to endure a little lecture.

Finally, she'd say, "Well, if I can find time today, I'll call the medical worker."

She was supposed to notify the medical worker, who would certify that there was a problem.

Then the medical worker called the wheelchair repair companies to get the cheapest bid.

Then the medical worker alerted the main welfare office at the state capital.

They considered the matter for days while I lay in bed, unable to move.

Finally, if I was lucky, they called back and approved the repair.

When welfare learned I was making money on my cartoons, Suzanne started "visiting" every fortnight instead of every two months.

She looked into every corner in search of unreported appliances, or maids, or a roast pig in the oven, or a new helicopter parked out back. She never found anything, but there was always a thick pile of forms to fill out at the end of each visit, accounting for every penny.

There is no provision in the law for a gradual shift away from welfare.

I am an independent businessman, slowly building up my market.

It's impossible to jump off welfare and suddenly be making two thousand dollars a month. But I would love to be able to pay for some of my living and not have to go through an embarrassing situation every time I need a spare part for my wheelchair.

There needs to be a lawyer who can act as a champion for the rights of welfare clients, because the system so easily lends itself to abuse by the welfare givers as well as by the clients.

Welfare sent Suzanne to look around in my apartment the other day because the chemist said I was using a larger than usual amount of medical supplies.

I was, indeed: The hole that has been surgically cut to drain urine had changed size and the connection to my urine bag was leaking.

While she was taking notes, my phone rang and Suzanne answered it.

The caller was a state senator, which scared Suzanne a little.

Would I sit on the governor's committee and try to do something about the thousands of welfare clients who, like me, could earn part or all of their own livings if they were allowed to do so, one step at a time?

Hell, yes, I would!

Someday people like me will thrive under a new system that will encourage them, not seek to convict them of cheating.

They will be free to develop their talents without guilt or fear—or just hold a good, steady job.

3B It was late afternoon when the chairman of our Bangkok-based company gave me an assignment: I would leave the next day to accompany an important Chinese businessman to tourist sites in northern Thailand.

Silently angry, I stared at my desk.

The stacks of paper bore witness to a huge amount of work waiting to be done, even though I had been working seven days a week.

How will I ever catch up? I wondered.

After a one-hour flight the next morning, we spent the day visiting attractions along with hundreds of other tourists, most of them loaded with cameras and small gifts.

I remember feeling annoyed at this dense collection of humanity.

That evening my Chinese companion and I climbed into a chartered van to go to dinner and a show, one which I had attended many times before.

While he chatted with other tourists, I exchanged polite conversation in the dark with a man seated in front of me, a Belgian who spoke fluent English.

I wondered why he held his head motionless at an odd angle, as though he were in prayer.

Then the truth struck me.

He was blind.

Behind me someone switched on a light, and I could see his thick silvery hair and strong, square jaw.

His eyes seemed to contain a white mist.

"Could I please sit beside you at the dinner?" he asked.

"And I'd love it if you'd describe a little of what you see."

"I'd be happy to," I replied.

My guest walked ahead toward the restaurant with newly found friends.

The blind man and I followed.

My hand held his elbow to steer him, but he stepped forward with no sign of hesitation or stoop, his shoulders squared, his head high, as though he were guiding me.

We found a table close to the stage.

He ordered half a liter of beer and I ordered a grape soda.

As we waited for our drinks, the blind man said, "The music seems out of tune to our Western ears, but it has charm. Please describe the musicians."

I hadn't noticed the five men performing at the side of the stage as an introduction to the show.

"They're seated cross-legged on a rug, dressed in loose white cotton shirts and large black trousers, with fabric around their waists that has been dyed bright red.

Three are young lads, one is middle-aged and one is elderly.

One beats a small drum, another plays a wooden stringed instrument, and the other three have smaller, violin-like pieces they play with a bow."

As the lights dimmed, the blind man asked, "What do your fellow tourists look like?"

"All nationalities, colors, shapes and sizes, a gallery of human faces," I whispered.

As I lowered my voice further and spoke close to his ear, the blind man leaned his head eagerly toward me.

I had never before been listened to with such intensity.

"Very close to us is an elderly Japanese woman," I said.

"Just beyond her a yellow-haired Scandinavian boy of about five is leaning forward, his face just below hers.

They're motionless, waiting for the performance to start.

It's the perfect living portrait of childhood and old age, of Europe and Asia."

"Yes, yes, I see them," the blind man said quietly, smiling.

A curtain at the back of the stage opened.

Six young girls appeared, and I described their violet-colored silk skirts, white blouses, and gold-colored hats like small crowns, with flexible points that moved in rhythm with the dance.

"On the tips of their fingers are golden nails perhaps 8 centimeters long," I told the blind man.

"The nails highlight each elegant movement of their hands. It's a delightful effect."

He smiled and nodded.

"How wonderful—I would love to touch one of those golden nails."

The first performance ended just as we finished dessert, and I excused myself and went to talk to the theater manager.

Upon returning, I told my companion, "You've been invited backstage."

A few minutes later he was standing next to one of the dancers, her little crowned head hardly reaching his chest.

She shyly extended both hands toward him, the brass fingernails shining in the overhead light.

His hands, four times as large, reached out slowly and held them as though they were holding up two tiny birds.

As he felt the smooth, curving sharpness of the metal tips, the girl stood quite still, gazing up into his face with an expression of wonder.

A lump formed in my throat.

After taking a cab back to the inn, with my Chinese guest still with the others, the blind man patted my shoulder, then pulled me toward him and embraced me tightly.

"How beautifully you saw everything for me," he whispered.

"I can never thank you enough."

Later I thought: I should have thanked him.

I was the one who had been blind, my eyes merely skimming the surface of things.

He had helped me lift the veil that grows so quickly over our eyes in this busy world, to see a whole new realm I'd failed to appreciate before. About a week after our trip, the chairman told me the Chinese executive had called to express great satisfaction with the trip.

"Well done," the chairman said, smiling.

"I knew you could do your magic."

I was not able to tell him that the magic had been done on me.

4A A transformation is occurring that should greatly boost living standards in the developing world.

Places that until recently were deaf and dumb are rapidly acquiring up-to-date telecommunications that will let them promote both internal and foreign investment.

It may take a decade for many countries in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe to improve transportation, power supplies, and other utilities.

But a single optical fiber with a diameter of less than half a millimete can carry more information than a large cable made of coppe wires.

By installing optical fiber, digital switches, and the latest wireless transmission systems, a parade of urban centers and industrial zones from Beijing to Budapest are stepping directly into the Information Age.

A spider's web of digital and wireless communication links is already reaching most of Asia and parts of Eastern Europe.

All these developing regions see advanced communications as a way to leap over whole stages of economic development.

Widespread access to information technologies, for example, promises to condense the time required to change from labor-intensive assembly work to industries that involve engineering, marketing, and design.

Modern communications "will give countries like China and Vietnam a huge advantage over countries stuck with old technology".

How fast these nations should push ahead is a matter of debate.

Many experts think Vietnam is going too far by requiring that all mobile phones be expensive digital models, when it is desperate for any phones, period.

"These countries lack experience in weighing costs and choosing between technologies," says one expert.

Still, there's little dispute that communications will be a key factor separating the winners from the losers.

Consider Russia.

Because of its strong educational system in mathematics and science, it should thrive in the Information Age.

The problem is its national phone system is a rusting antiqu that dates from the l930s.

To lick this problem, Russia is starting to install optical fiber and has a strategic plan to pump $40 billion into various communications projects.

But its economy is stuck in recession and it barely has the money to even scratch the surface of the problem.

Compare that with the mainland of China. Over the next decade, it plans to pour some $100 billion into telecommunications equipment.

In a way, China's backwardness is an advantage, because the expansion occurs just as new technologies are becoming cheaper than copper wire systems.

By the end of 1995, each of China's provincial capitals except for Lhasa will have digital switches and high-capacity optical fiber links.

This means that major cities are getting the basic infrastructure to become major parts of the information superhighway, allowing people to log on to the most advanced services available.

Telecommunications is also a key to Shanghai's dream of becoming a top financial center.

To offer peak performance in providing the electronic data and paperless trading global investors expect, Shanghai plans telecommunications networks as powerful as those in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Hungary also hopes to jump into the modern world.

Currently, 700,000 Hungarians are waiting for phones.

To partially overcome the problem of funds and to speed the import of Western technology, Hungary sold a 30% stake in its national phone company to two Western companies.

To further reduce the waiting list for phones, Hungary has leased rights to a Dutch-Scandinavian group of companies to build and operate what it says will be one of the most advanced digital mobile phone systems in the world.

In fact, wireless is one of the most popular ways to get a phone system up fast in developing countries.

It's cheaper to build radio towers than to string lines across mountain ridges, and businesses eager for reliable service are willing to accept a significantly higher price tag for a wireless call—the fee is typically two to four times as much as for calls made over fixed lines.

Wireless demand and usage have also exploded across the entire width and breadth of Latin America.

For wireless phone service providers, nowhere is business better than in Latin America—having an operation there is like having an endless pile of money at your disposal.

BellSouth Corporation, with operations in four wireless markets, estimates its annual revenu per average customer at about $2,000 as compared to $860 in the United States.

That's partly because Latin American customers talk two to four times as long on the phone as people in North America.

Thailand is also turning to wireless, as a way to allow Thais to make better use of all the time they spend stuck in traffic.

And it isn't that easy to call or fax from the office: The waiting list for phone lines has from one to two million names on it.

So mobile phones have become the rage among businesspeople who can remain in contact despite the traffic jams.

Vietnam is making one of the boldest leaps.

Despite a per person income of just $220 a year, all of the 300,000 lines Vietnam plans to add annually will be optical fiber with digital switching, rather than cheaper systems that send electrons over copper wires.

By going for next-generation technology now, Vietnamese telecommunications officials say they'll be able to keep pace with anyone in Asia for decades.

For countries that have lagged behind for so long, the temptation to move ahead in one jump is hard to resist.

And despite the mistakes they'll make, they'll persist—so that one day they can cruise alongside Americans and Western Europeans on the information superhighway.

4B Are you too tired to go to the video store but you want to see the movie Beauty and the Beast at home?

Want to listen to your favorite guitar player's latest jazz cassette?

Need some new reading material, like a magazine or book?

No problem.

Just sit down in front of your home computer or TV and enter what you want, when you want it, from an electronic catalogue containing thousands of titles.

Your school has no professors of Japanese, a language you want to learn before visiting Japan during the coming summer holiday.

Don't worry.

Just sign up for the language course offered by a school in another district or city, have the latest edition of the course teaching materials sent

to your computer, and attend by video.

If you need extra help with a translation assignment or your pronunciation, a tutor can give you feedback via your computer.

Welcome to the information superhighway.

While nearly everyone has heard of the information superhighway, even experts differ on exactly what the term means and what the future it promises will look like.

Broadly speaking, however, the superhighway refers to the union of today's broadcasting, cable, video, telephone, and computer and semiconductor industries into one large all-connected industry.

Directing the union are technological advances that have made it easier to store and rapidly transmit information into homes and offices. Fiber-optic cable, for example—made up of hair-thin glass fibers—is a tremendously efficient carrier of information.

Lasers shooting light through glass fiber can transmit 250,000 times as much data as a standard telephone wire, or tens of thousands of paragraphs such as this one every second.

The greatly increased volume and speed of data transmission that these technologies permit can be compared to the way in which a highway with many lanes allows more cars to move at faster speeds than a two-lane highway—hence, the information superhighway.

The closest thing to an information superhighway today is the Internet, the system of linked computer networks that allows up to 25 million people in 135 countries to exchange information.

But while the Internet primarily moves words, the information superhighway will soon make routine the electronic transmission of data in other formats, such as audio files and images.

That means, for example, that a doctor in Europe who is particularly learned will be able to treat patients in America after viewing their records via computer, deciding the correct dose of medicine to give the patient, or perhaps even remotely controlling a blade wielding robot during surgery.

"Sending a segment of video mail down the hall or across the country will be easier than typing out a message on a keyboard," predicts one correspondent who specializes in technology.

The world is on "the eve of a new era", says the former United States vice-president Al Gore, the Clinton administration's leading high technology advocate.

Gore wants the federal government to play the leading role in shaping the superhighway.

However, in an era of smaller budgets, the United States government is unlikely to come up with the money needed during the next 20 years to construct the superhighway.

That leaves private industry—computer, phone, and cable companies—to move into the vacuum left by the government's absence.

And while these industries are pioneering the most exciting new technologies, some critics fear that profit-minded companies will only develop services for the wealthy.

"If left in the hands of private enterprise, the data highway could become little more than a synthetic universe for the rich," worries Jeffrey Chester, president of the Center for Media Education in Washington, D.C.

Poor people must also have access to high technology, says another expert.

"Such access will be crucial to obtaining a high-quality education and getting a good job.

So many transactions and exchanges are going to be made through this medium—banking, shopping, communication, and information—that those who have to rely on the postman to send their correspondence risk really falling behind," he says.

Some experts were alarmed earlier this year when diagrams showed that four regional phone companies who are building components of the

superhighway were only connecting wealthy communities.

The companies denied they were avoiding the poor, but conceded that the wealthy would likely be the first to benefit.

"We had to start building some-place," says a spokesman for one of the companies, "and that was in areas where there are customers we believe will buy the service. This is a business."

Advocates for the poor want the companies building the data highway to devote a portion of their profits to insuring universal access. Advocates of universal access have already launched a number of projects of their own.

In Berkeley, California, the city's Community Memory Project has placed computer terminals in public buildings and subway stations, where a message can be sent for 25 cents.

In Santa Monica, California, computers have replaced typewriters in all public libraries, and anyone, not just librarians, can send correspondence via computer.

Many challenges face us as we move closer to the reality of the information superhighway.

In order for it to be of value to most people, individuals need to become informed about what is possible and how being connected will be of benefit.

The possibilities are endless but in order for the information superhighway to become a reality, some concrete steps need to be taken to get the process started.

5A Here we are, all by ourselves, all 22 million of us by recent count, alone in our rooms, some of us liking it that way and some of us not. Some of us divorced, some widowed, some never yet committed.

Loneliness may be a sort of national disease here, and it's more embarrassing for us to admit than any other sin.

On the other hand, to be alone on purpose, having rejected company rather than been cast out by it, is one characteristic of an American hero. The solitary hunter or explorer needs no one as they venture out among the deer and wolves to tame the great wild areas.

Thoreau, alone in his cabin on the pond, his back deliberately turned to the town. Now, that's character for you.

Inspiration in solitude is a major commodity for poets and philosophers.

They're all for it.

They all speak highly of themselves for seeking it out, at least for an hour or even two before they hurry home for tea.

Consider Dorothy Wordsworth, for instance, helping her brother William put on his coat, finding his notebook and pencil for him, and waving as he sets forth into the early spring sunlight to look at flowers all by himself.

"How graceful, how benign, is solitude," he wrote.

No doubt about it, solitude is improved by being voluntary.

Look at Milton's daughters arranging his cushions and blankets before they silently creep away, so he can create poetry.

Then, rather than trouble to put it in his own handwriting, he calls the girls to come back and write it down while he dictates.

You may have noticed that most of these artistic types went outdoors to be alone.

The indoors was full of loved ones keeping the kettle warm till they came home.

The American high priest of solitude was Thoreau.

We admire him, not for his self-reliance, but because he was all by himself out there at Walden Pond, and he wanted to be—all alone in the woods.

Actually, he lived a mile, or 20 minutes' walk, from his nearest neighbor; half a mile from the railroad; three hundred yards from a busy road. He had company in and out of the hut all day, asking him how he could possibly be so noble.

Apparently the main point of his nobility was that he had neither wife nor servants, used his own axe to chop his own wood, and washed his own cups and saucers.

I don't know who did his laundry; he doesn't say, but he certainly doesn't mention doing his own, either.

Listen to him: "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

Thoreau had his own self-importance for company.

Perhaps there's a message here: The larger the ego, the less the need for other egos around.

The more modest and humble we feel, the more we suffer from solitude, feeling ourselves inadequate company.

If you live with other people, their temporary absence can be refreshing.

Solitude will end on Thursday.

If today I use a singular personal pronoun to refer to myself, next week I will use the plural form.

While the others are absent you can stretch out your soul until it fills up the whole room, and use your freedom, coming and going as you please without apology, staying up late to read, soakin in the bath, eating a whole pint of ice cream at one sitting, moving at your own pace. Those absent will be back.

Their waterproof winter coats are in the closet and the dog keeps watching for them at the window.

But when you live alone, the temporary absence of your friends and acquaintances leaves a vacuum; they may never come back.

The condition of loneliness rises and falls, but the need to talk goes on forever.

It's more basic than needing to listen.

Oh, we all have friends we can tell important things to, people we can call to say we lost our job or fell on a slippery floor and broke our arm. It's the daily succession of small complaints and observations and opinions that backs up and chokes us.

We can't really call a friend to say we got a parcel from our sister, or it's getting dark earlier now, or we don't trust that new Supreme Court justice.

Scientific surveys show that we who live alone talk at length to ourselves and our pets and the television.

We ask the cat whether we should wear the blue suit or the yellow dress.

We ask the parrot if we should prepare steak, or noodles for, dinner.

We argue with ourselves over who is the greater sportsman: that figure skater or this skier.

There's nothing wrong with this.

It's good for us, and a lot less embarrassing than the woman in front of us in line at the market who's telling the cashier that her niece Melissa may be coming to visit on Saturday, and Melissa is very fond of hot chocolate, which is why she bought the powdered hot chocolate mix, though she never drinks it herself.

It's important to stay rational.

It's important to stop waiting and settle down and make ourselves comfortable, at least temporarily, and find some grace and pleasure in our condition, not like a self-centered British poet but like a patient princess sealed up in a tower, waiting for the happy ending to our fairy tale.

After all, here we are.

It may not be where we expected to be, but for the time being we might as well call it home.

Anyway, there is no place like home.

5B Identical twins Katie and Sarah Monahan arrived at Pennsylvania's Gettysburg College last year determined to strike out on independent paths.

Although the 18-year-old sisters had requested rooms in different dorms, the housing office placed them on the eighth floor of the same building, across the hall from each other.

While Katie got along with her roommate, Sarah was miserable.

She and her roommate silently warred over matters ranging from when the lights should be turned off to how the furniture should be

arranged.

Finally, they divided the room in two and gave up on oral communication, communicating primarily through short notes.

During this time, Sarah kept running across the hall to seek comfort from Katie.

Before long, the two wanted to live together again.

Sarah's roommate eventually agreed to move out.

"From the first night we lived together again, we felt so comfortable," says Sarah.

"We felt like we were back home."

Sarah's ability to solve her dilemma by rooming with her identical twin is unusual, but the conflict she faced is not.

Despite extensive efforts by many schools to make good roommate matches, unsatisfactory outcomes are common.

One roommate is always cold, while the other never wants to turn up the furnace, even though the thermometer says it's minus five outside. One person likes quiet, while the other person spends two hours a day practicing the trumpet, or turns up his sound system to the point where the whole room vibrates.

One eats only organically produced vegetables and believes all living things are holy, even ants and mosquitoes, while the other likes wearing fur and enjoys cutting up frogs in biology class.

When personalities don't mix, the excitement of being away at college can quickly grow stale.

Moreover, roommates can affect each other's psychological health.

A recent study reports that depression in college roommates is often passed from one person to another.

Learning to tolerate a stranger's habits may teach undergraduates flexibility and the art of compromise, but the learning process is often painful.

Julie Noel, a 21-year-old senior, recalls that she and her freshman year roommate didn't communicate and were uncomfortable throughout the year.

"I kept playing the same disk in my CD player for a whole day once just to test her because she was so timid," says Noel.

"It took her until dinner time to finally change it."

Although they didn't saw the room in half, near year's end, the two did end up in a screaming fight. "Looking back, I wish I had talked to her more about how I was feeling," says Noel.

Most roommate conflicts spring from such small, irritating differences rather than from grand disputes over abstract philosophical principles. "It's the specifics that tear roommates apart," says the assistant director of residential programs at a university in Ohio.

In extreme cases, roommate conflict can lead to serious violence, as it did at Harvard last spring: One student killed her roommate before committing suicide.

Many schools have started conflict resolution programs to calm tensions that otherwise can build up like a volcano preparing to explode, ultimately resulting in physical violence.

Some colleges have resorted to "roommate contracts" that all new students fill out and sign after attending a seminar on roommate relations. Students detail behavioral guidelines for their room, including acceptable hours for study and sleep, a policy for use of each other's possessions and how messages will be handled.

Although the contracts are not binding and will never go to a jury, copies are given to the floor's residential adviser in case conflicts later arise.

"The contract gives us permission to talk about issues which students forget or are afraid to talk about," says the director of residential programs.

Some schools try to head off feuding before it begins by using computerized matching, a process that nevertheless remains more of a guessing game than a science.

Students are put together on the basis of their responses to housing form questions about smoking tolerance, preferred hours of study and

sleep, and self-described tendencies toward tidiness or disorder.

Parents sometimes weaken the process by taking the forms and filling in false and wishful data about their children's habits, especially on the smoking question.

The matching process is also complicated by a philosophical debate among housing managers concerning the flavor of university life: "Do you put together people who are similar—or different, so they can learn about each other?"

A cartoon sums up the way many students feel the process works: Surrounded by a mass of papers, a housing worker picks up two selection forms and exclaims, "Likes chess, likes football; they're perfect together!"

Alan Sussman, a second-year student, says, "I think they must have known each of our personalities and picked the opposite," he recalls. While Sussman was neat and serious about studying, his roommate was messy and liked to party into the early hours of the morning.

"I would come into the room and find him pawing through my desk, looking for postage for a letter.

Another time, I arrived to find him chewing on the last of a batch of chocolate chip cookies my mother had sent me.

People in the hall were putting up bets as to when we were going to start slapping each other around," he says.

Against all odds, the two ended up being friends.

Says Sussman: "We taught each other a lot—but I would never do it again."

6A Students taking business courses are sometimes a little surprised to find that classes on business ethics have been included in their schedule.

They often do not realize that bribery in various forms is on the increase in many countries and, in some, has been a way of life for centuries.

Suppose that during a negotiation with some government officials, the Minister of Trade makes it clear to you that if you offer him a substantial bribe, you will find it much easier to get an import license for your goods, and you are also likely to avoid "procedural delays", as he puts it.

Now, the question is: Do you pay up or stand by your principles?

It is easy to talk about having high moral standards but, in practice, what would one really do in such a situation?

Some time ago a British car manufacturer was accused of operating a fund to pay bribes, and of other questionable practices such as paying agents and purchasers an exaggerated commission, offering additional discounts, and making payments to numbered bank accounts in Switzerland.

The company rejected these charges and they were later withdrawn.

Nevertheless, at that time, there were people in the motor industry in Britain who were prepared to say in private: "Look, we're in a very competitive business.

Every year we're selling more than a ￡1billion worth of cars abroad.

If we spend a few million pounds to keep some of the buyers happy, who's hurt?

If we didn't do it, someone else would."

It is difficult to resist the impression that bribery and other questionable payments are on the increase.

Indeed, they seem to have become a fact of commercial life.

To take just one example, the Chrysler Corporation, the third largest of the US car manufacturers, revealed that it made questionable payments of more than $2.5 million between 1971 and 1976.

By announcing this, it joined more than 300 other US companies that had admitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that they had made payments of one kind or another—bribes, extra discounts, etc.—in recent years.

For discussion purposes, we can divide these payments into three broad categories.

The first category consists of substantial payments made for political purposes or to secure major contracts.

For example, one US corporation offered a large sum of money in support of a US presidential candidate at a time when the company was under investigation for possible violations of US business laws.

This same company, it was revealed, was ready to finance secret US efforts to throw out the government of Chile.

In this category, we may also include large payments made to ruling families or their close advisers in order to secure arms sales or major petroleum or construction contracts.

In a court case involving an arms deal with Iran, a witness claimed that ￡1 million had been paid by a British company to a "negotiator" who helped close a deal for the supply of tanks and other military equipment to that country.

Other countries have also been known to put pressure on foreign companies to make donations to party bank accounts.

The second category covers payments made to obtain quicker official approval of some project, to speed up the wheels of government.

An interesting example of this kind of payment is provided by the story of a sales manager who had been trying for some months to sell road machinery to the Minister of Works of a Caribbean country.

Finally, he hit upon the answer.

Discovering that the minister collected rare books, he bought a rare edition of a book, slipped $20,000 within its pages, then presented it to the minister.

This man examined its contents, then said, "I understand there is a two-volume edition of this work."

The sales manager, who was quick-witted, replied, "My company cannot afford a two-volume edition, sir, but we could offer you a copy with a preface!"

A short time later, the deal was approved.

The third category involves payments made in countries where it is traditional to pay people to help with the passage of a business deal. Some Middle East countries would be included on this list, as well as certain Asian countries.

Is it possible to devise a code of rules for companies that would prohibit bribery in all its forms?

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) favors a code of conduct that would ban the giving and seeking of bribes.

This code would try to distinguish between commissions paid for real services and exaggerated fees that really amount to bribes.

A council has been proposed to manage the code.

Unfortunately, opinions differ among members of the ICC concerning how to enforce the code.

The British members would like the system to have enough legal power to make companies behave themselves.

However, the French delegates think it is the business of governments to make and impose law.

The job of a business community like the ICC is to say what is right and wrong, but not to impose anything.

In a well-known British newspaper, a writer argued recently that "industry is caught in a web of bribery" and that everyone is "on the take". This is probably an exaggeration.

However, today's businessman, selling in overseas markets, will frequently meet situations where it is difficult to square his business interests with his moral conscience.

6B Every summer about a dozen journalists gather at a former army training camp north of London to spend the day watching the training of London's special armed police unit.

These are the people who regularly have to tackle the increasing number of criminals who are prepared to carry guns.

The journalists also get a chance to shoot a gun on the practice range—none of it seems that difficult, and we put most of the bullets somewhere on the target.

But then we move on to the next stage of the training, where some of the problems, which actually crop up on the street are imitated.

The lights on the range are dimmed and we are stood in front of a large screen.

We still have guns, but the bullets are fake, and videos are played where actors act out various types of situations.

Does the man holding a woman in front of him really have a gun or not?

Is the man apparently preparing to surrender really going to, or is he going to raise the gun in front of him and shoot?

We have to decide whether to shoot and when, just like the police officer has to when faced with this situation for real.

The journalists' results here were not so impressive.

I am afraid we killed many an innocent person carrying nothing more lethal than a stick.

The debate over whether more police in Britain should be armed with guns has been going on for years.

The current policy is to have a small number of specialists available in each of the 43 police departments in Britain. They are kept up to scratch with intensive and regular training.

But the wisdom of that policy has been questioned as the amount of violence encountered by the police has grown.

It is usually the ordinary street officer who is on the wrong end of this, rather than the armed experts who arrive rather later.

To see the direction in which the British police are heading, consider the experience of the Northumbria police who have responsibility for law and order in 5,000 square kilometers of Northeast England.

The population is 1.5 million, living in rural areas and a few urban centers.

The 3,600 police officers in the force deal with all the typical problems thrown up by the Britain of the 1990s.

John Stevens, head of the Northumbria Police Department, has just published his review of the past years.

During 1994, for example, 61 officers (54 men and 7 women) were forced into early retirement after being attacked on duty.

Before being allowed to leave the police for medical reasons, they lost between them 12,000 days on sick leave: the equivalent of 50 police officers off the street for a full year.

Stevens makes this observation: "The personal cost of policing has never been so high.

One-third of the officers leaving were disabled in the very worst degree and will suffer for the rest of their lives for their efforts in the fight against crime."

This picture of a policeman's lot could be repeated in many other parts of Britain, yet the police themselves still oppose more widespread arming of their officers.

The most recent survey, conducted last year, showed that only 46% were in favor.

The general public, however, likes the idea: 67% favored wider issuing of guns.

But they, of course, would not have to carry them and maybe even use them.

Recalling my own experience shooting a gun on the practice range, I certainly would not want the responsibility.

It is clear to everyone that the police need more protection against the gun and the knife.

They already carry longer clubs to replace the old ones.

They have access to knife-resistant coats and gloves.

The likely next step is agreement from the government to test pepper spray, an organic substance derived from peppers that disables an attacker if sprayed in his face.

If used properly, the discomfort, although extreme, is only temporary.

Provided the spray is washed away with water, recovery should be complete within a couple of hours.

Unpleasant, certainly, but better than being shot.

Many people in Britain would not mind seeing their police with longer clubs or even pepper spray.

They would just like to see them.

I have lost count of the times we have been filming police officers on the street when local residents have come up to us and told us it is the first time in weeks they have seen police in the area.

Actually the biggest threat to the traditional image and role of police officers does not come from guns and armed crime but the increase in the tasks we expect the police to carry out.

New laws and police priorities are taking up so much time that many forces simply cannot afford to let their officers walk up and down the streets.

Politicians are now asking members of the public to watch the streets.

In some prosperous areas, local people pay private security firms.

Many officers believe it is all these extra duties, rather than the fear of being shot, that have really changed their role.

In future, if you want to know what time it is there might not be much point asking a policeman.

He either will not be there to ask or will not have the time to answer.

7A While not exactly a top-selling book, The History and Geography of Human Genes is a remarkable collection of more than 50 years of research in population genetics.

It stands as the most extensive survey to date on how humans vary at the level of their genes.

The book's firm conclusion: Once the genes for surface features such as skin color and height are discounted, the "races" are remarkably alike under the skin.

The variation among individuals is much greater than the differences among groups. In fact, there is no scientific basis for theories advocating the genetic superiority of any one population over another.

The book, however, is much more than an argument against the latest racially biased theory.

The prime mover behind the project, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a Stanford professor, labored with his colleagues for 16 years to create nothing less than the first genetic map of the world.

The book features more than 500 maps that show areas of genetic similarity—much as places of equal altitude are shown by the same color on other maps.

By measuring how closely current populations are related, the writers trace the routes by which early humans migrated around the earth. Result: the closest thing we have to a global family tree.

The information needed to draw that tree is found in human blood: various proteins that serve as markers to reveal a person's genetic makeup.

Using data collected by scientists over decades, the writers assembled profiles of hundreds of thousands of individuals from almost 2,000 groups.

And to ensure the populations were "pure", the study was confined to groups that were in their present locations as of 1492, before the first major movements from Europe began—in effect, a genetic photo of the world when Columbus sailed for America.

Collecting blood, particularly from ancient populations in remote areas, was not always easy.

Potential donors were often afraid to cooperate, or had religious concerns.

On one occasion, when Cavalli-Sforza was taking blood samples from children in a rural region of Africa, he was confronted by an angry farmer waving an axe.

Recalls the scientist: "I remember him saying,‘If you take the blood of th e children, I'll take yours.' He was worried that we might want to do some magic with the blood."

Despite the difficulties, the scientists made some remarkable discoveries.

One of them jumps right off the book's cover: A color map of the world's genetic variation has Africa at one end of the range and Australia at the other.

Because Australia's native people and black Africans share such superficial characteristics as skin color and body shape, they were widely assumed to be closely related.

But their genes tell a different story.

Of all humans, Australians are most distant from the Africans and most closely resemble their neighbors, the southeast Asians.

What the eye sees as racial differences—between Europeans and Africans, for example—are mainly a way to adapt to climate as humans move from one continent to another.