Have you ever caught yourself saying, "I hate small talk!" the minute you walk into a party? If so, you might be an introvert (内向的人). Introverts hate to chat about "small" subjects with people. They are fine when you talk one on one but seem to get lost in the crowd when there's a group around.

If you're talking to an introvert, you might find that your first few conversations go one of two ways. Either they'll seem to get bored and not say much or they'll seem to skate over small talk in favor of more in-depth topics. What you need to know is that the introvert is not being rude. It’s just that they don't like small talk. Here's why.

Small talk serves as a gateway toward deeper conversation. Some introverts don’t realize that small talk will actually help them get to the bigger topics. You don't need to stay on small talk forever. However, sometimes introverts feel that even the short amount of time it takes to get into the real conversation is a waste of time. Small talk is very fast. Someone says something and this should be followed up with a quick response. But introverts like to chew on their words before saying them aloud. Before they answer, they’ll mull over different thoughts.

Small talk by its very nature invites more people to join in. The more people who join the conversation, the more the introvert will tend to step back. As a result, they’ll be quiet. Small talk is about throwing out subjects in the hope that one or more of them can be turned into a common point of interest.

The listening involved with small talk is not in-depth. The purpose is about listening "lightly" so you can figure out the right topics to spend some time on. Introverts tend to be great listeners, but they use active listening rather than light listening. This makes them wonderful friends, but can also make it difficult for new people to understand why they’re so quiet.

If you’re a fan of hummingbirds(蜂鸟), then you probably know that at night they lower their body temperatures greatly by dropping into an energy-saving state of inactivity called torpor(麻木). A new study finds that the birds have more than one level of torpor. “There have been a few signs that this ability to fine-tune thermoregulation(温度调节)is possible,” said the lead author Anusha Shankar.

Shankar and her colleagues used a special method to track the body temperatures of three hummingbird species in Arizona: the blue-throated mountaingem, Rivoli’s hummingbird, and the black-chinned hummingbird. They measured the temperatures emitted from the skin around the eyes of the birds and found that differences in heat generation at various stages are noticeable

The normal daytime body temperature of a hummingbird is more than 100 ℉, even in cold weather. During shallow torpor, their body temperature drops by about 20 ℉. In deep torpor, the bird keeps a body temperature 50 ℉ below its normal daytime temperature. If human body temperature were to drop mere 3 degrees from the standard 98.6 ℉, we’d be in a state of hypothermia(低体温症)and, unlike hummingbirds, we would need outside help to get warm again.

“In this study, we found that the smallest bird used deep torpor every night,” said Shankar. “The bigger birds sometimes use deep torpor and sometimes shallow torpor, and sometimes no torpor at all.”

Shallow torpor may have developed to balance energy saving with the cost of deep torpor. In deep torpor, a hummingbird is much more likely to be affected by disease because its immune system(免疫系统)shuts down. And what’s more, it would get inadequate sleep and be easily harmed by its enemies.

Torpor is not the same as sleep. Sleep uses much more energy and serves many important functions. Daily torpor also differs from hibernation(冬眠). Hibernating animals enter a low-energy state for weeks or months at a time, while hummingbirds can enter torpor every night. But the researchers say their studies were done under laboratory conditions, not the conditions a bird would encounter in the wild. They say more research is needed to understand thermoregulation in birds.

“The calm before the storm” is a very familiar expression. It is usually used to describe a peaceful period just before a very stressful situation or a tense argument. 【小题1】 They noted that before certain storms the seas would seem to become calm and the winds would drop.

But why is it often so calm before a storm? 【小题2】 According to US website HowStuffWorks, a calm period occurs because many storms, tornadoes and hurricanes draw in all the warm and damp air from the surrounding area. As this air rises into the storm clouds, it cools and acts as “ fuel for the storm ,like petrol in a car. “

Once the storm has taken all the energy it can from the air, it is pushed out from the top of the storm clouds and falls back down to ground level. 【小题3】 So once it covers an area, it causes a calm period before the storm.

【小题4】 First count how many seconds there are between a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, roughly three seconds equal one kilometer. A good judgement is that if your count is below 30 seconds, you should seek shelter straight away.

However, due to the complexity of storm system ,calm doesn't always go first. So, your best bet is to keep yourself updated with weather reports for any predictions regarding a coming storm in your area. 【小题5】