Britain's got talent——but we're still wasting it. That's the main finding of a new report by researchers from Oxford University. Children of similar cognitive (认知) ability have very different chances of educational success； it still depends on their parents' economic, socio-cultural and educational resources. This contradicts a commonly held view that our education system has developed enough to give everyone a fighting chance. The researchers looked at data from groups of children born in three decades: 1950s, 1970s and 1990s.

They found significant evidence of a wastage of talent. Individuals with high levels of cognitive ability but with disadvantages in their social origins are unable to translate their ability into educational achievement to the same extent as their more advantaged counterparts (对照组). The research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, found that only about half of the difference in educational achievement between children from advantaged and disadvantaged parental backgrounds is due to differences in their cognitive ability. The other half is due to other factors (因素)associated with their backgrounds.

“If we compare the educational achievement of children born in the 1990s to those in the late 1950s and early 1970s, we see that parents' economic resources have become a less important factor, but their socio-cultural and educational resources have grown in significance," says Dr. Bukodi. “That means that your parents' place in society and their own level of education still play a big part in how well you may do."

These experts are now calling for policy-makers to acknowledge that formal qualifications is only one channel for upward mobility (流动性)for high-ability individuals of disadvantaged backgrounds. Dr. Bukodi says, “These findings show that there are limits to how far inequalities of opportunity can be reduced through educational policy alone. Changes in educational policy aren't having the powerful effect we want."

Bigger bumblebees (大黄蜂) spend time learning the locations of the most nectar-rich (花蜜多的) flowers, so they can easily find them again, new research finds. Smaller bees, on the other hand, aren’t quite as choosy in their flower selection.

After drinking from a flower, bumblebees decide if it’s worth visiting again. If the flower is rich in nectar, bumblebees will perform what are known as learning flights to study the location around the flowers. They will slowly fly around the flower, and then fly away from it, looking back at its location. They will remember the flower and the views all around it. On their next trip, the bees match what they see with the views they have already memorized. This takes them back to the flower’s location.

For the study, researchers set up an experiment in a greenhouse where they could watch bees visit artificial flowers containing varying concentrations (不同浓度) of sugar solutions. The flowers had sugar solutions ranging from 10% to 50% sugar. When the concentration was greater, the larger bees spent more time circling the flowers and making learning flights. When the concentration was smaller, the length of time the bees spent looking at the flower and flying around it dropped.

Smaller bees spent the same amount of effort learning where the flowers were, no matter whether the concentration of sugar was low or high.

The difference likely shows the different roles of the bees in their colonies (群体), the researchers said.

“Large bumblebees are able to carry larger loads (负载) and explore further from the nest than smaller ones. Smaller ones with a smaller flight range and carrying capacity cannot afford to be as picky and so accept a wider range of flowers,” the researchers said in the study. “Smaller bees often take on more tasks inside the nest, only going out to search for food when food supplies are running low.”

What’s the effect of poetry on our brain? Scientists have been investigating the neuronal (神经元的) connections and brain circuits that can work in the reading of poetry for some time. And, even though the research has only just begun, the results are already fascinating.

Poetry has the oldest recorded texts in literature. Although it’s impossible to say exactly when it began to be used in the oral tradition, we dare to say that it’s accompanied humanity forever. This gives us an idea of the impact that poetic language can have on our emotional and cognitive state. The emotional response to literature in general shares areas of activation with music. However, more areas of the right hemisphere (半球) seem to be related to poetry. The researchers measured the goosebumps resulting from the tingling (强烈感受) sensation in reading poetry. This type of sensation has also been proven to result from music. However, the tingling sensations produced by poetry activate different areas of the brain compared to those activated by music.

Dr. Eugen Wassiliwizky’s team collected data on behavioral responses in people reading or listening to poetry. They proved that poetry is capable of causing emotional responses and rich emotional experiences. In addition, a poem expresses the poet’s ideas. From a psychological view, poetry is a game of language that manages to group words in a surprising way. We could compare this with how a chef combines ingredients that seem impossible to combine, producing extraordinary results. Poetry is based on rules of construction. It sets up a rhythm, which then breaks, before finally returning to it. The play on the meanings of words, sometimes several meanings in just one word, is extremely intellectually inspiring. We can read a poem a thousand times, and still find its new meanings.

Generally, our passage through the wonderful world of poetry is cut short by a rather reduced exposure during childhood and the overly analytical approach of this literary genre (类型),which is given in most schools. Although, the studies that experts have conducted on poetry get a lot of interesting results, poetry still holds a mystery that science hasn’t yet been able to investigate. For example, why a perfect cadence (抑扬顿挫) and rhythm can lift the spirit of people is the new challenge for the research.