Geological (0) deposits of salt were formed millions of years ago, when what is now land, lay under the sea. It is hard to believe that salt is now such a cheap 1 –A provisionB utilityC materialD commodity because centuries ago it was the commercial 2 –A matchB similarityC parallelD equivalent of today’s oil. The men who mined salt became wealthy and, although the work was 3 –A criticalB demandingC extremeD straining and frequently dangerous, a job in a salt mine was highly 4 –A regardedB admiredC approvedD honoured.

Nowadays, the specific microclimates in disused mines have been 5 –A exploitedB extractedC exposedD extended for the treatment of respiratory illnesses such as asthma, and the silent, dark surroundings in a mine are considered 6 –A profitableB agreeableC beneficialD popular in encouraging patients to relax.

In addition, some disused mines have been 7 –A put downB turned overC made outD set about to different commercial enterprises, although keeping up-to-date with the technology of mining is essential to 8 –A enableB retainC ensureD support visitors’ safety.

Most people find change unsettling and difficult to adapt (0) TO. Many societies have experienced 9 rapid change in the early years of the 21st century that life can feel very daunting 10 times. Various commentators have 11 forward suggestions for coping with change on a personal level.

One suggestion involves thinking of three solutions to a problem, rather 12 two. Apparently, many people faced 13 change respond by considering two possible courses of action, but invariably tend to reject both of these. However, thinking instead of three potential solutions is a strategy which, according to research, provides a reliable way of finding a solution to the initial problem.

Another strategy advocates learning to avoid set patterns of routine behaviour. Something simple, 14 taking another route to work at 15 once a week, is seen as encouraging confidence in the face of uncertainty. 16 the simplicity of these ideas, they nevertheless help prepare people mentally to manage major change if necessary.

[Review of Rewire by Ethan Zuckerman, and Untangling the Web by Aleks Krotoski]

Open a street map of any city and you see a diagram of all the possible routes one could take in traversing or exploring it. Superimpose on the street map the actual traffic flows that are observed and you see quite a different city: one of flows. The flows show how people actually travel in the city, as distinct from how they could. This helps in thinking about the internet and digital technology generally. In itself, the technology has vast possibilities, as several recent books emphasise, but what we actually wind up doing with it is, at any point in time, largely unknown.

Ethan Zuckerman is excited by the possibilities the web provides for linking far-flung populations, for sampling different ways of life, for making us all digital cosmopolitans. His central thesis, however, is that while the internet does, in principle, enable everyone to become genuinely cosmopolitan, in practice it does nothing of the kind. As the philosopher Anthony Appiah puts it, true cosmopolitanism ‘challenges us to embrace what is rich, productive and creative’ about differences; in other words, to go beyond merely being tolerant of those who are different. Much of the early part of Rewire is taken up with demonstrating the extent to which the internet, and our use of it, fails that test.

‘We shape our tools,’ said the philosopher Marshall McLuhan, ‘and afterwards they shape us.’ This adage is corroborated every time most of us go online. We’ve built information tools (like search and social networking systems) that embody our biases towards things that affect those who are closest to us. They give us the information we think we want, but not necessarily the information we might need. Despite all the connectivity, we are probably as ignorant about other societies as we were when television and newspapers were our main information sources. In fact, Zuckerman argues, in some ways we were better then, because serious mainstream media outlets saw it as their professional duty to ‘curate’ the flow of news; there were editorial gatekeepers who determined a ‘news agenda’ of what was and wasn’t important. But, as the internet went mainstream, we switched from curation to search, and the traditional gatekeepers became less powerful. In some respects, this was good because it weakened large multimedia conglomerates, but it had the unanticipated consequence of increasing the power of digital search tools and, indirectly, the power of the corporations providing them.

Zuckerman a true cosmopolitan who co-founded a web service dedicated to realising the net’s capacity to enable anyone’s voice to be heard provides an instructive contrast to excessively optimistic narratives about the transformative power of networked technology, and a powerful diagnosis of what’s wrong. Where he runs out of steam somewhat is in contemplating possible solutions, of which he identifies three: ‘transparent translation’ – simply automated, accurate translation between all languages; ‘bridge figures’ bloggers who explain ideas from one culture to another; and ‘engineered serendipity’ basically, technology for enabling us to escape from filters that limit search and networking systems. Eventually, the technology will deliver transparent translation; cloning Ethan Zuckerman would provide a supply of bridge figures, but, for now, we will have to make do with pale imitations. Engineering serendipity, however, is a tougher proposition.

Aleks Krotoski might be able to help. She is a keen observer of our information ecosystem, and has been doing the conference rounds with an intriguing contraption called the ‘Serendipity Engine’, which is two parts art installation and one part teaching tool. Untangling the Web is a collection of 17 thoughtful essays on the impact of comprehensive networking on our lives. They cover the spectrum of stuff we need to think about from the obvious (like privacy, identity and the social impact of the net) to topics which don’t receive enough attention (for example, what medics, with a sniff, call ‘cyberchondria’ – how the net can increase health anxieties). Although she’s a glamorous media ‘star’ (having fronted a TV series about the internet), people underestimate Krotoski at their peril. She’s a rare combination of academic, geek, reporter and essayist, which her chapter on the concept of friendship online exemplifies: she’s read what the key social theorists say on the subject, but she’s also alert to what she experiences as ‘emotional anaemia’ – ‘the sense that…..you might not feel the online love from the people you should, because your nearest and dearest may be drowned out in the ocean of sociability.’ Which, in a way, brings us back to Zuckerman’s thoughts about the difference between what networked technology could do and what it actually does.

A: Lana Esslett
The arts matter because they link society to its past, a people to its inherited store of ideas, images and words; yet the arts challenge those links in order to find ways of exploring new paths and ventures. I remain sceptical of claims that humanity’s love of the arts somehow reflects some inherent inclination, fundamental to the human race. However, exposure to and study of the arts does strengthen the individual and fosters independence in the face of the pressures of the mass, the characterless, the undifferentiated. And just as the sciences support the technology sector, the arts stimulate the growth of a creative sector in the economy. Yet, true as this is, it seems to me to miss the point. The value of the arts is not to be defined as if they were just another economic lever to be pulled. The arts can fail every measurable objective set by economists, yet retain their intrinsic value to humanity.

B: Seth North
Without a doubt, the arts are at the very centre of society and innate in every human being. My personal, though admittedly controversial, belief is that the benefits to both individuals and society of studying science and technology, in preference to arts subjects, are vastly overrated. It must be said, however, that despite the claims frequently made for the civilising power of the arts, to my mind the obvious question arises: Why are people who are undeniably intolerant and selfish still capable of enjoying poetry or appreciating good music? For me, a more convincing argument in favour of the arts concerns their economic value. Needless to say, discovering how much the arts contribute to society in this way involves gathering a vast amount of data and then evaluating how much this affects the economy as a whole, which is by no means straightforward.

C: Heather Charlton
It goes without saying that end-products of artistic endeavour can be seen as commodities which can be traded and exported, and so add to the wealth of individuals and societies. While this is undeniably a substantial argument in favour of the arts, we should not lose sight of those equally fundamental contributions they make which cannot be easily translated into measurable social and economic value. Anthropologists have never found a society without the arts in one form or another. They have concluded, and I have no reason not to concur, that humanity has a natural aesthetic sense which is biologically determined. It is by the exercise of this sense that we create works of art which symbolise social meanings and over time pass on values which help to give the community its sense of identity, and which contribute enormously to its self-respect.

D: Mike Konecki
Studies have long linked involvement in the arts to increased complexity of thinking and greater self-esteem. Nobody today, and rightly so in my view, would challenge the huge importance of maths and science as core disciplines. Nevertheless, sole emphasis on these in preference to the arts fails to promote the integrated left/right-brain thinking in students that the future increasingly demands, and on which a healthy economy now undoubtedly relies. More significantly, I believe that in an age of dull uniformity, the arts enable each person to express his or her uniqueness. Yet while these benefits are enormous, we participate in the arts because of an instinctive human need for inspiration, delight, joy. The arts are an enlightening and humanising force, encouraging us to come together with people whose beliefs and lives may be different from our own. They encourage us to listen and to celebrate what connects us, instead of retreating behind what drives us apart.

I am stumbling, blinded by tiny missiles of ice and snow driven horizontally into my face by a howling gale. One minute I’m blown backwards. The next I’m leaping skyward in undignified panic as a foot narrowly misses an outraged elephant seal. Squinting painfully through torchlight, I’ve little hope of seeing the beasts. 41 –ABCDEFG Later, inside a cosy hut, sporting a patch over the sorer of my eyes, I have to admit that it probably is. This is, after all, the sub-Antarctic. Or to be precise, Macquarie Island: a sliver of land conjured abruptly from the vast wilderness of the Southern Ocean. The darkest, coldest months are generally the quietest time of year for human activity here, but this year is different.

I’m with a team of scientists who are undertaking a seemingly impossible task: to rid the entire island of every rabbit, rat and mouse. 42 –ABCDEFG Next morning, I abruptly change my mind, however, when I awake to a view that justifies the three-day voyage to this remote outpost of Australia. After overnight snowfalls the island is painted white, from highland plateaus, with frozen lakes, to rocky black sand and pebble shore. All glistens in rare sub-Antarctic sunshine. Besides, the previous afternoon’s discomforts were entirely our own fault.

43 –ABCDEFG The delay while we doubled back made it impossible to reach the hut before dusk. I had also blundered, deciding snow goggles were unnecessary. We had been taught a valuable lesson. While officially part of Australia, this island is a different world. Different rules apply. Every move must be planned and precautions taken because of the dangers posed by climate and terrain.

44 –ABCDEFG This extreme isolation means no activity is easy on the island. Our first challenge was getting ashore as there is no safe anchorage. But when we eventually reached the beach, I could instantly see that the island’s reputation as ‘the Galápagos of the south’ is justified. Over the next few days, seals, penguins and a host of seabirds are a constant presence. As in the Galápagos Islands, some species are abundant there are an estimated 100,000 seals and four million penguins. Though hunted in the past, these days the main threat to the island’s fauna comes not from man but from our legacy.

45 –ABCDEFG Unaccustomed to the herbivores’ teeth, the island flora has been overgrazed and reduced to stubble. The hills and plateaus are pock-marked with holes and soft surfaces are undermined by their burrows. On this treeless island, the overgrazing has also left the homes of native birds exposed. Petrel and albatross chicks are thus more vulnerable to predation and the harsh elements. The devastation reached such a point that in 2007 the World Heritage Convention discussed whether the island should lose its World Heritage status.

46 –ABCDEFG However, the status was also conferred because of its ‘outstanding natural beauty and aesthetic importance’. Given that the wild hillsides that should be lushly covered are bare, and are animated not by the movement of wind in tussock but by rabbits running amok, it is not surprising that the world was beginning to ask whether the description still applied.

A
In 1962, what began as an isolated fit of laughter in a group of schoolgirls in Tanzania rapidly rose to epidemic proportions. Contagious laughter spread from one individual to the next and between communities. Fluctuating in intensity, the laughter epidemic lasted for around two and a half years and during this time at least 14 schools were closed and about 1,000 people afflicted. Laughter epidemics, big and small, are universal. Laughter yoga, an innovation of Madan Kataria of Mumbai, taps into contagious laughter for his Laughter Yoga clubs. Members gather in public places to engage in laughter exercises to energise the body and improve health. Kataria realised that only laughter is needed to stimulate laughter – no jokes are necessary. When we hear laughter, we become beasts of the herd, mindlessly laughing in turn, producing a behavioural chain reaction that sweeps through our group.

B
Laughter is a rich source of information about complex social relationships, if you know where to look. Learning to ‘read’ laughter is particularly valuable because laughter is involuntary and hard to fake, providing uncensored, honest accounts of what people really think about each other. It is a decidedly social signal. The social context of laughter was established by 72 student volunteers in my classes, who recorded their own laughter, its time of occurrence and social circumstance in small notebooks (laugh logbooks) during a one-week period. The sociality of laughter was striking. My logbook keepers laughed about 30 times more when they were around others than when they were alone – laughter almost disappeared among solitary subjects.

C
Further clues about the social context of laughter came from the surreptitious observation of 1,200 instances of conversational laughter among anonymous people in public places. My colleagues and I noted the gender of the speaker and audience (listener), whether the speaker or the audience laughed, and what was said immediately before laughter occurred. Contrary to expectation, most conversational laughter was not a response to jokes or humorous stories. Fewer than 20% of pre-laugh comments were remotely joke-like or humorous. Most laughter followed banal remarks such as ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘It was nice meeting you too.’ Mutual playfulness, in-group feeling and positive emotional tone – not comedy – mark the social settings of most naturally occurring laughter. Another counterintuitive discovery was that the average speaker laughs about 46% more often than the audience. This contrasts with the scenario in stand-up comedy a type of comedy performance in which a non-laughing speaker presents jokes to a laughing audience. Comedy performance in general proves an inadequate model for everyday conversational laughter. Analyses that focus only on audience behaviour (a common approach) are obviously limited because they neglect the social nature of the laughing relationship.

D
Amazingly, we somehow navigate society, laughing at just the right times, while not consciously knowing what we are doing. In our sample of 1,200 laughter episodes, the speaker and the audience seldom interrupted the phrase structure of speech with a ha-ha. Thus, a speaker may say ‘You are wearing that? Ha-ha’, but rarely ‘You are wearing… ha-ha… that?’ The occurrence of laughter during pauses, at the end of phrases, and before and after statements and questions suggests that a neurologically based process governs the placement of laughter. Speech is dominant over laughter because it has priority access to the single vocalisation channel, and laughter does not violate the integrity of phrase structure. Laughter in speech is similar to punctuation in written communication. If punctuation of speech by laughter seems unlikely, consider that breathing and coughing also punctuate speech. Better yet, why not test my theory of punctuation by examining the placement of laughter in conversation around you, focusing on the placement of ha-ha laughs. It’s a good thing that these competing actions are neurologically orchestrated. How complicated would our lives be if we had to plan when to breathe, talk and laugh.