Is there anybody out there?【T1】For centuries human beings have wondered, although the ways in which we have gone about this have varied, encompassing spiritual and metaphysical questions as well as scientific ones. As we have gained greater understanding of the universe, however, our searches have taken on more concrete form. Questions about extraterrestrials have become a subject for science rather than science fiction and philosophy.

Now a new collaboration between the Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico and the privately funded Seti Institute in California, could mean that our curiosity about aliens is closer than ever before to being satisfied. Data from the VLA’s 28 giant radio telescopes, configured so as to scan a vast expanse of sky, will be fed through a special supercomputer that will search for distant signals.【T2】Scientists who work at the Seti Institute said the announcement means their research, for a long time confined to the eccentric margins of respectable science, are now “almost mainstream”.

How likely it is that a signal will be found, and what this might mean, are hard questions to answer. Seti’s existing projects have not detected any transmissions from other planets so far.【T3】But recent discoveries in space and Earth sciences have provided some encouragement to those who are enthusiastic about the prospect, however remote, of detecting other civilisations.

While once it was thought that our solar system could be unique, since the discovery of the first exoplanet (a planet in another solar system) in the 1990s, thousands more have been located.【T4】Around one in five stars are now thought to have a planet in their orbit in a so-called “habitable zone”—that is, at a distance from the star where the temperature (neither too hot nor too cold) means that life is theoretically feasible.

At the same time, the date at which life on Earth is thought to have started has been pushed back.【T5】Whereas once it was thought that the deep oceans could have sat dead and empty for billions of years before a freak chemical reaction produced the primitive cells that were the first form of life, recent science suggests that this could have happened much more quickly after the planet formed 4.5bn years ago. If it happened here, why not elsewhere?

It’s unsurprising, though, that the reaction against character criticism germinated in Shakespeare studies. Shakespeare’s characters had long been treated as if they were not only real people but exemplary ones. In Character. The History of a Cultural Obsession, Marjorie Garber notes that, for European culture since the seventeenth century,【T1】Shakespeare was the author who provided, through his dramatic characters, not only powerful “imitations” of human conduct, emotion, and attitude, but the blueprint, the language, and the responses that taught us how to be us.

Figures like Hamlet and Romeo were endlessly analyzed for clues to human nature and made into models of conduct, both good and bad. The idea that Shakespeare’s characters are somehow quintessentialy human even left its mark on the sciences. Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals cites passages from Henry V to illustrate anger and Titus Andronicus to depict shame. A generation later, Freud drew on Richard Ⅲ , among other Shakespearean characters, for his 1916 paper “Some Character-Types Met with in Psycho-Analytic Work”: “【T2】We all think we have reason to reproach Nature and our destiny for congenital and infantile disadvantages; we all demand reparation for early wounds to our narcissism, our self-love.”

We could chalk all of this up to Bardolatry (莎士比亚崇拜), of course; something about Shakespeare seems to make people (especially English people) act a little funny. For Garber, though,【T3】Shakespeare is merely a privileged example of a cultural dynamic operating across the centuries: the way specific literary characters inform a more general conception of human psychology, and vice versa. Reading about characters, it has long been thought, builds character; it also helps us to define and understand it.【T4】In the fourth century BC, Theophrastus (提奥夫拉斯图斯), a disciple of Aristotle, wrote a literary work entitled Characters, a collection of thirty brief descriptions of characters such as the Flatterer, the Chatterer, the Superstitious Man…

【T5】There’s already a tension here, one that will continue to haunt literary characters over the course of their history, between typicality—the Gross Man obviously is meant in some sense to represent all gross men—and specificity: the details need to be convincingly concrete in order for the imaginative exercise to have any value at all. Who is the Gross Man? A fiction? A satirical portrait of a real Athenian? A model for playwrights to copy? A type to watch out for, or avoid becoming oneself?

Life is priceless to those who possess it. Policymakers, though, must take a more hard-headed approach. That is particularly—if unfairly—true in poorer parts of the world.【T1】It is important for the authorities to understand the cost-effectiveness of a health program, so that its value can be compared with that of other claims on the public purse.

How to go about doing this is illustrated by a paper published in The Public Library of Science by Kartik Venkatesh of Brown University and Jessica Becker of Yale.【T2】Dr. Venkatesh and Dr. Becker asked themselves if it would be a good idea for the government of India to try, at regular intervals, to test the country’s population for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in order to treat those who unknowingly harbor it. The short answer is that, if it were feasible, it would be.

【T3】Though HIV in India has not turned into the widespread epidemic some experts feared it would a few years ago, it is reckoned to affect about 2.4m people, many of whom do not realize they are infected. If they were identified, these people could be given antiretroviral drugs to stop the symptoms of AIDS developing. That would also have the bonus of reducing the chance of their passing the virus on.

The calculations made by Dr. Venkatesh and Dr. Becker rely on a model developed by the World Health Organization and already in use in America, France, South Africa and elsewhere. It values lives extended and saved, and further infections and other treatment avoided. It then balances those against the costs of testing people and of giving drugs to those who test positive (plus the inevitable extra non-HIV spending that typically follows testing).

【T4】The price at which an extra year of life saved is deemed cost-effective is anything less than triple the annual GDP per person of the country in question. In India that is $3900. Anything below parity ($1300 per year of life) counts as very cost-effective. According to Dr. Venkatesh and Dr. Becker, testing Indian adults every five years would cost $ 1900 per year of life saved, and would thus pay off handsomely.

Whether it could actually be done is another matter.【T5】But India takes AIDS seriously and the fact that the epidemic has not run out of control in the way that was once feared is at least in part the consequence of the country’s policies. The will to test therefore probably exists. Dr. Venkatesh and Dr. Becker suggest it would be worth finding the means, as well.

It is hard to predict how science is going to turn out, and if it is really good science it is impossible to predict. If the things to be found are actually new, they are by definition unknown in advance. You cannot make choice in this matter.【T1】You either have science or you don’t and if you have it you are obliged to accept the surprising and disturbing pieces of information, along with the neat and promptly useful bits.

【T2】The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature. Indeed. I regard this as the major discovery of the past hundred years of biology. It is, in its way, an illumination piece of news. It would have amazed the brightest minds of the 18th century Enlightenment to be told by any of us how little we know and how bewildering seems the way ahead.【T3】It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of the 20th century science to the human intellect. In earlier times, we either pretended to understand how things worked or ignored the problem, or simply made up stories to fill the gaps.【T4】Now that we have begun exploring in earnest, we are getting glimpses of how huge the questions are, and how far from being answered. Because of this, we are depressed. It is not so bad being ignorant if you are depressed. It is not so bad being ignorant if you are totally ignorant; the hard thing is knowing in some detail the reality of ignorance, the worst spots and here and there the not-so-bad spots, but no true light at the end of the tunnel nor even any tunnels that can be trusted.

But we are making a beginning, and there ought to be some satisfaction. There are probably no questions we can think up that can’t be answered, sooner or later, including even the matter of consciousness.【T5】To be sure, there may well be questions we can’t think up, ever, and therefore limits to the reach of human intellect, but that is another matter. Within our limits, we should be able to work our way through to all our answers, if we keep at it long enough, and pay attention.

Culture shock might be called an occupational disease of people who have been suddenly transplanted abroad. Like most ailments, it has its own symptoms and cure.

Culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. Those signs or cues include the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves to the situation of daily life: When to shake hands and what to say when we meet people, and when and how to give tips, how to make purchases, when to accept and when to refuse invitations, when to take statements seriously and when not.【T1】These cues, which may be words, gestures, facial expressions, customs, or norms, are acquired by all of us in the course of growing up and are as much a part of our culture as the language we speak or the beliefs we accept.【T2】All of us depend for our peace of mind and our efficiency on hundreds of these cues, most of which we do not carry on the level of conscious awareness.

Now when an individual enters a strange culture, all or most of these familiar cues are removed. He or she is like a fish out of water.【T3】No matter how broad-minded or full of good will you may be, a series of props have been knocked from under you, followed by a feeling of frustration and anxiety. People react to the frustration in much the same way. First they reject the environment which causes the discomfort. “The ways of the host country are bad because they make us feel bad.“【T4】When foreigners in a strange land get together to grouse about the host country and its people, you can be sure they are suffering from culture shock. Another phase of culture shock is regression. The home environment suddenly assumes a tremendous importance. To the foreigner everything becomes irrationally glorified. All the difficulties and problems are forgotten and only the good things back home are remembered. It usually takes a trip home to bring one back to reality.

Individuals differ greatly in the degree in which culture shock affects them. Although not common, there are individuals who cannot live in foreign countries. However, those who have seen people go through culture shock and on to a satisfactory adjustment can discern steps in the process. During the first few weeks most individuals are fascinated by the new. They stay in hotels and associate with nationals who speak their language and are polite and gracious to foreigners. This honeymoon stage may last from a few days or weeks to six months, depending on the circumstances.【T5】If one is very important, he or she will be shown the show places, will be pampered and petted, and in a press interview will speak glowingly about goodwill and international friendship.