Over the past 50 years, robots have become a normal part of our everyday lives. They build cars in factories, clean up dirt in the house and dismantle (拆卸) bombs in war zones. However, some inventors are creating a future where robots not only do boring and dangerous jobs but also become a part of our families.

In 2019, Japanese robotics company Groove X introduced LOVOT, a robot that weighs as much as a baby and looks like a mix between a penguin and a bear. Although LOVOT can’t build a car, it can build a relationship with its owner and provide love, companionship and happiness. In fact, LOVOT is just one of the latest robots meant to help people who are suffering from issues such as loneliness and dementia.

LOVOT has a system of sensors that allows it to move freely around a room and respond to things. For example, people can rub its belly to lull it to sleep when holding LOVOT. Also, when LOVOT needs a hug, it will find its owner in the house and wait until it is picked up. People quickly develop an emotional bond with LOVOT due to its cute design and lifelike traits.

All over the world, robots like LOVOT are being used for “robot-assisted therapy”. For example, when a robot baby seal named PARO was given to an elderly Australian patient with dementia, the patient spoke for the first time since arriving at the nursing facility. In New Zealand, when dementia patients were given the chance to play with PARO or a real dog, they chose to play with PARO.

Robots like LOVOT and PARO are being developed at the perfect time. Many countries have “aging societies”, meaning the populations of old people outweigh young people, resulting in more people who not only need assistance with things like getting dressed and cooking meals but also friendship and love. Additionally, according to a national research institute in Japan, 40% of all people in that country will be living alone by 2040, meaning loneliness among younger populations may also increase significantly. Nevertheless, if LOVOT and PARO can give us all the love and affection we get from the pets without any of the mess or regular care, we might not be so lonely after all.

It might be strange to wear clothes made out of plastic bottles. But in fact some clothing companies are already making such clothes.

Fashion brand JUMA recently showed its newest collection at a workshop in Shanghai. Eighteen clothing items from the collection, including jump-suits, jackets, shirts and dresses, were made from recycled plastic bottles. “We realized that billions of water bottles were being thrown into landfills and oceans every year and that these bottles take hundreds of years to decompose (分解). We thought we should use them to create our clothes and help the environment,” said Alia Juma, the company’s design director.

Many other fashion companies are finding similar ways to save our planet these days. The process is rather simple. First, the plastic bottles are washed and cut into small pieces. Then they are melted and shaped into small balls. The balls are melted again to form thread. People can then use the thread to make different kinds of clothes.

According to Juma, it takes 67,000 bottles to create 1 ton of thread. This reduces carbon emissions by 4.2 tons and water use by 6.2 tons compared with the normal way of making thread. “4 bottles can make a pillowcase. 5 can make a shirt, 10 a dress and 20 a short coat,” Juma said.

Some people might have doubts about wearing something made out of plastic bottles. But according to Causeartist, a website that focuses on innovation, clothes made from plastic could be even better than nylon and polyester. Plastic thread can be made into different textures, such as cotton, silk or even wool. “The more we learn about recycled fabrics, the more we realize that they work just like other fabrics. You can get a heavier cotton feeling or a silky feeling by weaving the yarns into different textures and using different washing methods. There is actually a lot you can do with this fabric,” Juma said.

The price for the clothes in the new collection ranges from 500 to 3,000 yuan. However, Juma is optimistic that prices will fall when more companies follow the sustainability path taken by her business.

During my youth in America’s Appalachian mountains, I learned that farmers preferred sons over daughters, largely because boys were better at heavy farm labour. With only 3% of Americans in agriculture today, brain has replaced brawn, yet cultural preferences, like bad habits, are easier to make than break. But history warns repeatedly of the tragic cost of dismissing too casually the gifts of the so-called weaker sex.

About 150 years ago, a village church vicar in Yorkshire, England, had three lovely, intelligent daughters but his hopes depended entirely on the sole male heir (继承人), Branwell, a youth with remarkable talent in both art and literature.

Branwell’s father and sisters saved their pennies to pack him off to London’s Royal Academy of Arts, but within weeks he returned home, a penniless failure. Hopes still high, the family landed Branwell a job as a private tutor, hoping this would free him to develop his literary skills and achieve the success and fame that he deserved. Failure again.

For years the selfless sisters squelched (制止) their own goals, farming themselves out as teachers and governesses in support of their increasingly indebted brother, convinced the world must eventually recognize his genius. As failures multiplied, Branwell turned to alcohol, then opium, and eventually died as he had lived: a failure. So died hope in the one male — but what of her three selfless sisters?

During Branwell’s last years, the girls published a book of poetry at their own expense. Even Branwell might have snickered (窃笑): they sold only 2 copies. However, they continued in their spare time, late at night by candlelight, to pour out their pent-up emotion, writing of what they knew best, of women in conflict with their natural desires and social condition — in reality, less fiction than autobiography! And 19th-century literature was transformed by Anne’s Agnes Grey, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. But years of sacrifice for Banwell had caused great suffering. Emily was taken ill at her brother’s funeral and died within 3 months, aged 29; Anne died 5 months later, aged 30; Charlotte lived only to age 39. If only they had been nurtured instead of sacrificed.

No one remembers Branwell’s name, much less his art or literature, but the Bronte sisters’ tragically short lives teach us even more of life than of literature. Their sacrificed genius cries out to us that in modern society we must value children not by their physical strength or sexual gender, but by their integrity, strength, commitment, courage—spiritual qualities abundant in both boys and girls.

Most of us need to heal once in a while. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Sometimes it’s all the above. For some of us, the ________ part of healing is simply to believe that it’s possible. 

Years ago, I was watching my oldest son ________ free throws. He made a dozen ________ through the net without a miss. 

“How do you do that?” I said.

“Before I release the ball,” he said, “I see it in my mind going ________ the net. I see it in my mind to make it happen.” 

I loved these words. It struck me that they might also ________ healing. We need to believe healing can happen and picture it in our minds to see it in ________. ________ doesn’t assure us of the outcome we hope for. But it sets us in motion to move toward desired ________. 

Last year I had surgery for a broken ________ and spent eight weeks in a wheelchair. At the end of those eight weeks, I ________ to start walking again. ________, that didn’t happen. I then started going to physical ________ . I believed it could help, so I kept at it just when it seemed I’d never ________ again as I did before. 

When hope grows dim (暗淡的), belief ________ the way and makes all things possible. We need to believe ________ is possible. If we can see it in our minds, we can let go of the past, accept the present and move toward a better future.