【推荐1】Wouldn’t it be wonderful to travel to a foreign country without having to worry about the headache of communicating in a different language?

In a recent Wall Street journal article, technology policy expert A lec Ross argued that, within a decade or so. We’ll be able to communicate with one another via small earpieces with built-in microphones. That’s because technological progress is extremely rapid. It’s only a matter of time. Indeed, some parents are so convinced that this technology is imminent that they’re wondering if their kids should even learn a second language.

It’s true that an increase in the quantity and accuracy (准确) of the data loaded into computers make them cleverer at translating “No es bueno dormir mucho” as “It’s not good to sleep too much.” Replacing a word with its equivalent (同义词) in the target language is actually the “easy part of a translator’s job”. But even this seems to be a discouraging task for computers.

It’s so difficult for computers because translation doesn’t—or shouldn’t—involve simply translating words, sentences or paragraphs. Rather, it’s about translating meaning. And in order to infer meaning from a specific expression, humans have to interpret a mass of information at the same time. Think about all the related clues that go into understanding an expression: volume, gesture, situation, and even your culture. All are likely to convey as much meaning as the words you use.

Therefore, we should doubt whether a machine is able to translate the world around us. If people from different cultures can offend each other without realizing it, how can we expect a machine to do better? Unless engineers actually find a way to breathe a soul into a computer, undoubtedly when it comes to conveying and translation meaning using a natural language, a machine will never fully take our place.

【推荐3】You can study the English language for years and still not understand a native speaker of English when you meet one. Many language leaners know that native speakers say a lot of things that you can’t find in a dictionary. Well, here’s a secret for you: A lot of British people can’t understand each other either!

Across the UK, a number of regions have different dialects—that is, they have their own unique vocabulary and grammatical phrases. There are many different accents in London, because it is not just where a person is born in the UK that decides their accent. Language and accents also vary across social class and level of education. Hence the recent rise of a new accent coined at the end of the 20th century—“Multicultural London English”.

Other factors are also important in the invention of new accents and ways of speaking. These include the influence of people from different ethnic backgrounds and different age groups, too.

“Yoof culture” is an example. The word “yoof” is a slang spelling of “youth”. Young people are creating their own language, concepts and identity. By using words that their parents don’t understand, children can talk about things that their parents might not approve of. For example, instead of saying something like “That’s good!” or “I understand”, yoof will use a single adjective like “Safe!”, or “Sorted!” Besides, Yoof would use “kind-a-thing,” or “sort-a-thing” to replace “if you understand what I’m saying”. In this way, they are starting to find freedom, independence and self-expression.

As learners of English, we may wonder how well we can talk to a native speaker, but perhaps we should worry less about this. Research commissioned by the British Council shows that 94 percent of the English spoken in the world today is spoken among non-native speakers of the language. In fact, when we think about “international English”, there is no such thing as a native or non-native speaker. The UK no longer owns the English language.

【推荐2】Nearly 80% of Chinese students who returned home after finishing education abroad thought their job salaries were lower than expected, according to a report by the think tank Center for China and Globalization and the online recruitment platform zhaopin. com.

More than 72 percent of overseas Chinese students have returned to China after finishing education abroad since the late 1970s, according to a report from a government-backed agency.

As for their reasons for studying abroad, 76% said they wanted to “experience the culture and life in other countries”, but few wanted to develop their careers abroad, according to the report.

Among those who returned, 61% chose to go back to their hometowns, 13% to Beijing, 8% to Shanghai, and 7% to Guangdong. The three first-tier cities are still popular choices for returnees due to their rapid economic growth and greater opportunities.

Recruitment websites and software were the top tools returnees used to find jobs, and 95% got jobs within half a year of returning to China.

Foreign languages and cross-cultural communication skills appeared to be the biggest advantage to the returnees’ domestic career development.

The report also showed that most chose to work in the financial industry. However, more than 70% of those surveyed believed their jobs were not highly fit for their academic majors, and over half changed jobs, due to unclear development trends and salary levels. Nearly 70% of students who returned had monthly incomes of more than 6, 000 yuan. At the same time, about 80% believed their income levels were lower than expected.

【推荐3】A new generation addiction is quickly spreading all over the world. Webaholism, a twentieth century disease, affects people from different ages. They surf the net, use e-mail and speak in chat rooms. They spend many hours on the computer, and it becomes a compulsive habit. They cannot stop, and it affects their lives.

Decades ago, no one thought that using computers could become compulsive behavior that could affect the social and physical life of computer users. This obsessional behavior has affected teenagers and college students. They are likely to log on computers and spend long hours at different websites.

They become addicted to computers and gradually their social and school life is affected by this situation. They spend all free time surfing and don’t concentrate on homework, so this addiction influences their grades and success at school. Because they can find everything on the websites, they hang out there. Moreover, this addiction to websites influences their social life.

They spend more time in front of computers than with their friends. The relation with their friends changes. The virtual life becomes more important than their real life. They have a new language that they speak in the chat rooms and it causes cultural changes in society.

Because of the change in their behavior, they begin to isolate themselves from the society and live with their virtual friends. They share their emotions and feelings with friends who they have never met in their life. Although they feel confident on the computer, they are not confident with real live friends they have known all their life. It is a problem for the future. This addictive behavior is beginning to affect the entire world.

【推荐1】The electronic cigarette（e-cigarette）industry is rapidly growing in the United States and the use of e-cigarettes is a public argument which continues because researchers do not yet know if e-cigarette use results in more benefit than harm. Now new research quantifies the balance of harm and benefit using the most current scientific evidence.

“Although the tobacco industry markets e-cigarettes as a tool to help adult smokers quit smoking, e-cigarette use actually only slightly boosts the adult smokers who are able to successfully quit,” says Samir Soneji, PhD, an associate professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. “On the other hand, e-cigarettes may promote cigarette smoking starting and afford much harm to adolescents and young adults once they are introduced to nicotine.”

Soneji's team calculated the expected years of life gained or lost from the impact of e-cigarette use on smoking pause among current smokers, and transition to long-term cigarette smoking among never-smokers. “E-cigarettes could lead to more than 1.5 million years of life lost because their use could largely make more and more adolescents and young adults eventually become cigarette smokers,” says Soneji.

Effective national, state, and local efforts are needed to reduce e-cigarette use among youth and young adults unless e-cigarettes are to afford a net population-level benefit in the future. “E-cigarettes will likely cause more public health harm than public health benefit unless ways can be found to largely decrease the number of adolescents and young adults who smoke and increase the number of smokers who use e-cigarettes to successfully quit smoking,” says Soneji. “We also need to close the regulatory（监管的）gaps that make e-cigarettes appealing to adolescents and young adults by reducing the availability of kid-friendly flavors and issuing product standards that reduce the level of some harmful and unhealthy materials in e-juice.”

【推荐1】The moon may shine white above us most nights of the year, but how much do we know about Earth’s neighbor and what lies beneath its surface? Scientists are aiming to find out.

On Jan 3, 2019, China’s Chang’e 4 spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon – a first for humanity. It released a small probe (探测器), Yutu 2, or Jade Rabbit 2, which began to search beneath the moon’s surface using Lunar Penetrating Radar. These radio signals can reach 40 meters underground, three times the depth of the Chang’e 3 lunar probe launched in 2013 for the near side of the moon, China Daily reported.

In a study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers found that the lunar soil’s top layer on the far side of the moon was much thicker than expected – about 40 meters. Other scientists only expected about 6 millimeters of soil based on NASA observations during the Apollo moon landings, according to The New York Times.

“It’s a fine, dusty, sandy environment,” said one of the authors of the study, Elena Pettinelli, a physics and mathematics professor at Rome Tre University, Rome.

Yutu 2 is specifically exploring the Von Karman crater (大坑), a large hole that’s 180 kilometers wide and also the landing site of Chang’e 4. It’s part of an even larger, older crater spanning more than 1,770 kilometers.

“The subsurface at the Chang’e 4 landing site is very complex,” said Li Chunlai, a research professor and deputy director-general of National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Observations suggest that the subsurface material is totally different than the previous landing site of Chang’e 3, she said.

Radar waves revealed various layers beneath the moon’s surface: grainy (颗粒状的) material, boulders (岩石), and further layers of fine and coarse (粗糙的) particles. This information is helping scientists to gain new understanding of the moon’s history and formation, as well as volcanic activity and lunar impacts.

Yutu 2 is the longest-working rover (巡视器) on the moon, but it won’t last forever. China plans to launch the Chang’e 5 probe later this year, Xinhua News Agency reported. The spacecraft is expected to bring pieces of the moon back to Earth for closer study.

【推荐2】Scientists think they have the answer to a puzzle that confused even Charles Darwin： How flowers evolved and spread to become the most important plants on earth．

Flowering plants, or angiosperms (被子植物), make up about 90% of all living plant species,but how they did this has been a mystery. New research suggests it is due to genome (基因组) size．

Hundreds of millions of years ago,the earth was dominated by ferns (蕨类)and conifers(针叶树) - they were the main plants on the earth． Then, about 150 million years ago， the first flowering plants appeared on earth. They quickly spread to all parts of the world．

Why angiosperms were successful and diverse on earth has been debated for centuries.Charles Darwin himself called it a "mystery", fearing this apparent sudden change might challenge his theory of evolution．

Kevin Simonin from San Francisco State University in California US and other researchers analyzed data held by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew， on the genome size of hundreds of plants, including flowering plants, gymnosperms (a group of plants including conifers) and ferns. They then compared genome size with anatomical (结构上的) features. This provides "strong evidence" that the success and rapid spread of flowering plants around the world is due to "genome downsizing"．

By reducing the size of the genome, which is contained within the nucleus (核) of the cell, plants can build smaller cells. The researchers say genome-downsizing happened only in the angiosperms, and this was "a necessary condition for rapid growth rates among land plants"．

【推荐3】We have heard some interesting ways that 5G wireless technology might change our lives in the future.

5G, short for the 5th generation mobile communication technology, promises Internet speeds between 50 to 100 times faster than current 4G systems. While 5G is set to be used in some limited areas of America this year, much of the world is not expected to receive widely available service until 2023.

One project in Britain, however, is already testing this superfast technology on an unlikely group of Internet users-cows. The project was developed by American technology company Cisco Systems. It also receives money from the British government. Cisco says the program seeks to explore the future of 5G connectivity in rural areas around the world.

Testing areas were set up at farms in three rural areas of England. The cows are equipped with 5G-connected devices (装置) that link up to a robotic milking system, which uses sensors and machine learning to fully automate the process. System designers say technology takes over after a cow feels ready to be milked and walks toward an automatic gate. The device is designed to recognize each individual cow. It then positions equipment to the right body position for milking. During the process, machines release food for the cow as a reward.

Other 5G technology tools include automated brushes that turn on when the cow rubs up against them. Sensors also control the amount of light to the cows’ living areas depending on the weather. And, an automatic feeding system makes sure the animals always get enough to eat.

Duncan Forbes, head of the project, told Reuters that the project shows the farm’s cow operations can be greatly improved with 5G technology and that the experiment provides strong evidence that 5G technology can be widely used in the future, not just on farms in Britain, but in rural communities across the world.