“I wish that in one instant I could tell you of my safe arrival, but we are 3,000 miles apart and must wait for long weeks to hear from each other.” Samuel Morse was 20 when he wrote this sentence in a letter to his mother in 1811. He was in London studying art. She was at the home in Charlestown, Mass, USA, where he had been born. Perhaps it was at the moment of writing the letter that young Morse first had the desire to bridge space with flying words. This desire was later to give the world the electric telegraph.

Samuel returned in 1815 to work on history painting much admired in Europe. Morse completed an oil painting The House of Representatives, expecting that this would bring him fame. But there was hardly any demand in the United Stated for history painting, and he unwillingly started to support himself by painting portraits. He was often close to poverty during his career as an artist.

During a voyage from Europe to America in 1832, Morse met Thomas Jackson, a scientist who had recently attended lectures on electricity in Paris. Conversations with Jackson made the artist believe that an electrical current could be used for communication.

During the rest of the voyage he worked excitedly on drawings for his plan. After his arrival at home, he abandoned his artistic career to give his full attention to the project.

Morse had an fertile mind but little knowledge of electricity. He did years of work and study to perfect his invention. In 1837 he applied for a patent on The American Electromagnetic Telegraph. Finally, in 1843 the United States Congress provided 30,000 to build a line from Washington to Baltimore.

In May 1844 the first message was flashed over this wire. Newspapers, railroads, and businesses quickly found use for the telegraph, which for the first time created a global community.

【推荐3】Nao, the first robot able to show feelings, has been created by a European research team. When Nao is sad, he lowers his head and looks down. When he’s happy, he raises his arms for a hug. Nothing is out of the ordinary, except that Nao is a robot.

“We’re modeling the first years of life,” says Lola Canamero, a computer scientist at the University of Hertforshire. “The feelings are shown through physical gestures and body movements rather than facial or verbal (言语的) expressions.”

In the future, says the scientist, robots are likely to act as companions, provide support for old people, and help people shop online. In such uses, the display of feeling will be important in making the interactions (交往) more natural and comfortable.

Nao has been programmed to copy the emotional skills of a one-year-old child. It can memorize faces, and knows the basic rules of good and bad. Based on these it can decide how to react to what is going on. The actions going with each feeling are pre-programmed, but Nao decides for itself when to display them.

Nao is also programmed to have different personalities. A more independent robot is less likely to call for help when exploring a room, while a more fearful robot will show distress if it finds something in the room that may be harmful.

Canamero’s team will take its emotional programming forward into medical applications. Part of the project will look at ways to use robots in hospitals to support the roles of doctors, nurses and parents. Children might find that a small, friendly-looking robot that can understand their emotional states makes them less anxious. “We want to explore different roles—the robots will help the children to understand their treatment and explain what they have to do. We want to help the children to control their anxiety.” she says.

【推荐1】

A team of students from Stanford University are making efforts to launch a satellite powered exclusively by water into orbit (轨道) around the Mars. The team names itself the Super Lunar Explorers.

These creative students are now attending a competition called the Future Space Challenge, which is held annually by NASA, the American space agency to find more talents in space. The winners will be publicized in about a month. The final three winners will be announced in early 2023. They will get to ride on NASA’s space launch system in early 2024.

The principle behind the competition is simple: to think, design, build and launch “qualified small satellites”. NASA officials required that the satellites must be able to perform “advanced operations near and beyond the moon”. Twenty teams are competing for the championship. But the Super Lunar Explorer satellites are totally different. They use only water to power their spacecraft, which has never been done before.

Such a novel idea for a water-powered satellite came from Peckon Lewis, who works at Stanford University now, who once worked as NASA’s chief technologist. He has always been wondering whether something other than rockets can be used to push spacecraft beyond earth. “A lot of things we send into space these days is with the help of rockets——the only way we get anything into space,” he said, in a Stanford press release. “But if we could try something that has been already there? If we could do that, if we could re-fuel spacecraft while they’re already in space...”

The spacecraft is about 30 centimeters in length, and the two pieces are interconnected. The lower part of the satellite is designed to store water, which will be separated by solar panel into two elements: hydrogen and oxygen. When one combines hydrogen and oxygen with a spark (火花), an explosion was caused. This provides a forward movement, known as thrust.

【推荐2】Nine mini cheetahs robots appeared in the field to show their athletic abilities. The four-legged machines, mini versions of the larger and heavier Cheetah 3, began with a warm-up run across the field.

Though they may be similar to their predecessors(原先的事物), the new four-legged machines are much more advanced. Weighing just nine kilograms, the robots can bend and swing their legs wide, giving them the ability to walk either right-side-up or upside down. They can also travel through uneven places at about twice the speed of an average person’s walking pace and quickly right themselves if kicked to the ground and perform unbelievable 360-degree backflips(后空翻) from a standing position.

Unlike the Cheetah 3, the main robots are built using cheap and easy to find parts. This means that if an arm or a motor breaks, it can be easily replaced. “If you wanted to add another arm, you could just add three or four more of these motors,” said lead developer Benjamin Katz, “You could put these parts together, almost like Legos.”

The team, which currently has ten of the four-legged machines, plans to build additional units in other university robotic labs. “A big part of why we built this robot is that it makes it easy to experiment and just try crazy things, because the robot is very strong and doesn’t break easily, and if it does break, it’s easy and not very expensive to fix, ” said Katz.

He believes that this will enable other engineers to teach the robots different skills. “Eventually, I’m hoping that we could have a robotic dog race through an obstacle course, where each team controls a mini cheetah with different ways, and we can see which strategy is more effective. That’s how you accelerate research,” said Katz.

The team’s reason for developing the robots extends beyond entertainment. They hope that someday packs of “cheetahs” will assist first respondents with search and recovery missions following natural disasters like earthquakes, work alongside firefighters, and even respond to military emergencies.

【推荐2】The beauty of confidence is that it is possible to learn it, no matter who you are! Follow these simple steps to be confident.

Consider your strengths and success.    1    When did you help others? What are you good at? When have you taken pride in yourselves? What are you working hard for? If you have difficulty thinking of your strengths and success, ask your family member or a close friend.

Have goals. Sitting around and doing nothing will make you feel worse. Start with a small goal.    2    You'Il get more confidence achieving a small goal. Once you've achieved many smaller goals, you can set bigger goals.

    3    Failure is the mother of success. When you fail, view it as a learning experience. Often we have to fail on our own to gain experience. By failing, you have at least taken a chance.

Pick a role model. Pick a role model that is always confident and always learn from them.

Study their action, their manners and how they communicate with others.    4    However, it's a great place to start. Smile. Confident people smile often, and without much reason.    5    It tells the people around you that you're comfortable in yourself and enjoying your time

【推荐3】In recent years, stressed-out people living in cities have been seeking protection in green spaces for the proven positive impacts on physical and mental (心理的) health, but the benefits (好处) of “blue space”-the sea and coastline, but also rivers, lakes, canals, waterfalls, even fountains-are less well advertised, yet the science has been consistent for at least a decade: being by water is good for body and mind.

“Many of the processes are exactly the same as with green space-with some added benefits,” says Dr Mathew White, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter.

White says there are three established pathways by which the presence of water is positively related to health and happiness. First, there are the beneficial environmental factors, such as less polluted air and more sunlight. Second, people who live by water tend to be more physically active.   Third-and this is where blue space seems to have an advantage over other natural environments-water has a psychological (心理的) recovery effect. When you are sailing, surfing or swimming, says White, “you’re really in step with natural forces there.”

Catherine Kelly is a wellness practitioner who teaches classes in “mindfulness by the sea”. She says the sea has a quality that can make people thoughtful.

“To go to the sea means letting go” says Kelly. “It could be lying on a beach or somebody handing you a cocktail. For somebody else, it could be a wild, empty coast. But there is this really human sense of: “Oh, look, there’s the sea-and the shoulders drop.”

【推荐1】It has a kind of a magical, gravity-defying (失重) feeling about it. You can fly much lower — near the ground. And you can even talk to people on the ground, and you're going slow enough to appreciate what is floating past you. I’m Don Cameron, and we’re in the balloon factory here in Bristol — Cameron Balloons.

We do special-shaped balloons, and we can make almost any shape. Animals are most fun I suppose. We built all sorts of animals — dinosaurs and squirrels, almost everything.

It was a group of us from the gliding (滑翔) club who decided to build our own balloon. And we built the first modern hot-air balloon this side of the Atlantic. It was called the Bristol Belle. We started work in 1966 and didn’t finish it until the summer of 1967.

Building balloons over the years hasn't changed a great deal. It's still done with sewing machines. It s still done with a light fabric. Here you see people packing a balloon into a bag. They're having to work quite hard to get it in there. Now, that looks like a big one 一 it’s quite heavy. Anything that has a bit of bulk to it, a bit of shape, a bit of volume, we wouldn't admit defeat on.

It’s totally different from being in an aeroplane. Flying a hot-air balloon is a kind of magical experience, but it s hard to explain. You really have to try it.

【推荐2】With the winter holiday coming up, you may have a trip in mind. But no matter which destination you choose, chances are that you' 11 see people with Lonely Planet guidebooks on your travels.

Lonely Planet is one of the world's largest travel guide brands, publishing more than 500 different guides in eight languages. The popular brand produces television shows, websites and podcasts.

Some people praise Lonely Planet books because they make traveling easy and affordable. They save you time and keep you from missing the best things in a place. And of course, the reviews of hostels （招 待所）,hotels and restaurants in the guides, in addition to ticket information about destinations, are useful.

This can be great if you are a nervous traveler, or if you haven't traveled by yourself before. If you a re in a country where you don't speak the language, being able to show a guidebook to a taxi driver can be a great help. You can be sure to get yourself to a hostel that's cheap and clean, with friendly staff and cold beer.

But others criticize Lonely Planet and other travel guide publishers. They say guidebooks take the fun out of traveling, and that part of the charming of travel comes from the fact that anything can happen.

They also think that if you follow a guidebook, you'll end up doing the same things and having the same experiences as everyone else. You might end up seeing the same group of people over and over, because everyone is reading the same book and following the same trail （路线）.

Another criticism of travel guides is that they have an overly large impact on local communities. For example, some locals devote their lives to behaving in ways that attract tourists. They pretend a traditional lifestyle, wear traditional clothes and live in traditional houses just to attract tourists' dollars.