【推荐2】Tech giants Apple and Google are teaming up to create a system that would let smartphone users know when they’ve come into contact with someone who has COVID-19.

The technology would rely on the Bluetooth signals that smartphones can both send out and receive. If a person tests positive for COVID-19, they could inform public health authorities through an app. Those public health apps would then warn anyone whose smartphones had come near the infected person’s phone within 14 days.

The technology could be used on both Google Android phones and Apple iPhones. The companies insist that they will preserve smartphone users’ privacy. Smartphone users must choose to use it independently. The software will not collect data on users’ physical locations or their personally identifiable information. People who test positive would remain anonymous(匿名的), both to the people who came in contact with them and to Apple and Google.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has warned that using cellphone data to address the pandemic(流行病) may carry risks of “invasions of privacy, abuse of information, and stigmatization(污名化)”.

An adviser from ACLU, Jennifer Granick said that the joint Apple and Google project “appears to mitigate the worst privacy and concentration risks, but there is still room for improvement.” She added that contact tracking apps should be “voluntary and used only for public health purposes and only for the period of this pandemic.”

Google and Apple say their technology will be used only by public health authorities to track the spread of COVID-19.

A team at MIT also has been working on a contact-tracking system that similarly uses Bluetooth signals to identify when people have come near each other.

Apple and Google are carrying out their contact-tracking technology in two steps. In mid-May, they will release(发布) software that will let public health authorities build apps that exchange information via Bluetooth. In the coming months, they will update their operating systems so phones can share information without having to install an app.

【推荐3】A Japanese company has created a "smart“ mask （口 罩）that aims to improve communication for people wearing face coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The use of face masks has become the new common practice in parts of the world still struggling to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. However, masks and other kinds of coverings can affect the quality of communication between wearers. The wearable electronic device （设备） called the "c — mask“ is meant to fit over other kinds of face masks commonly worn by the public. It's designed to better the exchange of conversation in such conditions.

The c — mask with a built-in microphone has holes in the front to let air in. When turned on, the mask uses Bluetooth technology to connect to a mobile device. An app then helps users do several actions, including turning speech into text, completing telephone calls and making the user's voice louder. The device can also translate a person's voice from Japanese into eight other languages.

Taisuke Ono, head of Donut Robotics, said the company was able to collect money to develop the smart mask through an activity on the Japanese crowdfunding （众筹）service Fundinno. He noted that the effort got $265,000 in just the first 37 minutes. It would usually take three or four months to collect that kind of money.

The company produced a working model of the mask within a month. Ono said the company plans to ship its first 5,000 c — masks to buyers in Japan. He is also looking to sell the devices in China, the United States and Europe and says he has received strong interest in the product.

【推荐1】Why do human beings still risk their lives under ground and doing one of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the world? It is an increasingly urgent question, given the recent mining accidents in Sago, W. Va and Huntington, Utah. A small group of engineers and robotics experts look forward to a day in the not-too-distant future when robots and other technology do most of the dangerous mining work.

Robotic technology, in particular, holds much promise, McAteer says, especially when it comes to mapping mines and rescuing trapped miners --- the special operations of the mining industry.

One of the first mining robots was developed five years ago at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. It was called Groundhog. It used lasers(激光器) to “see” in dark tunnels and map abandoned mines—some of the most dangerous work in the business.

The latest design is called Cave Crawler. It’s a bit smaller than Groundhog, and even more advanced. It can take photos and videos and has more sensors that can detect the presence of dangerous gases. Incredibly, the robot has a real sense of logic. If it comes across an obstacle it gets momentarily confused. It has to think about what to do and where to go next. Sometimes it throws a fit just like a real person.

The greatest problem, though, is cost. The money of the earliest research project was provided by the government, but that money had dried up, and it’s not clear where future money will come from. Partly for that reason, and partly because of advances in safety, mining is not nearly as dangerous as it was in the past. Since 1990, fatalities(致命性) have declined by 67% and injuries by 51% , according to the National Mining Association.

Some experts predict that robots in mines will serve much of the same function that they do in the automotive industry. The robots will do the most boring and dangerous jobs, but won’t get rid of the need for human workers.

【推荐3】Not many organisms can survive in this severe environment, the Sahara Desert, where daytime temperatures can reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit. But an insect called the Saharan silver ant grows well. They rush out onto the sand from their protected nests to gather up the bodies of insects that have died from the heat.

“The hotter the day, the more insect bodies they will find. The more food they have.” said Sarah Pfeffer, an animal behaviorist at Ulm University in Germany. She says that to avoid sinking into the Saharan sand, where they could meet the same fate（命运）as their lunch, silver ants have to be fast.

To document just how quickly the ants move, Pfeffer and her colleagues set up high-speed cameras above a channel between the entrance to the hungry ants’ nest and a food source. The researchers recorded top speeds approaching 35 inches per second.“But if you really look at how big the animals are and you calculate the body length per second, you will come up with a walking speed that is an astonishing 108 body-lengths per second.”That figure makes them the fastest known ant on the planet. By comparison, cheetahs(猎豹）top out at about 16 body lengths per second. The videos showed how the ants achieve such amazing speeds. As they accelerate, their leg movements become synchronized(同步). They increase their running length by bringing all six feet off the sand at once, which Pfeffer describes as a gallop. “Really all legs are lifted from the ground. They are in the air, but it’s not jumping. It’s a very smooth run that they have.”

A closely related ant called Cataglyphis fortis only reaches about 24 inches per second, or two-thirds of the silver ant's max.

The Saharan silver ants' speeds may be impressive, but two insects are even faster. The Califormia coastal mite (壁虱) and the Australian tiger beetle, both of which also grow well at near-deadly temperatures. It seems that to beat the heat, it pays to be fleet.

【推荐1】Many Americans are busy preparing lists of what to give friends or loved ones. This season, people will be able to buy a cargo-carrying (载货) robot that follows them around like a dog. But it is unclear if the robot will be a popular gift.

Large companies like Amazon, FedEx and Ford have already been experimenting with sending delivery robots to homes across the United States. Now an Italian company is offering robots directly to consumers (顾客). The new robot, called “the Gita”, weighs about 23 kilograms and costs $ 3,250.

The robot's creators had short trips in mind when they designed it. “The Gita” is a “hands-free carrier" that can hold fruits, vegetables and other things as it follows its owner down the street. “The Gita” does not. require use of a telephone; it also does not use GPS technology or facial recognition.

Whether the robot will be a success is not yet clear. Tech experts say “the Gita” may fail. They hope the company finds more purposes of using it to contribute to its success. Examples include carrying tools around hospitals, factory floors or places where products are stored. The robots can carry up to 9 kilograms, So far, the best places to find the company' s six wheeled robot are US colleges: The University of Houston and the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Sadie Garcia is a student at the University of Houston. “I love them. I think they're so cute," she said, as one of the machines arrived carrying a sandwich for her in the dining hall. Garcia said she was so cold that she did not want to leave her room. Starship co-founder Ahti Heinla said his company once thought about selling the machines directly to consumers. But the business dropped the idea after discovering it would have to sell them for more than $ 3,000 each.

【推荐2】When Jeff Sparkman draws his cartoon superheroes, he often has to ask other people to tell him what color his characters turned out to be because he's color-blind. Now, a new smart phone application can help him figure out what colors he's using and how the picture looks to others.

The DanKam app, available for iPhone and Android for $2.99, is an application that makes the vague colors that one percent of the population with color-blindness sees more like the "true" colors as everyone else sees them. In America, around 32 million color-blind Americans---95% are males---can soon have their life improved.

"DanKam takes the stream of data coming in through the phone's camera and changes the colors slightly so they fall within the range that people who are color-blind see," developer Dan Kaminsky told CNET. He came up with the idea after watching the film Star Trek with a color-blind friend.

It was then that he got to know more about colorblindness like its varying types and degrees. A vast majority, for instance, have trouble seeing red or green due to a genetic defect(缺陷). Blue-yellow colorblindness, however, is rarer and develops later in life because of aging, illness or head injuries, etc.

What the DanKam app attempts to do is to clean up the color space of the image signal so that colors can be seen to those suffering from viewing problems. “You can customize the app to fit your needs. There is a range and not everyone who is color-blind sees things the same.” Says Kaminsky.

Sparkman, a copy editor at CNET, tried out the app and was pleased with the results. "It would be useful for dressing for a job interview," he said. But using it for his art is “the most practical application." It worked well on LED and other lights on electronic devices, which means Sparkman can now identify the power light on his computer display as green.

【推荐3】Two years ago, Kursat Ceylan was in New York to give a talk about disability rights. Blind since birth, the Turkish businessman was struggling to find his hotel, holding a cane (手杖) in one hand and pulling his luggage with the other while trying to get GPS directions from his phone.“Not surprisingly, all ofa sudden I hit a pole," he says. While the cane can tell you what's on the ground, it doesn' t help with objects at the body or head level. It wasn' t the first time Ceylan had run into something, injuring himself.

With WeWALK, a new smart cane, Ceylan hopes to help blind people navigate (设法穿越) their environments more easily. The cane can tell users what's around them. A sensor detects objects at the body or head level and gives a warning vibration (振动). WeWALK users pair the cane with their smartphones and then use the cane's touchpad to access features like voice assistant or navigation.

In the future, Ceylan hopes to connect WeWALK with public transportation and ridesharing services. That way it could tell the user the number of the bus coming down the street or the license plate of the Uber stopping at the roadside. The cane will update with new features as they come online, much the way smartphones do.

Ceylan believes WeWALK can help blind people achieve greater freedom of movement, which will give them greater access to education and jobs. Blind people are less likely to complete higher education and have higher rates of unemployment.“WeWALK is not just a smart cane for us," he says. "It is a movement to increase full and equal participation in social life. "

The cane is already having an impact on users, Ceylan says. He recently received an email from a teacher who had become blind as an adult. He had been depressed, he wrote. But since getting a WeWALK cane,“'It became my antidepressant,' he wrote," Ceylan recalls. "This is the most important feedback that we got," Ceylan says. “We saw that we are touching the real problem."

【推荐1】A tracked robot approaches a pile of brushwood blocking its path. This is Rolan, short for Robot Manipulator (操控者), who is practising for what is its graduation ceremony, when it will show off its skills. After a pause, it reaches out an arm, takes hold of a branch, lifts it up and drags it clear.

Though this is a small action for a human being, it is a breakthrough for robots, according to Stuart Young of the Army Research Laboratory, who is in charge of the RoMan project. As is known, robots easily become confused by something unexpected, some unfamiliar and none with convenient handles. Taking it apart is far beyond the power of any industrial robot. Dr. Young says that, as far as he knows, RoMan is the first machine able to manipulate unfamiliar objects in an unknown environment.

Just as a human being would, it has to learn about the world through observation and experiment before manipulating it. So it is trained on numerous tree branches until it is able to recognize unfamiliar ones for what they are and knows to grasp the trunk, rather than the leaves or the branches. Having grasped an object, RoMan assesses its weight and decides whether to try to lift it or drag it.

Dr. Young hopes to take this further by dealing with piles of burning tyres. He also wants RoMan to be able to use its body weight in the way a human being might to push open a tight door or to move heavy furniture by bracing against a wall. One problem with RoMan is that it is still impractically slow. It often takes 10-15 seconds to decide what to do. RoMan will also need to learn to deal with a wider range of objects.

However, the device's future could be bright. Beyond military applications, its following generations might work in warehouses, pick fruit, clear litter or tidy people's homes. They might even collect rocks from the surface of Mars.

【推荐2】3D TV, Without the Glasses

If you’re thinking about buying a 3D TV, you might want to wait a while. Researchers have developed new 3D technology that doesn’t need any special glasses to work its magic. The new technology could advance the development of 3D on mobile devices, too.

Bioethics Panel Gives Yellow Light to Anthrax Vaccine Trial in Children

A U.S. bioethics committee has said that the country may consider testing the anthrax vaccine in children. The panel advises that the vaccine be tested in progressively younger age groups and includes the caveat(警告) that testing should only take place if risks are “minimal.”

Evolution via Roadkill

We usually think of evolution happening over thousands or millions of years, but it can be surprisingly speedy-literally. In just 3 decades, highway-dwelling swallows(燕子)have evolved shorter wingspans(翼展) to better dodge oncoming cars.

Patients Should Get DNA Information, Report Recommends

Would you want to know if you were at risk for cancer? What about a fatal heart condition? A group of genetics experts, along with the influential American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, have recommended that anyone whose genome is sequenced for any medical reason must be told about their genetic susceptibility to serious health problems, regardless of whether they want to know.

Congress Completes Work on 2013 Spending Bill

This week, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to fund the government until the end of the fiscal(财政的) year, and research agencies now know how much to spend in 2013. The so-called continuing resolution retains the sequester and its $85 billion cut in discretionary spending. The bill throws NASA’s planetary programs a lifeline and gives the National Science Foundation a bit of a boost, but the National Institutes of Health’s funding stays   flat at 2012 levels-bad news for biomedical research.

Making Moonshine Safe to Drink

Home-brew drinkers in developing countries often risk blindness or even death from methanol poisoning when they drink. Now, scientists have made a reusable wireless chip that can analyze a drink’s methanol content and warn users of any danger. In 2 years, they hope to develop a product that can send results directly to a cell phone.