【推荐1】On June 22, 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew into Dayton, Ohio of the US, for dinner at Orville Wright’s house. It had been just a month since the young aviator (飞行家) completed the first ever solo nonstop crossing of the Atlantic, and he felt he ought to pay his respects to the celebrated pioneer of flight.

Forty-two years later, on July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong was allowed to bring a personal guest to the Kennedy Space Center to witness the launch of NASA’s towering Saturn V rocket. Armstrong invited his hero, Charles Lindbergh.

One man, Lindbergh, could be the living link between the pilot of the first powered flight and the commander of the first mission to another world.

In our century, for better or worse, progress isn’t what it used to be. Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon argues that by 1970, all the key technologies of modern life were in place: electricity, mechanized agriculture, highways, air travel, telecommunications, and the like. After that, innovation and economic growth simply couldn’t keep going at the breakneck pace set over the previous 100 years—a period Gordon calls “the special century.”

Since 1970 the only notable creation has been the ever-growing increase in computing power in the form of the Internet and our mobile devices. But in most other ways, Gordon argues, the lives of people in developed nations look and feel the same in 2019 as they did in 1979 or 1989.

Consider consumer robotics. There’s enormous potential for robots to help us with housework, education, entertainment and medical care. But home robotics companies seem to keep folding. So far, the only commercially successful home robot, the Roomba vacuum cleaner, hit the market in 2002.

Or consider access to space. In 2007 the XPRIZE Foundation offered $30 million in prizes to commercial teams that would compete to land a robotic rover on the moon by 2018. Although five teams had built rovers, all had trouble raising enough money to buy launch contracts.

Meanwhile the list of potentially world-changing technologies that get lots of press ink but remain stubbornly in the prototype (雏形) phase is very long. Self-driving cars, flying cars, gene therapy, nuclear fusion. Need I continue?

Granted, these are all hard problems. But historically, solving the really big problems—rural electrification, for example—has required sustained, large-scale investments, often with private markets and taxpayers splitting the burden. In this century, we urgently need to undo some of the consequences of the last great boom by developing affordable zero-and negative-emissions technologies. That’s another hard problem—and to solve it, we’ll need to recapture some of what made the “special century” so special.

【推荐2】SOURCE Global is one of the many companies around the world harvesting water from the air. Named Hydropanels, its devices are powered by built-in solar panels (太阳能电池板).

Atmospheric water generators (AWGs), like SOURCE’s, are machines that produce water from the surrounding air. These devices have been around for about ten years and traditionally they’re based on condensation — cooling water vapor (蒸汽) to collect water drops. This process, however, can use a lot of electricity and only work in places with a high amount of water contained in the air. These are what caused SOURCE to develop a more flexible and practical solution.

Its solar panels power a fan that draws in the air. Inside the device, the air travels through a special material that traps the water vapor to produce water. As it is collected, chemical elements, magnesium and calcium, are added to the water to improve its taste and provide possible health benefits.

In Dubai, where the company’s largest water farm is located, it produces 1.5 million liters of water every year. SOURCE has fixed its Hydropanels around the world at hospitals, schools and worksites that have difficulties accessing water. SOURCE plans to create a plastic-free bottled water brand (品牌) and sell it to hotels and holiday centers at about the same price as other bottled water brands. Its next partnership will be in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, where a development company is aiming to build 18 hotels that will serve SOURCE’s water.

Over 2 billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress and while many companies working on AWGs hope their devices will help solve this problem, that would be unlikely, according to Keith Hays with Bluefield Research, a company that addresses water challenges. High upfront costs mean it takes around 10 years for AWGs to be cost-competitive, he says and they generally produce a small part of the water that a well or seawater desalination (脱盐) system can supply. Vahid Fotuhi with SOURCE understands the challenges, but he says that Hydropanels help reduce the use of plastics and the environmental footprint, and their selling points remain strong.

【推荐3】Learning to read provides foundation for future learning in all areas of study. And experts say students need to have a working knowledge of 10,000 words. Now, a new vocabulary program claims to greatly speed up a child’s understanding of language.     1     , which uses pictures and short word exercises to improve a student’s performance on tests.

Sofia Fenichell created the system.     2     “We call it the 10,000-word journey. We believe that children can master these words from the age of seven to 17. And they don’t have to cram (临时 死记硬背).     3    . We’ re accelerating their ability to communicate, as well as improving their reading and writing”   she said.

Each word in the Mrs. Wordsmith system of teaching has a child-friendly definition.     4    .

For example, the word shriveled is defined as “ wrinkled, like hippo skin that’s been in the bath too long. ” Underneath the definition is a drawing of a very wet hippopotamus. There are also exercises to help strengthen the student’s understanding.

Fenichell spoke at a recent education technology show in London.     5    . “The teachers are reporting back that the kids love it. They want to do more, they’ re putting it in their writing, and they’re learning more words. It’s so easy to teach them the vocabulary. Little children are using words like： ‘ the brazen(厚颜无耻的)attitude of the British in World War Two’ , and teachers are writing to us and saying they can’t believe how much their writing has improved. ”

Mrs. Wordsmith is now set to expand into schools in other countries, including the United States.

【推荐2】A Dutch company is starting deliveries of the world’s first production-ready solar car to customers later this year, promising months of charge-less driving in summer conditions.

Lightyear, founded in the Netherlands in 2016, is making 949 of the models featuring curved (曲面的) solar panels across the car’s hood (引擎盖) and roof. Power coming from the sun will add as much as 70 kilometers of driving range per day from the sun.

The company says the car will be able to drive around 624 kilometers without stopping to recharge, and each hour in the sun will add up to nearly 9 kilometers of charge to the battery.

“Electric cars are a step in the right direction, but they are dependent on the grid (电力), which is still dependent on mostly fossil fuel energy,” Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Lex Hoefsloot said at the reveal of the $263,000 Lightyear 0 model.“Adding a new source, the sun, adds certainty that you will always have that charge and you will have to charge a lot less often.”

According to Lightyear the better solar roof and design mean that the car can drive for weeks, even months, without charging.In cloudy climates, based on the average travelling of around 35 kilometers per day, the car can drive for up to two months before needing to be charged.In sunnier countries, that could be up to seven months. Plugged into a regular home socket (插座), Lightyear 0 can still charge 32 kilometers of range per hour. In fall Lightyear will start up production, with the first cars reaching their drivers in November.

【推荐3】A recent survey said an average Chinese adult read less than eight books a year. Some of us would find it hard to remember the last time we read in a bookstore. To keep their appeal, some bookstores are now bigger, more beautiful and grander.

As a cultural icon in Nanjing, Librairie Avant-Garde is a must-see for both book lovers and travelers. The bookshop was listed among the world’s most beautiful bookshops by BBC in 2014. The 4,000-square-meter store, founded in 1996, now sits in an underground parking lot, housing more than 300, 000 books, mainly philosophy, literature, history and art.

The Taiwan-based Eslite opened its first branch on the Chinese mainland in Suzhou, due to its popularity among book lovers. The store houses over 500,000 books, of which one-third are from Taiwan. It’s also famous for varied creative cultural products. Wandering inside, you may get lost which books and delicate cups to buy.

Located in mountains of Huairou on the suburbs of Beijing, the Liyuan Library is a comfortable place to escape from the crowded urban life in Beijing. It houses over 10,000 books ranging from works of literature and art to history and philosophy. The most outstanding part in its structure is that the walls and roof of the 170-square-meter library are covered with 40,000 firewood sticks.

The Fang Suo Commune is a 2, 000-square-meter place for reading, relaxing and shopping in downtown Guangzhou, South China’s Guangdong province. The store houses over 90, 000 publications from both China and abroad, covering mainly designing, architecture, literature and arts.